I’ll start by saying that while I realize this idea has been suggested before, I figure there’s no harm in me putting the idea out there. I want constructive feedback on this, even if it’s just explaining why it wouldn’t work from a mechanical standpoint. If all you have to say is “CCP isn’t going to do this” then please don’t bother; everyone knows it’s unlikely that many, or any of the ideas posted in this forum will be implemented, so all you accomplish by saying that is being negative for no constructive reason.
One of the complaints I’ve seen time and time again about skill injectors is that, while they’re supposed to be something which allows new players to catch up to older players, they’re often used to inject new characters straight into capital and supercapital ships, making supercapital and Rorqual proliferation more of an issue than it already was.
To me, the obvious solution would be to limit which skills can have skill points applied to them, making it so that skill injectors and skilling sprees let players train a greater breadth of skills more quickly rather than giving them the option to go deep into the advanced and capital skills right off the bat.
Call them “non-injectable” or use some other term that would fit the bill, but any points players get from injectors or other sources cannot be applied to these skills; the only way to get them is via training.
To start off, I would add any skill that has “capital”, “advanced”, “specialization”, or “specialist” in the name to the list, along with any skills that require them. My current working list is shown below, and if anyone has suggestions for what skill(s) they think should be added or removed from the list then I’d love to hear them and the reasons why.
Non-injectable skill list
Armor
Just three skills from this category: Capital Repair Systems along with its’ remote armor and remote hull repair counterparts.
Corporation Management
Empire Control and Sovereignty; I doubt anyone is going to need more than that unless they’re in for the long haul.
Drones
The racial drone specializations, mining/ice harvesting drone specializations, and fighter skills.
Electronic Systems
Tactical Logistics Configuration and Burst Projector Operation.
Engineering
Advanced Weapon Upgrades, Capital Capacitor Emission Systems, and Resistance Phasing.
Gunnery
All capital, doomsday, and specialization skills, along with Tactical Weapon Reconfiguration.
Leadership
All command specialist skills, along with Fleet Command, Mining Director, and Spatial Phenomena Generation
Missiles
All missile specialization and XL missile skills, possibly Warhead Upgrades as well.
Navigation
Cynosural Field Theory and all Jump Drive skills. Micro Jump Drive Operation is not included because they’re mounted on subcapital ships.
Neural Enhancement
Advanced Infomorph Psychology and Cloning Facility Operation.
Planet Management
Advanced Planetology, and probably nothing else.
Production
Advanced Industry, Advanced Mass Production, Capital Ship Construction, and all advanced ship construction skills.
Resource Processing
Deep Core Mining, Industrial Reconfiguration, Advanced Mass Reactions, and the specialized ore reprocessing skills (Veldspar, Jaspet, moon ores, etc).
Rigging
Maybe the specialized rigging skills, or maybe just leave them all injectable.
Scanning
I don’t really think anything in this category needs to be made non-injectable.
Science
Probably just the subsystem technology and racial encryption/engineering skills, since those allow for inventing T2 and producing T3 items.
Shields
Capital Shiled Emission Systems, Capital Shield Operation, and Invulnerability Core Operation.
Social
I don’t think any of these skills need to be limited.
Spaceship Command
This category in particular needs limited injections the most. Advanced Spaceship Command, Capital Ships, Capital Industrial Ships, and all racial dreadnought, carrier, and titan skills should have been non-injectable from the beginning. I would also include all freighter and T3 ship skills to the list, with the exception of Jump Freighters because that’s just another T2 qualification skill like Interceptors or Marauders.
Subsystems
Since they’re needed to fly Strategic Cruisers, everything in this category should be non-injectable.
Targeting
Advanced Target Management and probably nothing else.
Trade
I don’t see any reason to limit these skills.
Once again, I want to hear about any flaws with this idea or possible improvements that hadn’t occurred to me, so please give me any constructive feedback and criticism that you can think of.
