And most importantly, enemy doesn't care about losses. You don't just have to win fights, you have to win without any significant losses. If AI blew up one of your cruisers and it got 2 d-mods, you lost. Doesn't matter if the end battle screen says otherwise.
This is a reason why I love Hull Restoration. It is not guaranteed, but there is a good chance ships get recovered without any lasting damage. It makes casualties acceptable.
The problem with it is if I want to use solo flagship (Ziggurat), then Hull Restoration is good mostly for the +5% CR per s-mod, although being able to recover and repair Remnant ships if I happen to have Automated Ships (or other ships if I fight human bounties) is nice too.
Overall, I agree on the "you lost" point. The game is balanced on player getting flawless victories. Without Hull Restoration, I usually reload the game immediately when one of my ships blow up (because I just lost all profit I would get from combat). With Hull Restoration, casualties become acceptable.
I guess Derelict Operations would thrive on d-mods, but I never liked playing with clunkers, so I doubt I will ever touch that skill. All ships in my fleet must be pristine.
I am not too fond that the premium QoL skill is a capstone Industry skill. It is somewhat tolerable that the tier 2 Industry skills are strong. Ordnance Expert is obvious, and elite Polarized Armor is great for flagships that want to vent spam (although it is also must-have for armor tanks without shields).
Enemy ships now have mostly good loadouts and s-mods, so you can't gain an advantage there either. And both fleets use the same braindead AI that can't even remotely cope with being outnumbered, which the player always is, unlike the enemy fleets.
s-mods on enemies seem limited to special fleets (mercs, infamous phase fleet, Omega bounty). I do not see any on the random non-merc fleets, Ordos or otherwise. And that one unique Omega bounty is not harder than a multi-Ordos fight.
I would disagree with this. I’m very good at combat but when comparing the benefits of adding Support Doctrine (with my 10 unofficered ships) vs. Ballistic Mastery for my flagship, the impact of the former is magnitudes higher than the latter. And this a real choice the game gives you. All Tier 0 Combat Skills ultimately compete with T3/T4/T5 skills for your skill points.
I agree for some ships. If I do not have Omega missiles for Ziggurat, elite Point Defense and Ballistic Mastery are more valuable to me than either Systems Expertise or Missile Spec. Only if I get Omega missiles that I respec and grab Missile Spec. (to make up for not enough Omega missiles to fill all mounts.)
Meanwhile, for other trees, capstones are better than lower skills. Combat is an exception, aside from specific ships. (System Expertise is game-changer for Doom and Radiant. Missile Specialization for Gryphon or anything with Omega missiles.)