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[Sutopia]

System expertise is currently a weird skill that the effectiveness varies widely between target hull.
Some hull that benefit from all four attributes essentially becomes demigod by taking this skill alone.
I’m proposing a new implementation in hope of equalizing the power increment by a single skill while keeping the skill interesting and powerful.

If system has non-regenerating charges: +100% max charges
If system has regenerating charges: +50% regenerating rate
If system doesn’t have charges and have fixed active duration: active duration+50%
If system doesn’t benefit from any of the above: -50% flux generated from using ship system

Elite effect:
If ship system has range: +50% range
Otherwise: -33% ship system cooldown time

[Wyvern]

Hm.

...You know, if I were trying to balance this skill, I might take a page out of Interstellar Imperium's book, and just have the skill description say "Improves ship systems, typically by reducing cooldowns or improving regeneration rates", and then have each individual ship system be responsible for determining what the actual effect is.

And then you could have, say, things like "Improved Fortress Shields: Halves the system activation time, triples shield unfold rate while active" that would just not make sense as bonuses to any other ship system.

[Sutopia]

How do I know how much benefit I get from the skill at the character window? If it’s case-by-case implementation I imagine you’ll need to look up the info of hull in question.

[Burvjradzite]

I like how it is as a whole. This skill alone boosts officered ships and tactics that involves many officers. If there problems in the balance i think it is better to just slightly correct specific ship systems interactions with this skill, like bombs from doom or maybe dampening field. Harbringer and afflictor shines with it, but it doesn't really make them OP. Skimmer becomes more annoying that's all. Astral nowadays just can't breathe without it. 100% increased system time would be a huge buff to scarab, and as a whole more unbalancing.

[Sutopia]

I like how it is as a whole. This skill alone boosts officered ships and tactics that involves many officers. If there problems in the balance i think it is better to just slightly correct specific ship systems interactions with this skill, like bombs from doom or maybe dampening field. Harbringer and afflictor shines with it, but it doesn't really make them OP. Skimmer becomes more annoying that's all. Astral nowadays just can't breathe without it. 100% increased system time would be a huge buff to scarab, and as a whole more unbalancing.

Is that the only number in question? I was thinking maneuverable jet on conquest.
I wouldn’t mind reducing it to 50%
The exact goal as you said is to nerf doom from quad dipping the skill while elite effect served little good and is rather lackluster as a capstone skill.

I strongly disagree with any case-by-case adjustment. It signals the skill itself have serious conceptual flaw.

[Megas]

I like how it is as a whole. This skill alone boosts officered ships and tactics that involves many officers. If there problems in the balance i think it is better to just slightly correct specific ship systems interactions with this skill, like bombs from doom or maybe dampening field. Harbringer and afflictor shines with it, but it doesn't really make them OP. Skimmer becomes more annoying that's all. Astral nowadays just can't breathe without it. 100% increased system time would be a huge buff to scarab, and as a whole more unbalancing.

I rather have the skill disappear than the ship system ruined without the skill.  I do not want to see ships nerfed just so that it is balanced with the skill, when the skill is a capstone (and something player will not have until he invests heavily into combat and does not want missile specialization instead).  Better for ships to be good out-of-the-box, not weak unless they have a skill to correct deficiencies.  I rather have skills be a bonus, not a band-aid to raise combat unworthy ships to basic competence.

It is better for elite to be a bit underwhelming so that it is not must-have and player does not bleed more story points if or when he respecs.  The only time elite should have great things is if the AI would be annoying with it if that bonus was commonplace, like ECM rating for -20% shot range (before rc14).

[Sutopia]

I like how it is as a whole. This skill alone boosts officered ships and tactics that involves many officers. If there problems in the balance i think it is better to just slightly correct specific ship systems interactions with this skill, like bombs from doom or maybe dampening field. Harbringer and afflictor shines with it, but it doesn't really make them OP. Skimmer becomes more annoying that's all. Astral nowadays just can't breathe without it. 100% increased system time would be a huge buff to scarab, and as a whole more unbalancing.

I rather have the skill disappear than the ship system ruined without the skill.  I do not want to see ships nerfed just so that it is balanced with the skill, when the skill is a capstone (and something player will not have until he invests heavily into combat and does not want missile specialization instead).  Better for ships to be good out-of-the-box, not weak unless they have a skill to correct deficiencies.  I rather have skills be a bonus, not a band-aid to raise combat unworthy ships to basic competence.

It is better for elite to be a bit underwhelming so that it is not must-have and player does not bleed more story points if or when he respecs.  The only time elite should have great things is if the AI would be annoying with it if that bonus was commonplace, like ECM rating for -20% shot range (before rc14).

I think 50% range is not particularly strong as it corresponds to +50% speed on missile side. Cooldown reduction is debatable, though. There is no certain hull that would seem broken atm imo as there are not many circumstances you would need to activate the system on cooldown.

[Burvjradzite]

I like how it is as a whole. This skill alone boosts officered ships and tactics that involves many officers. If there problems in the balance i think it is better to just slightly correct specific ship systems interactions with this skill, like bombs from doom or maybe dampening field. Harbringer and afflictor shines with it, but it doesn't really make them OP. Skimmer becomes more annoying that's all. Astral nowadays just can't breathe without it. 100% increased system time would be a huge buff to scarab, and as a whole more unbalancing.

I rather have the skill disappear than the ship system ruined without the skill.  I do not want to see ships nerfed just so that it is balanced with the skill, when the skill is a capstone (and something player will not have until he invests heavily into combat and does not want missile specialization instead).  Better for ships to be good out-of-the-box, not weak unless they have a skill to correct deficiencies.  I rather have skills be a bonus, not a band-aid to raise combat unworthy ships to basic competence.

It is better for elite to be a bit underwhelming so that it is not must-have and player does not bleed more story points if or when he respecs.  The only time elite should have great things is if the AI would be annoying with it if that bonus was commonplace, like ECM rating for -20% shot range (before rc14).

I do not meant to nerf doom bombs whatsoever. Just adjusting the taken effect of skill on that particular ship system.

[Retry]

Hm.

...You know, if I were trying to balance this skill, I might take a page out of Interstellar Imperium's book, and just have the skill description say "Improves ship systems, typically by reducing cooldowns or improving regeneration rates", and then have each individual ship system be responsible for determining what the actual effect is.

And then you could have, say, things like "Improved Fortress Shields: Halves the system activation time, triples shield unfold rate while active" that would just not make sense as bonuses to any other ship system.

I like II's upgrades, but one thing of critical importance is that those system upgrades take place as just one component of an entire package that changes the base hull's play style.  That's the main reason why the package enhancements are as interesting and work as well as they do.

I'm not fond of stretching that idea to System Expertise though, which is more intended as a general buff to ship systems in a game where very few things otherwise enhance them.  The way it currently does things is fairly universal and applies to most mod systems as well; only a few very-specific systems (certain toggle-based systems such as Fortress Shields) receive absolutely no benefits from it, and even that specific case can be solved with a "generic" buff.

Plus, the way the current system enhancement implementation is done right now, one can make additional ways to generally buff ship systems, such as through a hullmod or a ship system that bestows similar benefits to allied ships within range (or conversely: impedes the performance of systems of hostile ships caught within range)

Only thing System Expertise needs is the precise numbers on certain attributes checked (namely +50% range and charge rate) and the introduction of a parameter which reduces flux use on ship systems that have them, to make it a bit more universal.

[Amoebka]

I like my +1 charge on phase skimmer ships.

The skill is perfectly fine, stop dancing around and nerf Doom directly. You people will nerf everything before you touch your sacred cow.

[SCC]

I find it funny Ziggurat and Paragon, one of the strongest ships in the game, don't benefit from Systems Expertise. The strongest ship in the game, Doom, does benefit a lot from it, though.

[KDR_11k]

I think as a starting point too many ships have boring, low impact systems that barely matter so a huge buff from the skill doesn't make them powerful either while a handful have high impact systems that change the way the ship is played and become OP from the massive buffs given by the skill.

For the Doom, how about replacing the charges with making the ship spawn all the mines at once? Without charges the skill can't increase the mine count.

[Megas]

Doom was more or less fine until Systems Expertise and elite Phase Mastery came.  Doom does not need to be nerfed to be a cruiser when phase ships were designed to punch like a ship class above.  (Doom last release functioned like a capital.)

I rather have unskilled Doom be strong than a nerfed Doom requiring skills to be strong.

With carriers nerfed to oblivion, if phase ships get nerfed to the point where they need skills to be competent, then the game will encourage mono-fleets because player will need to specialize to be competent in one class of ships, or just weak if he took mostly non-combat skills like all of Industry.

A Doom that does not take System Expertise and elite Phase Mastery (which were not available last release) is as strong yet not too overpowered just like last release.  With the new skills, it is too strong.

[bobucles]

Doom was always very powerful. It could obliterate flight squadrons when carriers were king, and it has what might be the most lethal subsystem in the game. Getting 50% more of the best thing is obviously going to be crazy good.

[Megas]

Doom was always very powerful. It could obliterate flight squadrons when carriers were king, and it has what might be the most lethal subsystem in the game. Getting 50% more of the best thing is obviously going to be crazy good.

More range so it can snipe with mines like Paragon can snipe with lances.  More everything else so I can spam them almost non-stop.  It needs no other weapons.

I am okay with mines nuking fighters because Doom's PD capability without mines is not that great.  If I try to fight with Harbinger, I need to run if I see fighters.  With Doom, I need to drop a mine and fighters go boom if I aim right.

It was strong, but it did not outperform a capital (until now with new skills).  Mines were most of its firepower, while a real capital can pummel whatever with big guns (and maybe missiles for some of them).  Also, a real capital had much more PPT.  Doom in a fleet of big ships was among the first ships to run out of PPT and need to be retreated.