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Late to the party, but some observations:

We already have some things like this in the game. Dessies and battlecruisers are already "combined" skills, where you have a racial hull requirement and a role requirement. T2s are similar. Where both of these are a bit silly is that the bonuses are derived from a single key skill - BCs and dessies require a racial hull minimum but ignore the actual level, while T2s require racial hull V so a "per skill level" requirement is a constant.

I really like the idea of giving each T1 hull dual pre-reqs, with racial hull and role skills. I'm not sure that destroyers and BCs necessarily need to be wedged directly into the progression - they could be considered as specialist hulls with a secondary role skill.

But in principle, I like where this is going.


Little concerned about some of the ship classifications. Dominix is classed as an assault hull, and drake as a bombardment hull. On current incarnation, I would put both of these as combat hulls. Specifically in the case of the drake, I'd prefer to see its mobility reduced and focus kept on an combat role, than see it repurposed into a bombardment hull. It's current bonuses to tank and damage vs range naturally put it in a combat role (and consider also the HAM drake, which certainly isn't a bombardment ship). Likewise, anything carrying heavy or sentry drones (eg Dominix) isn't really suited to high-mobility hit-and-run work.

Conversely, the existing bombardment hulls have issues, which I hope will be addressed as part of this. There are a few limited situations where a caracal will absolutely dominate, but in the general case it's a paper-thin tank and delayed DPS sitting at comfortable range for battleships. Ravens also need some tweaks; seeing a pack of Ravens land at 200km should prompt a response of "either kill them or get out now" (a bit like stealth bombers decloaking), whereas they are currently a lesser threat than most other serious battleships.

It should be possible to turn the long flight time of missiles into a virtue - "There's a huge ball of death arriving in about 10 seconds" forces interesting tactical decisions. Taking mild damage after some delay doesn't; you deal with the nasty damage being applied now instead. Though buffing bombardment fire might create issues for missioning, where the NPCs don't really do much to counter it.


Finally, consider ways that most races can have hulls in most roles. I think it's good that races have clear strengths (eg Minmatar -> assault, Caldari -> bombardment, Amarr -> combat). I think it's poor when choosing a racial specialisation completely cuts you off.

Some ideas:
- missile boats in at least combat (close range missiles, unbonused LR missiles) and bombardment (bonused LR missiles) roles, and perhaps CR assault boats also.
- bombardment drone boats, with significant boosts to range and travel speed of heavy and/or sentry drones.

So to be clear, if you start training BC, Destroyers, HACs, HICs, Assault Ships, Command Ships, Logistics, Black Ops, Marauders, Covert Ops, Recon Ships, Interceptors, Interdictors, and Transport Ships to V, you will get all the racial variants at V when generic skill categories go away? Sounds like a good SP investment to me. Sorry cap guns... you will have to wait. 4x SP multiplier FTW!

timesinks aren't a "challenge", good god

Correct. However the skill path you choose should have consequences, and not be one short skill away from changing entirely. One skill providing access to all races ships does just this in many respects, and somewhat renders those past choices pointless.

Make a sound skill plan and stick with it... and realize that if you decide to radically alter it's course it's going to take some time and effort.

Chasing the FOM is bad, making wise decisions is good.

<3 OD.

I simply do not like the lack of professionalism and arrogance portrayed by CeeCeePee personnel associated with this topic. This was a pre-FanFest rush-job and it shows.

I knew you'd catch on sooner or later.

Nothing new to add, I'm just echoing the sentiments of many previous posters. I.e. I love the idea in principle, I just don't want to get totally boned when it comes to my current cross training. I have BC5 and CS5 and have cruiser cross training so I can fly all the amarr/matar/caldari BC hulls well. Being a multi-race specialist in BC hulls combined with leadership skills is THE PRIMARY schtick I have created for this char. I have over 80M SP and I can't fly caps on this toon, since I wanted to be awesome in sub-caps, and BC hulls in particular. After this change I would expect to still be able to fly all the same ships I can fly now, at the same skill level.

i.e. make sure they sink far, far more time and money into subscriptions to train for ships

Don't pay too much attention to the (entirely predictable) shitstorm of whinging grognards. Any time you change how skills work you're going to have a different impact on vets and new players. I think it's appropriate to err on the side of favoring new players when this happens; the last thing you want is to give a huge bonus to the bittervets that newbies can't hope to gain. This is exactly what would happen if you translated BC 5 into racial BC 5 for each race--so don't do it.

Reimburse the skillpoints at a 1:1 ratio. This is already quite favorable to vets as you can dump those points into something you're mapped away from but would like to have now. If you really want to maintain the ability to fly each race's BC, you can buy level 4 in each racial skill.

I say this as someone who finished his first long skill grind last night--and yes, it was BC 5. Handing out each racial BC 5 to everyone who currently has BC 5 (to say nothing of those putting it in their queues after reading this devblog) would increase my skill point total by 25% of what it is now. Even so, I can tell it's a bad idea.

This I see as a failure of process, and of whoever is in charge of creating processes. ANY project that involves revamping an entrenched part of the game should at the very beginning have the CSM engaged. Not necessarily that they can provide input or review of what is being proposed, as it is likely still not formed at that point. The point is that the CSM would be aware of the project from the start, and could make inquiries of their own should they not get any further updates about it, so that there isn't a single point of failure in communication. This project is such a single point of failure in communication. It could have been avoided, not by relying on one person to remember to talk to the CSM, but by the failure to make sure that it didn't happen in the first place because of that.