Fine, I'll throw in a more detailed examination.
I'm following the design principles put in the blog, with a choice between specialization and generalization, so builds become about picking what you want to specialize in, and what you want to build your fleet around. I also understand the concept of avoiding a mono-fleet, so I don't want to -remove- the fleet limits on skills. Instead I want to adjust them to work less around fleet size and be less restrictive.
Combat
overall Combat is the most balanced of the group, and retains the original design docket for this system best. There's minor things and biases going on here, but the concept itself is still excellent here.
Teir 1:
The specialist needs an upgrade. Strike Commander with 30-40% boost would be considerably stronger a choice and a worthy trade for the 10% speed boost and zero flux boost. That might be my inexperience with carriers speaking though.
Teir 2
I'm not likely to ever pick PD, even as a carrier. I don't find it strong enough even in concept. I'm not even sure how to fix it, and maybe I'm just ignorant, but I cant compare point defense power to...well, ALL weapon power.
teir 3
This would be excellent in principle is the range damage was brought between 700-1000. Only a -very- few weapons can cover even 800, let alone over 1600. Youd need specialized beams with the double range mod and integrated targeting unit and even then.....requiring non-default mods(one of which isn't even given to you in the skill) isn't what I'd call viable. Drop the range requirement to a more reasonable basis, and all is good.
teir 4
Not much to say here, solid and well done. The specialty is insane but the generalist skill is quite good without coming near the sheer power of the specialty, well done.
teir 5
fairly solid, though I think the HP bonus boosted to 75% might work well, but I'm fine with it. I wish I had more to say, but I don't like missiles to begin with so....yeah
Leadership
Overall
I will likely never use this entire tree. Most of it bar t4 is aggressively terrible, and I'd rather get 3 good combat skills over 3 trash leadership skills just to get one decent green. I'll go into details why individually, but this is trash and desperately needs some care
teir 1
I see what this is -trying- to do, but it's complete trash. A blank damage boost to everything is a powerful move, but putting it limited on fleet size, which -must- grow over time to keep up with new challenges, is just punishing the player for ever choosing this. To top it off, these skills are both terrible. The issue with civilian ships isnt their armor or flux, it's their mounts. No matter what armor and such you give a buffalo is will NEVER see combat because of it's mounts. Increasing those isn't possible here, so as such a better idea would be to focus on using civilian ships at all, or making them have militarized subsystems. Does the player militarize everything to the sensor profile and burn speed, thus getting a more generic boost in their combat ships? (Perhaps an increase in operating time due to the linearity of their fleet as a result of this choice), or do you make the civilian ships better by giving them bonuses to logical support, like free maintenance or increased sensor range(worse for smuggling/stealth, better for trading/traditional open combat). Thus you can focus in general open trading/combat, or a unified fleet for precise well drilled attacks and smuggling.
teir 2
Wolfpack tactics is mostly fine. I'd increase the damage buff to 50% since it's a high price to even get the bonus and it's as specialized and risky as pure short range builds IMO, but coordinated maneuvers really needs to drop the officer requirement. If you wanna drop it to 3%-1% for frig-dest then be my guest for balancing it, but there's little reason to use either beyond getting the nav boey built in.
teir 3
The concept on these is fine, but their numbers are off. The fleet limit hits this one -hard-. Like I said, your fleet must grow in size no matter what, and limits for these fleets aren't even close to built for end-game fleets, so by that time you've scaled these bonuses to zero. My current fleet doesnt even have a capital and I'm dropped to 12%, at the current speed it's dropping, 2-3 capitals means this skill is close to zero. Same with fighter bay limits. If you want to max carrier ships, fine, but at least have us 5 capitals or so and not make the AI have like 12 of them. Give us 30 fighter bays to create some host for variety, like making Astrals the center of our fleets without leaving us with too small an upgrade to use. It's a choice between a general increase in operation time which basically drops to nothing by end game, versus power up, at most, -one- ship. Why would anyone even run for this.
teir 4
This one is better, but the specialty is too weak. Do you want 9 officers which all have an extra elite buff? Or one extra officer. I'll pick 9 more elites. I think a better system is to extend the contract duration of special officers, which is an honest specialization. Do you want a lot of more generic officers? Or a select group of highly expensive but valuable ones. It be a much better choice. Given the other skills are abyssmal, theres little reason to pick this anyway.
teir 5
The general might be a bit weak? I'm not knowledgeable enough with colony numbers to review this. In concept or genera/special it's a solid skill.
Technology
Overall
Every character I play is likely to get some of this tree. They are so OP it's outright insane. there is some broken *** here by comparison. It's not bad, I like that kind of power, but it makes the leadership buffs into even more of a joke.
teir 1
I do -not- understand why people pick the first skill by principle. That +3 burn to moving slowly is both a huge navigational boost and makes smuggling -leagues- easier. If you want -any- kind of criminal action or sneaky raids, this is a near necessity. and the general boost is amazing to. Raw speed, and transverse jump? That's quite good for even smugglers, though not quite as useful. Honestly THIS is a tough choice and a truely amazing skills im excited to choose from every time. Make more skills like this, it is the de-facto amazing choice.
teir 2
Another solid choice. Like before both skills are excellent and the specialization is absolutely amazing for what it does. Seriously, more skills like this please. The fact is synergizes with ECM down the line is also interesting and something worth exploring, though im 50/50 if it's in line with design principle from the blog. Beyond that it's a excellent skill. Not good, -excellent-. Use these two as a basis to judge the others.
teir 3 & 4
Remember teir 3 leadership? Good, I'm not repeating myself. Both choices are so stupidly limited by fleet size it's a joke. People pointed out a single cruiser and 2 frigates overloads the phase ship upgrade, and the other would be close to zero with end-game fleets. Would I rather get a general increase that becomes a waste of a skill point, or upgrade 3 ships out of my whole fleet? If it wasn't for teir 5, I'd pass on both teir 4 choices entirely.
Edit: A suggestion for this, is to allow civilian hull ships and frigates to both give bonuses to performance/CR for everyone else, which would further benefit having less top heavy fleets. It's jsut a thought but why not?
teir 3 & 5
Same issue for both. The specialty for their choices, using large amounts of phase ships, or the use of automated ships, is so ungodly restrictive as to be useless. I get not wanting to allow mono-fleets, but at least let 50% of our end-game fleet have a focus for *** sake. These bonuses die after even a single capital ship. ONE radiant drops the bonus to automated by 60% according to some reports. And given how insanely useful an extra built-in hullmod and the ECM stuff is? This is barely a pick. If 50% of my fleet could be phase/automated ships, these choices would more viable and actually be truely fantastic choices.
Note to frigates
Look, I understand why Alex is putting fleet limits. Frigates were useless in .91. But this punishing players for having large fleets at all, isn't a good solution. I know mono-fleets are a thing Alex wants to discourage and it's a good thing because the mechanics favor a broad fleet anyway. But making those specialist skills so stupid restrictive that only 1 ship can have it? Why? You wan frigates to remain relavant? ECM already does it. with 2% across the board the ability to put out -more- ships is more valuable. A fleet of frigates would have cap bonus speed and range bonus over the opponent just on sheer mass of ships, meaning a fleet entirely of paragons is suffering for their better technical performance. Building in that direction, with skills that help the fleet ship to ship, like +60 peak operating time(excellent for frigates, iffy for everyone else) is the better way to go then these hard limits that just dwindle the entire bonus to nothing.
Industry
Teir 1
Bulk Transport is fine, but the limits need to change if they are get kept. 5k fuel is much easier to hit then 5k cargo, which is several times easier to get than 5k crew. They do not acrew evenly or cost the same to buy/maintaing, so making it 5k across the board makes no sense. The rest is just the fleet limit discussion all over again. I think a better solution is flip salvaging and bulk transport. Bulk transport would be more specialized and, given its a percentage bonus, favor building extremely high raw numbers, where salvaging is better for general maintenance and doesnt care how much cargo space is on your fleet.
teir 2
Solid in terms of choice, do you want standing ability to repair ot better operating time. One is, once again, useful for more frigate use, the other better for pitched combat. Both are excellently designed and another example of what to od.
teir 3/4
Once again, drop the fleet limits. This would be a fantastic set of skills if you just dropped the fleet limit crap. Once is about svaing fuel, good for general travel, and the other gives better abilities for raw survey and exploration work. Strong general skill vs more profitable(supplies are much more expensive) specialized skill. Please stop the fleet limits. Teir 4 has the same issue so I'm lumping it here. Do you accept D-mods and run with a damaged but highly cost effective fleet, or give yourself the ability to repair, but makes d-mods more damaging. It's a tough call and again, followed the design docket. Please remove these fleet limits on skill, it it killing these things.
teir 5
I have nothing to say on this. Unlike teir 5 leadership both of these are extremely strong, and I have little else to say honestly. Well done, this one is a tough choice and both are valuable and worth the price of investment.
TL;dr
Please remove the fleet limit trash and increase the ship limits for phase and carrier bonuses to something along the lines of 50% of the fleet, because these limits are outright ruining skills. The fleet limit removed would make industry and leadership SIGNIFICANTLY better and actually worth investing in. I almost wish I could modify these myself the fixes are so easy to make. The only one that needs changing in full design it Teir 1 leadership, which I talked about. The rest just need that limit removed and some -very- minor balancing, and the latter only for a select few skills.