Skills have to be designed such way, that a casual/new player can read AND understand them under one minute.
Keep in mind, there is about 25 skills to choose from (it means 25 minutes to read them, which sounds intimidating anyway, right ?) When a new player opens that screen, see the wall of text explaining each skill by use of specific words and math relations, next think he will do is, press uninstall and say all friends that this wierd game for accountants.
I'll point out 4 Aptitudes (Combat, Leadership, Technology, Industry) times 10 skills each is 40 skills, not 25, so a brand new player, if they want to understand the paths, and took 1 minute to understand each skill, it'd be 40 minutes. However, to understand the benefits of the skills requires actually being familiar with the game mechanics itself. For example, is +2 flux per OP spent a lot from Ordinance Expertise? Or is a small amount little? Is having 2 more officers better than having officers which are 1 level higher?
Realizing Ordinance Expertise helps low tech capital ships percentage wise more than high tech destroyers and cruisers means being familiar with the ships themselves. Knowing which officer skill to take depends on knowing the benefits and drawbacks of using smaller but more numerous ships.
For me, the general concept behind Energy Weapon Mastery is much easier to assess and understand it's value than something like the Tier 2 leadership skills or Neural Link (whose only math presented is instant switching threshold). Energy Weapon Mastery gives you a bigger damage bonus at high flux and close range. The exact bonus you get at any one time doesn't need to be calculated by the player on the fly. The game does that and applies it. If the player wants more bonus, they should simply get closer or let their flux ride higher. Whether the bonus is meaningful or significant can't be determined from the skill itself however, as it requires understanding of the rest of the game and how it fits in.
I submit that the time spent parsing the text of the skills is trivial compared to the time necessary to actually understand how that fits into the game. If these hypothetical new players have issues with Energy Weapon Mastery, how are they going to deal with the fitting screen, which has no less than 11 numbers displayed, with tool tips throwing on 25 (ship tool tip) and drop down menus filled with dozens of weapons or fighters which each have 9+ numbers defining them, along with some vague descriptions like poor or perfect.
Understanding whether your ships are actually benefiting from Energy Weapon Mastery means actually watching how your AI ships behave. And knowing that you want Aggressive or Reckless to force the ships in closer, rather than staying at their max range, to get benefit out of Energy Weapon Mastery. I'm guessing, although maybe Alex will correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt the ship AI takes into account whether it has Energy Weapon Mastery in determining it's positioning and how high it wants it's flux level to go - which unfortunately means the only way to really leverage the skill on officers is either put it on a frigate, a non-ITU destroyer, or an SO cruiser (which conveniently prevents venting, so they'll likely be at higher flux for longer) The AI capitals and long range cruisers won't use it properly. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the AI is aware of the Ballistic Mastery range bonus when determining how close to get.
So I think the stronger argument to simplify Energy Weapon Mastery is to make it so the larger non-SO AI ships get as much benefit out of it as they get out of Ballistic Mastery. Right now, it is pushing you towards SO AI ships, simply because those ships naturally fall into the right parameter space to benefit. Simpler skills means easier to code AI to take advantage of the skills.
About skill design and UI presentation in general, I'm for making the underlying numbers available, even if you have to click on a "?", hover over an icon, or hit F1. I suppose you could overhaul the skill screen such that it gives succinct description, and you press F1 to see a full mathematical breakdown of what that actually means. But if you restrict yourself to skills which don't affect numbers, you're going to have a very short list of possible skills in a game that is all about numbers.
I guess removing the range restriction would make it simpler too. How can the player guess on the fly if his weapon at any given moment will get the full or any damage bonus from Energy Mastery? (Pressing T on target then trying to read tiny numbers which one or both ships are zipping around like bugs in a shooter game takes too much time and is not an option when I need to act in a fraction of a second.)
If you're aware of your maximum range of your weapons, including any bonuses, then you can eyeball a percentage of your weapon range graphic in combat. If you happen to know your ITU+Gunnery Implant Pulse Laser on your cruiser has a range of 930, then 600 is roughly 2/3 of the length of the range/arc graphic. If you're at half the length, you're definitely within range. Keep in mind, the ship distance reported by targeting the ship is from ship center to ship center which can be wildly off for the weapon to shield distance, which is why you need to use the range bands. If I have a Tempest shield touching the shield of an Atlas, the distance reported is about 395 units, despite the weapon to shield distance probably being more like 50.
