What skill aptitude class will CR-affecting skills, if any, wind up in?
Can't say just yet. Depends on how they go about it flavor-wise, could be any, really.
One thing nobody mentioned yet is the danger that CR introduces prolonged waiting periods. At the moment you can go from battle to battle as long as you don't mess up and have to repair. Will I have to run or hide after every medium battle now, so my CR can regenerate? How is that not a bad thing?
That's a good question, and I don't think it has a simple answer. I think it will work because of a combination of the following:
- There will be time pressure to get things done (i.e., you could wait for optimal CR or you could go and save your outpost)
- There's a maintenance cost to simply flying around, so it's not as "appealing" (in quotes because it's never actually appealing)
- The pacing of encounters will be different, i.e. longer natural delays between fights
- You'll be able to fight a few battles before CR became a pressing issue
- There may be TOP SECRET emergency means to boost CR at a cost
The first one is the most important, though. As long as time has no meaning, any kind of delay is a pain; hence the insta-repair option at the current Oribtal Stations. But when time actually causes things to happen, managing those delays will become a strategic consideration. For example, supposing CR took a
really long time to regenerate, you might set things up so that you could work in a trading run while it did. Or, if there's a pressing danger, you might decide that you have to go for it with low CR, and damn the torpedoes.
Managing what ships you actually deploy vs how much CR it costs/how long it takes to recover is part of it, too. If you don't pay attention to that, you would be likely to run into CR and supply problems.
- Does it apply both in and out of combat?
- Is this something that would affect my performance in battle or is more related with my next engagements?
- Short-term or long-term, maybe both?
- Does it introduce more random events and situations (love these, but they are unpopular with a lot of folk)?
- Does it encourage the RTS element more (To be honest, I haven't been able to use it much, piloting takes priority in current builds in my opinion)?
1. Both.
2. For non-frigates, it'll apply after the engagement. So if you start out at 50% CR and it costs 20% to deploy, you'll fight at 50% CR and then have it reduced to 30% after the fight.
3. Both
4. Malfunctions, as discussed earlier.
5. Probably not, except for needing to keep an eye on frigates so they don't stay out too long. Will have to add some UI support to make that easier.