Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Update here - updated this post in consequence.

Hello people,

As hinted there, we are in considering ways to revamp certificates and make player progression easier to grasp in general.

Something that came up early during our design process is that character skills have been added into various, more or less relevant groups as we introduced them over the years. As a result, some groups, Science in particular, have become dump places for all sorts of skills.

The goal is to make skills and their associated groups easier to find, classify and understand as a whole. This is done through the following 3 points:

• Renaming some individual skills
• Creating, or renaming existing skill groups and moving skills around
• Matching all changes of skill groups in the Market groups as well

RENAMING SKILLS

This is done in an effort to reduce confusion between the skill names themselves and the groups they belong to. Usually, a group name is to be as generic as possible since it usually contains more than just a single theme. On the contrary, Skill names need to be as specific as possible to let players know what effects they have without having to read their description.

• Electronics: has been renamed to “CPU management” not to conflict with group names and be more explicit at what the skill actually does.


• Engineering: has been renamed “Power Grid management” not to conflict with group names and be more explicit at what the skill actually does.


• Targeting: for the same reasons as above, this skill has been renamed "Target Management".


• Multitasking: has been renamed "Advanced Target Management" for the same reasons as above.


• Nanite Control: has been renamed "Neurotoxin Control" to make it clearer it's a booster related skill and not something tied with overheading (nanite repair paste comes to mind).


• Armor Honeycombing: has been renamed "Armor Layering".


• Energy Management, Energy Emission Systems and Energy Systems Operation: have been renamed "Capacitor Management", "Capacitor Emission Systems" and "Capacitor Systems Operation".

SKILL GROUP CHANGES
[list]

Armor: is a new skill group, that has all armor skills - the “mechanics” skill group has been removed.

Contains the Armor Layering, Armor Resistance Phasing, Capital Remote Armor Repair Systems, Capital Remote Hull Repair Systems, Capital Repair Systems, EM Armor Compensation, Explosive Armor Compensation, Hull Upgrades, Kinetic Armor Compensation, Mechanics, Remote Armor Repair Systems, Remote Hull Repair Systems, Repair Systems and Thermic Armor Compensation skills.

Electronic System: is the old “electronics” group. Now only contains offense EW related skills.

Contains the Cloaking, Electronic Warfare, Frequency Modulation, Long Distance Jamming, Projected Electronic Counter Measures, Propulsion Jamming, Sensor Linking, Signal Dispersion, Signal Suppression, Signature Focusing, Tactical Logistics Reconfiguration, Target Breaker Amplification, Target Painting, Turret Destabilization and Weapon Disruption skills.

Engineering: now has all skills related with energy management and fittings in general.

Contains the Advanced Weapon Upgrades, CPU Management, Capital Capacitor Emission Systems, Electronics Upgrades, Capacitor Emission Systems, Energy Grid Upgrades, Capacitor Management, Energy Pulse Weapons, Capacitor Systems Operation, Nanite Interfacing, Nanite Operation, Power Grid Management, Thermodynamics and Weapon Upgrades skills.

Missiles: it’s the old “missile launcher operation” group with no other change whatsoever.


Neural Enhancement: has all boosters, clone and implants related skills.

Contains the Biology, Cloning Facility Operation, Cybernetics, Informorph Psychology, Neurotoxin Control and Neurotoxin Recovery skills.

Production: has all industry and manufacturing skills, including those that previously were in the “Mechanics” skill group.

Contains the Advanced Mass Production, Battleship Construction, Capital Ship Construction, Cruiser Construction, Drug Manufacturing, Frigate Construction, Industrial Construction, Industry, Mass Production, Outpost Construction, Production Efficiency, Supply Chain Management skills.

Resource Processing: has all mining, harvesting skills and reprocessing skills.

Contains the Arkonor Processing, Astrogeology, Bistot Processing, Crokite Processing, Dark Ochre Processing, Deep Core Mining, Gas Cloud Harvesting, Gneiss Processing, Hedbergite Processing, Hemorphite Processing, Ice Harvesting, Ice Processing, Industrial Reconfiguration, Jaspet Processing, Kernite Processing, Mercoxit Processing, Mining, Mining Upgrades, Omber Processing, Plagioclase Processing, Pyroxeres Processing, Refinery Efficiency, Refining, Salvaging, Scordite Processing, Scrapmetal Processing, Spodumain Processing and Veldspar Processing skills.

Rigging: has all the skills related to rigs that previously were in the “Mechanics” skill group.

Contains the Armor Rigging, Astronautics Rigging, Drone Rigging, Electronic Superiority Rigging, Energy Weapon Rigging, Gallente Defensive Systems, Hybrid Weapon Rigging, Jury Rigging, Launcher Rigging, Projectile Weapon Rigging and Shield Rigging skills.

Scanning: contains all skills tied with that theme (including probe scanning, hacking mini-game and survey skills).

Contains the Archaeology, Astrometric Acquisition, Astrometric Pinpointing, Astrometric Rangefinding, Astrometrics, Hacking and Survey skills.

Science: now...

There's nothing wrong with the names of the Engineering and Electronics skills. They make for good base names, especially when you consider them as pre-reqs for other skills.

"CPU Management" as a pre-req for things like Long Range Targeting sounds too specific and perhaps a little odd.

Did someone need busywork or something?

I'm with this guy.

"Spaceship Piloting" is a little too limp-wristed.

I think renaming electronics and engineering is a bit overkill but these changes are quite positive in general.

Maybe make it easier for new people to grasp what each skill does with having an information window pop up when you hover over the skill?


All in all great change.

This is good however what does this mean for the primary and secondary attributes of the skills?
Previously it was possible to guess (mostly correctly) what remap you need for a bunch of skills by the virtue of what group it was under. as most skills under the same group had the same primary and secondary training attributes. Now that skills are getting mixed up in different categories it makes figuring out which remap you need more difficult (Yes I know there is evemon, but presumably the point of this is to improve in-game tools/interfaces/etc.)

besides a couple of typos .. (as usual) i can't seem to find where you have put the cyno field skill

Also when are you changing skills?
i.e. nanite skills affecting AAR nanite paste usage and perhaps adding to rep amount..
missile skills should be reduced to 5% skills like gunnery
guns needing lv5 of previous size makes no sense anymore

On top of that T2 modules should require lv5 skills but they don't atm ...

you forgot "Electronic Warfare Drone Interfacing". It has nothing to do with ewar or even with the other interfacing skills, it adds drone control range.

an opportunity to change the skill and split it into two here so-
drone control range
-buff to 5000m
Electronic Warfare Drone Interfacing
- allows use of e-war drones and perhaps effectiveness .... which allows you too nerf e-war drones ecm drones come to mind..
perhaps add e-war drone bays to e-war ships

Also add drone tracking
-5% drone tracking
drone falloff skills
- 5% falloff

Also increase drone shooting ranges too make sense atm (entity attack range)
sentries - 250km -150km they rarely go over that range and ships often can't target that far anyway.. thats another issue to fix
heavies - 5km - 10km
medium - 4km - 8km
lights - 3km -6km

Please, while you are at it, check Navigation skill description

Skill at regulating the power output of ship thrusters. 5% bonus to sub-warp ship velocity per skill level.

Maybe name it as Engine Handling?

Another thumbs down on Spaceship command new name.

I think the Subsystems group should stay as they are unique in that you can easily lose a level in them. Keeping them separate from regular skills makes this easier to understand. Also its the only group that most sane pilots can max out :)

How many groups will there be now?