"To keep people from ranking up all the trees for their respective buffs I would say make each of the buffs contingent on the skills in the tree."
Is this really a problem? You're still putting points into the tree and not other things, so they have a cost.
If the aptitudes were to represent broad knowledges, it'd just mean you, say, have a very broad knowledge of "Leadership", but not anything specific or specialized (which is what the skills would mean). Doesn't seem like you have to double-up on that investment.
I suppose the reasoning that you'd want them contingent on putting more points into the tree is so you could make the benefits somewhat significant? Not sure if it's really necessary; would depend on execution.
The idea that the aptitudes should (again) grant small passives is a common one, though, so I hope it gets somewhere. Alex posted a response to it here
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11477.msg202555#msg202555, with
"This is a tough one for me. Not having any bonus at all is a bit harsh, but it communicates the purpose much more clearly. If there was a tiny token bonus, I'm guessing there would be a number of threads to the tune of "aptitude X effect is underpowered".
Personally, I just wait until there's 2 points to spend, so I feel like I get something every time I spend points, whether it's for each point or not."
(Which while I could respond to that thread, this seems like a good thread to focus on the topic itself, as it's a big one)
To me, the idea that our game dev is actually waiting until there are 2 points to spend speaks that there's a problem here. That he does that is insane to me. Intentionally "ignoring" a level-up until you have 2 of them so the level-up is meaningful makes me think something is wrong. I really hope he agrees there and changes it.
And frankly, a few silly threads are a small price to pay to make the game feel better and people should be reading the descriptions of the aptitudes anyways. Or they'll just note that they serve as caps, and make the connection...so hopefully there won't be that many threads.
Megas suggests removing the aptitudes entirely. A somewhat interesting idea, but I just wonder how much "encouragement of specialization" we lose if we do that (certainly some), and if such encouragement is really necessary or beneficial to the game? There was an idea somewhere where it was suggested that certain content is gated based on your aptitudes (such as "analyze planet" missions don't even show up unless you have some level of Industry aptitude) and that could be interesting, but then you could just tie such things to actually having the Surveying skill directly, rendering the aptitude itself superfluous.