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[BaBosa]

I think it would be a good idea to make separate skill trees for the combat and campaign layers with separate pools of skill points or interleave combat and campaign related skills in a way that the player ends up with an equal amount of them. The player is spending a lot of time in both combat and the campaign so the player should progress in both over the course of the game. Requiring that the player not progress in one layer of the game to become more powerful in another is just a unfun decision. Skills should let the player choose how they want to improve their performance in the campaign and combat rather than whether they want to improve their skills in the campaign or combat.

How is it unfun? You can improve both or leverage your focus in one area to help in the other. Such as having a really strong fleet means you can get by with a smaller fleet which means less supplies and fuel used. Or having good logistics means that you can afford to have a larger than needed fleet and overwhelm the enemy. Or play on easy mode so you effectively have a strong bonus skill.

[kenwth81]

You know That discussion where Alex think this tier skill system will stop people from gravitating toward strong cookie cutter builds and promote different builds. People are still doing the same thing...

Fleet builds are SO STRONG!!! Must make strong builds...

[CapnHector]

Hm. What exactly do you folks think is strongest?

I would argue that Leadership is probably the strongest branch in the game, but only up to 5-6 skills to get you BotB, officer skills, +5% damage and +15% cr as well as to get WPT if using frigates. The rest is pretty ignorable, fighters are not that good in the last two versions and SD is generally not as strong as officers despite how I made that Venture spam fleet. You have to really work to make it work.

Industry is not strong. DO is strong with missile ships or carriers or automated ships or if you artificially choose the D-mods, but does not improve efficiency for general ships that get correspondingly weaker from D-mods, per testing last version. Hull Restoration is only strong for Automated Ships. This branch of skills is ignorable.

Tech is special because it is a must for phase ships or automated ships but not very strong otherwise. You have to invest a lot to get the extra flux stats and it is not really that much that you get from it.

I would argue that Leadership is probably strongest (makes sense in a game about fleets) but it is not clear at all that adding Industry or Tech will make your fleet stronger than having an elite playership with Combat skills. For example in Vanshilar's tests (I know some people don't like me citing it all the time but he is the one who posts exact numbers) his flagship Onslaught does about a third of the fleet's damage despite optimized fleets. So letting alone that you probably should get 5 Leadership, it just doesn't seem so clear cut that improving the flagship rather than the other ships would be suboptimal.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Hm. What exactly do you folks think is strongest?

Derelict Operations.

[CapnHector]

Hm. What exactly do you folks think is strongest?

Derelict Operations.

Haha. But even if that's true for your fleet which I would argue is clearly the case only for missile spam fleets and you must have it, then you can still pick 5 combat skills and the 2 from industry for a total of 7 combat skills for the player including 1 capstone and as many elites as you like, for an almost perfect Onslaught setup. The only thing missing is Gunnery Implants, but you can get that for -1 combat skill and no capstone if you want. It could very well be that it's better to take the combat skills rather than go for the final fleet skills even then.

[Megas]

Hm. What exactly do you folks think is strongest?

I would argue that Leadership is probably the strongest branch in the game, but only up to 5-6 skills to get you BotB, officer skills, +5% damage and +15% cr as well as to get WPT if using frigates. The rest is pretty ignorable, fighters are not that good in the last two versions and SD is generally not as strong as officers despite how I made that Venture spam fleet. You have to really work to make it work.

Every non-Ziggurat Ordos-killer build I see posted has at least one Leadership capstone, often BotB, and even some of the Ziggurat builds I saw posted have BotB.  Also, those that do not use Support Doctrine usually have one or both officer skills in Leadership.

[CapnHector]

Come to think of it, when the skill is literally named Best of the Best, why would anyone think it isn't great?

[itBeABruhMoment]

How is it unfun? You can improve both or leverage your focus in one area to help in the other. Such as having a really strong fleet means you can get by with a smaller fleet which means less supplies and fuel used. Or having good logistics means that you can afford to have a larger than needed fleet and overwhelm the enemy. Or play on easy mode so you effectively have a strong bonus skill.

The question of whether to fight a fleet normally or throw enough ships at it to trivialize the fight is an unfun decision in my books. Also building a larger and stronger fleet is a core part of the gameplay loop. Players don't take combat skill to use a smaller yet effective fleet they take them to make a bigger and more effective fleet.

[Megas]

If the player does not throw everything in personal skills, he probably has about as much personal skill power as an Alpha core if he bothered to invest in Combat, which makes a duel comparable to unskilled vs. unskilled in terms of power parity, and an Ordos fleet has that skill power for the majority of its ships.  Even if player throws everything in personal power, he may be merely equal or barely better than Omega cores that pilot Alpha Site Ziggurat or the Omega ships, and those ships are SNK Boss types with toys that are purposefully overpowered.  (Ziggurat does not keep its purple lights when recovered by the player.)

During 0.6x, only the enemy fleet commander had skills, and became ludicrously overpowered (as much as your flagship with all Combat skills) when his skills were at max level, but it was just that one ship.  All ships that were not the flagship were unskilled, much like in the SIM.

During 0.7x, the enemy had the same ten officers as yours, and the player could have much better skill power than them.

Today, the endgame enemies generally have better skill power than the player's fleet, at least because they have more officers than you (unless you buy mercs or take Automated Ships and use smaller ships), and automated fleets have superior AI cores.

[Realm]

I feel that the fact that I'm torn on what I want to spend points on is a strong sign that the skill system is well-designed. There are a lot of compelling build options, and if you want more variety in a run Starsector is designed to be pretty customizable so as others have said it's as simple as changing the max level by +5/+10 or however many extra levels you'd like.

[Sly]

A little off topic, but...

TaLaR! A fellow Afflictor aficionado! The first time I've seen one out in the wild. There must be a whole two of us! Your thoughts in the thread are like water in the desert, IMO.

---

If I'm being too literal for a moment and not to be taken seriously, the best build for the majority of the storyline of the game is no skills, a lone militarized Dram with Unstable Injector, SO, More Fuel Space, and built in Expanded Cargo and Insulated Engines. You'll be a multi-millionaire by the second cycle if you take non-combat missions, explore a little for loot, and have the permanent benefit of gate travel. If you get into trouble, well... run away. The big mean pirates might laugh at the weapons scoring on the tail end of your little tanker, but at least you'll be alive and rich.

Then you can assign whatever skills you want with all the ships and officers you buy after you grind a little XP.

It's an incredibly boring way to play the game, but if you're looking for the most cutthroat strategy, there it is. Nothing else even comes close to that kind of efficiency.

[TaLaR]

@Sly, yeah, surprisingly few people like the Afflictor. Either they don't know what it's capable off, find it too finicky or too cheesy. The last is definitely a valid point for consideration (since AI really doesn't understand how Afflictor works, and consequently what could be done to try countering it), but I just like the idea (and practice!) of a super agile glass cannon beating all the lumbering behemoths most players are so focused on.

[SCC]

If I'm being too literal for a moment and not to be taken seriously, the best build for the majority of the storyline of the game is no skills, a lone militarized Dram with Unstable Injector, SO, More Fuel Space, and built in Expanded Cargo and Insulated Engines.

If I ever bother optimising the any per cent speedrun and it turns out you can coast by just with story points you get from doing the missions, this might turn out actually true.

@Sly, yeah, surprisingly few people like the Afflictor. Either they don't know what it's capable off, find it too finicky or too cheesy. The last is definitely a valid point for consideration (since AI really doesn't understand how Afflictor works, and consequently what could be done to try countering it), but I just like the idea (and practice!) of a super agile glass cannon beating all the lumbering behemoths most players are so focused on.

I acknowledge Afflictor as being technically the best ship in the game, but I don't like phase ships per se. Other frigates are more fun, even if suboptimal. I suppose that's good for you, since you know what happened when I got my hands on Doom...

[Sly]

If I'm being too literal for a moment and not to be taken seriously, the best build for the majority of the storyline of the game is no skills, a lone militarized Dram with Unstable Injector, SO, More Fuel Space, and built in Expanded Cargo and Insulated Engines.

If I ever bother optimising the any per cent speedrun and it turns out you can coast by just with story points you get from doing the missions, this might turn out actually true.

@Sly, yeah, surprisingly few people like the Afflictor. Either they don't know what it's capable off, find it too finicky or too cheesy. The last is definitely a valid point for consideration (since AI really doesn't understand how Afflictor works, and consequently what could be done to try countering it), but I just like the idea (and practice!) of a super agile glass cannon beating all the lumbering behemoths most players are so focused on.

I acknowledge Afflictor as being technically the best ship in the game, but I don't like phase ships per se. Other frigates are more fun, even if suboptimal. I suppose that's good for you, since you know what happened when I got my hands on Doom...

Your exploits with the Doom are legendary. I still clearly remember all the drama back in the golden days of Doom supremacy. It was glorious.

I'd encourage you to try the whole Dram thing if really want to, but I wasn't kidding when I said I thought it was incredibly boring. It's like playing a title crawl that just goes on, and on, and on...

And then finally, mercifully, you get to play the game. Having skipped a lot of what (IMO) makes it fun to play. But that's speedrunning in nutshell, I guess.

I'm curious what your favorite ship is these days? Still up to old tricks?

[TaLaR]

Doom is good too. Overall I consider Afflictor, Doom and capitals to be the only really good endgame player piloting picks. Harbinger had it's glory moment too, but modern version is nerfed into the ground.

Afflictor's key advantage over alternatives is endurance - you have 4 Afflictors for 40DP, not just 1 player ship. So you can easily afford any huge or chained fights (more relevant for Nexelerin, Vanilla generally doesn't get so ridiculous).