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[Amoebka]

It's less about the fear of losing ships, and more about the fact that feeding d-modded junk to an alpha core triple s-mod Radiant one by one isn't going to achieve anything. Density of power matters a lot in lategame, which is exacly why leadership skills are so dominant - they allow you to cram more power into the same amount of DP.

[bob888w]

If you are willing to touch respecing, then Id say taking early game campaign qol from tech and industry  in order to get the economy to sustain bounty fleet, before resppecing into combat or leadership to win fights has been pretty normal in my playthroughs

[Megas]

I'd imagine losing even one ship is considered a "failure" by most players.

When the value of the ship lost exceeds the bounty reward, I consider the fight a defeat (because I want to maintain pristine no d-mod fleet at all times).  This is why I love Hull Restoration, because that changes the victory threshold from flawless (or one small ship killed late) to lose maybe several ships (if they all are recovered without any d-mods).  A huge QoL boost.  Unfortunately, this is not as good as a build that reliably avoids casualties.

Credit costs may be less useful with Ordos since players want loot or story points instead but killing human bounties is mostly about credits (and maybe rep too).

It's less about the fear of losing ships, and more about the fact that feeding d-modded junk to an alpha core triple s-mod Radiant one by one isn't going to achieve anything. Density of power matters a lot in lategame, which is exacly why leadership skills are so dominant - they allow you to cram more power into the same amount of DP.

In case of BotB, it also lets the player outright deploy more ships (200 DP instead of 160 DP) right at the start that cannot be taken away (by enemy stealing your objectives).  The YouTube slayer fleets that use BotB have the numbers (and elite officers and three s-mods) to do their job right at the start.  The only other more ships skills reduce DP costs, and those use less powerful ships (no officers for Support Doc. or d-mods for Derelict Ops.)

If you are willing to touch respecing, then Id say taking early game campaign qol from tech and industry  in order to get the economy to sustain bounty fleet, before resppecing into combat or leadership to win fights has been pretty normal in my playthroughs

I want to avoid respec as much as I can.  The only time I did it was to change s-mods on Ziggurat from ITU to Expanded Missile Racks (after I collected enough AMSRMs and Resonators from Omega ships) by toggling BotB on, get third s-mod on Z, then off (and remove ITU).  I dislike spending story points without refund.  Only when I can kill endgame fleets with +500% xp do I consider story point gain acceptably fast and I am more willing to consider spending them on temporary no-refund uses like skills and officers.  I still plan to sink hundreds of story points on multiple improvements on five or six of my colonies, and I do not want to waste story points on other stuff like skills, officers, and fleets.  2^n costs are a royal pain.

[intrinsic_parity]

One story point once to respec from early game QOL to late game combat power is basically nothing in the grand scheme of things. That's what I do.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Well, to be fair, it is a proposed alternate playstyle, so it doesn't have to be for everyone.  Also, depending on what ships we are talking about, retreat can be an option instead of fight till destroyed.

56 story points (level 15) is enough to outfit 18 ships with 3 s-mods.  So if you wanted to throw 3 Paragons at a time, and have the +2 officer skill on the way to Best of the Best, combined with Hull Restoration, you could throw 11 officered or captained Paragons at the enemy no problem and still have 3 story points left over (33 s-mods, 10 mentors, 10 elite skills).  Maybe swap a Paragon for an Astral and get the fighter benefits (which are fighter bay based instead of overall DP).

Although - chain deployment for the character means you could apply those combat skills to more ships.

That actually is an interesting point about combat skills that is different than just more officers.  Combat skills can apply to more than one ship in a given fight.  Most likely multiple SO ships as their PPT/CR runs out before the fight finishes.  Start the fight in one SO Hyperion and end in a 2nd.

Ye olde chain deployment from bygone releases.

IF you never use story points on colonies/historian that is.

[Szasz]

I kind of get what Megas is saying. All the late-game enemies are Elite so in order to level the playing field, you feel compelled to dip into personal Combat skills. That said, all late-game enemies that could potentially dunk on you with their skills are entirely optional. I think that gets missed in some of this conversation. If you're fighting full Ordos with 4-5 Alpha Core ships in it, you brought this on yourself. Those Remnants didn't hunt you down. Same goes for Zigg or Doritos. All of these fights are meant to be challenges.

So if I'm going to fight a super-ship with an Omega core in it, how is that any different than a boss fight in another game where the boss clearly out-classes you? Isn't that the point of most boss fights: to use your superior skill to overcome a superior opponent? Now the real question is how "fun" is the challenge. Last patch's Ordos that had your EWM buried to -20% range was patently un-fun and got adjusted. I don't think fighting Ordos currently is "un-fun" despite the challenge. Fighting the Omegas are also "fun" because of how different they are and because they use non-standard weaponry. But I know they're a challenge.

Crooked logic, they are not optional.
Redacted fleets always lock content. In case of Ordos it is sometimes the only good system in the sector for colonisation but at the least valuable planets and ruins+loot. In case of doritos it is next tier weapons, ironically the ones you likely need to defeat both fleet types in question. As of now they are the end game. Most players do not quit a game at -lets say- 80% completion and leaving out content deliberately thinking they have finished the whole game.

[blainedeyoung]

I don't think you should be required to choose between leadership skills and combat skills.  If it were my game, I'd give a bonus skill every 3 levels that can only be used on piloted ship skills starting with one at 1st level.  At 15th level, you'd have six combat skills just like your officers.  Alternatively, you could make those skills purchasable with a story point.  Either way, you'd probably want to remove them from the established skill hierarchy. 

[Nick9]

Necessity of choice in between QoL & logistic and military skills is... not good for me. But it's also ok for me to not care about it since there's a settings file ^_^
But talking in general... Picking single ship skills seems like a bad investment in the future.

[Nick9]

I don't think you should be required to choose between leadership skills and combat skills.  If it were my game, I'd give a bonus skill every 3 levels that can only be used on piloted ship skills starting with one at 1st level.  At 15th level, you'd have six combat skills just like your officers.  Alternatively, you could make those skills purchasable with a story point.  Either way, you'd probably want to remove them from the established skill hierarchy.

Btw agree, but (as for temporary now and you personally) the implementation of your idea is also possible by console commands, or... maybe it would work with the settings file? Could we put, like, 1.3334 skills per level in it, have someone tested this?

[Grievous69]

There is probably another response like this somewhere in the thread but you gotta remember each system has its ups and downs. Ok let's say that each player gets awarded a combat skill every 3rd level like you said. Now those folks, whose playstyle is letting fights complete themselves and just command from a carrier, have useless skills. On the other hand, combat maniacs (like me) who enjoy having a powerful flagship, simply won't be satisfied with a limited amount of personal skills. So basically the only people that benefit from such a system are those who prefer a balanced approach, and they're probably already playing the game like that.

Conclusion is that forcing players to choose a specific set of skills is not a good tradeoff for the benefit of having less pressure to pick certain skills (which imo doesn't exist, you just value skills based on your potential effectiveness to use them, as in every other RPG).

[FooF]

Again, I think this is where mission-based/earned Skill Points could come into play. You get your 15 via XP but then there would be a very limited number of opportunities to earn a Tree-specific Skill point (can only be used in Leadership, for example). Would those become mandatory? I mean, if it’s super-involved, then I might turn down an Industry skill point but I’d probably always take Leadership, Combat or Tech.

Since they’re earned, and optional, if you feel like you really need that one skill, it’s a way to get it and hopefully have fun along the way.

[BCS]

Some time ago I got kind of bored with waiting for the patch and I edited settings.json to increase level cap to 40 in my current game. I know that some things in the game are scaled with your level so I expected wacky things to start happening(spoiler: they didn't, in fact I hardly noticed any changes at all)

And at least speaking from the no-flagship perspective, the most valuable skillpoints were the ones at level 16 and 17. In fact by level 20 I had pretty much every single skill I could ever possibly want for a flagship-less fleet. The remaining 20 levels/skillpoints did basically nothing. So for me the current limit of 15 is basically perfect, it's enough to allow for variety of builds while still being restrictive enough to make you think hard about what to get.

I guess I could see the potential in giving out "free" combat skills. That wouldn't make me start piloting a ship, but I could simply treat my character as an extra free low level officer, shove them somewhere then just press Autopilot when the battle starts.

[WhisperDSP]

…by level 20 I had pretty much every single skill I could ever possibly want for a flagship-less fleet.

A week ago I set my level cap to 20, figuring that would be enough for my armchair-General style of play. It is good to have my assessment confirmed.

[blainedeyoung]

each system has its ups and downs. Ok let's say that each player gets awarded a combat skill every 3rd level like you said. Now those folks, whose playstyle is letting fights complete themselves and just command from a carrier, have useless skills. On the other hand, combat maniacs (like me) who enjoy having a powerful flagship, simply won't be satisfied with a limited amount of personal skills. So basically the only people that benefit from such a system are those who prefer a balanced approach, and they're probably already playing the game like that.

I didn't say the player should be forbidden from spending their regular skills on combat skills.  There are many more than six useful piloted ship only skills. 

[SCC]

One issue with giving free flagship skills is that power ceiling is now potentially raised by flagship skills no longer being optional (because they would be guaranteed).