I like some of these ideas. Why?
So one way of approaching starsector design is this: I want this kind of gameplay, and I'm going to change whatever stats necessary to do it, internal logic, intuitive user experience, and world consistency be darned. That's what the ACM in the 0.81 is doing. Stat changes by fiat with rather uninspired hand wave explanations, which break immersion and counter all the efforts at lore/world building.
Another approach is to embrace the sci-fi setting, and then go from there and imagine what kind of technologies or abilities they would actually have, and let that take things where you want them to go, or let new forms of gameplay emerge. Let it be intuitive.
Sadly, Starsector prefers the former approach.
Anyway, most of these suggestions are good because they accomplish the kind of desired gameplay (better defense) but also are more intuitive, visible to the player, and credible from a gameworld consistency/logic standpoint because they actually take place within the game, rather than being hand-of-god stat changes.
Why should the skill arbitrarily boost damage to fighters and missiles as proposed, instead of improving PD range and accuracy, and improved missile jamming, as you guys are proposing. Your suggestions seem by far the better.
However, reactive armour (or ablative armour) is not a skill. It's a technology; it's pieces of equipment. If it's going to be in the game it should be a hull mod that's unlocked by a skill, and it should have a particular visual effect when weapons strike the armor, to cue the player to its presence.
Rank 2: Resonant Plating:
For 1 second after deactivating shields, armor takes 30% less damage.
Rank 3: Emitter Overcharge:
For 1 second after activating shields, shields take 30% less damage.
Eh, these don't seem so intuitive, and they're getting away from the objections to ACM histidine raised in the other thread about transparency. Making sheilds activate faster and rotate faster seem like something that could credibly fall within a learned skill though, and would be much easier to understand visually.