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[ChaseBears]

Having played around with it for some time, ever since it was introduced, I have mixed feelings about the skills system as implemented for both players and NPCs. 

It is a plus overall since it gives you non-economic progression; this is a huge plus for Ironman games where a single slipup can cost you your fleet.  But at times it feels like the skills system is dominating the gameplay and resulting in what is to my mind big negatives.

It is not hard to level up.  A single battle can gain you multiple levels.  Your captain (and your officers) rapidly level past the officers being deployed in AI fleets, and their impact on ship performance becomes more and more noticeable.  The player rapidly outpaces NPCs and outmatches them on statistical grounds. In some cases this can change certain NPC enemies from a significant threat to a complete joke just through leveling.  Even the Lion's Guard has a 'base' level of 7 (as defined in the files); the player and their officers can outmatch that very quickly.   

 I'm uncertain to what degree NPC levels might advance over the course of regular gameplay, but that brings up another problem: The Skill system begins to dominate combat gameplay.  It is hard to underestimate the synergistic boost ships attain when they are rocking increased OP, increased efficiency (+%flux, etc.), and hugely important bonuses like flat range increases. You start to see destroyers with the speed of a fighter and the flux/firepower of an 'unskilled' cruiser.  Particularly suffering from this is the Combat Readiness system; crew skill bonuses range from mediocre to meaningless compared to what a ship gains from a skilled captain.  Fighter gameplay is also a noticable casualty; they simply do not benefit nearly as much as ships and so their relative effectiveness decreases.  They also suffer very noticably from bonuses provided by skills, like improved autoaim, stronger armor, and increased range on PD weapons or steady beams.   Poor NPC officers are at a disadvantage against highly experienced Player officers, even without considering the aforementioned synergy effects.  God help the ships without officers; maybe they can use the captain's cabin for additional lifeboats.

I am less certain about this next bit, namely about how points do not feel important individually.  You are constrained by the Aptitude system but it does not take long to hit max on at least one category.  The really gamechanging bonuses are often at the 'milestone' levels. This is a bigger problem for officers than for players; you pick a new skill category, gaining virtually no improvement -  then you advance it to (4), gaining a small statistical. Next you advance it to (7), gaining a nice statistical buff and what is often a very important milestone buff.  Finally you hit (10) resulting in a powerful statistical buff and two milestone effects.  Essentially, every level you invest in a skill gives a larger and larger return.  Minmaxing is the only way to play for officers, and it's doubly curious since they are not subject to the same constraints as the player (to some degree reinforcing how special and OP the player is). 

I'd like to draw a parallel to Mount & Blade, since I feel that game is closest to Starsector in basic gameplay.  In Mount & Blade, most skill stats were actually non-combat stats and many had a significant impact on gameplay. A single point was important to the effectiveness of any given skill, and it behooved players to take at least some level of competence across the board.  In comparison Starsector rewards minmaxing in order to get powerful milestone buffs, which occur on top and in addition to regular statistical bonuses.

To be fair, Starsector's skill system is very apparently not done, but that does not preclude criticisms of its current implementation.  0.7.1 is still really awesome, hoorah for space, hoorah for laser beams!

[Ranakastrasz]

Yep. I've considered making a mod that makes skills just give you the Combat type skills, have all Hull mods innately enabled. and receive the 5th level bonus, half the 10th level bonus, and 5 levels of the each level bonus. For all ships globally.

It doesn't balance out correctly. I think some mods tried to give enemy fleets similar upgrades, but I don't know for sure.

[Cik]

yeah i agree, while i like progression the progression needs to be less exponential and apply to everything across the board.

fighters especially have suffered. while i usually field carriers for thematic reasons (muh naval doctrine!) i don't think they're actually useful anymore, especially in the early game when all they do is get you sunk by fast pickets with officers that will fly right through your fighterswarm and shoot the carrier once or twice, blowing it up.

officers i like, because it makes the enemy fleets less easy pickings for the superskilled player who's rocking a ship that's better than the next 5 un-officered ships put together (not even an exaggeration; helmsmanship 10 gives what is effectively complete strategic initiative; you can engage and disengage at will even from things a class or two smaller than a cruiser)

however the implementation i'm not sure about. it feels like getting officers to high levels is too easy, likewise the max level might be too high. at twenty they seem superhuman to me, some sort of spacefaring demigod, rending entire fleets apart like an astral claw. 10-15 might be more reasonable, with perhaps the rare one able to achieve level 20 in exchange for some other downside (someone suggested character flaws or whatever which modified their behavior; maybe. seems hard to implement but could work)

i don't generally like huge statbuffs as a way of adding content to the game, because it degrades the influence of good strategy. in one case, you can win by default because no matter how sloppily you deploy your fleet has +30% more armor and some horrific number of other flat bonuses (with no downside, unlike mods etc) in the other case the enemy has as many and the same level as you do, which means that the buffs achieve nothing, and in the third case you can be sun tzu and lose everything anyway.

obviously there are shades in between these extremes, but to me the most interesting part of officers is the ship behavior modification NOT the stat bonuses.

the perks especially sort of break credulity. dominators maneuvering like eagles, onslaughts that can complete a turn in under five minutes, etc. it just seems like no amount of pilot or commander skill can somehow magic some insane amount of kilonewtons onto a maneuvering thruster.

(also it killed fighters and i like fighters)

rant over.

[Megas]

If you thought ships were fast, you should have seen Helmsmanship before 0.7a.  The level 5 perk increased top speed instead of maneuverability.  Flagships could go very fast.

Most skills' power comes from either the perks or the hullmods.  The few skills where the per level bonus is good is Missile Specialization, Helmsmanship, the two +OP% skills, and maybe Construction if you are into heavier armor.  Gunnery Implants' auto-aim is very good if it is at or close to 100%, but almost insignificant when less than that.

I prefer the most significant bonuses were earlier.  If the best stuff requires max level, then the optimal way is to max skills.  Similarly, in 0.65, there was a big difference between Combat 9 and 10 for enemy flagships.

[Cik]

in .7x the net effect is simply way 'worse' relative to the behavior of fleets.

a single player ship with a ridiculous bonus can theoretically be slain, it can theoretically be cornered, and really anything short of say a paragon can be feasibly destroyed by applying enough weapons to it's shield and armor.

you can't corner a fleet (or well, you can, but it's moot in this discussion) tactically there's almost no strategy that can be deployed to overcome a solid, high level officer corps flying even mediocre ships without simply using the exact same strategy (form line, fire weapon) and having better ships, better weapons, or more realistically better officers.

not discounting what you're saying though, the change to helmsmanship was good.

[Megas]

Despite the unbalance skills can bring, I like how powerful my ships can be; enough to the point that I refuse to play missions anymore because ships are too slow and weak there.  Similarly, I dread starting new games because of how utterly impotent and sluggish a low level character is, and I cannot wait until he reaches level 40+.

Before skills, I left mounts of many ships empty, and I never used elite weapons if cheaper alternatives performed nearly as well.

[Gothars]

I think everyone agrees that skills are not in a good place at the moment, and that's why a big skill revamp is planned for the future. I believe fewer, more potent skills are on the agenda, as is a redirection towards defensive fleet upgrades to make battles less "arcady".

IMO the root of the issue is that Starsector's only real goal (the quasi win-condition) is the assembly of a mighty fleet for battle. So, naturally, all you want out of the skill tree, and all it can realistically offer, is to make your fleet mightier in battle.

What the skill tree needs to properly grow is first a set of different win conditions, or distinct paths to one condition. Only then it can be balanced according to how much each skill can contribute toward your archival of one of those conditions/walking of those distinct paths.
For example, maybe it is totally OK to have a seemingly OP skill that makes you hit much harder and fly much faster, when in turn you have to miss out on a skill that boosts the economy of your colonies. In turn some AI faction takes the economy route and has its chances to win the faction far boosted by the same degree as you.

Before these goals/paths are laid out, any re-balancing of the tree can only be a stop gap.

[Zaphide]

I also do not really like the skill system, as for the stat increase there is no downside. The player is not giving anything up (except, I guess, the opportunity cost to get some other skill) to have more speed/better flux stats/more missiles. It feels a bit bizarre given the amount of balancing / tweaking that ships and weapons go through, to then have that blown out of the water with double-shot reapers for just gaining a few skills.

I feel it also enhances the differences between the player and the AI, in a way where a player can take greater advantage. Maybe this is OK (after all it is a game)

I'm all for some kind of progression but perhaps instead of stat increases it could be a progression through unlockable hullmods/ships/campaign skills:
i.e. you need skill <x> to use hullmod <y> (already have this in the game, I feel it works well)
or  you need skill <a> at level <b> to use ship <c>
or you need skill <d> at level <e> before you can use sensor burst/emergency burn

You want to be a smuggler? Sure, grab skills on <x>, <y> and <z> so you can enable campaign skill <a>, use ship <b> and install hull mod <c>.

[Megas]

I do not mind player being better than AI.  AI has factions, bases, and infinite resources.  Player does not.  Currently, AI has unfair advantage of having much more than 25 ships in a single fleet (not several joined together in an expanded battle), and they do not need to leave slots open for new ship acquisitions.

What I like to do, and hope the finished game supports (standard, Nexerelin not required) is...
1) Build up bases
2) Build up ships
3) Conquer and/or destroy factions!  Take over (or destroy) all of their bases, while preventing the enemy from doing the same to you!

[nomadic_leader]

The philippic against skills:
Listen. In a game with "skills" you don't need actual skill to play, and the game doesn't even need to be interesting, since grinding XP provides the main motivation for players to continue.

'Skill'/XP is a design crutch in a real-time game. It should be removed from SS. All hullmods and abilities should be purchasable equipment or rewarded from  special missions.

A. "Skills" vs skill.
A game with XP and 'Skill,' just rewards repetition of mindless tasks rather than real ability. You suck at SS combat? You suck at transponder sneaking in campaign? Don't worry, just grind! You'll get magically 'better' with 'skills.' So it makes the game more accessible to less skilled, less intelligent players. The difficulty ramp is a contrived imposition, and balancing isn't necessary: just grind.

Skills only belong in turned-base RPGs where you don't directly control your avatar. In a real time game you'd get better by actually getting better: by getting smarter, by getting faster, by learning more tactics, by creative scheming, and by engagement with the gameworld.

The "skills" system replaces real learning with an endorphin IV drip for putting in time. Yay, everyone gets a trophy in the end!


XP grind vs Interesting content
How many of you would take pleasure in SS if there were no leveling up? If you answered "no," it doesn't mean  XP is good, it just means SS isn't interesting enough. If you answered "yes" then why do we need skills anyway?

Humans have instincts leftover from hunting and gathering days. If confronted with an activity that balances effort (and a little bit of exploration) with reward in a certain way, it creates pleasure.

One way of doing this is by providing inherently interesting content: an immersive game world where exploring brings rewards, stories and quests where neat things happen, and interactions flexible enough to reward bold or unusual experimentation.

Or you can go the other route: Put XP into twitch games that don't actually need it. You played Call of Duty for 50 hours and lost every game! But you still got XP and unlocked yet another rifle! Hurrah! The game itself might be boring but you are play only for the endorphin rush of another doled-out unlock or levelup

Skills and XP in a twitch based game are a way to keep people playing when you can't otherwise engage them. Many perverse people play just for the meaningless pleasure of getting to level 50.


Wrapup:Starsector has good stuff, like experimenting with loadouts and  the clever ways to sneak around the universe, but it also relies on XP grinding to keep many people invested.

Get rid of XP entirely. You should  get abilities through purchases of gear or hiring of officers that have special abilities. You should improve through real skills - by trading well, by fighting well, by exploring well.

Oh but without XP, a cash grind replaces the XP grind! Maybe, but less so. With XP, it just becomes a stompfest at the end as you become magically imbued with skills and abilities in excess of everyone else. Classics like Escape Velocity didn't have XP because if you make a compelling world you don't need artificial reward system doled out incrementally to string people along.

Yea, you all want to play crap games like Diablo. Yea, XP, unlocks, achievements etc are put in all kinds of games; it's just an expeced thing nowadays. But it's still lame.

[Megas]

nomadic_leader's post explains why I think there is no such thing as too fast XP advancement, and why I prefer a hard level cap.

After I play Starsector honestly once, I start future games in devmode and give my character more than enough credits and XP (to level 60+) so that I do not need to waste time grinding for power.

[Midnight Kitsune]

-snip-

I think that you are forgetting that SS is F***ING HARD, especially for newbies and currently skills and EXP are the only two things that most new players would carry over on a fleet wipe (three if they chose easy)
So when a newbie gets beaten to a bloody pulp again and again and again with almost zero progression, F*** them right? I swear most vet SS players are worse than Dark Soul vets

[xenoargh]

Chill, yo.

Anyhow, I agree that it's hard, but that's what the difficulty settings should really be for, y'know? 

Alex certainly hit a better note with the last few updates to 0.7, where the Easy Start is actually, you know, easier, finally

[Dabor]

I think that you are forgetting that SS is F***ING HARD, especially for newbies and currently skills and EXP are the only two things that most new players would carry over on a fleet wipe (three if they chose easy)
So when a newbie gets beaten to a bloody pulp again and again and again with almost zero progression, F*** them right? I swear most vet SS players are worse than Dark Soul vets

Nomadic's post had a very spiteful tone, but by and large I understand the veteran argument (and I probably am one, all things considered.) The game having a harsh learning curve doesn't change that a lot of stuff falls into place once you learn it. I recently taught a friend to play the game, and I had him wiping small pirate fleets in his wolf within the hour. It's just that not everyone can get a babysitter.

I enjoy progression in games. Whether it's in the form of money, skills or just plain unlocking alternatives, it provides a backdrop to me doing something that's repetitive but nevertheless enjoyable. I can have fun with Starsector's missions which are exactly what nomadic was talking about - fair, set piece battles where the only goal is to win with what you have.

The skill system can hurt new players just as much as it helps them - both by being a crutch, and by being another thing veterans know exactly how to work with. That new friend I introduced? "Max the Ordanance skills on every new character" and then I drew attention to most of the other useful stuff and hull mods he might want to unlock for certain styles of play.

Don't let nomadic's pile of fallacies fool you into thinking that XP is somehow unique. Everything from supply spent on deployment to bounties is a perfectly identical type of mechanic - some extra layer of motivation adding weight to battles beyond "as long as you have one ship with 1 hull point left at the end and they don't, you win." Once there's a campaign with complex faction relations, industry and massive wars, all of that will still be an interconnecting backdrop for Starsector's absolutely wonderful combat mechanics.

However, I'll agree with you on one very important note. The late-game that most veterans have largely perfected? It's in its infancy, and most of the motivation beyond "make the strongest combat fleet" doesn't exist yet. The early learning curve, however, is already brutal, and will only get worse, so we'd very control it sooner than later.

Hopefully this rant is slightly constructive.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

Trying to balance skills at this point is a fool's errand. Of course the player inevitably becomes a combat juggernaut, there's only combat-related skills in the game. When the Leadership row has more than 3 skills and the Industry row has any skills at all, then maybe we can start to talk about whether the combat skills are too powerful compared to the logistics, trade, and outpost skills that don't exist yet. The only balance change I'd make at this point is to make fighters assignable to carriers, and have the carrier officer's skills –but not personality– apply to the fighters. And, as mentioned, nerfing skills at this point would mostly make the early-game harder. It's already a quicksand-pit, there's no need to make it worse.