Skill Discussions

Level 5 is a prerequisite for manufacturing T3 subsystems.

If you don't plan to manufacture T3 subsystems, then you can stop at 4, which is required for equipping T2 rigs on your ships.

Yes, though not always on PvP ships. There are exceptions though, as some rigs are relatively cheap to use on anything, and some hulls are relatively expensive to start with so might as well.

I'll add that the only totally useless skills levels (aside from rare collectable skills):
* Industrial Construction 4 & 5
* Battleship Construction 5
There are no BPO which require these skill levels, nor does training these levels give any benefit.

Then there are two controversial skill levels:
* Afterburner 5
* Tactical Shield Manipulation 5
They do exactly what they are supposed to, but they can be detrimental in some situations.

Yes please explain that!!

AB skill makes the AB duration longer. Sometimes you might want to shut it off. Tactical Shield Manipulation is just useless, really, though I don't know of any situation where it is affirmatively detrimental. I suppose if you are armor tanked you may not mind damage leaking through your shields though.

some one did the math on TSM5 and it works out to give you less shield hp in combat because you lose out on some shield regeneration due to not having damage bleed through.

for "endgame" pve ships I will say yes. this would be your machs/pirate BS boats, t3's if your thing, and marauders. Not going any higher short of carrier ratting so they will be your isk makers till they blow up for quite a while. takes money to make money as they say and they can help out.

PVP....frigates yes. rest not really till maybe caps and supers. frigate cheap-ish enough if you really like em for an edge. You can get these in market slumps cheaper (got the isk, see em drop a few mil and its a common rig for you might be worth it to snag a few up). Cruiser to BS too pricey imo unless rich like that imo. Caps and supers players choice to full pimp them even with t2 rigs. Some will say they are fail fit without em. If its your unlucky day and the enemy hot drops better than your side and the cap/super stuck its going boom either by their hand or yours if you suicide it because they are taking too damn long but have you perma tackled. My take on that anyway.

After reading that whole thread about TSM V... the stupid, it burns.

In a nutshell, the downside to TSM V is that if you are passive tanking, it can sometimes cause your shields to regen a tiny bit slower, and possibly die a tiny bit faster. If you are active tanking though, and can keep putting your shields up, you don't want your armor whittled away while you still have cap replenishing shields. For active tanks, TSM V is helpful.

Except... in practice the gains are actually quite small for V, and it's a two week train. With TSM IV trained, 95% of all hits are going to knock down shields before entering armor anyways. The only situation where it'd make a significant difference is with capital ships, in fleets. There you can easily have a situation where you're getting repped every second or two, and then dropping back down from several hits. taking a long time to slowly pick away at the ship's armor. TSM V will result in the shields taking more hits (and applying their high resists), keeping you alive longer. For solo and small-gang pilots, the difference V makes is going to be much less significant.

So if you're a cap pilot, it will probably help. If you don't fly caps, there's so many better things you could spend that training time on.