Increasing your stats via officers...

should use the base values. So right now the way it seems to work is you can’t engage your officer based on your current value including stat boosts from equipment / ships / crew. Say my base veils is 130, but through various modifiers I’ve hit 150. If I speak to the Tireless Mechanic, I won’t be able to upgrade my veils. But if I unassign him, I’ll lose 8 veils and go down to 142. Then when I try to talk to him again, I have the option to upgrade my veils again.

I suspect that I could theoretically upgrade my base veils beyond 150 without crafting the new items simply by taking advantage of the negative modifiers in the game (-25 from the dreadnought, -10 from a lamp). I don’t have the secrets to test this out though.
edited by username1 on 2/27/2015

I thought being able to manipulate your stats to access stories was intended. If you had to change your base stats to access a story, it could take awhile because your only option is to raise the required stat by spending secrets or grinding events. By using modified stats, you can access stories by simply equipping or unequipping items/officers. It may not be realistic, but it makes for more flexible game playing.

I’m not talking about story requirements. Didn’t mention it a single time. I’m talking about the stat boost dialogue from talking to officers. The spend 1 secret to increase your stat value option when engaging in dialogue.

Discussed here as well:
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic16956-polishing-the-training-mechanics.aspx

I have mixed feelings about this. I think it’s fine as is, and it’d also be fine if it were changed. It may not be realistic, but as mentioned in the discussion above, it’s also not realistic for the iron bonus from your ship to help while e.g. deep inside the Shattered Citadel, on foot.

Yes, you can definitely do this. You can also train it above 150 in any number of other ways.

Yeah that thread expressed it way better than I could.

As for the story events, while it’s kind of “gamey”, I have no problem with them using your bonus stats. Ultimately, Sunless Sea is a video game, so I think it’s fine. Otherwise what would be the point of bonus stats if they couldn’t apply to the story events? I’m willing to suspend disbelief. I have no issue with story events using your bonus stats.

My problem is ONLY with the stat training from your officers, and nothing else.