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[Hiruma Kai]

To be honest, the old system and the new system are not that far apart in terms of selection mechanics.  You have skill trees of sequential skills, along with gate keeping selections (i.e. aptitude points).

The old system was 31 trees 3 deep each, along with 4 "dead" trees which were just gate keepers (the aptitudes).  You were given 52 skill points by the end, which was nearly exactly half of the maximum expenditure (52/105 = 49.5%).  Your selection was restricted a fair bit.  For example, you only got to pick at most 15 tier 3 skills.  You couldn't pick 31 tier 3 skills and ignore lower tiers for example.

The new system is 8 trees 5 deep each, or 4 trees 10 deep depending on how you look at it.  We're given 15 skills out of 40, or 37.5% of all possible selections.  Here, you can have at most 3 out of 8 tier 5 skills (still same 37.5% ratio).  So there's more I can see it but I can't have it going on.

I'm guessing most people probably didn't think of them as trees simply because they had so many points and the trees were very tightly coupled in theme, but you didn't have to go all 3 points into them if you didn't want them.  On runs where I was using a high tech shield ship, I often only went 1 deep in Evasive maneuvering, for example. 

In the old system, the "wasted points" at most were 5.  3 for the aptitude, and 2 for the previous 2 tiers assuming you wanted only the 3rd.  So in the absolute worst case, you "wasted" 10% of your skill point allocation (5/52) to get a 3rd tier cap stone skill grabbing a single skill from an aptitude.  However, as noted the trees were much more thematic and tightly coupled, so if you wanted the 3rd tier, it was very likely the 1st and 2nd tier were helping your play style so it was unlikely all 5 points would feel wasted.  Similarly, the aptitudes were very broad gate keepers, being required for 6 skills at a minimum for each point spent.

The biggest issue it sounds like (and having played with it for 3 weeks), is the trees are no longer so tightly coupled in theme.  If you're looking to improve your fleet skills, you are forced to take colony skills for some reason.  If you're looking to be a master of industry, you need to take fleet skills for some reason. The previous version didn't have that.  Colony skills were in their own dedicated 3 deep trees.  Although arguably the best design had colony skills plus fleet skills (Fleet logistics).  In the presence of a respec, it means those types of skill still have reason to be  kept once you've earned enough credits or got your colonies up and running.  As it is now, optimal play if you choose to grab industry skills, is use them until you're established, and then respec them away because after a certain point, even more credits becomes pointless.

So comparing those wasted points to the new system, depending on play style, you might have up to 4 points that you don't care about to get a tier 5 capstone that literally has nothing to do with all the skill that came before it (i.e. the fleet trees).  4 out of 15 is 26%.  It's much more noticable.

It's also very easy to see that difference between play styles.  The colony master type player is taking benefits that perhaps don't benefit their high credit lifestyle.  They can afford to build masses of capitals and assorted weapons, but are taking a bunch of skills which don't scale with those big ships.  They'd likely much prefer personal skills at the point but can't branch out from their primary goal of giant space empire.

On the other hand, the flagship focused pilot player can double the combat tree and grab 5 down the tech tree and literally be losing out on a bonus from Phase Mastery.  14 out of 15 skill points selected can help those ships.  Alternatively, go combat 8, tech 7 and have 100% benefiting those ships.

Personally, I don't see why colony skills are considered tier 5 worthy in the first place.  Doubly so for the ones in the fleet tree.  How is +25% colony fleet size and +30% access on a colony you potentially don't even have better than an extra skill buffing all your ships with officers? 

Tier 5 combat is in a good place (or in the case of phase ships, too good of a place.  Systems mastery turns ships with good systems into crazy good ships (Doom and other phase ships, mobility system ships), or offers a huge buff to missile type ships.  You can be much more liberal with missile use in that case, and flux free weapons are strong already.  The tier 5 tech skills open up an entirely new class of ship or just boosts everything by more than the old Loadout design did, which can make things like missile/carriers actually work well.

But leadership tier 5 and industry 5 aren't nearly as game changing.  Colonies currently are designed to be profitable without skills.  I just checked one of my saved games with 3 colonies (size 6), and just removed all the AI cores (administrator and boosting individual industries), and found my monthly colony income dropped from about 700k to 300k.  Admittedly that is with all the new exploration goodies still in place.  After a certain point, more credits just start piling up and don't do anything more.  Not to mention commissions are a potential +95k passive income as well.

I mean, I could see colony skills being capstones if you couldn't have colonies at all without a specific skill, or let your colonies continue to earn credits with the rest of the core systems in flaming ruins - but otherwise, that kind of scaling just doesn't feel compelling to me.  It strikes me as more roleplay than gameplay change.  I'd almost suggest all colony skill be sequential in the industry tree, make it the right half or something.  I'd also combine them with fleet benefits, like the old logistics skill did, to give you a reason not to respec out of it once you've got your colonies running fine.

[Alex]

The colony master type player ...
Personally, I don't see why colony skills are considered tier 5 worthy in the first place.  Doubly so for the ones in the fleet tree.  How is +25% colony fleet size and +30% access on a colony you potentially don't even have better than an extra skill buffing all your ships with officers?

Just wanted to comment on this real quick: they're there because they're out of the way. The "real" top-tier skills are in L4 and I4. I don't think "colony master" is really a thing; there's only 4 skills total that have to do with colonies. And as you say, colonies are profitable without skills. You can pick a few skills there if you want them, but you're not obligated to in order to get the good skills in I/L (unless you're planning to wrap).

Which is a fair counter-point. How much are people "wrapping"? My assumption was that it would be a fairly rare thing. Incidentally - I'm now remembering - this is also why it felt reasonably alright to have Field Repairs and Derelict Contingent be contradictory, since the difference between I8 and I10 is basically just a "boring" colony skill.

So, to repeat, colony skills are in tier 5 so that you mostly don't have to pick them if you don't want to. And in some cases they have some non-colony bonuses so e.g. if you're wrapping Leadership, you can at least pick Ground Operations that boosts your fleet in some way.

[Thaago]

So far I have not wrapped, though I can see doing so for tech or combat and just "waste" one point. Though a few ships (legion or odyssey really) really like C1R anyways, as would a carrier.

However, it seems a lot of complaints are very focused about wrapping and see contradictory elements or "wasted" points as indicative of design failure. The "expectation" of the system for them seems to be that wrapping is the preferred way to play a character who wants to do those things, rather than an option for hyper specialization that comes with a high cost, which is what my "expectation" is.

[IonDragonX]

Just wanted to comment on this real quick: they're there because they're out of the way. The "real" top-tier skills are in L4 and I4. I don't think "colony master" is really a thing;

I guess that enough players want to have it allowed just because they used to have it. It only took 9/51 points to get all the Industry you needed for it in 0.91.

As for me, if I want to be the "Scrap it all & sell it back in the Core worlds" kind of character, then I want I1L, I1R, I3L, I3R, and I4L! I1s complement each other because you carry a lot & find a lot. I3s provide endurance for deep space travel, a survival skill, remote survey & cheaper ruin exploration. I4L allows better derelicts that I recover & free fixes since I'm away from core for months at a time. I don't really want I2s or I5s. So I guess "space scrapper" is just skill blocked anyways? Tough luck, that's too bad?

[SonnaBanana]

Which is a fair counter-point. How much are people "wrapping"?

Plenty of people play with increased max level so a lot?

[Alex]

@IonDragonX: I fundamentally disagree with the premise that you must be able to pick every skill that could benefit a playstyle for that playstyle to be "supported". That's kind of like... say someone looked at the Path of Exile skill tree and said "well, you can't pick up every +Life node, so I guess you can't make a tanky character" or thereabouts.

[Wyvern]

For the record, I end up wrapping skills just about every time. All three of Combat/Leadership/Tech have a tier two selection where I really really want both.

For combat, it's Target Analysis that's basically mandatory if you're planning on shooting things that have armor, and Point Defense that I just really personally like having - especially the elite version; there are some PD guns that, imo, just don't work without that.

For Leadership, level two is a choice between one skill that buffs frigate packs, or a different skill that buffs frigate packs, and if you're going to use one it's probably worth trying to get both. (Though, admittedly, that's with L1R being very nearly a dead skill unless you're exploiting s-modding packages and then stripping militarization.)

For Tech, well, I like energy weapon mastery... but even for things that get good use of that, the extra range often makes the difference between something getting away with a sliver of health, or dying to that one last shot as it flees. Getting both is good; it helps that going for tech 7 really does not have any 'dead' levels at all.

[IonDragonX]

@Alex: Sure Alex, its your game. Make the fundamentals what you want them to be. You've been clear that the skill tree is not about classes and is not about getting all the skill picks that the player wants. (C'mon man, I did say want not must be able) I don't understand the PoE reference but that's ok, you made your point.
If Industry has "real" top-tier skills (as you say) which aren't in the literal top-tier, 5th, then what's the reason to keep Colony skills in Industry or even in the skill tree? Why not just throw them out and allow Story Points/gameplay elements imitate the benefits? Mercantile contacts might give the buff to output at the end of a successful contract or for SP investment. Military contacts might contract with your Shipworks to provide the +50%, etc

[Alex]

@Wyvern: Ah, that makes sense! (I did say "wrapping", but what I was thinking was "a full 10 points" - though the same thoughts/concerns apply to a lower >5 investment, just to a lesser degree.)

So I guess "space scrapper" is just skill blocked anyways? Tough luck, that's too bad?

(C'mon man, I did say want not must be able)

(Just for clarify, that's what I was referring to. It sounded like you felt that not being able to get all those skills made the playstyle be invalidated; apologies if I misinterpreted what you meant.)

If Industry has "real" top-tier skills (as you say) which aren't in the literal top-tier, 5th, then what's the reason to keep Colony skills in Industry or even in the skill tree? Why not just throw them out and allow Story Points/gameplay elements imitate the benefits? Mercantile contacts might give the buff to output at the end of a successful contract or for SP investment. Military contacts might contract with your Shipworks to provide the +50%, etc

Honestly, that's fair. But it doesn't necessarily feel like it'd necessarily be *better* - a different, but also viable way to go? And admins get colony skills, so it'd be kind of weird if you couldn't get those but they existed, etc etc...

Edit: you know, the more I think about this, the more I like it. Admins don't really *need* skills (taking another step back, do admins even need to exist?); Alpha Cores could still give you a bonus and feel more special, and there'd be more room to do cool things in both the Leadership and the Industry trees, without the colony skills both taking up space and causing awkwardness by their very existence. Hmm.

[Histidine]

I haven't wrapped in either of my two complete playthroughs, because after going wide (some points in every aptitude) I've used up all 15 of my skill points. In each playthrough, I've reached tier 5 in only one aptitude (tech first time, combat the second).

Quick thought on colony skills: I expect they'll be dead points for non-roleplayers as long as alpha admins are relatively abundant and safe to use.

[Alex]

Quick thought on colony skills: I expect they'll be dead points for non-roleplayers as long as alpha admins are relatively abundant and safe to use.

(Yep - though in theory Alpha Core admins should get some actual real downsides at some point... Aside from inspections.)

[SonnaBanana]

Quick thought on colony skills: I expect they'll be dead points for non-roleplayers as long as alpha admins are relatively abundant and safe to use.

(Yep - though in theory Alpha Core admins should get some actual real downsides at some point... Aside from inspections.)

And also an expensive skill to remove the downsides 
Or is it a job for story points?

[IonDragonX]

@Wyvern: Ah, that makes sense! (I did say "wrapping", but what I was thinking was "a full 10 points" - though the same thoughts/concerns apply to a lower >5 investment, just to a lesser degree.)

One thing that I would like to 'feel better' are choices over the 5th skill point (ie starting the same category again). You go from always having 2 choices to only having 1. That 'feels' pretty bad. It would really be nice if players had the choice between 2 again.
Ex: player already takes C1R,C2R,C3R,C4R&C5R
* 6th point > can be spent on C1L or C2L
* 7th > C3L or C4L
* 8th > C5L or a remainder
* 9th > remainder * 2
* 10th > finale

[Hiruma Kai]

Edit: This thread is moving fast.

The colony master type player ...
Personally, I don't see why colony skills are considered tier 5 worthy in the first place.  Doubly so for the ones in the fleet tree.  How is +25% colony fleet size and +30% access on a colony you potentially don't even have better than an extra skill buffing all your ships with officers?

Just wanted to comment on this real quick: they're there because they're out of the way. The "real" top-tier skills are in L4 and I4. I don't think "colony master" is really a thing; there's only 4 skills total that have to do with colonies. And as you say, colonies are profitable without skills. You can pick a few skills there if you want them, but you're not obligated to in order to get the good skills in I/L (unless you're planning to wrap).

Huh, I hadn't considered that angle.  Now that you say it that way, I can see how that design decision to put them at tier 5 came to be.  From my personal player perspective though, that is very non-intuitive and probably why I had not considered it before.

To me, the UI and mechanics seem to be telling me the further right you go, the more powerful or impact they have on a play style they are.  This seems to be true for tiers 1-4, and tiers 5 in the combat and technology trees.  Like, if I had come into the game without any Starsector experience, but experience in other games with skill tree like things, I would naturally assume the skills at the end of the tree are the most bang for your skill point, and that colonies in some way need these skills to be really, really good.  I'm hard pressed to think of another game where skills are put at the end of the tree in order to be out of the way, as opposed to something to look forward to more than earlier skills.

Which is a fair counter-point. How much are people "wrapping"? My assumption was that it would be a fairly rare thing. Incidentally - I'm now remembering - this is also why it felt reasonably alright to have Field Repairs and Derelict Contingent be contradictory, since the difference between I8 and I10 is basically just a "boring" colony skill.

Just to throw out more data points for you, I've had 3 iron man runs go to what I consider end game.  I went 8 points into combat and 7 into technology on my 1st run.  I wrapped the technology tree completely (all 10 points in technology) on my 2nd run.  3rd run I was a gimmick run, trying double shieldless Radiant, so that was a very specific requirement of L3, T5, and I4, so didn't lend itself to too much wrapping.

So, out of my games, 1/3 have had a tree wrapped 100% with all 10 skills in one tree - which was one of the wrap friendly trees, Technology.  2/3 had some form of wrapping.

I'm currently tempted to try combat 10, tech 5 on an Odyssey, or potentially a C7, T5, L3 with a Legion as end game flagship.

So, to repeat, colony skills are in tier 5 so that you mostly don't have to pick them if you don't want to. And in some cases they have some non-colony bonuses so e.g. if you're wrapping Leadership, you can at least pick Ground Operations that boosts your fleet in some way.

Fair enough.  I haven't been picking them, but I the two trees which are more wrap friendly have been more attractive to me personally.  I haven't been doing any heavy raiding for blueprints and the like, just enough for bar missions so the Ground Operations hasn't been much of a draw either.  I suppose I should try a wrapped leadership (frigate madness) run to see how it plays before commenting further.

I will admit, on my 3rd run using I1L and I3L, that the triple fuel range (1.5 x 2) on a frigate fleet plus 2 Radiants is kinda awesome.  I'm literally using a single dram, and my 178 DP worth of combat ships can basically go from my home system (14 LY from to Askonia) to any star in the sector and back.  And I stick damage control or reliability engineering on my officers fairly early, as they're solid skills as well.

Derelict contingent - well, you're aware of issues.   Personally, hull tanking feels a little too much like a gimmick, and without the faster repair skill/free repair skill in the opposite skill, somewhat lacking.  Waiting 10-12 days after a rough fight with the shield shunt radiants sets the combat cadence.  I miss d-mod specialized fleets combined with the fast repair and 20-40% CR recovery if they get truly destroyed and recovered.

(Yep - though in theory Alpha Core admins should get some actual real downsides at some point... Aside from inspections.)

This I totally agree with.

[Alex]

Huh, I hadn't considered that angle.  Now that you say it that way, I can see how that design decision to put them at tier 5 came to be.  From my personal player perspective though, that is very non-intuitive and probably why I had not considered it before.

To me, the UI and mechanics seem to be telling me the further right you go, the more powerful or impact they have on a play style they are.  This seems to be true for tiers 1-4, and tiers 5 in the combat and technology trees.  Like, if I had come into the game without any Starsector experience, but experience in other games with skill tree like things, I would naturally assume the skills at the end of the tree are the most bang for your skill point, and that colonies in some way need these skills to be really, really good.  I'm hard pressed to think of another game where skills are put at the end of the tree in order to be out of the way, as opposed to something to look forward to more than earlier skills.

Makes sense! Thank you (and everyone else) for the feedback re: your experience with wrapping, too.

Derelict contingent - well, you're aware of issues.   Personally, hull tanking feels a little too much like a gimmick, and without the faster repair skill/free repair skill in the opposite skill, somewhat lacking.  Waiting 10-12 days after a rough fight with the shield shunt radiants sets the combat cadence.  I miss d-mod specialized fleets combined with the fast repair and 20-40% CR recovery if they get truly destroyed and recovered.

Yep! FWIW, for .1 I'd like to have it go back to roughly how it worked before as far as junkfleets go. The new DC was a bit of an experiment, and it's not looking like it worked out.