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[Big Bee]

I think the Industry tree is kind of a problem, cause I feel like it's pretty much mandatory to take logistics skills. That said, I do tend to explore a lot.

Halving fuel and supply costs is insanely useful for expeditions, to the level where it feels like I have to take them. Extra storage is also good but isn't really vital. Hull Restoration is cool, but I feel like it only really feels important when playing modded, with all those bounties and unique exploration ships floating around. In vanilla you can replace all ships except like 1 so it's not a big deal. The planet governing one is also very useful, it's not vital but it is another one of those skills that you can't really replace, it's the only way to govern +1 world without using AI cores IIRC.

I think it mostly comes down to what only you can do as opposed to an officer. Only you can take logistics skills while combat skills can also be used by AI officers.

[SCC]

Before the skill overhaul, baseline number of officers was 4. Getting 8 or 10 of them wasn't expected, but a significant investment by itself (for the NPCs, who could iirc only get 1 fleetwide skill). Only the Remnants could hope to spam officers like crazy, but those officers were still only as strong as human ones and their AI wasn't as relentless.
Now 8 officers is simply the baseline and you (and more importantly, the NPCs) can get as many as you want with officers. Remnants are more aggressive and alpha cores I would say are as good as the player, since they have enough skill points to get all the important skills, and they can pick and choose them with no other limitations.

My own experience is that top player performance is similar to what it was before, but the average ship is now stronger, which means you have to rely on your fleet more than previously against stronger challenges.

I think the Industry tree is kind of a problem, cause I feel like it's pretty much mandatory to take logistics skills. That said, I do tend to explore a lot.

Industry is superfluous even for exploration, but it has three decent uses: you get it for Hull Restoration early game to bring home a few combat hulls you found in the wild, you get Derelict Operations for the carrier/missile spam, or you get Field Repairs and one or both of the combat skills.

[kenwth81]

How do you disagree with someone's playstyle? If I'm playing the game wrong, I must be bloody good at it to not have any issues. Again, you can't disagree with something subjective. You come to a dinner, someone makes you a meal, everything is good, and then you say "No no you made it all wrong." even though the final product is the same.

Am I talking about someone's playstyle? You can go skillless for a challenge if you want. If we are discussing which is stronger. We need facts not opinions. You don't avoid telling people facts because people don't want to hear it. I played combat and non-combat builds. Some of my builds are *** but it is ok.

[Grievous69]

For the last time, you can't discuss which is stronger since player skill HEAVILY increases the value of personal skills. Not all players are good, not all players are bad. There is no fact to be stated here.

[Nimiety]

You don't need to invest heavily into the red tree to have a powerful flag ship so the idea that you have to pick the red tree and only have enough points for one other tree is really weird. Just... take a few skills, and don't bother getting a capstone? It's really easy? That's why the tree is so open, only two tiers! So you can dip into it juust a bit and get the one or two skills you need?

Two skills from red, gunnery implants from blue, ordnance expertise from yellow and congrats, you're a level 4 officer. Probably cruising around in a 2-3 Smod ship too, right? So a level 6-7 officer, power-wise, maybe even with more than one elite combat skill, you dirty cheater, you.
With 11 more levels to put into leadership, more industry, or tech as you like, where is the problem with the levelling system, because I don't see it :p

[kenwth81]

For the last time, you can't discuss which is stronger since player skill HEAVILY increases the value of personal skills. Not all players are good, not all players are bad. There is no fact to be stated here.

Sure, my conjecture then. But if we get a bunch of highly skilled players to fight each other in simulated battles with different builds, we could know for sure. I just need to prove the thesis.

[smithney]

Not sure why this mentality started being so common.

Perhaps it's because more content has been added for players whose enjoyment doesn't come primarily from piloting. At the same time, there is really no necessity to learn piloting, so players like me just focus on the rest of the content. Piloting is hard and the combat can be fun even without it. At the same time, it feels intuitive to invest into fleetwide skills because they sound like force multipliers, while I can imagine a new player not wanting to multiply their own impact of they feel like it won't be significant enough.

[Maeleth]

I think the Industry tree is kind of a problem, cause I feel like it's pretty much mandatory to take logistics skills.

I completely disagree with this statement. In my experience money is never an issue in Starsector, and you can always carry more supplies/fuel/crew, always free to add extra ships to carry goods or have a stacking survey discount, and colonize as may worlds as you desire.

For example, even if I handicap myself in early game (no Galatia stipend, no commission, no black market trading, no raiding, etc.) to have a rough start, yellow skills feel "okay" at most, usually just "meh" or "why would I take that instead of something that gives my fleet advantage in only thing that presents any challenge at all and cannot be solved by adding more stuff to your fleet, namely combat". Usually an answer to every logistical issue early-mid game is "bring more Shepherds".
 And if simply playing a regular game, they become complete and utter garbage. Want more storage space, loot, repair rate or burn speed? Bring an extra specialized vessel or, you know, install a few hullmods. Most of them are rather cheap in OP and can be installed on civvy ships.

Although Derelict Operations exists, I must admit, and that thing is absolutely nuts if properly built around. But that is rather extreme case of specialized playthrough based on metagame knowledge and isn't fun for most players.

[Zaizai]

If you really want the Combat skills, just get them then? Not a single part of the game requires you to have heavily invested fleet skills. Not sure why this mentality started being so common. The end game fleets are hard true, but that's the whole point of them. For a long time people complained the game is too easy. If you find such fights annoying, you can simply avoid them. And if you like many skills and think they could be super useful for you, then the system is doing exactly what it needs. Because picking skills when the max level is capped makes for meaningful picks. Otherwise I wouldn't care what I choose since I can get everything eventually, and that sounds mega boring.

Thankfully as others mentioned, 'tis a single player game. No one will report you for cheating.

That's not the point of my argument, the point is that the low amount of skillpoints forces you to either have many fun builds but being a weak pilot, or be a great pilot with boring builds. 
I know I can cheat, that's not the point...I can mod myself a tac laser that does 9999 damage, modding and cheating doesn't solve anything other that making me feel sick about myself.

[Megas]

I think the Industry tree is kind of a problem, cause I feel like it's pretty much mandatory to take logistics skills. That said, I do tend to explore a lot.

Halving fuel and supply costs is insanely useful for expeditions, to the level where it feels like I have to take them. Extra storage is also good but isn't really vital.  Hull Restoration is cool, but I feel like it only really feels important when playing modded, with all those bounties and unique exploration ships floating around. In vanilla you can replace all ships except like 1 so it's not a big deal. The planet governing one is also very useful, it's not vital but it is another one of those skills that you can't really replace, it's the only way to govern +1 world without using AI cores IIRC.

I think it mostly comes down to what only you can do as opposed to an officer. Only you can take logistics skills while combat skills can also be used by AI officers.

Early Industry is fine for combat.  Tier 1 Industry does nothing in combat, but tier 2 industry combat is strong, which makes up for non-combat tier 1.  For high Industry, Derelict Operations may be strong enough for compensate for non-combat tier 3, but Hull Restoration definitely is not.

Industrial Planning is very convenient for a no AI core run.  Aside from +1 to commodities the player will likely need, it also boosts how much the player can build in a month.  (Not so great when player has locked in his final fleet or the ships he wants cannot be built.)  IP on player means four to six planets have +1.  Without it, only 3 planets do (from IP admins), and the player can only afford IP admins late when colony income is high enough to support them.  Still, it would be nice if IP (and other tier 3 yellow) had some direct in-combat powers for the fleet.

Hull Restoration is convenient, but for campaign purposes, it is useful mostly for d-mod prevention when ships die (which is not as good as not letting them die).  For repairing ships that already have d-mods, it is not fast enough if player gets more d-mods faster than they are removed, perhaps because player is recovering a lot of enemy ships (especially if they cannot be bought or built).  For combat, it is no better than Crew Training, and only if player took BotB for the full +15%.  Without BotB, Hull Restoration is worse than Crew Training, and player paid an extra skill point for the privilege because he needed to take another non-combat Industry skilll to unlock the capstone.  For Hull Restoration to be capstone-worthy, it needs more combat power or have its ship restoration campaign powers boosted to the point where player can take constantly take heavy casualties and not care about it because either d-mod prevention is absolute and guaranteed and/or restoring ships is dirt cheap and fast.  Currently, Hull Restoration does not reliably block d-mods, and removing more than a few d-mods is slow and you get no discount with Restore in the refit screen.  Hull Restoration only supports minor or occasional casualties, not frequent or massive losses.

People say Derelict Ops is at least as good as a Leadership capstone for combat.  Hull Restoration is merely an alternative Crew Training, in terms of in-combat power, the player overpays for.

While logistics skills are not required, they make the campaign less annoying.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

For combat, it is no better than Crew Training, and only if player took BotB for the full +15%.  Without BotB, Hull Restoration is worse than Crew Training, and player paid an extra skill point for the privilege because he needed to take another non-combat Industry skilll to unlock the capstone.  For Hull Restoration to be capstone-worthy, it needs more combat power or have its ship restoration campaign powers boosted to the point where player can take constantly take heavy casualties and not care about it because either d-mod prevention is absolute and guaranteed and/or restoring ships is dirt cheap and fast.

The thing about Hull Restoration/BotB is that it allows your officers to skip Combat Endurance, since a ship with three S-mods is already at 100% CR even without an officer and CR over 100% does nothing. So you can think of it as an additional skill for your officers, which is pretty strong. Even if you don't have BotB you can get 95% CR this way so it works out pretty much the same.

[Megas]

The thing about Hull Restoration/BotB is that it allows your officers to skip Combat Endurance, since a ship with three S-mods is already at 100% CR even without an officer and CR over 100% does nothing. So you can think of it as an additional skill for your officers, which is pretty strong. Even if you don't have BotB you can get 95% CR this way so it works out pretty much the same.

But that combat bonus alone is not worth a capstone, just another tier 1 skill (at the full +15%, less if only +10%).  The campaign part is convenient, but mostly useful early (when player has limited money and spends a lot of time traveling) and not late (when campaign concerns are less relevant, and speed is more important).

Reading the posts about Derelict Ops, player not concerned about min-maxing d-mods can take all the casualties he wants and not care beyond excess crew loss.  Hull Restoration does not have that carelessness capability despite the mitigation it has.  Fleets that take frequent and/or heavy casualties usually get d-mods, even if less of them, and one d-mod removed per month is not fast enough when my collection constantly has more than a dozen d-mods waiting to be removed at a given moment and I can easily get more d-mods (by recovering enemy ships, buying clunkers at shops, or building some at Orbital Works without a forge, if nothing else) at least as fast as others get removed, meaning I still need to Restore (or Scuttle and build another if it is a human ship) if I do not want to wait game months or years to fix all the damage.  Restore at refit would be less of a concern if Hull Restoration gave significant cost discount.

[SCC]

Not sure why this mentality started being so common.

Remnants are now less susceptible to a single ship doing the majority of the work and I made Alex nerf phase ships. Combined with higher officer saturation, flagship skills have less comparative advantage over fleetwides. People would rather buff what they know works, than invest time into trying more flagship-centred playstyle work.

[Hiruma Kai]

That's not the point of my argument, the point is that the low amount of skillpoints forces you to either have many fun builds but being a weak pilot, or be a great pilot with boring builds. 

To me that looks like variety catering to different playstyles.  For me, a great pilot is a fun build, and I'm not sure what it means the rest of my ships have a "boring" build?  I mean, I can take 7 combat skills and still have a bunch of automated alpha core ships.  Or I can have 10 level 6 human officers with 3 s-mod ships.  Or I suppose even 3 s-mod alpha core ships. I can take 7 combat skills and have a Derelict Operations + Support Doctrine Fleet spamming missiles and fighters.  I can have pristine ships I don't care if they get blown up once in a while with 100% CR with BotB + Hull Restoration. 

Can you give a description of two fun fleets and two boring fleets, and how they differ qualitatively (not raw numbers but what they look and feel like to play)?  So like the rough list of ships in the fleet and skill selection highlights?  That might help clarify what we're talking about and what is possible within the current skill limits and what is needed to reach your desired capability.

I completely disagree with this statement. In my experience money is never an issue in Starsector, and you can always carry more supplies/fuel/crew, always free to add extra ships to carry goods or have a stacking survey discount, and colonize as may worlds as you desire.

What in game year do you usually take on end game battles, out of curiosity?  I mean, if you take it slow and do a high ratio of trade/money making activities to actual combat, I agree that can be quite true.  But colonizing as many worlds as you desire takes decades in game, not to mention Ordo farming for the alpha cores.

It is quite possible to speed run the game via mostly combat (or even only combat if you want).  From a Wolf starts, do some quick bounties, salvage some terrible ships, while working towards level 5.  Objective is to get a Falcon (P) either by purchase or salvage, point defense skill and missile specialization skill.  Beat Zigg with the Falcon, and then respec (either Hull restoration or keep pushing on combat with Phase Coil Tuning + Elite Field Modulation, although if you're level 8 you probably don't need to respec) and move into salvaging capitals.  Without a passive income base, you'll hopefully have high credit bounties available to feed your combat habit.  But at that point, credits and efficiency do matter, and if you mess up, you are forced to slow down and put the combat fleet away to do recover some credits.

[Megas]

I guess what he means by boring is (assuming Combat taken to bring flagship up to par with human/AI officers) that much of Leadership aside from maybe the capstones is the "Boring but Practical" trope for combat.  Tech has phase ship boosts and weird but fun capstones, and player needs both if he wants to pilot an automated ship.  Industry has a bunch of campaign annoyance mitigation that do little or nothing for combat.

What in game year do you usually take on end game battles, out of curiosity?  I mean, if you take it slow and do a high ratio of trade/money making activities to actual combat, I agree that can be quite true.  But colonizing as many worlds as you desire takes decades in game, not to mention Ordo farming for the alpha cores.

I know you have not asked me, but I have reached endgame fleet in 0.95 (in my case, obtaining Ziggurat and the proper weapons to solo an Ordos) in about five or six years (211 or 212).  My biggest colony was either size 4 or 5.

I got my big empire of multiple size 5 or 6 planets by around 220 in an earlier game (and some planets had a minor boost from a cryosleeper near the edge).  In that game, I was still experimenting with ships and loadouts and was grinding mostly human bounties with fleets designed for a 0.9 era or earlier release.