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[intrinsic_parity]

I've started taking the skill that makes emergency burn free and the campaign layer is significantly more enjoyable/less frustrating, but it really hurts to lose 3 skill points for that effect (since the other skills in that tree are not very valuable). It should be in a skill tree with other valuable skills. Crew loss is almost totally irrelevant and reduced cr loss in coronas is so infrequently relevant as to be worthless as well and the reduced malefaction stuff is pretty much useless also. Maybe just make it a tier 1 skill so it's relatively inexpensive to get, or you could go with the nuclear option and just make it cost no supplies by default. Regardless, I think it's such a nice QOL change that's locked behind some of the worst skills in the game which just feels bad.

[Megas]

I feel the same way with Navigation in Technology.  (If I get it, I must give up Planetary Operations, Officer Management, or misc. combat/fleet skill.)  I like Safety Procedures mainly for the combat boosts, but the free EB and less punishing (D) mods at 3 is nice.

[Megas]

It should be in a skill tree with other valuable skills.

I think Colony Management and Industrial Planning are very valuable skills now that colonies have Industry limits.  Well, maybe not with bugged Pather sabotage.  I feel like the default of two colonies and one administrator, which would have been enough in 0.9a, are not really enough now in 0.9.1a.  Without colony skills, alpha cores feel mandatory.  If you do not want cores, then colony skills are mandatory, unless you get lucky with planet generation.

If anything, I feel 3/3/3/3 is mandatory for a non-core user, which is twelve dead aptitude points.  Those who have no problem abusing cores can probably ignore Industry altogether, or maybe put 1 and 1 for Colony Management until the cores start rolling in.

[intrinsic_parity]

Yeah I meant the set of three skills it is with, not the whole tree, my bad. I agree that the colony skills are worthwhile.

I was thinking about it a bit more, and I feel like some of these campaign layer skills could be incorporated into the game outside of the skill tree. Maybe emergency burn for no supplies is a learnable ability from a quest or something. Same for some of the navigation skills, they could be incorporated as things to be gained from quests rather than skills that require an investment of skill points. You could do the same for officer management and some of the colony skills. I really wish the skill tree was forcing you to make interesting decisions like 'extra armor vs better shields' or 'reduced upkeep cost vs increased profits' rather than having you weigh qol skills that make the campaign layer more fun vs combat skills that make the combat layer more fun and then having a bunch of mandatory skills.

[Baqar79]

Yeah I meant the set of three skills it is with, not the whole tree, my bad. I agree that the colony skills are worthwhile.

I was thinking about it a bit more, and I feel like some fo these campaign layer skills could be incorporated into the game outside of the skill tree. Maybe emergency burn for no supplies is a learnable ability from a quest or something. Same for some of the navigation skills, they could be incorporated as things to be gained from quests rather than skills that require an investment of skill points. You could do the same for officer management and some of the colony skills. I really wish the skill tree was forcing you to make interesting decisions like 'extra armor vs better shields' or 'reduced upkeep cost vs increased profits' rather than having you weigh qol skills that make the campaign layer more fun vs combat skills that make the combat layer more fun and then having a bunch of mandatory skills.

I like your idea of having another way to learn certain skills.  I think having meaningful choices is desired, but you kind of get that already with what I feel is a fairly limited skill pool (granted having to be able to make choices as you level up each skill does sound like it might work well, even if it goes against my unrepentant min/max nature).

Up until recently I would never bother with combat skills for my commander, since it always feels a waste when I can have other commanders fill that role, but have in my recent game managed to discard some of the campaign layer skills to make my commander at least feel a little important in combat.  I still think there isn't *quite* enough skill points to go around:

Spoiler

[close]

But...that idea of certain skills becoming campaign learn-able, could be an indirect way of buffing this.  Perhaps have those skills which seem mandatory be campaign learn-able, leaving those skills of more variable importance dependent on player style.  Could also be a great way to further differentiate game progress, eg perhaps the creation of a new colony would actually require Industrial Planning 1, which would be unlocked behind certain requirements (Campaign story, quests, raising your reputation with a single faction, etc).

[intrinsic_parity]

When I talk about interesting choices, I mean that I would like the player to have weigh the good combat skills against one another, or the good colony skills against one another. Those are interesting choices because in order to get the strong things, I am forced to give up other strong things (which also helps balance the strong things). My experience with the current skill system is that you take all the good skills and then weigh the skills that make the game more fun but aren't necessary (qol skills and weaker combat skills) against one another to see which is first on the chopping block.

[Baqar79]

Yeah, I got that general gist from your other post; hence why it goes against my compulsive min/maxing (but I don't necessarily disagree that it might make for a better play experience)

Fleet Logistics is probably is one of those "mandatory" skills which buffs both your ship fleets and colonies.  If these skills were made learn-able in the game but were mutually exclusive in some way that could make it interesting....

For example, two factions hostile with one another could offer me a different quest line, the first of which could involve me temporarily taking control of a factions new colony and building it to be profitable within a year, the second might have me take point in disrupting merchant convoys from the newly established colony in order to to force that faction to abandon the colony (I know the mechanics aren't in there and may never be, just going with a hypothetical scenario).

First faction gives you Fleet Logistics 2: 15% Accessibility
Second faction gives you Fleet Logistics 2: -25% Supply use for maintenance

Kind of then relates the skill learned to the quest itself.

[intrinsic_parity]

Yeah, that sort of thing would be pretty cool. Speaking of giving the player a temporary colony, I've been thinking for a while that there ought to be a colony tutorial where you are made governor of a colony and learn about industries/defenses/accessibility and all that stuff. The base level colony skills could definitely tie into that.

[TJJ]

I'm still hoping for a proper skill 'tree' 

[Serenitis]

Crew loss is almost totally irrelevant and reduced cr loss in coronas is so infrequently relevant as to be worthless as well and the reduced malefaction stuff is pretty much useless also.

The free emergency burn is a very nice ability for sure. But...

Counterpoint:
Safety Procedures is one of the single best skills to have if you don't care about pristine ships. Reducing all negative effects of damage mods is p. huge when every ship you have has at least one.
The reduced crew loss is also very valuable for long distance exploration/salvaging, and can also be justified for fighter-heavy fleets.
The terrain hazard reduction is certainly useful, but not to the degree of the other things.

Whether those skills you have to unlock for the Free-Burn are good or bad depends entirely on your playstyle.
As a junk player who spends more time away from inhabited worlds, to me those skills are good and useful.

Not opposed to moving the ability or making it the default tho....

[Megas]

For me, the most attractive feature of Safety Procedures is the lowered threshold for malfunctions.  It is like a reverse Fleet Logistics 3.  Not as good, but it extends the time ships can fight before breaking down.  Of course, once malfunctions start in battle, you have even less time to retreat your ships before CR is too low and they cannot move anymore.  Of course, if I get 2 for that perk, might as well get 3 for less punishing (D) mods and free EB.

Because I always get max Colony Management and Industrial Planning (because I do not use cores), Safety Procedures would only cost me two or three points.  Of course, it is not that simple because I am already just one to three points shy of getting everything I want even if I ignore Safety Procedures.  Thus, Navigation or one other QoL skill is on the chopping block, and it kind of hurts.  I could give up a combat skill, but then I would be noticeably weaker than my officers.  I would have enough points if I abused alpha cores and ignored Industry altogether, but I like personally governing a sizable, self-sufficient empire, and I do not want to resort to or rely on cores to do that.

As for pristines vs. clunkers, I probably made it to endgame in my current game, and I have not yet found enough blueprints and accumulated enough money to replace my clunkers with pristine ships.  Being able to mitigate (D) mods would be very useful until the very end, much like Colony Management 1 before a core user finds enough alpha cores to abuse.

Yes, it is annoying that I need to give up quality of life, especially Navigation or any colony skill not named Fleet Logistics, just to have a better combat flagship and/or fleet.  It would be nice if combat competed with combat, and QoL competed with QoL, not this weird mix where you give up QoL just to be good at combat.

At first, I thought level 50 gave enough points to overcome the twelve dead aptitudes, but now that most major lore NPCs (that were not in the campaign in 0.9a) have 3/3/3 colony skills like alpha cores, and they probably were level 20 officers when they commanded fleets instead of colonies during their prime, I do not think we have enough skill points to match those lore NPCs.  Given the current skills, I probably get 3/3/3 colony skills if I give up combat ability (only about level 15-17 instead 19 like my officers, sort of).