Well, playing around with the character skill creator. Since we get limited skillpoints it is obvious we can't, or shouldn't, just put skills wherever we want if we like to be somewhat effective at the end. This leads me to think of the two ship-classes before the last one.

Once you've escalated to the next rank, your previous ship is pretty much obsolete so why would you invest skillpoints there when you have a finite amount of it and rather want to use some for later on? (Somewhat rhetorical question)

Which again makes me wonder, what if one could make the smaller ship classes useful later on as well. Give them roles that can't be filled by their larger brethren. Make them more difficult to hit, faster, agile and so on? It would make fleet battles more interesting as well

This is all tiered to my knowledge. What you put in Starship Command or what ever it's called at Lt, you till reap the benefits of for all tiers afterwards.

T1 and T2 skills are worth it because they either stack with all ships, or all ships of a specific class. T3 and T4 are useless, unless you're willing to pay for a respect when you get to T5.

He's not talking about n00b level skills. At later tiers things become a little muddled.

Consider the path to escort captain. Starship Command applies to all ships, so that's easy. Escort Captain applies to all escorts, so that's also easy. But what about Tactical and Heavy escort? Last time I checked there was nothing in the text to indicate that skills 1-2-3-4 in that line form a cumulative benefit. Rather, it suggests that only 1-2-4 are applied at tier 4, and 1-2-5 at tier 5.

That may not be the case but it's difficult to tell. And if it is the case, then certainly there are whole boxes that are basically wasted once you pass that tier.

Yes, this is exactly what I am talking about And I wish they'd make those classes/ships useful later on as well.

The skill descriptions and the fact that weapons and abilities tend to be affected by three skills would suggest that this is correct.

True, unless you intend to keep flying the relevant T3 or T4 ship once you hit T5.

On the other hand, if the upcoming respecs aren't too hard to get hold of, you could always train the skill then respec when you get promoted.

depends, the escort line for example is pretty much worth the points because alpha pattern gains more power due to escort captain and heavy escort captain AND the skill tactical escort captain gives you the ability to teach omega pattern III

the escort skill "line" is pretty useful

just my 2 cents ;p

I'm wondering if all these would stack for all science ships:

Starship Command
Science Vessel Captain
Research Science Vessel Captain
Long Range Science Vessel Captain
Deep Space Science Vessel Captain
Recoinnaissance Science Vessel Captain

And if not, which ones would. It's not clear if even "Science Vessel Captain" would as that is the exact name of the T2 ship. In the skill stats, "Starship Command" and "Science Vessel Captain" points are separated for instance.

Once you're in a Long Range Science Vessel, only Starship Command and Science Vessel Captain will impact your play.

Once you're in a Deep Space Science Vessel, only Starship Command and Science Vessel Captain will impact your play.

Once you're in a Reconnaissance Science Vessel, only Starship Command and Science Vessel Captain will impact your play.

Does T2 realy apply later on? I wonderd if this is true, because they also call the Lt.Cmdr. ships "Cruiser" "Science" "Escort" so I tought that even T2 might be obsolete.