I think he has a problem with the buggy mouseover for the experience bar.
It's not buggy... it just can't determine how many skill points you have while you're operating in Space controls (the ship has no skill points, you see).
Go to your bridge, enter a Ground mission, or hit up a starbase (read: anything that switches you to ground schematics) and it will properly register your skills.
This is, presumably, because it auto-defaults to your ship for everything while in Sector Space or anywhere else that uses the Space controls. Including spent skills. S'also why for some reason you can't see your Captain's traits while in Space (doesn't register them unless your control scheme is Ground).
If you don't actually use your skillpoints to increase your available skills, you shouldn't advance to the next rank.
Bad analogy:
I'm sure Picard wouldn't have made La Forge Chief Engineer without him getting some training and skills first...
I'm sorry. If I have maxed out all the skills I intend to use and the amount spent does not equal 6700, I then am forced to spend points in TRIBBLE that will not help my build in any way. I hate this, because I could save these unused points and spend them in the next Tier where I could actually get some benefit.
I'm sorry. If I have maxed out all the skills I intend to use and the amount spent does not equal 6700, I then am forced to spend points in TRIBBLE that will not help my build in any way. I hate this, because I could save these unused points and spend them in the next Tier where I could actually get some benefit.
Aha, now I get what you mean.
A lot of us are in this boat - especially those of us who are sitting at RA5 (ie, skillcap, 60700 points). Without knowing what weapons would be available. Handy hint - they're antiproton (if you hadn't seen that already).
Respecs are coming though, so I'd just spend in ancillary skills which might give a general beneft for the moment.
I'm sorry. If I have maxed out all the skills I intend to use and the amount spent does not equal 6700, I then am forced to spend points in TRIBBLE that will not help my build in any way. I hate this, because I could save these unused points and spend them in the next Tier where I could actually get some benefit.
I hate to break it to you, but a lot of games have the same kind of feature. They just don't tie it as intrinsically to the level-up mechanic. Mostly, they're tied to 'talents' or having certain skills have 'prerequisites' before you spend any points on them at all. Generally in skills that you don't really want or need, and not everything is immediately useful to you, either.
I don't really see how this is exactly any different for the most part, as the net result is the same: You're wasting points in things either way. It's not even like Tier 1 is that big of a deal (I wish I had points to spare in later tiers, lemme tell ya).
That is the total number of skill points you need to spend across all LT levels to get to LC. The tool tip is a little misleading because this number never decreases as you spend skill points.
That is the total number of skill points you need to spend across all LT levels to get to LC. The tool tip is a little misleading because this number never decreases as you spend skill points.
It doesn't in space, but it WILL track it properly in the ground, and update it to reflect how many skill points you've spent every time you switch to the Ground control scheme.
I'm sorry. If I have maxed out all the skills I intend to use and the amount spent does not equal 6700, I then am forced to spend points in TRIBBLE that will not help my build in any way. I hate this, because I could save these unused points and spend them in the next Tier where I could actually get some benefit.
The Tier 1 skills in general apply to so many things that I'm finding this rather unlikely. There's 11 skills, and you need to add 67 skill levels mixed between then. I can understand not wanting to use ground skills, but that only really cuts 2 skills from the list, since the "X Team Leader" skills affect their respective "X Team" space powers.
Maybe if you're trying to build a beam boat that won't have much in the way of supportive powers I could see this, but that's about the only way you're going to end up in such a situation.
The Tier 1 skills in general apply to so many things that I'm finding this rather unlikely. There's 11 skills, and you need to add 67 skill levels mixed between then. I can understand not wanting to use ground skills, but that only really cuts 2 skills from the list, since the "X Team Leader" skills affect their respective "X Team" space powers.
Maybe if you're trying to build a beam boat that won't have much in the way of supportive powers I could see this, but that's about the only way you're going to end up in such a situation.
S'worth pointing out that the 'X' Team Leader powers also buff the respective Ground skills for your Away team members, as well.
Tactical Team Leader buffs your Tactical Bridge Officer's Assault Training and Close Combat Training, Science Team Leader buffs your Science Bridge Officer's Scientific Practice and Scientific Theory, and so on.
Generally worth putting at least some points there, whether you use the 'X' Team abilities or not, honestly.
In my experience, it is impossible to max out all of the skills a captain could use effectively. I guess it would be possible if you are just going for an all ground skills build.
Besides, the skill system is one of diminishing returns. Maxing out skills is not usually very helpful (the exception being to acquire lvl III skills of course). It is pretty widely considered a waste to raise any Lt Skill above 7.
The Tier 1 skills in general apply to so many things that I'm finding this rather unlikely. There's 11 skills, and you need to add 67 skill levels mixed between then. I can understand not wanting to use ground skills, but that only really cuts 2 skills from the list, since the "X Team Leader" skills affect their respective "X Team" space powers.
Maybe if you're trying to build a beam boat that won't have much in the way of supportive powers I could see this, but that's about the only way you're going to end up in such a situation.
My Engineer only really wanted to spend 6300 in Tier 1 skills. So I had to spend 400 where I did not want. Not much of a waste, but still a waste. Spending the required points in Tier 2 was about as the same as spending points in Tier 1. Tier 3 on the other hand, is completely ridiculous as the skills are now specific. Any points you put in ship-specific skills is a complete waste as you will not be flying any of those ships at the end of your career. Any points spent in the damage types you are ultimately not going to use is a waste. Any points spent is skills that are not going to boost the BO skills you are going to use in the end game are a waste. So where do you spend the points? You rank 9 whatever you are going to use and then try to find skills in Tier 1 and Tier 2 that will help your build. While leveling I max ranked all chosen skills at 7. Going to 9 is a waste as you only get .5% for every 100 skill points spent. But yet here I am at Commander having to go back and pump these rank 7's to 9's, because if I want to reach Captain, it's either this or put points in completely useless Tier 3 skills. And I'm here to tell you, I ran out of T1 and T2 skills to rank from 7 to 9, and had to spend points in T1 and T2 skills that I did not want to take at all -- because choosing these on the off chance I may end up with a BO with said ground ability is better than wasting points in a T3 ship/weapon skill that I'm 100% sure will not get any use.
Basically your beef is that you have to spend all the skill points you earned at this rank before you can advance to the next rank.
That really seems to be a fundimental part of the game.
I know. We are all in the same boat and stuck with how things work.
Honestly though, it's not the requirement itself that bugs me. It's the fact that we have to spend our earned skill points on things that do not provide any benefit to our character.
This wasn't an issue when there was no skill cap. At the last minute they introduced a skill cap and didn't change the skill system. Without a skill cap the system made sense. For example, if you are in your T3 cruiser, you boost your T3 cruiser skill. It didn't matter, as there were always more skills points to be had. Now however, it's a complete waste to boost your T3 cruiser skill. As soon as you hit Captain, you are no longer in that specific ship. So you are left with trying to spending the points elsewhere to try and get some benefit out of the skill points.
Hopefully, the skill system will be addressed in the future.
Captain Skills
The significant change here is that each skill in a ship class (cruiser, escort, etc.) provides a benefit to any ship in that class. Previously the Commander+ skills were complete sinks offering nothing once you advanced past that ship. Now each Commander+ skills provides 25% of its stat to any ship of the same class of a higher tier.
It's not buggy... it just can't determine how many skill points you have while you're operating in Space controls (the ship has no skill points, you see).
Go to your bridge, enter a Ground mission, or hit up a starbase (read: anything that switches you to ground schematics) and it will properly register your skills.
This is, presumably, because it auto-defaults to your ship for everything while in Sector Space or anywhere else that uses the Space controls. Including spent skills. S'also why for some reason you can't see your Captain's traits while in Space (doesn't register them unless your control scheme is Ground).
Wow, the feature is the most TRIBBLE thing I have ever heard of.
My Engineer only really wanted to spend 6300 in Tier 1 skills. So I had to spend 400 where I did not want. Not much of a waste, but still a waste. Spending the required points in Tier 2 was about as the same as spending points in Tier 1. Tier 3 on the other hand, is completely ridiculous as the skills are now specific. Any points you put in ship-specific skills is a complete waste as you will not be flying any of those ships at the end of your career. Any points spent in the damage types you are ultimately not going to use is a waste. Any points spent is skills that are not going to boost the BO skills you are going to use in the end game are a waste. So where do you spend the points? You rank 9 whatever you are going to use and then try to find skills in Tier 1 and Tier 2 that will help your build. While leveling I max ranked all chosen skills at 7. Going to 9 is a waste as you only get .5% for every 100 skill points spent. But yet here I am at Commander having to go back and pump these rank 7's to 9's, because if I want to reach Captain, it's either this or put points in completely useless Tier 3 skills. And I'm here to tell you, I ran out of T1 and T2 skills to rank from 7 to 9, and had to spend points in T1 and T2 skills that I did not want to take at all -- because choosing these on the off chance I may end up with a BO with said ground ability is better than wasting points in a T3 ship/weapon skill that I'm 100% sure will not get any use.
Zeegads, le wall o' text!
It's sounding like perhaps you're a little too focused with your build here. It's also good to remember the secondary effects of a lot of skills. Of course, not all the secondary effects are well known or documented, but it's a work in progress.
Of note also is that more skills are being explored on the test server right now, which should hopefully help with the problem. I know the desire is to maximize the value of every single point you spend, but occasionally the value of spending a point is so that you have access to even better places to spend points. Be glad there's no prerequisites on skills other than rank, it could be a lot worse than it is.
And I'm still curious what it is you're trying to do that is creating this incredibly focused build.
Wow, the feature is the most TRIBBLE thing I have ever heard of.
I don't think it's an intended feature, it's just an issue with how it determines how to update tooltips (from what I understand). I'm not sure how they have it coded, so I'm not sure how easy it would be to do the fix (and to be fair, that's probably one of the lowest things on their priority list at this point; There's far more annoying things, like the tooltip bug where it auto-defaults ship gear stat tooltips to the last ship you purchased... which sucks when you're trying to determine effect for one of your OTHER ships. This only affects tooltips, for the record).
They could just set it so that skill data always checks your Captain over any other source... but that could horribly backfire as well, depending how they have it coded. I wish'em luck on it.
I'm sorry. If I have maxed out all the skills I intend to use and the amount spent does not equal 6700, I then am forced to spend points in TRIBBLE that will not help my build in any way. I hate this, because I could save these unused points and spend them in the next Tier where I could actually get some benefit.
My own opinion, but I believe it's a design decision to try to guide the player into make a more balanced character. And perhaps you have this misconception, you don't have max out a lower tier skills before you can start leveling up a higher tier skills. There are not prerequisites skills or ranks for higher tiered skill. Once you are promoted all of skills for that ranked are unlocked and can be improved.
You can try only ranking up skills to the diminishing return points (i.e. rank or so). You might no be +18% in every thing. But +10% in a number of "unwanted" skills is till an extra 10%. The Tier 1 skills are, in general, affect a broad range of skills.
In my experience, it is impossible to max out all of the skills a captain could use effectively. I guess it would be possible if you are just going for an all ground skills build.
Besides, the skill system is one of diminishing returns. Maxing out skills is not usually very helpful (the exception being to acquire lvl III skills of course). It is pretty widely considered a waste to raise any Lt Skill above 7.
Its all relative. Some mini-maxers want that extra few percent. Especially if you can stack other things on top. Captain for example. 18% isn't much, but you can stack Ship Class Captain on top of it. Another example is Starship Warp Core Training. The Warp Core Theorist trait (+10% Warp Core Training). Rank 9 Warp Core Training will add a +5 power setting bonus to a system at 25. Warp Core Theorist adds +2 more. So your low power systems can be running at 32/25. For Aux 32/25 makes even a Miranda turn rate tolerable.
Its all relative. Some mini-maxers want that extra few percent. Especially if you can stack other things on top. Captain for example. 18% isn't much...
That's my point. We aren't talking about the difference between 18% and nothing, we are talking about the difference between 18% and 17%. At Lt, those last two points only get you 1% and no matter how much you stack, it is always only going to be 1%.
Most people agree that those last two points are better off getting 10% out of a skill you may use less often, like science/engineering team.
Comments
I'm confused as to what your issue is.
You spend skill points, you increase your skills, you advance through the ranks... and so on.
If you don't actually use your skillpoints to increase your available skills, you shouldn't advance to the next rank.
Bad analogy:
I'm sure Picard wouldn't have made La Forge Chief Engineer without him getting some training and skills first...
It's not buggy... it just can't determine how many skill points you have while you're operating in Space controls (the ship has no skill points, you see).
Go to your bridge, enter a Ground mission, or hit up a starbase (read: anything that switches you to ground schematics) and it will properly register your skills.
This is, presumably, because it auto-defaults to your ship for everything while in Sector Space or anywhere else that uses the Space controls. Including spent skills. S'also why for some reason you can't see your Captain's traits while in Space (doesn't register them unless your control scheme is Ground).
I'm sorry. If I have maxed out all the skills I intend to use and the amount spent does not equal 6700, I then am forced to spend points in TRIBBLE that will not help my build in any way. I hate this, because I could save these unused points and spend them in the next Tier where I could actually get some benefit.
Aha, now I get what you mean.
A lot of us are in this boat - especially those of us who are sitting at RA5 (ie, skillcap, 60700 points). Without knowing what weapons would be available. Handy hint - they're antiproton (if you hadn't seen that already).
Respecs are coming though, so I'd just spend in ancillary skills which might give a general beneft for the moment.
I hate to break it to you, but a lot of games have the same kind of feature. They just don't tie it as intrinsically to the level-up mechanic. Mostly, they're tied to 'talents' or having certain skills have 'prerequisites' before you spend any points on them at all. Generally in skills that you don't really want or need, and not everything is immediately useful to you, either.
I don't really see how this is exactly any different for the most part, as the net result is the same: You're wasting points in things either way. It's not even like Tier 1 is that big of a deal (I wish I had points to spare in later tiers, lemme tell ya).
That is the total number of skill points you need to spend across all LT levels to get to LC. The tool tip is a little misleading because this number never decreases as you spend skill points.
It doesn't in space, but it WILL track it properly in the ground, and update it to reflect how many skill points you've spent every time you switch to the Ground control scheme.
The Tier 1 skills in general apply to so many things that I'm finding this rather unlikely. There's 11 skills, and you need to add 67 skill levels mixed between then. I can understand not wanting to use ground skills, but that only really cuts 2 skills from the list, since the "X Team Leader" skills affect their respective "X Team" space powers.
Maybe if you're trying to build a beam boat that won't have much in the way of supportive powers I could see this, but that's about the only way you're going to end up in such a situation.
S'worth pointing out that the 'X' Team Leader powers also buff the respective Ground skills for your Away team members, as well.
Tactical Team Leader buffs your Tactical Bridge Officer's Assault Training and Close Combat Training, Science Team Leader buffs your Science Bridge Officer's Scientific Practice and Scientific Theory, and so on.
Generally worth putting at least some points there, whether you use the 'X' Team abilities or not, honestly.
Besides, the skill system is one of diminishing returns. Maxing out skills is not usually very helpful (the exception being to acquire lvl III skills of course). It is pretty widely considered a waste to raise any Lt Skill above 7.
My Engineer only really wanted to spend 6300 in Tier 1 skills. So I had to spend 400 where I did not want. Not much of a waste, but still a waste. Spending the required points in Tier 2 was about as the same as spending points in Tier 1. Tier 3 on the other hand, is completely ridiculous as the skills are now specific. Any points you put in ship-specific skills is a complete waste as you will not be flying any of those ships at the end of your career. Any points spent in the damage types you are ultimately not going to use is a waste. Any points spent is skills that are not going to boost the BO skills you are going to use in the end game are a waste. So where do you spend the points? You rank 9 whatever you are going to use and then try to find skills in Tier 1 and Tier 2 that will help your build. While leveling I max ranked all chosen skills at 7. Going to 9 is a waste as you only get .5% for every 100 skill points spent. But yet here I am at Commander having to go back and pump these rank 7's to 9's, because if I want to reach Captain, it's either this or put points in completely useless Tier 3 skills. And I'm here to tell you, I ran out of T1 and T2 skills to rank from 7 to 9, and had to spend points in T1 and T2 skills that I did not want to take at all -- because choosing these on the off chance I may end up with a BO with said ground ability is better than wasting points in a T3 ship/weapon skill that I'm 100% sure will not get any use.
That really seems to be a fundimental part of the game.
I know. We are all in the same boat and stuck with how things work.
Honestly though, it's not the requirement itself that bugs me. It's the fact that we have to spend our earned skill points on things that do not provide any benefit to our character.
This wasn't an issue when there was no skill cap. At the last minute they introduced a skill cap and didn't change the skill system. Without a skill cap the system made sense. For example, if you are in your T3 cruiser, you boost your T3 cruiser skill. It didn't matter, as there were always more skills points to be had. Now however, it's a complete waste to boost your T3 cruiser skill. As soon as you hit Captain, you are no longer in that specific ship. So you are left with trying to spending the points elsewhere to try and get some benefit out of the skill points.
Hopefully, the skill system will be addressed in the future.
Least they are making lower level ships skills somewhat useful now.
Wow, the feature is the most TRIBBLE thing I have ever heard of.
Zeegads, le wall o' text!
It's sounding like perhaps you're a little too focused with your build here. It's also good to remember the secondary effects of a lot of skills. Of course, not all the secondary effects are well known or documented, but it's a work in progress.
Of note also is that more skills are being explored on the test server right now, which should hopefully help with the problem. I know the desire is to maximize the value of every single point you spend, but occasionally the value of spending a point is so that you have access to even better places to spend points. Be glad there's no prerequisites on skills other than rank, it could be a lot worse than it is.
And I'm still curious what it is you're trying to do that is creating this incredibly focused build.
I don't think it's an intended feature, it's just an issue with how it determines how to update tooltips (from what I understand). I'm not sure how they have it coded, so I'm not sure how easy it would be to do the fix (and to be fair, that's probably one of the lowest things on their priority list at this point; There's far more annoying things, like the tooltip bug where it auto-defaults ship gear stat tooltips to the last ship you purchased... which sucks when you're trying to determine effect for one of your OTHER ships. This only affects tooltips, for the record).
They could just set it so that skill data always checks your Captain over any other source... but that could horribly backfire as well, depending how they have it coded. I wish'em luck on it.
My own opinion, but I believe it's a design decision to try to guide the player into make a more balanced character. And perhaps you have this misconception, you don't have max out a lower tier skills before you can start leveling up a higher tier skills. There are not prerequisites skills or ranks for higher tiered skill. Once you are promoted all of skills for that ranked are unlocked and can be improved.
You can try only ranking up skills to the diminishing return points (i.e. rank or so). You might no be +18% in every thing. But +10% in a number of "unwanted" skills is till an extra 10%. The Tier 1 skills are, in general, affect a broad range of skills.
Its all relative. Some mini-maxers want that extra few percent. Especially if you can stack other things on top. Captain for example. 18% isn't much, but you can stack Ship Class Captain on top of it. Another example is Starship Warp Core Training. The Warp Core Theorist trait (+10% Warp Core Training). Rank 9 Warp Core Training will add a +5 power setting bonus to a system at 25. Warp Core Theorist adds +2 more. So your low power systems can be running at 32/25. For Aux 32/25 makes even a Miranda turn rate tolerable.
That's my point. We aren't talking about the difference between 18% and nothing, we are talking about the difference between 18% and 17%. At Lt, those last two points only get you 1% and no matter how much you stack, it is always only going to be 1%.
Most people agree that those last two points are better off getting 10% out of a skill you may use less often, like science/engineering team.