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 April 17 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 April 17 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 April 18 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 April 18 by Carver
Checked another background.

[Toomie]

Made a ahelp in the round just now so many it is already know between staff from that. But as a machinist you can not remove IPC organs like their power core or cooler or anything since that is a surgery skill. you can also not remove shrapnel from them because of this as well even if they are a IPC 

[Last_stand_crew]

Not sure if the staff i told remembered to say it, so i will: police academy graduate education gives you:
unarmed combat familiar;
firearms tarined;
forensics familiar;
medicine familiar.
BUT. when you take unarmed combat at trained, suddenly you can't go backwards, so i guess, that you SHOULD have unarmed combat skills at trained, but it just doesn't work.

[Last_stand_crew]

ALSO! i wonder why you can spend some skill points ONLY on one branch, why not all the branches? beauty of bay's skill system is that you can make almost whatever character you want;
And just because i can't bybass the thing, i wanna say some words about current combat skills situation: in baystation, close combat success, independent on what you're doing, is decided by random AND skill difference, and i like this thing, that you'll get hit less and hit more and harder, because you're better, BUT, if you're of same level, you will have same chances, that's funny, but with the way developer of Aurora's skills system implemented CQC work, i don't see that it'll work like that here

Firearms skills: in baystation, basic makes you not shoot whereever it goes, trained makes you shoot accurately even feeling pain, experienced give you ability to tactical reload and sh##, and master makes you a godlike sniper with auto opening of the chamber and increased accuracy, what i'm trying to say, is that, even if you're not a security role, you can shoot pretty sharply if you take the skill, and even basic level makes you not bad with shooting;

One last thing: again bays example, i know, i'm nerd, but think about it, if my memory serves me right, they're the pioneers of skills system, and should have lots of experience with it!
Okay, back to the topic: on baystation, every occupation gives you basic skills you need to play your role and alot of skill points to build up your character, like surgeon:
You don't get master anatomy and master medicine, NO, you get experienced anatomy and trained medicine, and now it's up to you to decide, whether to get the experienced medicine, or screw it, because it's not that bad (sometimes));
On master at arms you get trained firearms training and basic martial arts, because you need to shoot steadily no matter what and be a bit better in close combat than a typical frail girl, you CAN get the martial arts or firearms experience to master, if you wish, but you don't have to, you have your basic needed skills for getting YOUR ASSIGNED job done.

        I finished.

Edited April 22 by Last_stand_crew

[OffRoad99]

3 hours ago, Last_stand_crew said:

ALSO! i wonder why you can spend some skill points ONLY on one branch, why not all the branches? beauty of bay's skill system is that you can make almost whatever character you want;
And just because i can't bybass the thing, i wanna say some words about current combat skills situation: in baystation, close combat success, independent on what you're doing, is decided by random AND skill difference, and i like this thing, that you'll get hit less and hit more and harder, because you're better, BUT, if you're of same level, you will have same chances, that's funny, but with the way developer of Aurora's skills system implemented CQC work, i don't see that it'll work like that here

Firearms skills: in baystation, basic makes you not shoot whereever it goes, trained makes you shoot accurately even feeling pain, experienced give you ability to tactical reload and sh##, and master makes you a godlike sniper with auto opening of the chamber and increased accuracy, what i'm trying to say, is that, even if you're not a security role, you can shoot pretty sharply if you take the skill, and even basic level makes you not bad with shooting;

One last thing: again bays example, i know, i'm nerd, but think about it, if my memory serves me right, they're the pioneers of skills system, and should have lots of experience with it!
Okay, back to the topic: on baystation, every occupation gives you basic skills you need to play your role and alot of skill points to build up your character, like surgeon:
You don't get master anatomy and master medicine, NO, you get experienced anatomy and trained medicine, and now it's up to you to decide, whether to get the experienced medicine, or screw it, because it's not that bad (sometimes));
On master at arms you get trained firearms training and basic martial arts, because you need to shoot steadily no matter what and be a bit better in close combat than a typical frail girl, you CAN get the martial arts or firearms experience to master, if you wish, but you don't have to, you have your basic needed skills for getting YOUR ASSIGNED job done.

        I finished.

As a former Bay-er, I agree that their skills were fairly nice. Though we must also remember that what we have now is in pre-pre-pre-alpha. I too hope to see them all unlocked so that we can spend the points in any way we want (we got a skill point budget for this reason, after all).

Edited April 22 by OffRoad99

[Merlin1230]

I think I echo the sentiment from the bay-ers about being able to spend the points a bit more freely being more interesting to interact and customize with. As it stands, im pretty mixed on the education system, and while I understand its far from being in any final state, the direction it seems to be heading is that every individual job has its own, specific educations, and maybe even multiple different educations to be specialized in specific skills, when that specialization could be a choice the player makes through skill points. Having that choice be made through points introduces a kinda risk reward to it, because you can be specialized and the best at that skill instead of being just good enough to do your job with  it, but now you cant take as many other skills to have a more varied, but less specialized skillset.

The best example of this thats ingame right now I feel is the engineering specializations. Currently, theres engineering certification, which just gives you trained in all the engineering skills, but then theres a education for each specific engineering skill to give you professional in that one while still having the exact same occupational points as the engineering cert. You can easily just have the engineering cert, and then choose to spend your skill points in being a professional at one of them, which comes with a tradeoff that you cant invest into other skills. Thematically I think this tradeoff is actually kinda fun, because one of the main side-skills that most jobs can reasonably have is Exosuits, which... sacrificing your ability to be better then "just good enough" to be able to use a Exosuit to kinda enhance what theyd be able to physically acomplish, at the cost that on your own youre not the best at your job as someone that spent more "time" working without exosuits, is just a really interesting example to me of how skillpoints can make customizing a character more nuanced then picking a education and being able to be the best at one of your job skills AND still getting to invest into exosuits heavily.

The mixologist education is similar to me, in that you can make that decision to be the best at the bartendering skill with skillpoints instead of just getting to be the best for free. While technically it matters less with the bartending skill because its mechanical impact is mostly fluff and something youd never notice, its just a example to me that the current design of educations is that job skill customization is mostly done through educations, which are a very limited set of options in comparison to the more freeform nature of spending points.

I do think educations still have a good place, especially because for certain jobs youd have to spend a LOT of points just to be able to play that job (mostly medical, lets be honest), and educations can help make it not so debilitating just to play a Surgeon, but I dont think they should be giving you skills beyond the minimum for a job for free. That I personally feel should be a choice that is made through points, because doing so can allow for some more interesting tradeoffs to emerge.

Also, side tangent that I dont feel super strongly about, the categories are kinda weird to me. I feel odd having all my combat points unspent because I just dont make characters thatd have combat experience. I get the point is stop some random smuck  from being absolutely amazing at combat, but itd be nice if I could do something with the points that isnt combat related. Maybe you can spend combat points in the everyday and occupation categories, but you cant spend occupation and everyday points in the combat category?

[Fenodyree]

On the topic of more freedom to spend points:

If we are going to have hard limits (familiar science for anyone not R&D background for example)

Backgrounds should give less set skills, and a few extra points.

Eg: Mechanical Engineering Degree gives you professional Mechanical Engineering, instead it gives you Trained and 4 points in occupational.

Those 4 points can't be spent compltely unreasonably, because we've got those hard limits on max skills outside your background, but if you want to have a focus on another skill at the expense of your main one, it works.

 

[Fenodyree]

Second suggestion!

Show skills in exploitable information, let the antags know which cargo tech is trained in the dakka.