i found the new skill system, while pretty interessting and exciting at first glance, VERY restricting...
especially the part that forces you to take skills you dont care about (and skills that you have to take, but ... dont "stack" with other skills earlier in the tree basically making them dead weights (im looking at you salvage skills))... all the while only having
15 skill points for what... 40 available skill options? seems VERY unfun to play into.
talking about salvage... salvage has become really... "frustrating" ever since the diminishing return changes... youd think reserving multiple slots for salvage ships would make more of an impact than basically 50 to around 60 % salvage effectiveness (and on that note, salvage seems to give alot less supplies as a result of that)
considering how exceptionally important some skills are compared to the rest (double ammo for all missiles? another build in slot for all ships? transverse jump/ ecm for all ships? +1 burn level, etc), skills you cant just slot and choose because of how the skill"tree" forces you to progress linear, it ACTUALLY WASTES POINTS YOU WOULDNT NEED, an issue when skillpoints have become so limited
this becomes a real problem when you consider officer skills (and how limited those have become), compared to ai officers, that somehow arent limited? Because some of those skills ARE really strong and increase the combat effectiveness of a ship drastically, and despite their hard limit of levels, you still cannot pick and choose the skills you need, they are still random
and again, i think one of the biggest problem with the current skill system is that it is way too limiting, to the point of you having to min max efficiently, instead of choosing skills to tailor your playstile, which i bet isnt the intended design.
it also makes some ships really bad to fly (case and point paragon), i dont know what it is but the paragon has become exceptionally sluggish to fly, manouver, and its flux management has become atrocious, even without quad lances or plasmas
(the lack of the old "bonus % of op" skill means, despite inbuild systems, bigger ships have WAY LESS op than before (with all the problems included in the "build in systems" feature already mentioned)
the skillsystem (in my opinion) should have another lookover with those problems in mind, (and it could use more of those elite skills if im honest, and make said elite skills more impactful, you know, with them being elite and all)