Since there is the thread on multifire going on, this would be a good time to share our current design on the new class system. This is still a work in progress, but we decided to show it at this point because we are pretty happy with it and would like some initial feedback.

Instead of the class web, we have four focuses that are mutually exclusive: Combat Focus, Recon Focus, Merchant Focus, and Fleet Focus. Under each of these focuses are 2 classes, and under each of these classes are 2 sub-skills.

Each of these focuses, classes, and sub-skills goes from 0-20. Your class and your focus share one progression pool and all your sub-skills share a second progression pool.

So basically, you pick one focus, you pick one class under that focus, and then you can get all of the sub-skills under that class, but maxing all three sub-skills is a bit expensive.

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Combat Focus (+2% shield max, +1% damage in heavy fighters, +1% shield max in others)

Sniper Class (+4% damage, +2% recoil, +3% firing electric cost)

Stalking (3% tracking, +2% cloaking, 1% damage, -.1 sec firing vis)
Range (+4% range and +1% damage while still, scaled to 0 when moving at speed 100)
Efficiency (+2% damage, +3% recoil)
Berserker Class (+2% hostility, 15% MF [100% MF is one extra shot])

Impervious Armor (+2.5% all resists, -2% speed)
Ordinance Supremecy (+10% energy, +1% damage)
Arsenal Expertise (5% MF, +2.5% weapon hold, equipped weapons take -2.5% space)

Recon Focus (Agility & Thrust +4% for light fighters, 2% for others, vision +1% for light fighters)

Speed Demon Class (+3% Speed, +3% Rate of fire, +1% damage, +10% docking speed)

Speedy Movement (+2% speed, +1% thrust, +1% turning)
Speedy Firing (+3% rate of fire)
Dogfighting (+2% damage, +2% tracking, -2% range)
Seer Class (+1% damage with ethereal weapons)

Psionic Shrouding (+5% stealth, +5% critical hit resistance)
Psychic Sight (+5% vision, +5% critical hit damage)
Shadow Ambush (+5% critical hit chance when unseen)

Support Focus (+9% capacity on freighters, +4% on others, -2% weight on freighters)

Engineer Class (+.5% to most stats, +.5% to all tweaks)

Drone Mastery
Beam Mastery (+5% beam power and beam tweaks)
Damage Control (+2% all resistances incl. transference, +2% critical hit resistance)
Shield Monkey Class (+6% shield recharge)

Shield Boosting (+6% shield max)
Shield Manipulation (+1% damage)
Shield Transference (+0.5% transference damage, +5% transference tweaks)

Fleet Focus (+2% to most base stats on capital ships, 1% on others, +8% hull space on capital ships)

Gunner Class (5% MF, +5% weapon hold, +3% mining damage)

Big Guns (+3% mining damage in capital ship, +1% others)
Destruction (target gets 1.5%/lvl vulnerable to current damage type)
Missile Mastery (+5% to all missile stats)
Fleet Commander Class (+2% field generators)

Flight Controller (+2% all fighter stats, +5% num fighters)
Slave Master (+4% slave stats)
Radiation Expert (+10% radiation damage, +4% wild slave stats)

Special Gear of Note:

Engineers: Tractor beams that don't push, instead either give constant electric bonus to target or else give target transference vulnerability. The top of the line engineer transference beam should give the target 15% vulnerability to transference which would be 30% with level 20 Beam Mastery.

Fleet Commander: Capital Ship only field generators that either give powerful percent bonuses to all allies or else constant bonuses to all allies. The first being geared towards slaves and the second being geared towards fighters.

Seer: Cloaking field generators that cloak allies. Revealing field generators that give allies better vision.

Those all look AMAZING Jeff.


But Shouldn't Shield Monkey get inherent Max Shield Bank as a class?

Also, I chose Gunner. Going to be awesome. Totally, utterly, awesome.

Looking nice, but glacing over those numbers, I can see a few areas that probably need a slight tweakage, otherwise, roll on the update.

A few questions:

Is the 2.5% an improvement to resists already on ship? So that a 50% resist to laser would become a 75% at lvl 20? Or is it additive so that a 50% laser resist at lvl 20 becomes 100%, akak immune to laser?


At lvl 20 serker class you would have +300% MF aka ability to MF 4 weps. With Arsenal Expertise 20, you could then get +100% MF. Is this stackable or multipliable with the previous skill. Can you MF 5 weps now(300%+100%), or 8? (300%*200%)


IMO, it should be elec instead of energy. The MF doesn’t need bank, he needs elec to keep up his weapons. Otherwise the sniper will maintain its ELITE status simply because it can do more damage with the same elec.


So at lvl 20 your equipped weapons take 50% less space? Nice


Just to be absolutely sure: Is the scale going to a SET speed of 100, or at 100% of max speed on that ship?


If your dogfighting you don’t need that much tracking, so instead of tracking maybe make it critical hit chance?

I think that the % bonus on hull for light fighters should be kept low, to prevent broken light fighters. It should be kept at 1.5% or 2%.


Missing stats

Is that for aura field tweaks as well? So a fully skilled Enginer can make his aura affect others more powerfully? Or only for tweaks the Engineer himself uses?


Are there going to be new transference tweaks? Or are these the already existing tweaks on stuff such as the Galagoay Vazaha monkey Overlaoder?







On a General Note:
I see that the sniper looses his Agility bonus. Is this intentional? I don’t mind per say, my grape in my ukuk was always overpowered, ive been flying around with a cloud mercury to weigh me down.

As far as I can tell the SD class with all skils maxed seems pretty close to what the SD is today. I like the Dogfighting skill.

I have absolutely no idea how the Seer class is gonna work, but first impression it seems a bit tame. I don’t believe there are that many high DPS ethereal weapons either. With the intended seer class field gen, could it be made so that Squad members can see each other regardless of stealth? Otherwise the stealth aspect becomes hard to use effectively.

The engineer seems a bit underpowered, even with maxed all 3 skills. Not sure how to improve this.

The Gunner class sounds interesting, though without having tested either of the various aspects as they are quite new, its really hard to gauge its effectiveness.

The Fleet commander class also sounds interesting. Seems like slaves will be a lot more powerfull now, though I don’t really understand what the “wild� slave stats refer to.

As I understand it some of these skills are meant to replace others right? While skills like EE and CA stay in game?

All in all it sounds interesting, and WELL THOUGHT OUT.

I would choose Sniper cause it seems to be highest DPS class and most versatile still.

Sorry for the length of this post

it looks like sniper would be nerfed if those where the new stats

I assumed by wild it refers to slaves caught, rather than control botted.

I go out and capture a brand new Zebu and it's stats get a +4% boost, making it better than my current one. This i would assume would fade when you dock, and return to a tamed slave status.

Gunners gonna pwn.... cap ships and missles FTW

Gunner looks awesome.

Im also curious about the resist thing... if one speciality is adding +50% to resists, where many ships already have 40%or greater resists... well, thats huge.

Even if its only +50% of EXISTING resists, that will essentially cut the damage taken by most ships in half... on top of shield bank bonuses.

I can understand the relative sniper nerf.. it needs it, I'm told...
But I'm concerned about the 'has bonuses when not moving' bit. SS combat when parked isnt very interesting.. and I spend about 2/3 of my PvAI career kiting. Id hate to replace that with parking on a warp point with an OHL.

Seer will be getting 'Psionic Wave' Weaponry, which are powerful Ethereal Weapons that impart powerful tweaks to an enemy. Their base skill will be very helpful in making those weapons worth using. Seer will be primarily a stealth class, using critical hits and tweaks to wreck havoc on an enemy while they strike from the shadows.

When Engineer was original proposed, it was under the current skill web, and it was expected to inherit a +5% Energy Max, +2% Energy Regen skill. Perhaps we should give Engineer more bonus to Energy and Regen under its base skill to make it a bit more useful. Engineer overall is meant to be a very versatile class though, with many utilities to make it extremely useful to use in conjunction with a Shield Monkey. They will get Neurotweak Factories so they can make tweaks on the go, unscoopable drones with a low lifespan and powerful auras to help turn the tide of battle (at a very high energy cost). They will also get the beams Jeff L described.

Finally, the skills like Station Mastery, Extraction Expert, etc, they will be moved to a 'Resource Class' tree, and players will be able to train in that tree as well. This will mean you can have your main character be a combat AND a station character allowing players to not need to rely on alts to make credits.

Caelestis

I love the new skills.
Dunno wich i would try.. prolly all of em One for one

Recon Focus (Agility & Thrust +4% for light fighters, 2% for others, vision +1% for light fighters)

Speed Demon Class (+3% Speed, +3% Rate of fire, +1% damage, +10% docking speed)

Speedy Movement (+2% speed, +1% thrust, +1% turning)
Speedy Firing (+3% rate of fire)
Dogfighting (+2% damage, +2% tracking, -2% range)

ok now, since I love SD soooo much, I chose the new SD

lets say I get a DS. Ide get 100% manuverability, 20% radar, 100% speed, 120% Rate of fire, 30% damage, 20% tracking, and -40% range (more with that goddam DS OL)

I would be extremely hard to hit, have a radar that outmatches sup combos and that can see snipers, 150% damage increase, more tracking, and finally x2 speed ftw !!!!!

I LOVE J00 JEFFS!

I kinda dont like dogfighting bcoz I think SD's shout be able to fly circles around an enemy and give damage from all sides, rather than run up, do a ton of dmg, run away, rinse repeat.
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I also dont like how SD's only get their max benefits in a light fighter, while sniper wont get AS MUCH OF a reprocussuion if they use a LF (instead of a HF). HF oreinted gear can be alot better when used by a SD, so making us use LF's over HF's isnt as fun
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If SD is changed so it becomes exactly as I see it will be, im all for a little change to my strategy!
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in all honesty, theres no way to tel how balanced this will all be untill its implemented. might I sugguest putting in the "fun zone" on test (the base that has everythign) and letting us tst high end setups?
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ETA on all this new stuffs?

so now sniper gets a boost in using cloaks than a -vis mod on the ship? hmm

and on lvl 20 they get -2sec firing vis, how long will the total firing vis be? will there be one general time for all weapons or will every weap have a different vis duration?

yeah rest looks cool, I like it that snipers lose the speed penatly, allthough they sacrifice part of its shield max bonus, all shield regen bonuses + get an even bigger energy penalty.

I'm looking forward to test it, like every one says.. u can't tell how it will be without testing it



Exactly what i think too. That might be the reason why it's still on 0 votes.. big banks are for hit and run classes..hell, MFs arnt supposed to run!!!

regards,
MB

Im a sniper at heart so I went with sniper for now. But i think another 20% elec loss is just nuts. Snipers already require extra bank and regen to deal with the 40% which feels about right if you do want to increase it some maybe put it closer to 50% and go from there. I think 1.5X the normal elec cost is more than enough penalty.