Industry has piloted ship skills at tier 2. Anyone who wants colony skills has to pick a skill that applies only to their flagship. Why is this a thing?
Industry has piloted ship skills at tier 2. Anyone who wants colony skills has to pick a skill that applies only to their flagship. Why is this a thing?
This sentiment comes up a bit, and, I mean, I think I understand where it comes from. But - the game is still *primarily* combat-focused. If you're forced to pick a combat skill on the way to other non-combat ones... it's the same idea as Tech 1 being a choice between 2 QoL skills. If you're optimizing hard, you might not get either of them. But since you have to pick *one* of them to get to the higher-level Tech skills, then you can feel ok about picking up a QoL skill - it's not "wasted" since you had to do it. Likewise with the combat skills on Tech/Industry 2 - you're forced to pick them, so even if you want to spend as many points as possible on boosting your fleet or colonies, you'll still end up with some combat skills without feeling like you had to make a sacrifice to do it.
I understand that the flipside is that if you really just didn't want any combat skills at all, it feels like you're forced to pick a skill you're not going to use. But, well, not piloting the ship personally (or even deploying your flagship) is definitely a bit of a fringe style. I get that people do it, and I'm glad it's possible, but it's not the primary design focus, so some things will be a bit rough if seen from that perspective. This is one of them. I hope this makes sense!
Tech 1 being a choice between 2 QoL skills. If you're optimizing hard, you might not get either of them. But since you have to pick *one* of them to get to the higher-level Tech skills, then you can feel ok about picking up a QoL skill - it's not "wasted" since you had to do it.
... but getting colony skills to loop leadership is not something I can "feel ok" about.
It's fine to have a combat skill but my choices are the two I wanted least so it's a frustrating experience.
I don't understand why the +2 limit skill is even permanent. The game already allows you to over the limit and handles it properly with the cryopod rescuees. Simply unassign all officers when the player refunds the skill and let the last 2 become unaccessible until the player dismisses somebody.Not to mention Colony Management in I5R too.
Boring meta builds emerge regardless of whether skills are tiered or flat. The only difference is that with the tiered system the meta builds include some unavoidable "bad skills" necessary to unlock the higher levels.I think the problem is that in a cherry picking system, the difference between two viable builds is always small changes in low impact/irrelevant skills and the core set of strong skills remains. With a tiered system, you have to make choices between strong skills so there can be very different builds that are both viable because they take advantage of different strong skills that are very difficult to take together. If you could cherry pick, you would just take both strong skills every time. It's much more interesting to me.
I personally really like the new system, and I don't mind having to take lower quality skills to get to higher quality skills. It makes for a lot of tough decisions, but tough decisions are good! The real problem is that people are used to getting everything they want from the skill system and not having to make any trade-offs between strong skills or tough choices.
Yeah, it's called a trade-off. You make a decisions between different things that you want and you don't get them all. As long as the game plays fine without any particular skill (I think it does outside of a couple outliers (ECM) right now), there's nothing wrong with not being able to get a particular combination skills easily. That sort of decision is interesting to me.I personally really like the new system, and I don't mind having to take lower quality skills to get to higher quality skills. It makes for a lot of tough decisions, but tough decisions are good! The real problem is that people are used to getting everything they want from the skill system and not having to make any trade-offs between strong skills or tough choices.
So you think it’s perfectly fine to have 4 skill point of tax to get both technology T1 qol skills?
Good skills are not excuses for taxing good synergy skills people used to pick together.Yeah, it's called a trade-off. You make a decisions between different things that you want and you don't get them all. As long as the game plays fine without any particular skill (I think it does outside of a couple outliers (ECM) right now), there's nothing wrong with not being able to get a particular combination skills easily. That sort of decision is interesting to me.I personally really like the new system, and I don't mind having to take lower quality skills to get to higher quality skills. It makes for a lot of tough decisions, but tough decisions are good! The real problem is that people are used to getting everything they want from the skill system and not having to make any trade-offs between strong skills or tough choices.
So you think it’s perfectly fine to have 4 skill point of tax to get both technology T1 qol skills?
I also wouldn't call some of the best skills in the game a tax. I think Alex has done a good job of making almost all the skills useful, there are only a few where I feel like I would have trouble getting a comparable amount of value to other skills.
Combat tree is the only tree that gets nearly no tax and sometimes synergies picks along the way but not for any other tree.Combat has no pairs that synergise, so depending on what you are flying, half of the tree is useless to you. If anything, it's sad that if you want the most possible combat power, looping around in combat is worse than going for all other trees.
The real problem is that people are used to getting everything they want from the skill system and not having to make any trade-offs between strong skills or tough choices.I don't expect to be able to have all the things I had in the last release.
Yeah, it's called a trade-off. You make a decisions between different things that you want and you don't get them all. As long as the game plays fine without any particular skill (I think it does outside of a couple outliers (ECM) right now), there's nothing wrong with not being able to get a particular combination skills easily. That sort of decision is interesting to me.
I also wouldn't call some of the best skills in the game a tax. I think Alex has done a good job of making almost all the skills useful, there are only a few where I feel like I would have trouble getting a comparable amount of value to other skills.
The previous setup wasn't perfect, but it was far more flexible that what we have currently. And if combined with the respec ability, this balance would have a much wider margin for 'good enough' since choices are no longer permanent.Old system also had that issue that you had to make no sacrifices in order to get what you want. Well, at least I didn't have to. Might as well remove all the skills and make all the effects of them a part of the base game, it wouldn't have made much difference to me.
Old system also had that issue that you had to make no sacrifices in order to get what you want.
The old system did have sacrifice in it.Alpha cores do colonies better than me. As for maintenance, I fear not losing a % of profit when searching for blueprints items, I always came to the core with bays full. Being able to efficiently defeat almost any enemy does that. The lack of salvaging does hurt somewhat in that regard, but I have been able to find decent blueprint sets in all my 0.9.1 games. So I guess that is the one sacrifice I made, not getting all blueprints, but only most of them (unless I raid factions, then it goes back to all of them). It still meant there never was a reason to pick anything but this skill set (well, except for piloting carriers, which I don't really bother with. If I was piloting a carrier, some combat skills would lose value, so I'd say even someone with a carrier preference could get by with a similar set).
That 091 character build you posted has quite clearly sacrificed all colony & maitenance skills.
And every single player has a different idea of what a 'buff' and 'QoL' is.I, for example, consider approximately 0 skills, past or present, as "necessary" quality of life stuff.
I want every single player, current and future to be able to pick up this amazing game and play it however they like without feeling as though they've been 'forced' to do things a certain way, or restricted from something they wanted to do.Biggest issues I know of is that combat is worthless for double dipping (although you can still be an ace pilot, combat is no longer the most important part of it) and that Industry might not be about salvaging/exploration enough.
The 095 skills system as it stands does not allow this.
I haven't found any skills I can't live without. There were some I thought I couldn't live without, but I tried playing without them and realized it wasn't as drastic as I thought it would be.
...I want every single player, current and future to be able to pick up this amazing game and play it however they like without feeling as though they've been 'forced' to do things a certain way, or restricted from something they wanted to do.Biggest issues I know of is that combat is worthless for double dipping (although you can still be an ace pilot, combat is no longer the most important part of it) and that Industry might not be about salvaging/exploration enough.
The 095 skills system as it stands does not allow this.
It's a shame that the new system doesn't bring skills that are stronger than old skills, besides Phase Mastery and Derelict Contingent.
Hop between ships in battle, so you can go in with a phase SO ship that causes maximum havoc, then come in as a heavy capital once the job is done.
Hop between ships in battle, so you can go in with a phase SO ship that causes maximum havoc, then come in as a heavy capital once the job is done.
You could in 0.91, but due to mutually exclusive skills this doesn't work nearly as well in 0.95.
That's exactly what I meant. To make use of mutually exclusive skills once you got them both, just use two radically different ships to benefit from both in a long battle.
I don't think there's a point to ship hopping in the first place. You want your flagship to be as strong as possible, not have multiple flagships (or, at least, not have multiple flagships that are of different class), and going full combat is suboptimal for that. There are many ships that you can spend the whole battle in and for those, it's better to spend 5 points (maybe 6, if you like battlecarriers, I guess) in combat and the rest elsewhere, to make this one ship as strong as possible.If flagship takes too much damage or runs out of PPT, then player might want to hop ships to avoid dying.
Colonies can make way more money than you need without any skills. The colony skills are entirely unnecessary.
I think the idea that the player should get whatever they want is flawed. Having to make choices between different things that you want is a good thing, and makes for interesting decisions.
Also, I'm not sure about another dissipation/cap skill, we already have up to +20% to both stats from T4L and +10 vents/caps from T5L. You can make SO frigates with like 900+ dissipation. I like ranged specialization, I just think it needs a little buff, either increased damage, increased ranges where it is effective, or some utility buff like beam specific buffs.
At least for my playstyle I am not making ANY choice, at all.Same.
I want colony skills, this means I will get all industry, no choices there at least.
Colonies can make way more money than you need without any skills. The colony skills are entirely unnecessary.Sounds like colony skills are underpowered, unless you are including alpha AI for unlimited colonies.
At least for my playstyle I am not making ANY choice, at all.I cannot touch Ground Operations in Leadership because I do not want to lock my skills into officers.
I want colony skills, this means I will get all industry, no choices there at least.
It's more that colonies make a ton of money. They definitely make more with skills, but there's just no need for that much money in vanilla. It also helps that admins will give you skills on half your colonies at minimum, and Cores can give you fulls skills as admins or just major income boosts in industries/structures.Colonies can make way more money than you need without any skills. The colony skills are entirely unnecessary.Sounds like colony skills are underpowered, unless you are including alpha AI for unlimited colonies.
(Currently in my game, I have a fairly crappy planet seed, so I am still looking for a better place to put permanent colonies while not letting my temporary colonies grow too big to abandon.)
There are many arbitrary and entirely manufactured blocks to overcome, if they can be overcome at all. And a general feeling of being 'punished' for daring to not like playing 'the one true way'.