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[Thaago]

I've been experimenting with Support Doctrine a lot lately, and I've come to the conclusion that the skill is best when NOT taken to the extreme of not using officers. It's tempting to say no officers = most DP saved, that must be best, but that isn't right at all.

The skill's strength is 1) early game power for no story point investment, because at this point the player doesn't have officers but has many ships.
2) late game using more than 11 (or 9 if saving a skill point) ships. There is a power to going wide, both in terms of grabbing points, harassing the enemy, and flanking. But completely unofficered ships, well... they don't do that great even with the other leadership buffs. Add 4 decent skills and they can contribute again. The DP reduction is a further boost but honestly not as important as the extra ships being at least partially up to snuff.

This has synergy with for example:
Wolfpacks. Putting several officers in frigates leaves a lot of DP "on the table". With support doctrine, the DP can be spent better. Or:
Capital+ Destroyer packs. Fitting multiple destroyers per capital to give lots of range-boosted firepower, but takes a lot of officers per DP.

Example: Onslaught + Sunders. Say you want to build 3 escort groups of onslaught + 2 sunders: this is 9 ships for 186 DP. Ordinarily to expand this up to 240, the fleet wants either more officers (which they might not have the skill point for) or mercenaries. Or, with support doctrine, you can throw in 11 wolves to skirmish around the edges, harassing and distracting everything.

I don't know about the ultra-endurance endgame builds. They probably have CR problems with going wide, to be honest. But for more moderate challenges its working for me so far.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Industry is weak in the endgame, I agree, but I think it's fine to have an early game tree that you respec out of.

Respecs being the optimal way to play should never be a thing. The only reason respec should even exist is for the player to re-adjust their build after a balance patch, and they have no right to exist at all in a "finished" game.

[Goumindong]

Industry is weak in the endgame, I agree, but I think it's fine to have an early game tree that you respec out of.

Respecs being the optimal way to play should never be a thing. The only reason respec should even exist is for the player to re-adjust their build after a balance patch, and they have no right to exist at all in a "finished" game.

No. Letting players mess with their builds is fine.

Respecs should be 100% return too

[BigBrainEnergy]

I don't think respecs should give bonus xp, they're fine as they are. If you screw up your build or change your mind several hours into a playthrough then you should have an option to fix it. I don't think respeccing should be something you plan to do from the beginning, but that comes down to how the skills are balanced against each other more so than the respecc mechanic itself.

[SCC]

You don't need that to spend that much OP on vents, if you have Ordnance Expertise. You don't need that many backup ships, if your ships are individually stronger. So on, so forth. There is discussion about if certain skills or combinations are too strong, but choosing one bonus over another is the entire point of skills.

I haven't tested this in detail. BotB is probably stronger than Cyber Aug, because BotB buffs your fleet without other qualifiers, whereas Cyber Aug relies on you getting several other skills. The only fleet I tested extensively is the Radiant flagship one, and so far it generally appears inferior to officer-focused playstyles. There are also only two good compositions (2 Radiants + cheerleaders, or phase ships), as opposed to the variety of compositions available officer heavy playstyles. That has less to do with skills and more to do with officers being naturally strong (8 of them with 5 skills).

[Megas]

No. Letting players mess with their builds is fine.

Respecs should be 100% return too

It would make switching personal skills for the flagship less painful.

[Cryovolcanic]

Support Doctrine would be better if there were ways for ships to provide meaningful support in battles. Things like Nav Relay and ECM--those provide the same benefit for the same cost whether it's an officered ship or not. Or, use of low-damage line holders with support weapons (e.g. Eagle). Or things like Escort Package. Or wolfpack+SD capitals providing overhead cover as Thaago mentioned.

If it's just another ballistic ship with -20% range and -30% damage, not sure it's worth it.

Adding a 5th officer skill feels like, well, maybe we should just rethink the officer system from the ground up.

[Mishrak]

Industry is weak in the endgame, I agree, but I think it's fine to have an early game tree that you respec out of.

Respecs being the optimal way to play should never be a thing. The only reason respec should even exist is for the player to re-adjust their build after a balance patch, and they have no right to exist at all in a "finished" game.

No. Letting players mess with their builds is fine.

Respecs should be 100% return too

Agree completely.

It makes very little sense to have a respec option but then punish the player for using it with 0% return.  100% still makes the player go out and engage in the game to get their SP back, it's not completely free.

I don't think respecs should give bonus xp, they're fine as they are. If you screw up your build or change your mind several hours into a playthrough then you should have an option to fix it. I don't think respeccing should be something you plan to do from the beginning, but that comes down to how the skills are balanced against each other more so than the respecc mechanic itself.

I don't think it's really about making a mistake, although that's part of it.  I think it's more that the respec option doesn't have to feel like a loss if the player decides they want to change.  What's so bad about wanting to change something?  It's shouldn't be free, but it also doesn't have to cost a ton.

Player respec could even have a diminished return on bonus exp.  First one is 100%, then 50% then 0%.  Even something as simple as that would alleviate much.

[Megas]

I don't think it's really about making a mistake, although that's part of it.  I think it's more that the respec option doesn't have to feel like a loss if the player decides they want to change.  What's so bad about wanting to change something?  It's shouldn't be free, but it also doesn't have to cost a ton.

Player respec could even have a diminished return on bonus exp.  First one is 100%, then 50% then 0%.  Even something as simple as that would alleviate much.

For me, it is that each ship has its own unique skill needs to be good.  I do not want to hemorrhage skill points because one moment I want to pilot a high-tech ship one moment, a low-tech ship the next, a phase ship later, an automated ship even later, and so on.

I like to change my fleet often, but the game mechanics fight this after the player reaches the point when he needs skills, officers, and s-mods to win late.

[FooF]

Support Doctrine would be better if there were ways for ships to provide meaningful support in battles. Things like Nav Relay and ECM--those provide the same benefit for the same cost whether it's an officered ship or not. Or, use of low-damage line holders with support weapons (e.g. Eagle). Or things like Escort Package. Or wolfpack+SD capitals providing overhead cover as Thaago mentioned.

If it's just another ballistic ship with -20% range and -30% damage, not sure it's worth it.

Adding a 5th officer skill feels like, well, maybe we should just rethink the officer system from the ground up.

“Support” is up for interpretation but by making non-officered ‘fodder’ ships better and cheaper, you’re getting support by fielding more flux, hulls, and distractions on the field. Ultimately, we’re fighting AI fleets that has its own weaknesses, which near the top of the list is being outnumbered/outflanked. So, while you are fielding generic ballistic ships that have -20% range and damage, you’re also adding 100% of that hull’s flux, missiles, and hitpoints into the mix.

To put it another way, at a certain point, the fleet becomes more than the sum of its parts. It reaches a critical mass that belies the inferiority of its individual members. This is how DO fleets run roughshod over even endgame battles. SD is less pronounced on its own but it is bolstering numbers with good-not-great filler ships.

It’s not as good as BotB at the high end but it does work.

[Cryovolcanic]

@FooF - I agree with your general premise, as I said earlier in this thread I am currently running an SD/DO fleet with no officers, and it's capable of beating all endgame content. It just *feels* somewhat weaker than officered fleets I've used before, even though mathematically it should be better.

My gut is with officers + unique ships + unique weapons + 3rd s-mod, you can stack enough power to cross some kind of offensive threshold where enemy ships just die instead of trading blows for a while and then dying.

[Goumindong]

I don't think respecs should give bonus xp, they're fine as they are. If you screw up your build or change your mind several hours into a playthrough then you should have an option to fix it. I don't think respeccing should be something you plan to do from the beginning, but that comes down to how the skills are balanced against each other more so than the respecc mechanic itself.

The thing is, the cost is pretty minimal if you plan to do it from the beginning. The cost of respecing is only a lot if you want to mess around with your build.

If, as an example, you sometimes pilot a phase ship. Or you switch to ballistics or you just plain realized that you want to do X now where X is not what you want. In these cases the XP bonus is really nice. There is tangible benefit and cost to doing these things but its not just a painful sink

[Megas]

There is also using what you find for the pre-endgame part of the game, which may not line-up with the endgame meta build until player finds or robs enough ships, weapons, and money first.