Skills System Feedback Thread

[MattAtlas]

On 15/04/2026 at 05:42, Acetrea said:

Firstly, I think there should be a way to gain more skill points depending on in-game hours spent playing a specific character. maybe 20 hours in game for 1 skill point, and it maxes out at 6 or 8? This rewards players for playing 1 character consistently, which I think would help with staggering pop issues and character consistency on the work deck. 20 hours is a rough guess off the top of my head and should be taken with a grain of salt for balancing.

This will not be happening. People need an incentive to play different characters, not the opposite, and I don't want to punish new characters.

[MattAtlas]

On 14/04/2026 at 15:25, Hawk said:

[snip]

This is generally a good post that I find myself agreeing with, so I'll bring this up for discussion and see what we can do. At the same time the area with which we can work in is really limited due to the combat/medical system we have, so it'll take some time to figure it out.

[ASmallCuteCat]

49 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

As you can't do this with current rules anyway, the skills system will not permit this. Although there are some restrictions that I intend to have the skills system lessen or remove (people will now reasonably be able to have some engineering/construction/hacking/whatever skills without it being a rules black hole), things that are explicitly not possible rules-wise (such as piloting skills for characters that are not explicitly in certain jobs/with certain educations) will not become possible with the skills system.

That makes sense. I'm having trouble envisioning what it'll look like mechanically, but I imagine I'll need to actually see what it looks like before I can get a better idea. Thanks for clarifying.

[Sniblet]

Dropping my radical anti-mechanics sentiment:

Any restrictive skills system at all seems like it’s foundationally a hindrance to roleplay (duh, it says restrictive right there). In its most ideal form, it allows characters to do everything we think is reasonable for them to do. This is the same effect that we get from not having the system.

Obviously, the purpose of such a system is to prevent players from doing things that they think they could do, but developer consensus thinks they can’t. The best outcome on this front is to, in addition to letting reasonable characters happen, also stop all characters whose players want them to be good at what most would consider too many things. How do you get the Aurora machine to provide a frictionless mechanical reflection of the subjective consensus of the humans using it? Uh, we’ll figure it out eventually, I assume.

 

Aurora already goes for an experience in which characters are never at all better than ordinary and ontologically almost incapable of approaching any task that they would find unfamiliar, which this system can serve if perfected. But it’s a lot of perfecting to do for a redundant outcome. The rules already forbid you trying your best with the Spark’s control stick when the pilots are dead and it’s looping through an asteroid field; or emoting tossing some loose plates over a breach and stomping it in place until it’s somewhat covered by vacuum force; or taking your advanced medical training and some rubber gloves to a busted door, reckoning it’s basically like a nervous system, and slowly experimenting your way through repairing its wiring; or doing ghetto surgery basically ever. The ideal form of a restrictive skills system is just a secondary, harder, but also entirely unthinking, uncompromising layer of forbidding. I click the wrench on the doohickey; I get an italic red warning that says You can’t do this thing! You must call a professional if there is one. There can be no compromises on this matter. But, okay, well, I knew that already, and my coworkers are currently displaying typing indicators for their imminent suggestive IC hints that I mustn’t try.

I think that that principally ordinary spirit is uninspiring, which is much of why I haven’t been seen for months - but that’s just, like, my opinion man. The main issue I want to communicate is that the very best this can be is redundant, and any less would make it an annoying hindrance to normal play.

Edited Friday at 17:35 by Sniblet

[GeneralCamo]

1 hour ago, Sniblet said:

Obviously, the purpose of such a system is to prevent players from doing things that they think they could do, but developer consensus thinks they can’t

Not quite, the purpose of this system is to prevent players from doing things that they think they could do, but administrative consensus in the rules says they can't.

1 hour ago, Sniblet said:

The rules already forbid you trying your best with the Spark’s control stick when the pilots are dead and it’s looping through an asteroid field; or emoting tossing some loose plates over a breach and stomping it in place until it’s somewhat covered by vacuum force

One thing though that is being experimented with, is allowing certain players the ability to try their best in the absence of qualified personnel. You will never be the ace pilot security officer, or the engineering whiz doctor, but maybe you could be a "good enough for this disaster" pilot, or a "well the hole is patched up even though it's ugly" doctor. This isn't allowable under our current rules because there is no mechanical basis to allow you to be a less-competent substitute; this system is planned to be that.

Combat skills are probably the most important element here. The crew armory was removed because it didn't make sense for people who have no combat experience to be amongst the very best at dealing with the boarders. But it does make sense that in a true emergency when everyone in security is down or outgunned, that you grab a gun and at least defend yourself and your friends. This system would also allow that kind of roleplay to happen without running afoul of the rules or sense in the story.

Edited Friday at 18:00 by GeneralCamo

[greenjoe]

1 hour ago, GeneralCamo said:

but maybe you could be a "good enough for this disaster" pilot

Yes, perhaps if something like multiple piloting skill levels were added.
well, in an emergency, maybe the miner *could* pilot the Horizon.

They might struggle at it due to not having knowledge of such a large craft, and things may go wrong, but it may be better then no pilot at all.

[Carver]

12 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

The other choice is making each skill level give you more unique abilities to use in combat, but this is hard to do with our current system in a reasonable way (we don't currently have many things you can do in combat, so there's no real space for abilities - this will improve with the combat rework in the Summer)

What about giving them a selection of martial arts styles, albeit a bit more reserved in power than the current antag ones? That might be an engaging and novel incentive to taking combat skills, at least in regard to unarmed and melee skills.

Aside from that thought and echoing the desire for tiers of piloting skills (for those who don't want to spend 6 points for shuttle piloting when they'll never fly the Horizon itself), I'm exceedingly happy with the skill system thus far. Even if combat were left as it is in the current iteration of the testmerge I'd be quite happy, as I very much like seeing the power of the 'second wave' of crew militia ramped down heavily.

[OffRoad99]

5 hours ago, Carver said:

What about giving them a selection of martial arts styles, albeit a bit more reserved in power than the current antag ones? That might be an engaging and novel incentive to taking combat skills, at least in regard to unarmed and melee skills.

Aside from that thought and echoing the desire for tiers of piloting skills (for those who don't want to spend 6 points for shuttle piloting when they'll never fly the Horizon itself), I'm exceedingly happy with the skill system thus far. Even if combat were left as it is in the current iteration of the testmerge I'd be quite happy, as I very much like seeing the power of the 'second wave' of crew militia ramped down heavily.

The Piloting skill is something that I'm rather interested in, but mostly for RP purposes. Rather than restrict it to overall competence, I'd break it into tiers of training:

• Tier 0: You can't pilot anything.
• Tier 1 (2 points): You are able to pilot small, unarmed spacecrafts. The Spark and the Quark would fit in this category. RP-wise you'd include any other small, short-range civilian crafts. I.E mining pods, a cargo dinghy etc. 
• Tier 2 (4 points): You are able to pilot medium-sized unarmed spacecrafts or small-sized armed spacecrafts. The Intrepid and the Canary would fit in this category. RP-wise you'd slap in any other single-seat spacecrafts.
• Tier 3 (6 points): You are able to pilot cruiser-sized vessels and every other spacecraft below this category. The Horizon would fall in this category. You are able to plot warp and bluespace jumps. You are trained for ship-to-ship warfare.
• Tier 4 (8 points): You are an experienced helmsman with many, many years of service under your belt. You can fly everything. Possible mechanical bonuses (if any?): acceleration bonuses, fuel-per-thrust conservation.

Edited 18 hours ago by OffRoad99

[Nagito Komaeda]

Another thought, how do offships interact with skills? I haven't had the opportunity to play an offship since the update, so I'm going to take the example of the Kataphracts. They are expected to have incredible combat prowess, while also being capable of piloting the ship, doing engineering work, doing medical work... and there is often a degree of overlap seen due to the insular nature of offships. Will they get a 'custom' skillset/background, or will offships adhere to the 'normal' educational standards?

[Carver]

Is it intended that a Corpsman background lacks the medicine skill cap required to work as a Paramedic?

Spoiler

After checking, Military Training has the necessary cap unlocked for medicine. Were the caps for the two reversed by mistake?

Edited 5 hours ago by Carver
Checked another background.