Skills carry PED value on paper: codex skill rewards are in PED, quest skill rewards are in PED, etc. With the integration of the skill curve (derived from the official wiki’s chip in optimiser), EntropiaOrme can assign value to skill gains during a session. However, this introduces the risk of mistaking skill value for TT value.
The ESI example
For skills to have TT value, they would have to be liquidatable for their supposed PED value that the game itself tells us they are worth. This would ostensibly be achieved by chipping out. However, when chipping out, the ESI already has its TT value, and the extraction just converts that ESI into a skill implant flavoured in the chipped-out skill (in fact, losing 10% of TT value in the process).
So, the extracted skill just gave the ESI its flavour, which bumps its markup. But, the skill points left your character and that supposed TT PED value the skill points themselves had is nowhere to be seen. The conclusion is that skills having a PED value is an illusion, and is best separated from actual PED returns. For that reason, I call the value of skills Project Entropia Skill (PES) within EntropiaOrme.
The value in valuing skills
It’s definitely worthwhile to put a value on skills, with the caveat that they shouldn’t be mistaken for PED. This way, we can study topics such as skilling efficiency. In EntropiaOrme, I measure this by PES/100. This refers to “per 100 PED cycled”. If we want to optimise for skilling, we can track our skill PES gains on different mobs, and find the mob with the best PES/100.
The conclusion that you will arrive at is not new: HP/lvl is the primary deciding factor on how good a mob is for skilling. But with these stats, we can quantify the extent to which that is the case.