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« on: May 11, 2022, 09:17:56 AM »
Ordnance Expertise: I love the new Ordnance Expertise, I like that it’s not another flat percentage boost equally good on everything, but instead I’m considering different combinations for different circumstances. The biggest discount is naturally for the Storm Needler, but there are plenty of situations where I cannot afford or do not want a Storm Needler, so it has me considering many options on many ship types. And behind the scenes (spoilers, turn away if you like Ordnance Expertise) if you take the time to do the math on every weapon, it’s all very nearly even in effect as weapon op and flux costs are typically even with each other, so nothing stands out as overpowered with this skill.
Polarized Hull: I like this skill, but I think it invalidates Impact Mitigation, especially on shieldless ships where it’s always better than IM. I don’t like Damage Control either at the moment: no ship lasts long while taking hull damage, almost nothing hits for over 500 and that not by much, and all crew die on explosion anyways, so faster repairs is the only real benefit. If I had to make a suggestion, I’d say merge IM and DC in some way to make them more appealing, and so that it and Polarized Hull do different (if overlapping) things.
Bulk Transport: I do not like the current version of this skill. I buy my first Colossus, and I get another half a Colossus for free? And that’s free of cost, crew, fuel, and maintenance, no increased sensor profile, nothing. Sure, the caps reduce its value into the late game, but by then its other bonus is pulling double duty. A free Augmented Drive Field that stacks with Augmented Drive Field? With this it’s easy to get an Atlas up to speed 11, without any Ox Tugs. No, this is bad, Atlas is slow and it takes work to compensate. This skill is too good by far.
Hull Restoration: I like it, but I also note between this and Crew Training, there’s little reason for officers to take Combat Endurance anymore, as you can’t go over 100%. Don’t get me wrong; I like that there are multiple ways to get to 100% CR, I’m just noting that Combat Endurance is the weakest of the options, as the other two skills apply to your whole fleet and don’t take up valuable officer skills, while providing a lot of other buffs on the side. I could build-in Hardened Subsystems and get much the same effect.
Target Analysis: I do not like Target Analysis, I look at it and ask ‘what’s the point of being big while this thing exists?’, it diminishes the advantages being a thiccc boi with lots of armor. I hear it and other skills are designed to incentivize smaller ship classes, but I don’t like this solution, battleships can take it just as easily as frigates, and make better use of it to pound other battleships into dust, it becomes a must-have skill against larger targets, it doesn’t incentivize frigate play. Fleets are limited by ship count, and so are officers, so making the most of each individual ship beats out swarms of midgets. I play with a mod that changes that fleet limit to be DP based rather than ship count based, so that takes care of some of the problem for me. Unfortunately the alternative I can think up isn’t an easy one to implement; give small weapon slots limited tools to hurt big ships that are ineffective against smaller ships (like reaper and squall) and take away some of the big ship’s ability to combat smaller ships (like removing small slots and making large slots turn slower) so that capital ships can be effectively swarmed, flanked, and harassed if they don’t have more nimble and precise escorts of their own, (even if that’s a frigate-hunting light cruiser) so that the various sizes must work together to cover their weaknesses. Frigates and Light Destroyers are supposed to be flankers after all, play into that role rather than buffing their stat-sticks.
Wolfpack Tactics: same as Target Analysis.
System Expertise: System Expertise is in a good place, but I think it could be better; there are some vanilla and many modded systems that do not have charges, cooldowns, or ranges. A cost reduction would make this skill useful to Fortress Shield, Terminator Sequence, and other such systems, without pushing other systems as very few systems have a combination of costs and cooldowns.
Carrier Group: I do not like how it is capped to fighter bays across your whole fleet. Ships like the Shepherd have built in wings, Shepherds are useful scavengers into the late game but their combat falls off quickly so I won’t willingly take them into combat vs cruisers on up. But they are a wing in my fleet reducing the effectiveness of my actual carriers. It also encourages few carriers all around, disregarding built-in wings like the Shepherd. How about this; tie the maximum bonus to the number of fighter bays currently in combat. That way Shepherds don’t steal resources, and I can keep some carriers in reserve to swap out when Peak time expires.
Fighter Uplink: same as Carrier Group.
Best of the Best: I’ve held since the creation of S mods that they take away from the gameplay. Ships were interchangeable, and losing one may hurt but it made you vary your tactics and try new things, and you can always go find another ship of that type if it meant so much to you. The ships in your fleet were your tools, not your babies. However, with S mods, ships aren’t interchangeable anymore. I’ve put limited resources into that ship, I’m much less willing to let it go. The skills that make officer/modded ships always recoverable I think are treating the symptom not the cause, and the problem remains I am now overly attached to ships. Having played with S mods for a while now, I begrudgingly accept them as a fun addition, but I still think they have that deep flaw of changing the way I relate to ships.
Energy Weapon Mastery: this skill has anti-synergy; it rewards you for high flux, then reduces flux generation. Ya its not a big deal, your enemies will be helping you raise that flux level, but it’s still an odd skill. Other than that I like it's risk/reward setup.
In general I prefer skill design that avoids straight damage buffing, I like nuance in the implementation, like Energy Weapon Mastery and Ordnance Expertise. I’d like to see a ship system or hullmod that reduces energy weapon fire rate in exchange for hit strength, accuracy, range, or something like that. A toggled ship system that rapidly regenerates charges while disabling your shields/weapons. Because both of those ideas to me are more interesting than accelerated ammo feeder, high energy focus, or targeting feed; flat damage buffs with few considerations beyond timing. What do the rest of you think?
