Upcoming Feature and Change Feedback Center

Hello everyone! This thread will be about the changes to Command Ship skill requirements planned for the Ascension expansion this November.

Earlier in the development cycle we had been investigating making stat changes to the Command Ships at the same time as this release, but after further investigation we have decided to hold off on stat and bonus changes for now. We'll observe how the Command Burst introduction changes the meta around these ships and make changes informed by that information in the near future.

However we are going forward with the planned reduction in skill requirements for Command Ships in the initial Ascension release.

Currently training the Command Ship skill requires the following prerequisites:

• Spaceship Command 5
• Warfare Link Specialist 4
• Armored Warfare 5
• Siege Warfare 5
• Information Warfare 5
• Skirmish Warfare 5

After the Ascension release training the skill will require the following prerequisites:

• Spaceship Command 5
• Command Burst Specialist 4 (formerly known as Warfare Link Specialist)
• Wing Command 4

This new set of prerequisites cuts more than a month off of the total training time to enter Command Ships.

Beside the Command Ship skill itself, each Command Ship will continue to require its corresponding Racial Battlecruiser skill at level 5. No other changes are currently planned for the Command Ship prerequisites (there have been a few test versions of the skill requirements on the test servers in recent weeks but the information in this thread is the most up-to-date version of the design).

This thread will be the place for feedback on these CS changes, and we look forward to your feedback.

I'm alright with the reduction in requirements. These ships need re-balancing though so I hope you don't delay that much longer.

Could you confirm that while the skill Command Ships won't require more than those skills, each individual Command Ship will require both racial warfare skills and thus, as a consequence, some people who can fly these ships today won't come November ... and that change is intentional?

Because currently anyone who trained Command Ships in the olden days, who doesn't have all racial Warfare skills trained, will be unable to undock in their Command Ships come November. As you cannot undock a ship unless you meet the requirements.

Yes, but the combination of the new way of locking you out of ships you don't have the skills for (to stop people from using Omega-required ships when they go back to Alpha-status I presume) and the new ship requirements, that will make for a huge change.

It means people who can currently fly command ships, but doesn't have the racial warfare skills, will no longer be able to undock in them. They can sit in them, fit them, but as soon as they hit the undock button they will be denied.

Will there be any changes to the CS themselves and their combat capabilities, or is it just the skill requirements that are being changed?

Fozzie can't you give CS 3 rig slots? And give extra mid +1 across the board?

Really good choice on the new skills, requiring armored warfare spec to fly a vulture for example, was just silly.

I have searched the forums and haven't seen this question yet, so I'll post it here in the hopes that it is relevant enough.

Along with the skill requirement changes to command ships, I was curious about the way that the booster modules themselves apply their bonuses. For example, is the 32% bonus from rapid deployment in the skirmish booster section additive or multiplicative?

As an example, lets say I have a 275 m/s cruiser and I apply an afterburner 2 ( +169% bonus ) to get 702 m/s without any command boosting.

Does the command booster % alter the afterburner effect in an additive way to become ( 169 + 32 ) [ 201% base speed ] or does it apply in a multiplicative fashion ( 169% + ( 0.32 * 169) ) [ 223 % base speed ]

Maybe I'm not asking in the right place, but hopefully someone can shed light on how the math works.

Looking at a command ship on TQ, all you need to fly the ship is racial BC 5 and CS 1. I presume that if you already have CS trained, it doesn't matter what the prereqs are, just like every other time they have changed the skills that are prereqs for spaceship command skills.

You obviously haven't paid attention or tried things on Singularity.

Currently on Singularity you need to have every single pre-requisite skill in order to interact with a ship (assemble, board, undock etc). So even if you have Command Ships trained, Battlecruiser V trained etc, you'll still need to train the two racial warfare skills up to IV before you can use the ship again.

I'm guessing this is either a simple as the new Shield Command (former Siege Warfare) and Skirmish Command (former Skirmish Warfare), for a Sleipnir for example, becoming a "primary" skill requirement instead of a secondary skill required for the primary skill Command Ships ... or it has to do with the way they implemented the alpha vs omega clone "downgrade" that locks you out of ships you no longer have the skills for.

This means that a lot of older pilots will no longer be able to fly ships they currently can fly. Thus won't "be able to fly what they can already fly", which has often been CCP's stance on changes.