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[Hussar]

Exactly as the title states. Let's share and talk about character builds? I haven't seen a topic about it so hence the idea, and I would be interested to see what others ended up picking up after some time of playing with the new character progression.

Guess I'll start!

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Strong points:
- Fleetwide +10% OP, 85% base CR, -50% to malfunctions on low CR, halved maintenance costs, -25% fuel consumption, lowered terrain penalties and +5 to sustained burn, 10 officers
- Coordinated Maneuvers capped at +25% bonus to speed, favoring bigger deployments, beneficial across the board to both bigger and slower ships as well to fast picket ships (my Kite's (A) with unstable injectors reach 298 speed at 0 flux & 353 on boosters).
- Electronic Warfare capped at +20% (as I have found that either enemy admiral contests you in EW which results in a really shallow margins that can turn around by a sensory buoy during battle or you get total domination in this regard) also favoring bigger deployments.
- Sensors: boosted by 25% and sensory profile reduced by 25% & doubled effect on "go dark" (there's no problem to actually reach lower sensor profile than sensory strength even on a sustained burn if someone wishes)
- Abilities: Neutrino detector and Transverse jump allowing us to jump into hyperspace without use of a jump point - this could be incredibly handy for smuggler playstyle
- You still can endulge yourself into exploration and dismantling derelicts. You're just not proficient at this but what's the problem since moment we score our first 500k or even 1kk paycheck on Sindria?

Downsides:
- Does not support Carrier-as-a-Flagship style much.
- We miss on stronger combat-related abilities for our character.
- We took very little from the new industry path, so this isn't exactly supportive for scavenging and using a lot of D-mod ships (this affects us the most in early game i guess).

In short if I'd had to call it somewhat it would be an Cruiser-Admiral build. You still can fight (and I do that often with my command Eagle) but if our ship gonna have anything going for it will come in form of mods not character skills (with exception of things like Cord.M. skill). I actually kind of like that fact because in combat this means we'll still have to pretty much watch out to not over-commit to the point where a stray sabot will overload our shields and suddenly you'll see harpoons coming at you from everywhere. Perhaps some would say it's more passive gameplay, but I'd say "only if you wish it to be so". In combat you're just going to have a more fragile ship than ones commanded by your officers I'd say. Speaking of them, ability to field 10 of them in your fleet does allow to heavy a really nice complement of carrier and cruiser/destroyer captains.

So, that was mine (:

[Dri]

I spent 3 in Industry just for Salvage/Surveying too.

I didn't bother with any points whatsoever in Combat.

For Tech I maxed Gunnery Implants, Power Grid and took everything else you did except for Sensors.

For Leadership I took Logistics, Coor Man and I'm debated over spending the last few of my points on maxing Officers and Fighter Doctrine.

What was that Combat skill you spent 2 points in? Was it really worth it?

[Hussar]

I spent 3 in Industry just for Salvage/Surveying too.

I didn't bother with any points whatsoever in Combat.

For Tech I maxed Gunnery Implants, Power Grid and took everything else you did except for Sensors.

For Leadership I took Logistics, Coor Man and I'm debated over spending the last few of my points on maxing Officers and Fighter Doctrine.

What was that Combat skill you spent 2 points in? Was it really worth it?

Combat endurance, +25% peak operating time for piloted ship and on 2nd point a fleetwide -50% to malfunctions on low CR. It's a skill that also officer's can take but I don't think that their -50% to malfunctions works fleetwide, at least I haven't noticed it early game when I was rocking around with just few frigates and CR related malfunctions could literally kill you.

[StarGibbon]

Some general advice: I've learned that specialization is the key to profitability. It's not that you can't make money being a jack of all trades, but your fleet becomes very inefficient and operational costs skyrocket.  So if you want to be able to make money at combat, be very good at combat so you can minimize the ships in your fleet (sticking to the bare minimum you need to get to bounties and back) to keep fuel use down, and the amount of ships you deploy, keeping your supply costs down. If you try to carry around a bunch of extra utility vessels for survey and storage too, your bounties will get eaten up just with the fuel costs to get there and back. Likewise, if you want to be a salvage/exploration type, then spec your fleet for that and avoid combat where possible, otherwise your fleet bloats and you have to salvage/survey frantically just to stay above water.

To clarify,the combat tree isnt the only way to be good at combat. You can also be a carrier/leadership specialist and spam carriers, or you can be an industry specialist and just throw a bunch of cheap, disposable trash ships at your enemies. But you should have a focus to maximize profitability, or your fleet becomes inefficient, and therefore expensive to fuel and maintain.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

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Carrier-as-flagship combat build. Electronic Warfare, Co-ordinated Maneuvers, +10% op, +15% CR, and 10 officers ensure ship superiority. For your flagship, you've got Gunnery Implants, Flux Distribution, and all the fighter boosting skills. Navigation 3 and -50% supply use for maintenance help with your profit margins and extend your operational range, as well as giving you Transverse Jump for an emergency button if you really need it. The fleet I'm running is 1 Astral, 3 Herons, 4 Hammerheads, some Tempests for chasing and various support craft.

[Deshara]

step 1: start with kite wingman
step 2: spec out level 2 missiles
step 3: make kite flagship
step 4: find beautiful torpedoes

[Schwartz]

This is pretty much a utility build emphasizing strong fleet action. Officers cover the extra carrier skills; the player goes in a Medusa or similar to help turn the tide. Plenty of industry to make sure he can get all the new content. The only personal combat skill is Power Grid Modulation. It could be exchanged for Gunnery Implants if something more offensive is desired. Field Repairs could also be exchanged for something else. I'm not using it as much as I thought.

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[TaLaR]

http://imgur.com/a/Oo54Q

Overall theme is fitting as many combat skills as I could without gimping fleet-wide ones and at cost of completely ignoring campaign utilities.

That's my first char in 0.8 and there are some things I'd do differently next time. Helmsmanship 3 is not worth taking. Armor skills (Impact Mitigation and Evasive Action 2&3) are good for Onslaught, but overall worth trading for more Officer Management, Coordinated Maneuvers or Fighter Doctrine.
Otherwise I think this build achieves it's stated purpose.

[WolfSkimmer]

https://imgur.com/a/7nzVIDn

This is for my [0.8.1a] Ship/Weapon Pack 1.7.1 playthrough. There is a Excelsior Class Phase Corvette that is awesome to fight with.

Anyways, it has the basics for fleet wide bonuses, this isn't exactly a min max build considering I've spent 2 in both industry and navigation, but that is to be taken first to make early game exploration missions safer and more profitable.

The key things here are the piloted ship skills, which are hand crafted towards playing High tech related ships in general, but excel with Phase ships.

Obvious cons to this build, cannot take damage. This is all about superior control in ship battles to never take a point of damage.

[Megas]

All of my characters have the following skills:

Combat Endurance 1 - More peak performance for my flagship to outlast cowardly AI that likes to stall.
Fleet Logistics 3 - All the perks are good, but +15% to max CR for fleet at 3 puts it on par with stalling enemy fleets with FL3 in worst case scenario.
Coordinated Maneuvers 1 - Can completely ignore Nav points, and match enemy fleets that have CM.
Fighter Doctrine 3 - Get Converted Hangar at 2, buff fighters for my entire fleet.
Electronic Warfare 1 - Avoid major -10% to -20% range malus imposed by enemy fleets that have EW.  If enemy lacks EW, I can ignore Sensor points.
Loadout Design 3 - OP totals are stingy.  Carriers are extremely OP hungry, but everyone else can easily use the extra OP.

All of the above costs 19 SP.  I have 23 left for a level 40 character.  However, I also pick Evasive Maneuvers 1 for a bit more agility for my flagship, and Helmsmanship 3 because I want the option to use fighters on my flagship, and no zero-flux bonus while fighters are engaged is intolerable.  That means 24 SP spent, 18 left for level 40 character.  Beyond that, I leave the points unspent because I cannot decide what I want to do.

Helmsmanship 3 is not worth taking.

It is if your flagship uses (and relies on) fighters.  Dedicated carriers need it to kite-and-snipe with fighters.  Others (like Eagle with Converted Hangar) probably do not want to lose mobility if using Talons or Claws to scout and flush out cowards waiting to swarm your ship.

If flagship does not use fighters, you are probably right, although I probably want to raise it up to two.

If I wanted a generalist build, I probably would use TaLaR's except probably take away from Ordnance Expert and maybe another skill and max Fighter Doctrine.  If your fleet has carriers, they all need the boost for fighters to live by endgame.

[Vind]

Skills mainly to support aurora flagship. Navigation and ordnance expertise can be swapped for surveying.

[Goumindong]

Helmsmanship 3 is also crucial for piloting Odyssey and Conquest. They're able to be pretty much cap stable on full fire but because they still use cap they're constantly ping ponging off of the +50 bonus. Unless they have helmsmanship 3.

Thus, helmsmanship 3 allows full +50 speed maneuvering while consistently keeping a battleships worth of weapons to bear on an enemy.

With Helsmanship 3 these ships are true terrors in player hands, able to sweep wide swaths of the sky clean of enemies with little to no risk, while also putting pressure on enemy formations. Without it they're almost worthless.