TAC 5 = Hangar Health / Hangar Damage
TAC 10 = Projectile Crit H / Projectile Crit D
TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Energy Crit D
All potentially meaningless choices. Not a good system design IMO.
a better design would be
TAC 5 = Hangar Damage / somthing not hanger related
TAC 10 = Energy Crit D/ Projectile Crit D
TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Projectile Crit H
Every build has a meaningful choice here now.
This guy's got the right idea. Putting 2 Hangar-based skills at the very top of the tree (for leveling players) is incredibly dumb, as there are no leveling players with a carrier (and pets) until much later in the games progression. Each tier should have skills that benefit "one or the other".
TAC 5 = Hangar Health / Hangar Damage
TAC 10 = Projectile Crit H / Projectile Crit D
TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Energy Crit D
All potentially meaningless choices. Not a good system design IMO.
a better design would be
TAC 5 = Hangar Damage / somthing not hanger related
TAC 10 = Energy Crit D/ Projectile Crit D
TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Projectile Crit H
Every build has a meaningful choice here now.
This guy's got the right idea. Putting 2 Hangar-based skills at the very top of the tree (for leveling players) is incredibly dumb, as there are no leveling players with a carrier (and pets) until much later in the games progression. Each tier should have skills that benefit "one or the other".
Here is a proposed chart for this.
ENG 5 = Battery Expertise / Subsystem Repair
ENG 10 = Max Hull Capacity / Hangar Health
ENG 15 = Engine Power / Shield Power
ENG 20 = Aux Power / Weapon Power
SCI 5 = Transwarp Recharge / Sector Space Travel
SCI 10 = Max Shield Capacity / Control Resistance
SCI 15 = Stealth / Perception
SCI 20 = Energy Drain Resist / Shield Drain Resist
TAC 5 = Threat Control / Hangar Damage
TAC 10 = Projectile Crit H / Projectile Crit D
TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Energy Crit D
TAC 20 = Accuracy / Defense
TAC 5 = Hangar Health / Hangar Damage
TAC 10 = Projectile Crit H / Projectile Crit D
TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Energy Crit D
All potentially meaningless choices. Not a good system design IMO.
a better design would be
TAC 5 = Hangar Damage / somthing not hanger related
TAC 10 = Energy Crit D/ Projectile Crit D
TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Projectile Crit H
Every build has a meaningful choice here now.
This guy's got the right idea. Putting 2 Hangar-based skills at the very top of the tree (for leveling players) is incredibly dumb, as there are no leveling players with a carrier (and pets) until much later in the games progression. Each tier should have skills that benefit "one or the other".
Here is a proposed chart for this.
ENG 5 = Battery Expertise / Subsystem Repair
ENG 10 = Max Hull Capacity / Hangar Health
ENG 15 = Engine Power / Shield Power
ENG 20 = Aux Power / Weapon Power
SCI 5 = Transwarp Recharge / Sector Space Travel
SCI 10 = Max Shield Capacity / Control Resistance
SCI 15 = Stealth / Perception
SCI 20 = Energy Drain Resist / Shield Drain Resist
TAC 5 = Threat Control / Hangar Damage
TAC 10 = Projectile Crit H / Projectile Crit D
TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Energy Crit D
TAC 20 = Accuracy / Defense
Edit:
Below is a modified chart as proposed by others.
The chart that others are proposing is:
• ENG 5 = Hangar Health/ Battery Expertise
• ENG 10 = Max Hull Capacity / Subsystem Repair
• ENG 15 = Engine Power / Shield Power
• ENG 20 = Aux Power / Weapon Power
• SCI 5 = Transwarp Recharge / Sector Space Travel
• SCI 10 = Max Shield Capacity / Stealth
• SCI 15 = Control Resistance / Perception
• SCI 20 = Energy Drain Resist / Shield Drain Resist
• TAC 5 = Threat Control/ Hangar Damage
• TAC 10 = Projectile Crit H / Projectile Crit D
• TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Energy Crit D
• TAC 20 = Accuracy / Defense
Ultimate Enhancements are bugged. The first enhancement should hit at 25 skill points set, its not letting you select the first enhancement until 26 point spent, even though the progress tracker hits the first button on 25 points.
"Back on topic. Destinii is correct."
(Formerly Destinii until the 'Great PWE Forum Shakeup of 2012')
the hangars are so low on the tree because most of carriers are sci ships. tac players don't usually go for those, so placing the hangars too high would mean practically no sci player could get that option other than through investing into tac rather than sci.
Now clowns, that's another story. They scare the crap out of me.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
The point of these unlocks is you have to make choices... you can't have all the energy weapon traits sorry.
So I can't choose all energy weapons or all torps? where is the choice in that?
A choice between two skills that have 0 effect on your build is the same as no choice. If I don't have a hanger on my ship where is the choice in 2 hanger skills? You don't make a choice because both options are 100% worthless. And that is just bad design plain and simple.
Many Changes, some good some not, not going to comment them all but the following 4 things:
1.TAC 5 = Hangar Health / Hangar Damage, was nonsense and is still nonsense, what do i need this if iam not flying a Ship with a Hangar at all??????????
it should be Hangar Health / something not Pet releated and Hangar Damage/ again something not Pet releated, so we dont have to make worthless Choices.
2.For the Sake of (put something you like here) Change the Point by Point Confirming to a "First Chose all than Confirm OR Cancel" System like we have with the old system, you just CANT be serious with that Point by Point nonsense can you? I still think that this is a bad joke, maybe an early April 1st Joke???
3.I still say that we really need a Skill Loadout System, and i just dont understand why you (cryptic) refuse to implent that, i mean wth? you benefit and we benefit, give freebies 1 and gold/lfm 2 additional Skill Loadouts and than sell us more, if someone has 30 Ships, let him buy 30 Skill Loadouts so he can switch between them with one click and fly the ship that he wants to fly, where is the problem? You allready have the Loadout system in the game, so expanding it to the Skill System cant be that hard.
4.It was also mentioned many times by many people, that the Skill Respec tokens should GO, charging for a basic mechanic like reskilling is just wrong and is anything else than encouriging to try out new Builds or even buy new ships, and tbh i cant imagine that Respec Tokens bring you much cash anyway, selling Skill Loadouts would be so much more Profitable and at the same time User Friendly, it would be like killing 2 Birds with one stone!
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event and mission rewards!!
the hangars are so low on the tree because most of carriers are sci ships. tac players don't usually go for those, so placing the hangars too high would mean practically no sci player could get that option other than through investing into tac rather than sci.
But the tactical Tree is not directly related to Tac captains or Tac heavy ships. I don't think any of the skills effect Tac Captains abilities and all them effect every type of ship the same. For example, energy weapons skill boosts energy weapons damage, regardless of what ship or captain you are. So a sci ship has just as much reason to spec into the tac tree as a tac ship. Generally that is to add more offence to your build (but not entirely). The same goes for the other trees. Any ship can slot a part gen ability so that skill is something anyone can make good use of. The trees really aren't directly related to any type of ship or captain career, even though they often share the same names. Unfortunately is just all worded poorly and is probably more confusing to new players than the old skill tree was.
The three "Ultimate Abilities" now only require 24 points spent in that section of Skills, instead of 25.
Unsure if it's the place to post it but it's relevant to this date's notes.
The problem is: For a newly copied char (at level above 50 if that matters) the skill tutorial still says 25 instead of 24.
Edit: Additionally as one other said above, can't unlock one ultimate (tact in this case) which is the 1st one, despite having 27 in tact tree for testing purposes, ending with (a max of) 2/3 for that ultimate skill at 27 point spent on that tree.
The point of these unlocks is you have to make choices... you can't have all the energy weapon traits sorry.
no it basically limits your choices not forces you to make choices, not that this boni are worth mentioning.
The current system allowes you much more freedom into what you want to spec, if I want go torpedo boat, I can, if I want to go beam boat I can and I still have to make trade offs.
The first unlock for Tactical is for hangar pets, really? That is absolutely worthless for me in a cruiser.
what were you expecting, the 'good' bonuses that 'everyone' wants would naturally be at the end of the road.
Personally, i think the first SCI bonus is worthless... But then, i am a fairly patient player, and happy to cruise towards my objectives while sorting out admiralty and stuff.
For me, Threat/Batteries is a total no-brainer, because i can't be bothered to keep crafting and using batteries all the time (except my Red Matter Capacitor)
The system will never please everybody, and im not going to complain about a free bonus, wether i use it or not.
Real Temporal Operative: Purchased the Special Temporal Agent pack before it was even officially announced!
"Updated the long description of Resilient Shield Arrays to more accurately reflect how incoming damage is distributed when these items are equipped."
I do not see anything changed with Resilient shield descriptions.
I was hoping for something other than "5% Absorption / 5% Bleed through".
Does "5% Absorption" mean shield resistance?? And will it work like Shield Hardness does?
Are the three shields set up to point back to the skills in the new skill tree, such as:
Regenerative shields is extra regeneration in exchange for lower capacity
Covariant shields is extra capacity in exchange for slower regeneration
Resilient shields is extra resistance in exchange for slower regen and lower cap
Where as, this unfortunate description "absorption" is what ????
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
"Updated the long description of Resilient Shield Arrays to more accurately reflect how incoming damage is distributed when these items are equipped."
I do not see anything changed with Resilient shield descriptions.
I was hoping for something other than "5% Absorption / 5% Bleed through".
Does "5% Absorption" mean shield resistance?? And will it work like Shield Hardness does?
Are the three shields set up to point back to the skills in the new skill tree, such as:
Regenerative shields is extra regeneration in exchange for lower capacity
Covariant shields is extra capacity in exchange for slower regeneration
Resilient shields is extra resistance in exchange for slower regen and lower cap
Where as, this unfortunate description "absorption" is what ????
I am honestly quite confused by different descriptions of (maybe) the same thing.
1) Shield resistance (Lower incoming damage to shield)
2) Shield hardness (Lower incoming damage to shield)
3) Shield absorption (Lower incoming damage to shield)
So, if you have no shield hardness at all, it goes like this:
100 Damage come in. You got 10 % bleedthrough: 10 points get subtracted from your hull, 90 points from your shields.
As I understand it, a resilient shield does two things. The bleedthrough is only 5 %, and 5 % of the total damage is simply ignored. So, if 100 damage go in, 5 go to your hull, 90 to your shields. 5 go nowhere.
Shield Damage Reduction affects how much damage your shields actually take.
So, let's say you have 20 % shield damage reduction, 10 % bleedthrough. What happens now is:
100 damage go in. 10 damage to your hull. 90 * 0.80 damage go to your shields, so 72 damage. Total damage taken.
The concept you've outlined here is absolutely correct, but I'm not certain that the math is accurate. Would need to dig into it a bit more, which I'll do and then check back here to confirm.
Now, about your shield power and the shield hardness skill. The shield hardness skill affects how much damage reduction you actually get from shield power. It's not a separate value, it interacts with what you get from shield power. WIthout taking any point in the skill, that value is now a little lower than currently on Holodeck, with taking just one rank, it will be higher.
What the exact value can be derived from the tooltip. I don't know without looking on Tribble myself.
Maybe it's unfortunate that the Shield Hardness skill and Shield Hardness are actually not the same thing. Maybe it should also be called "Shield Hardness Expertise" or something like that.
Hmm, not a bad idea. I'll think about it.
Shield Resistance = Shield Hardness => Damage that would be applied to your shield is reduced by a percentage.
Shield Absorption => Damage goes away.
Shield Bleedthrough => This damage just goes directly to your hull, and does not benefit from hardness or absorption. But it does benefit from Hull Resistance, of course, since it goes to your hull.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Shield Absorption => Damage that would be applied to your Shields goes away.
Small correction, above.
So it's (with a Resilient shield and not account for shield hardness)
100 incoming damage
5 damage goes to hull
90 would go to shield
but 4.5(5 % of 90) are absorbed and go away.
Remaining 85.5 actually go to shields.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I think he's making the distinction that shield piercing/bypassing damage is not subject to the mitigation.
100 points of damage that does not bypass shields hits resilient shield
5 goes away (absorption)
5 goes through (bleed through)
90 applied to shield HP.
100 points of damage inflicted with 50% shield bypass hits resilient shield
50 go direct to hull (bypass)
2.5 go away (absorption)
2.5 also go to hull (bleed through)
45 applied to shield HP.
((this is my intuitive understanding from the tool tips/wiki. Could be completely wrong ))
100 incoming damage
10 to hull (then apply Resistances to this value)
90 to shields (then apply Hardness to this value)
Resilient Shields take slightly more shield damage than any other type of shield, since they prevent more from reaching your Hull:
100 incoming damage
5 to Hull (then apply Resistances to this value)
95 to shields
... then 5% of that 95 is absorbed (negated)
... resulting in 90.25 being applied to Shields (then apply Hardness to this value)
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
That is a lot of calculations... and we are only looking at shields? It is a wonder the program can keep up with everything that can go on during battles.
Still....to be clear:
Is the term "Hardness" or "Shield Hardness" only be used to mean resistance when it comes to shields?
And just plain "Resistance" will only denote resistances on hull?
Or am I still lost...is "Shield Hardness" even considered a type of resistance?
(In some ways I am glad for this skill tree revamp, because it is forcing me to look at this TRIBBLE....but in other ways, I wish I stayed under a rock)
You guys don't even have it bad on the forums...my friend is trying to explain "Shields have an innate 75% kinetic resist" to me in an e-mail.
Post edited by where2r1 on
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Overall, would it be possible to not have to accept every single skill? There are MMOs out there that let you move your way through the Skilltree and let you accept the whole build once you are done. Retraining is not free and the issue im seeing here is that less experienced players start to push in there points and end up with half complete builds because tehy simply ran out of points on there way down the tree.
I dont see the big issue with TAC 5. There are also ppl that dont use Torps/Mines that have to deal with TAC 10.
Shield Regeneration:
5%, 8,5%, 10% more regeneration seems a bit low to be a bonus, especially if you count in that the corresponding hull skill (Damage Control) seems to have a way better outcome per point.
But this isn't one of them.
The idea is that no one would ever have all the skills in the world at their highest level. If that was the case then the very concept of a build becomes worthless. Anyone who plays the game long enough would gain all of the abilities and everyone would be identical. There's no skill to selecting what you want to specialize in.
That said. The problem with the system even in this, frankly damn fine revamp, is that skill build is very closely tied to ship type. You don't select the same skills for a science ship as a Klingon warship. So skill selection locks in for the ship. That would be fine if we were all going to use one ship for eight years like Picard, or for the lifetime of our career like Kirk. But in this game where you're encouraged to purchase and try new ships, skills can lock you in or out of a ship class without having to purchase a respec.
Perhaps for the next skill revamp, each ship should have a branch of the skill tree built into it, so you have to spend points in each individual ship's skill tree. Ship mastery grown out into a full skill tree.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
You know, there are SO MANY people asking specifically about shield resistances and Shield Hardness all over the forums and how it all works together. NOT JUST ME. There is a lot of questions on this.
I am actually TRYING to find information and asking questions and failing to get it all straight, or at least, I don't think I am getting it straight. I can't imagine what would happen to a person too busy to do this before it goes live.
Please consider: It may be a good idea to write up a clear explanation on the topic and get ahead of any (more?) misinformation.
If NOT a Dev Blog....at least a post in "Builds, Powers, and Game Mechanics" section of the Forums and in STO Builds section of Reddit, so it can get out to the community NOW....well ahead of the skill tree going live on April 12th.
I think those in the community can help each other...just give us something to refer to. Not disjointed in several different threads all over the place.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
It seems to me that it will be almost impossible to have things entirely clear with hull resistance and shield hardness, since ther eare so many powers and traits in the game and so many tooltips that might need a clarification or are non-intuitive. I am almost certain that there is at least one shield (probably Aegis) that also grants you hull resistances, despite being a shield, while other shields (like Elite Fleet Shields) give you hardness against some damage.
I think the basics are this:
Shield Hardness and Hull Resistances are two different things.
Shield Hardness affects damage that goes to your shields.
Hull Resistnace affects damage that goes to your hull.
When you are being hit for damage, a portion of that damage will (almost) always go to your hull - this is bleedthrough damage. Shield Hardness doesn't matter here.
The other portion goes to your shields. Hull Resistance doesn't matter here.
But there are a few complications: Stacking
Hull Resistances have a diminishing return formula that looks pretty complicated and also provides a cap at 75 % damage reduction.
Shield Hardnesses stack multiplicatively, that means if you have 20 % hardness (0.8 damage multiplier) from one source and 15 % hardness from another source (0.85 damage multiplier), the result is 0.8 * 0.85 = 0.68 => 32 % hardness.
IIRC, there is also a hard cap for this (Also 75 %?), which did not always exist.
Exceptions
But there are exceptions. For example, Ablative Armor allows you to go beyond 75 % hull resistance.
Kinetic Resistance
Kinetic damage to shields always is reduced to 25 %. But is this a hardness figure? Presumably this still is allowed to stack beyond the cap.
Damage Overflow from Shields to Hull
Sometimes more damage goes to your shields then they can take. What happens to the remainder?
As I understood from a dev post made a few years ago, the shield hardness is calculated out of that damage. (But was that accurate.)
So, say, if you got 10 shields and have 50 % hardness and take 25 damage, then the damage to shields is reduced to 12.5, but the remaining 2.5, since they don't go to your shields, but to your hull, would actually be 5 damage again. (I could see how one might program it to work like this relatively easy without excessively seeming backtracking calculations, but it is non-intuitive.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
It seems to me that it will be almost impossible to have things entirely clear with hull resistance and shield hardness, since ther eare so many powers and traits in the game and so many tooltips that might need a clarification or are non-intuitive.
Shield Hardness and Hull Resistances are two different things.
Shield Hardness affects damage that goes to your shields.
Hull Resistnace affects damage that goes to your hull.
When you are being hit for damage, a portion of that damage will (almost) always go to your hull - this is bleedthrough damage. Shield Hardness doesn't matter here.
The other portion goes to your shields. Hull Resistance doesn't matter here.
Hull Resistances have a diminishing return formula that looks pretty complicated and also provides a cap at 75 % damage reduction.
Ish. Normal positive hull resist, called simply "resistance magnitude" or "resistancing rating" - e.g. 99% of all +resistance sources in the game, goes through the diminishing returns curve: m(x) = (1/4) + (3 * ((75/(150+x))^2)). Short version of it - that's got diminishing returns that approaches 75% as your "resistance magnitude" approaches infinity.
Debuffs (which are wonky on holodeck, but as I understand fixed on tribble), go through the same curve, except the curve is applied as (positive resistance curve/negative resistance curve)=resistance multiplier, since otherwise they wouldn't be debuffs.
Then there's stuff like, as you mentioned, Ablative Armor, or, more recently, the Adaptive Emergency System (I think the other two sources are the dyson t2 and cc t2 rep passives). These are "bonus" resistance, which seems to run on a 100/(100+sum) curve.
Shield Hardnesses stack multiplicatively, that means if you have 20 % hardness (0.8 damage multiplier) from one source and 15 % hardness from another source (0.85 damage multiplier), the result is 0.8 * 0.85 = 0.68 => 32 % hardness.
IIRC, there is also a hard cap for this (Also 75 %?), which did not always exist.
Right on the stacking. So far as I know, the cap's always been there (and it is a hardcap, at 75%), but I could be mistaken on how long it's been around.
Kinetic damage to shields always is reduced to 25 %. But is this a hardness figure? Presumably this still is allowed to stack beyond the cap.
Like resilient shield's "absorption", this isn't so much 'hardness' so much as it is 'free damage mitigation'. This is applied completely outside the 75% shield resist/hardness/whatever you want to call it hardcap.
Damage Overflow from Shields to Hull
Sometimes more damage goes to your shields then they can take. What happens to the remainder?
Basically, it just looks like your bleedthrough is higher than expected.
Let's say I fire a magical 1000 damage AP beam at you. For ease of calculations, you have -100% antiproton hull resistance (I debuffed you really badly), but +50% antiproton shield resistance, and the standard 10% bleedthrough is in effect.
In a magical world where you have like 5k on the current facing, 900 hits shields, and is reduced to 450, while 100 hits hull, and is amplified to 200. Your combat tab would show this:
Jarvis gives 450 (1800) damage to your shields with AP beam.
Jarvis deals 200 (1000) damage to your hull with AP beam.
But, let's say that instead, you only have 200 on your current facing.
I'm trying to throw 900 of the damage of my shot at your shields, but they can't take it, even after reducing it to 450. So instead, the 200 that exists absorbs 400 of the pre-resist damage (200 actual damage) because you've got 50% shield AP resist. There's still 600 damage in this shot, so your hull takes it as 1200 damage (because you've got -100% hull ap resist). Your combat tab would now show this:
Jarvis gives 200 (800) damage to your shields with AP beam.
Jarvis deals 1200 (1000) damage to your hull with AP beam.
I am almost certain that there is at least one shield (probably Aegis) that also grants you hull resistances, despite being a shield, while other shields (like Elite Fleet Shields) give you hardness against some damage.
Yup. There's a few shields (Jem has kinetic, for example) that grant hull resist and shield resist. It's a thing that they do. I think they're fairly clear about it, but I might be wrong.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Comments
This guy's got the right idea. Putting 2 Hangar-based skills at the very top of the tree (for leveling players) is incredibly dumb, as there are no leveling players with a carrier (and pets) until much later in the games progression. Each tier should have skills that benefit "one or the other".
Here is a proposed chart for this.
ENG 5 = Battery Expertise / Subsystem Repair
ENG 10 = Max Hull Capacity / Hangar Health
ENG 15 = Engine Power / Shield Power
ENG 20 = Aux Power / Weapon Power
SCI 5 = Transwarp Recharge / Sector Space Travel
SCI 10 = Max Shield Capacity / Control Resistance
SCI 15 = Stealth / Perception
SCI 20 = Energy Drain Resist / Shield Drain Resist
TAC 5 = Threat Control / Hangar Damage
TAC 10 = Projectile Crit H / Projectile Crit D
TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Energy Crit D
TAC 20 = Accuracy / Defense
Edit:
Below is a modified chart as proposed by others.
The chart that others are proposing is:
• ENG 5 = Hangar Health/ Battery Expertise
• ENG 10 = Max Hull Capacity / Subsystem Repair
• ENG 15 = Engine Power / Shield Power
• ENG 20 = Aux Power / Weapon Power
• SCI 5 = Transwarp Recharge / Sector Space Travel
• SCI 10 = Max Shield Capacity / Stealth
• SCI 15 = Control Resistance / Perception
• SCI 20 = Energy Drain Resist / Shield Drain Resist
• TAC 5 = Threat Control/ Hangar Damage
• TAC 10 = Projectile Crit H / Projectile Crit D
• TAC 15 = Energy Crit H / Energy Crit D
• TAC 20 = Accuracy / Defense
"Back on topic. Destinii is correct."
(Formerly Destinii until the 'Great PWE Forum Shakeup of 2012')
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
So I can't choose all energy weapons or all torps? where is the choice in that?
A choice between two skills that have 0 effect on your build is the same as no choice. If I don't have a hanger on my ship where is the choice in 2 hanger skills? You don't make a choice because both options are 100% worthless. And that is just bad design plain and simple.
torp and energy weapons skills do not however.
1.TAC 5 = Hangar Health / Hangar Damage, was nonsense and is still nonsense, what do i need this if iam not flying a Ship with a Hangar at all??????????
it should be Hangar Health / something not Pet releated and Hangar Damage/ again something not Pet releated, so we dont have to make worthless Choices.
2.For the Sake of (put something you like here) Change the Point by Point Confirming to a "First Chose all than Confirm OR Cancel" System like we have with the old system, you just CANT be serious with that Point by Point nonsense can you? I still think that this is a bad joke, maybe an early April 1st Joke???
3.I still say that we really need a Skill Loadout System, and i just dont understand why you (cryptic) refuse to implent that, i mean wth? you benefit and we benefit, give freebies 1 and gold/lfm 2 additional Skill Loadouts and than sell us more, if someone has 30 Ships, let him buy 30 Skill Loadouts so he can switch between them with one click and fly the ship that he wants to fly, where is the problem? You allready have the Loadout system in the game, so expanding it to the Skill System cant be that hard.
4.It was also mentioned many times by many people, that the Skill Respec tokens should GO, charging for a basic mechanic like reskilling is just wrong and is anything else than encouriging to try out new Builds or even buy new ships, and tbh i cant imagine that Respec Tokens bring you much cash anyway, selling Skill Loadouts would be so much more Profitable and at the same time User Friendly, it would be like killing 2 Birds with one stone!
But the tactical Tree is not directly related to Tac captains or Tac heavy ships. I don't think any of the skills effect Tac Captains abilities and all them effect every type of ship the same. For example, energy weapons skill boosts energy weapons damage, regardless of what ship or captain you are. So a sci ship has just as much reason to spec into the tac tree as a tac ship. Generally that is to add more offence to your build (but not entirely). The same goes for the other trees. Any ship can slot a part gen ability so that skill is something anyone can make good use of. The trees really aren't directly related to any type of ship or captain career, even though they often share the same names. Unfortunately is just all worded poorly and is probably more confusing to new players than the old skill tree was.
Unsure if it's the place to post it but it's relevant to this date's notes.
The problem is: For a newly copied char (at level above 50 if that matters) the skill tutorial still says 25 instead of 24.
Edit: Additionally as one other said above, can't unlock one ultimate (tact in this case) which is the 1st one, despite having 27 in tact tree for testing purposes, ending with (a max of) 2/3 for that ultimate skill at 27 point spent on that tree.
no it basically limits your choices not forces you to make choices, not that this boni are worth mentioning.
The current system allowes you much more freedom into what you want to spec, if I want go torpedo boat, I can, if I want to go beam boat I can and I still have to make trade offs.
Here you can't even make trade offs.
That doesn't make it a good design.
what were you expecting, the 'good' bonuses that 'everyone' wants would naturally be at the end of the road.
Personally, i think the first SCI bonus is worthless... But then, i am a fairly patient player, and happy to cruise towards my objectives while sorting out admiralty and stuff.
For me, Threat/Batteries is a total no-brainer, because i can't be bothered to keep crafting and using batteries all the time (except my Red Matter Capacitor)
The system will never please everybody, and im not going to complain about a free bonus, wether i use it or not.
I do not see anything changed with Resilient shield descriptions.
I was hoping for something other than "5% Absorption / 5% Bleed through".
Does "5% Absorption" mean shield resistance?? And will it work like Shield Hardness does?
Are the three shields set up to point back to the skills in the new skill tree, such as:
Regenerative shields is extra regeneration in exchange for lower capacity
Covariant shields is extra capacity in exchange for slower regeneration
Resilient shields is extra resistance in exchange for slower regen and lower cap
Where as, this unfortunate description "absorption" is what ????
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I am honestly quite confused by different descriptions of (maybe) the same thing.
1) Shield resistance (Lower incoming damage to shield)
2) Shield hardness (Lower incoming damage to shield)
3) Shield absorption (Lower incoming damage to shield)
What is the difference?
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/12872472/#Comment_12872472
(You will want to look into the quoted blocks to see what I wrote, or just go the original conversation with the link above.
Shield Resistance = Shield Hardness => Damage that would be applied to your shield is reduced by a percentage.
Shield Absorption => Damage goes away.
Shield Bleedthrough => This damage just goes directly to your hull, and does not benefit from hardness or absorption. But it does benefit from Hull Resistance, of course, since it goes to your hull.
Small correction, above.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
100 incoming damage
5 damage goes to hull
90 would go to shield
but 4.5(5 % of 90) are absorbed and go away.
Remaining 85.5 actually go to shields.
100 points of damage that does not bypass shields hits resilient shield
5 goes away (absorption)
5 goes through (bleed through)
90 applied to shield HP.
100 points of damage inflicted with 50% shield bypass hits resilient shield
50 go direct to hull (bypass)
2.5 go away (absorption)
2.5 also go to hull (bleed through)
45 applied to shield HP.
((this is my intuitive understanding from the tool tips/wiki. Could be completely wrong
100 incoming damage
10 to hull (then apply Resistances to this value)
90 to shields (then apply Hardness to this value)
Resilient Shields take slightly more shield damage than any other type of shield, since they prevent more from reaching your Hull:
100 incoming damage
5 to Hull (then apply Resistances to this value)
95 to shields
... then 5% of that 95 is absorbed (negated)
... resulting in 90.25 being applied to Shields (then apply Hardness to this value)
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Still....to be clear:
Is the term "Hardness" or "Shield Hardness" only be used to mean resistance when it comes to shields?
And just plain "Resistance" will only denote resistances on hull?
Or am I still lost...is "Shield Hardness" even considered a type of resistance?
(In some ways I am glad for this skill tree revamp, because it is forcing me to look at this TRIBBLE....but in other ways, I wish I stayed under a rock)
You guys don't even have it bad on the forums...my friend is trying to explain "Shields have an innate 75% kinetic resist" to me in an e-mail.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
But this isn't one of them.
The idea is that no one would ever have all the skills in the world at their highest level. If that was the case then the very concept of a build becomes worthless. Anyone who plays the game long enough would gain all of the abilities and everyone would be identical. There's no skill to selecting what you want to specialize in.
That said. The problem with the system even in this, frankly damn fine revamp, is that skill build is very closely tied to ship type. You don't select the same skills for a science ship as a Klingon warship. So skill selection locks in for the ship. That would be fine if we were all going to use one ship for eight years like Picard, or for the lifetime of our career like Kirk. But in this game where you're encouraged to purchase and try new ships, skills can lock you in or out of a ship class without having to purchase a respec.
Perhaps for the next skill revamp, each ship should have a branch of the skill tree built into it, so you have to spend points in each individual ship's skill tree. Ship mastery grown out into a full skill tree.
@borticuscryptic @crypticspartan#0627
You know, there are SO MANY people asking specifically about shield resistances and Shield Hardness all over the forums and how it all works together. NOT JUST ME. There is a lot of questions on this.
I am actually TRYING to find information and asking questions and failing to get it all straight, or at least, I don't think I am getting it straight. I can't imagine what would happen to a person too busy to do this before it goes live.
Please consider: It may be a good idea to write up a clear explanation on the topic and get ahead of any (more?) misinformation.
If NOT a Dev Blog....at least a post in "Builds, Powers, and Game Mechanics" section of the Forums and in STO Builds section of Reddit, so it can get out to the community NOW....well ahead of the skill tree going live on April 12th.
I think those in the community can help each other...just give us something to refer to. Not disjointed in several different threads all over the place.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I think the basics are this:
Shield Hardness and Hull Resistances are two different things.
Shield Hardness affects damage that goes to your shields.
Hull Resistnace affects damage that goes to your hull.
When you are being hit for damage, a portion of that damage will (almost) always go to your hull - this is bleedthrough damage. Shield Hardness doesn't matter here.
The other portion goes to your shields. Hull Resistance doesn't matter here.
But there are a few complications:
Stacking
Hull Resistances have a diminishing return formula that looks pretty complicated and also provides a cap at 75 % damage reduction.
Shield Hardnesses stack multiplicatively, that means if you have 20 % hardness (0.8 damage multiplier) from one source and 15 % hardness from another source (0.85 damage multiplier), the result is 0.8 * 0.85 = 0.68 => 32 % hardness.
IIRC, there is also a hard cap for this (Also 75 %?), which did not always exist.
Exceptions
But there are exceptions. For example, Ablative Armor allows you to go beyond 75 % hull resistance.
Kinetic Resistance
Kinetic damage to shields always is reduced to 25 %. But is this a hardness figure? Presumably this still is allowed to stack beyond the cap.
Damage Overflow from Shields to Hull
Sometimes more damage goes to your shields then they can take. What happens to the remainder?
As I understood from a dev post made a few years ago, the shield hardness is calculated out of that damage. (But was that accurate.)
So, say, if you got 10 shields and have 50 % hardness and take 25 damage, then the damage to shields is reduced to 12.5, but the remaining 2.5, since they don't go to your shields, but to your hull, would actually be 5 damage again. (I could see how one might program it to work like this relatively easy without excessively seeming backtracking calculations, but it is non-intuitive.)
I've been around a fair bit (kind of wrote a page on this stuff, even) and @darkknightucf has me diving into this kind of stuff all the time, so let me see what I can help out with.
Boom. Nailed it.
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Ish. Normal positive hull resist, called simply "resistance magnitude" or "resistancing rating" - e.g. 99% of all +resistance sources in the game, goes through the diminishing returns curve: m(x) = (1/4) + (3 * ((75/(150+x))^2)). Short version of it - that's got diminishing returns that approaches 75% as your "resistance magnitude" approaches infinity.
Debuffs (which are wonky on holodeck, but as I understand fixed on tribble), go through the same curve, except the curve is applied as (positive resistance curve/negative resistance curve)=resistance multiplier, since otherwise they wouldn't be debuffs.
Then there's stuff like, as you mentioned, Ablative Armor, or, more recently, the Adaptive Emergency System (I think the other two sources are the dyson t2 and cc t2 rep passives). These are "bonus" resistance, which seems to run on a 100/(100+sum) curve.
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Right on the stacking. So far as I know, the cap's always been there (and it is a hardcap, at 75%), but I could be mistaken on how long it's been around.
Like resilient shield's "absorption", this isn't so much 'hardness' so much as it is 'free damage mitigation'. This is applied completely outside the 75% shield resist/hardness/whatever you want to call it hardcap.
Basically, it just looks like your bleedthrough is higher than expected.
Let's say I fire a magical 1000 damage AP beam at you. For ease of calculations, you have -100% antiproton hull resistance (I debuffed you really badly), but +50% antiproton shield resistance, and the standard 10% bleedthrough is in effect.
In a magical world where you have like 5k on the current facing, 900 hits shields, and is reduced to 450, while 100 hits hull, and is amplified to 200. Your combat tab would show this:
Jarvis gives 450 (1800) damage to your shields with AP beam.
Jarvis deals 200 (1000) damage to your hull with AP beam.
But, let's say that instead, you only have 200 on your current facing.
I'm trying to throw 900 of the damage of my shot at your shields, but they can't take it, even after reducing it to 450. So instead, the 200 that exists absorbs 400 of the pre-resist damage (200 actual damage) because you've got 50% shield AP resist. There's still 600 damage in this shot, so your hull takes it as 1200 damage (because you've got -100% hull ap resist). Your combat tab would now show this:
Jarvis gives 200 (800) damage to your shields with AP beam.
Jarvis deals 1200 (1000) damage to your hull with AP beam.
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To cover that other incidental thing:
Yup. There's a few shields (Jem has kinetic, for example) that grant hull resist and shield resist. It's a thing that they do. I think they're fairly clear about it, but I might be wrong.
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