Exactly as the title states. Let's share and talk about character builds? I haven't seen a topic about it so hence the idea, and I would be interested to see what others ended up picking up after some time of playing with the new character progression.
Guess I'll start!
Strong points:
- Fleetwide +10% OP, 85% base CR, -50% to malfunctions on low CR, halved maintenance costs, -25% fuel consumption, lowered terrain penalties and +5 to sustained burn, 10 officers
- Coordinated Maneuvers capped at +25% bonus to speed, favoring bigger deployments, beneficial across the board to both bigger and slower ships as well to fast picket ships (my Kite's (A) with unstable injectors reach 298 speed at 0 flux & 353 on boosters).
- Electronic Warfare capped at +20% (as I have found that either enemy admiral contests you in EW which results in a really shallow margins that can turn around by a sensory buoy during battle or you get total domination in this regard) also favoring bigger deployments.
- Sensors: boosted by 25% and sensory profile reduced by 25% & doubled effect on "go dark" (there's no problem to actually reach lower sensor profile than sensory strength even on a sustained burn if someone wishes)
- Abilities: Neutrino detector and Transverse jump allowing us to jump into hyperspace without use of a jump point - this could be incredibly handy for smuggler playstyle
- You still can endulge yourself into exploration and dismantling derelicts. You're just not proficient at this but what's the problem since moment we score our first 500k or even 1kk paycheck on Sindria?
Downsides:
- Does not support Carrier-as-a-Flagship style much.
- We miss on stronger combat-related abilities for our character.
- We took very little from the new industry path, so this isn't exactly supportive for scavenging and using a lot of D-mod ships (this affects us the most in early game i guess).
In short if I'd had to call it somewhat it would be an Cruiser-Admiral build. You still can fight (and I do that often with my command Eagle) but if our ship gonna have anything going for it will come in form of mods not character skills (with exception of things like Cord.M. skill). I actually kind of like that fact because in combat this means we'll still have to pretty much watch out to not over-commit to the point where a stray sabot will overload our shields and suddenly you'll see harpoons coming at you from everywhere. Perhaps some would say it's more passive gameplay, but I'd say "only if you wish it to be so". In combat you're just going to have a more fragile ship than ones commanded by your officers I'd say. Speaking of them, ability to field 10 of them in your fleet does allow to heavy a really nice complement of carrier and cruiser/destroyer captains.
So, that was mine (: