Working on skill trees, need your help

[Lurler]

I am working on finally implementing the skill system for the new update and so far I am not satisfied with results at all.

Here is what I have so far. Click on the pics to enlarge.

Piloting tree

This one is quite okay. I am happy with different choices available to cater to different playstyles and in general I think it is acceptable. It is very likely that we will tweak it more, and extend with new, more interesting skills.

Combat tree

To be honest I have no idea what to put here, and how to organize it.
Additionally this small tree with access to different weapons - it works I guess, but I don't like it.

Engineering tree

I am happy with the asteroid mining part, but the rest is boring, and there are only very few skills available.

Misc tree

The social part on the right seems okay.
But that's all the skills I can think of for this category... Need more.
And the thing on the left is a list  of effects that are there but not used for any skills. I can imagine the weapon bonuses will be handy for combat tree. And shield effects might be useful for engineering tree. But I have no concrete ideas on how to do it yet.

So, that's what I have so far.

Any ideas will be really appreciated!

Or maybe you can design a skill system from scratch better than this one?

[Hammish]

I like the new trees, some expansion in there.  Helps me with thinking about stuff for the mod, too, with the last box on the left, since I'm not really aware of what attributes are actually moddable/adjustable. 

Few ideas I had for BTC, though, and feel free to steal any you like:

I actually moved the +armor mods to the Engineering tree since it seemed to fit a bit better and that tree was pretty empty.  Had planned on putting them under 'defensive tech' along with shields, but I wasn't sure if shield attributes were moddable, now I know they are!  I also did the same for the generator, but you already added the generator tree to yours so that's excellent.  I also added a new weapons tree for (not suitable for vanilla, obviously).

I also started to key some items to certain technologies.  Much like II- and III-class weapons required deeper techs, I've started doing the same for things like shields.  As an example:

Basic Defense Tech: Everyone starts with this, gives you Civvie Shields and maybe 1-2 small upgrades.
Shield Tech 1: Gives access to the first level of 'military' shields.
Shield Tech 2: Gives access to Mk2 shields, which are roughly 50% better that Mk1.
Shield Tech 3: Gives access to specialty shields (just some weird stuff I was playing around with, like shields with a very low capacity but a very slight reset time for in-combat use, ect)

I also increased costs a fair bit on my tree as well, but that's just a stopgap measure.  The end goal of both the cost increase and my 'unlock' tiers was to force people to spend more points going down a tree and thus force them to specialize characters a bit, but that should only be necessary until the class system is revamped.

So far as fleshing out combat, though... which weapon stats are actually changable via the skill system?  One notion that I had was to give each weapon tech unique boostable attributes; for example, maybe you could lower the energy costs or recharge rate on energy weapons, the tracking on missiles, the max ammo on mines, ect.  Or even just a raw damage increase.  Something for people to invest in after they reach Large Weapons in a category.

[Lurler]

I'm not really aware of what attributes are actually moddable/adjustable. 

Well, technically everything is moddable, you can create any new effects that you like since it all is scriptable.
But for this tree even more, we can create any new effects if we like the idea.

I've started doing the same for things like shields.  As an example:
Basic Defense Tech: Everyone starts with this, gives you Civvie Shields and maybe 1-2 small upgrades.
Shield Tech 1: Gives access to the first level of 'military' shields.
Shield Tech 2: Gives access to Mk2 shields, which are roughly 50% better that Mk1.
Shield Tech 3: Gives access to specialty shields (just some weird stuff I was playing around with, like shields with a very low capacity but a very slight reset time for in-combat use, ect)

I thought about it too, but in the end I decided to leave it as is for now. Maybe we will revisit it later, but now I don't want to restrict basic parts.
Especially with new shops system that will make it a little bit harder to find the best gear.

So far as fleshing out combat, though... which weapon stats are actually changable via the skill system?

The problem with weapons is that unlike other stats that belong to the ship and thus can be easily changed by skills the weapons are actually a whole different system. So it is somewhat more difficult. We don't have any weapon effects yet, but if there are good ideas for them we can do it.

One notion that I had was to give each weapon tech unique boostable attributes; for example, maybe you could lower the energy costs or recharge rate on energy weapons, the tracking on missiles, the max ammo on mines, ect.  Or even just a raw damage increase.  Something for people to invest in after they reach Large Weapons in a category.

Yeah, that seems logical, but I still can't think of any decent way to organize that and any particular skills to make it into an interesting skill tree that is also balanced and fun.

[Fargham]

I would have one path for gun size, and a separate path for each weapon type, for 5 over all paths in addition to the consumable tree. The gun size would provide you the ability to mount those guns on your ship.  The weapon type path would start out generic and specialize down 2 separate routes for each weapon type. 

Energy weapons would have 2 paths - a sheer damage output path, and a more efficient ammo/energy usage path.  Each step along this path might add 2% better to that type of weapon - regardless of size.  Effectively, you have a dps, and a sustainability split between the two.  Perhaps even some of the steps could lower or raise damage for the inverse impact to energy efficiency.  This way a pilot can decide if they are going to configure their guns for pure damage output at a cost of energy or low energy use at the cost of slightly decreased damage.

Ballistic weapons would have 2 paths - rate of fire, and ammo bank (magazine) size.  Each step along this path would increase ROF by 2-3% and magazine size by 5%.  Again, this would split dps increase vs sustainability.  A final step in the ROF line might be large, but also cause a +5 spread on weapons due to the vibrations of gun barrels.  The last step in magazine size might cause the entire ship to be slower due to larger mass on board.

Missiles could also have 2 paths.  Increased homing ability vs increased damage.  The last step in the homing chain might cause the missiles to go slower due to having to divert more thruster power to side vents, and the last step in the damage chain might cause the missile to move slower due to the increased payload of the weapon.  Alternatively for homing you could use faster Rate of Fire like ballistics.

Mines I could see having a damage path and a payload path similar to the ballistic weapon paths.

If I had the chance - I'd also add an 'experimental' weapon path for weapons that don't exactly fall along the lines of ballistic or energy.  (Like the acid gun the aliens have).

[Lurler]

Some great suggestions here, Fargham. Really appreciate it. Along with a lot of suggestions from Hellwarlord in another thread. I think I now have an idea for the combat section. I will separate it into three main trees incorporating different weapon types and... no, I think, I'd better finish it first and show a picture here instead of writing a wall of text

Upd:

Here are the results. First of three weapon trees.
And I quite like it. The general idea is - energy weapons are somewhat easier to use and advance down the tree to get access to higher tiers of energy weapons. Generally they are all around average weapons.
While ballistic weapons somewhat more difficult to use and to advance down the skill tree, not to mention that they may not be as convenient as energy weapons since you have to manage ammo, and bullets have travel speed, etc. But if you become pro at it you will be able to get much more returns out of them, thus making them better suitable to pro players.
But at the same time realistically looking these differences are not THAT big, so anyone could use either of these, just depending on their preferences.
So, here is the tree:

(click on the image to enlarge)

What are your thoughts?
Generally the feedback I need:
1. Do you like it?
2. Any mistakes on my part?
3. Any ideas for better skill names?
4. Did I forget anything?

What next?
Next I will work on the "Explosives" skill tree featuring missile weapons as well as mines.

[Hammish]

Exactly what I was thinking when I mentioned unique boosts for each weapon and having a kind of defined 'role' for each.  I likes it!  It also struck me that introducing attributes for the weapons in such a way also opens up the door for add-on modules along those lines to further tweak things for a user (like, say, an autoloader module that further reduced ballistic cooldown, perhaps at the expense of ammo capacity, ect.)  But that's not a skill thing.

Can't wait to see the next build, looking forward to it.

Edit: This made me remember a quick question, too, when it comes to base range version max range.  I can see a different in particle effects in the game, but how does it affect weapon numbers?  Shots just do less damage past the basic range or something?

[Lurler]

Edit: This made me remember a quick question, too, when it comes to base range version max range.  I can see a different in particle effects in the game, but how does it affect weapon numbers?  Shots just do less damage past the basic range or something?

Exactly. Past standard range it starts to do less and less damage until it hits max damage where it disappears.
So, energy weapons have very short standard range, but much bigger max range, making them very effective when you are close to the enemy, but ineffective at higher ranges, while ballistic weapons have standard and max ranges almost the same making them do almost the same damage regardless of the distance, but of course hitting anything with a slow moving projectile is much more difficult than with a laser.

And here is an update for the combat skills section.
This time I've finished the "explosives" tree.
I am not entirely satisfied with it, but I still think it is quite good.

(click on the image to enlarge)

Any feedback?

Now what is left is the misc section. I will try to think of at least a couple more skills because right now it is practically empty.

[Hammish]

Looks good to me as well.  Only so much you can do with mines, I figure.  Could maybe consolidate two of the +HP to mines bonuses, though, and instead provide them with a rate of fire boost or something. 

Maybe radar skills for in the misc. tree?  Figure if they're gonna go anywhere they should go there or in engineering.  Would probably make sense to have them, though, with the upgrades available on missiles, else a lot of that extra range is wasted.   Could also add in a higher-tier fuel discount to match the higher-tier repair discount to fill the tree out a bit.

[Lurler]

Maybe radar skills for in the misc. tree?  Figure if they're gonna go anywhere they should go there or in engineering.

Yup, they are part of engineering skill tree. It is not fully complete yet, but here's what I have so far.

(click on the image to enlarge)

The mining skills are also part of engineering section, these will be grouped along with crafting and upgrading skills into one big "Industry" tree later on when we add crafting.

[Fargham]

Looks good!

[Hammish]

If you wanted to keep tabs to a minimum, you could always just rename misc as well, in the end.  Maybe make it something like 'Civilian' or the like, out of combat stuff, with a combination of the social traits and the crafting/mining you mentioned.  Can't really think of anything else to add in there for now, though!

[Lurler]

Phew, finished with the skills. It was a very tedious task creating xmls for all skills but now it's done
Tomorrow I will give another pass to balance all the effects and fix any mistakes and then only graphics will be left to do.
(for the skill part that is, there are more other tasks to do before release)

[Hammish]

I can sympathize a bit, I've been reworking them in BTC a touch as well, though I'm waiting until you guys release this megapatch before I put out a new public version so I can see what all needs changing and adapt in some of the new stuff you've shown off.

Grats on the progress, though!  Your comment about the art made me want to ask, too, do you guys have by chance higher-resolution versions of the art you've been using for buttons?  (Skills, items, ect.).  I was hoping to use some of it in the style I designed for items in my mod, but I'm running into issues with the fact that the aliasing on the shrunk versions in the .CPK make copying them over to anything else more or less impossible.  If not, that's cool as well, just figured I'd ask.

[Creat]

Hello again, I know I'm a bit late to the part, but I'll add my 2 cents anyway

From looking at the graphs you posted it doesn't seem like there are skill requirements for the basic weapon types. I'd kinda like it if we only started with a single light type, i.e. beam/pusle. Kinetic and Missiles should require a skill. Or am I just misinterpreting the tree there?

[Lurler]

Hello again, I know I'm a bit late to the part, but I'll add my 2 cents anyway

Sure. Thanks for joining the discussion
Until we release the update there is always a possibility of changes if they are needed.

From looking at the graphs you posted it doesn't seem like there are skill requirements for the basic weapon types. I'd kinda like it if we only started with a single light type, i.e. beam/pusle. Kinetic and Missiles should require a skill. Or am I just misinterpreting the tree there?

Actually they do require skills.
Also the final skill trees were changed a little bit from the diagrams above too.
To use any weapons apart for civilian types you need to have either "Direct weapons" skill (for basic ballistic and energy weapons), or "explosives" skill (for missiles and mines). The first is available to be taken from the beginning and most characters will in fact have it already when starting the game but explosives skill requires character level 5. And then to get access to advanced types of particular weapons you will need to advance down the tree.