Player Features and Ideas Discussion

CCP's recent focus on rebalancing ship skill requirements got me thinking about weapons skills, specifically skills regarding turrets.
I propose that CCP should change the skill requirements of turrets so that specializing in a specific class of medium or large turret does not require specializing in the turret sizes below it. Meaning for example that if I want to train to use T2 large blasters, I wouldn't have to also train for T2 small and T2 medium blasters first.

The required skills for a Neutron Blaster Cannon II are currently:

- Large Hybrid Turret 4
- Gunnery V
- Large Blaster Specialization 1


The Large Hybrid Turret skill requires level 3 each of the medium and small hybrid turret skills (along with Gunnery V).
The Large Blaster Specialization skill requires level 4 each of the medium and small blaster specialization skills, along with Gunnery V, Motion Prediction V, and Large Hybrid Turret V.

What I'm proposing would mean that the Large Blaster Specialization skill would no longer require the medium and small blaster specialization skills. To compensate for some of this lost time the specialization skill could require level 4 of the turret skill(s) for the size(s) below it. So for example, large blaster specialization could require medium and small hybrid turret 4.

On a non-Gallente new character with no implants and base attributes, training for a Neutron Blaster Cannon II would take 79 days, 12 hours.
If we remove the need to train the lower levels of blaster specialization but compensate by changing the requirement to level 4 of the turrets below it, the time required to train for the Neutron Blaster Cannon II would be reduced to 51 days, 14 hours.


Torpedo Launcher II and T2 torpedoes, by comparison, require only 30 days, 14 hours of training. You could train both T2 cruise and torpedo launchers (and their ammo) in only slightly more time than it would take you to train for just T2 large blasters after my proposal. In fact as it currently stands it takes basically just as long (29 days) to train for T2 medium blasters as it does to train for T2 torpedos.

In the end it would allow people to train for specific fits faster, but it would take them the same amount of time to cross-train. This would be more of an encouragement for people to specialize.

Exactly. CCP is moving away from having T2 as a prerequisite for more T2 as far as ships go, there doesn't seem to be any reason they wouldn't or shouldn't do that with turrets.

As someone who has trained for all T2 guns on 3 characters, I wholeheartedly support this idea. There's a lot of people out there that use Large guns but have not trained for T2 because the time it takes is intimidating. This will also give people to option to specialise more.

I remember it was asked of CCP after their concept of 'T2 is a specialisation' was shown at Fanfest if the T2 gun specs might lose smaller prereqs. The answer was something like 'we'll think about it'

I think this is a good idea, anyway. The ship skill change makes it easier to train directly into the ship you actually want to fly, and having the right size guns once you're there is pretty important, I'm told

e: and if you have lasers, pretty damned important to have t2

The upside to missile training is you don't have to train smaller launchers to use the larger ones (capitals are the exception). This is possibly a part of the reason why missile skills seem more attractive to train to newer players.

I always found it funny that it takes less time to train Capital turret skills than TII large guns...

Gotta say if theyre going with the ship specialization idea for training they need to do it for guns also

It's probably too early to say this, but I'm surprised there hasn't been more objection.

first time i can agree with your ideas

supported

I was referring to T2 launchers. I guess I probably should have specified.

Well the "obvious" conclusion then is that you commanded me to post it.