I'm thinking of recreating my character. I created my current character from an RP perspective, but the skills I chose have little use in the forseeable future of the game, and I feel like a change of pace from the altruistic Healer archetype, to a bit of a money earner.

I wanted your advice on useful skills. From what I've read, Comp Ops, Trading, Leadership and Piloting (Freighter/Cap. Ship) are some of the most useful skills. Do you have any advice on skill selection?

Here's a rundown of the draft character I'm thinking of creating:

Race: Siniteen (Comp Ops +2; Projectile Weapons +1)
Skills: Comp Ops 5; Trading 4; Leadership 2; Speeder Piloting 3; Vehicle Piloting 3; Freighter Piloting 3; Capital Ship Piloting 2

From what I read (if I understood it correctly), Comp Ops is an all or nothing / success or failure skill. So you want a high skill in it. (ie: a dice is rolled, if your Comp Ops is high enough (with modifiers) then you detect a deposit, otherwise you don't detect anything.)

The others (Trading, Leadership, Piloting) can be done regardless of skill, but higher skills allow you to perform these tasks faster and more cheaply.

The numbers above can be tweaked (I played around with the [Test Character Creation] tool, and found I could, for example, go 4+2 in the Social skills, or 3+3+2 (adding Diplomacy to the mix). And I could go the way I went with Piloting, (allowing for piloting of Groundhogs, FK-7 Speeders, plus Freighters and Cap. Ships)... or else specialise in one vehicle and one ship. (ie: FK-7 + Freighter; or Groundhog + Freighter; etc.)

There are 4 races that allow a Comp Ops skill of 5, (Baragwin (1); Bothan (1); Ortolan (1) and Siniteen (2)), but I excluded Baragwin, as they have a racial restriction of not being able to Pilot Speeders... so no FK-7 piloting.

Any advice would be appreciated. While Comp Ops is the focus, due to it's all or nothing nature, I'd like to be versatile, hence the Trading/Leadership stuff. The vehicle and ship piloting skills are both useful in terms of prospecting, as well as working as a hauler / logistics pilot if the need (or urge) arises.

Thank you in advance for any helpful or constructive advice you can offer.

=)

Money making skills?? I mean Comp Ops+Piloting if your freelancer, but if your in a faction that stuff doesnt effect pay really.

Most Factions are learning that skill levels are not as important as people willing to be there and do the job. right now she doesn't have a skill over 3. but she's on everyday and works hard.

From my experiences, most factions don't pay based on your skills. I would be willing to bet, most of the time you're just gonna end up pushing around dirt piles and building anthills. Your skills don't really play a large part in that, because typically the only skill factions look for are freighter piloting (so you can haul their materials and make them richer).

Comp Ops is for prospecting, so you'll definitely attract a Mining faction. But odds are, you won't be making more per month than any other new faction member.

But that's my perspective, take it as you will.

I'd say the only real skill you want at 5 is Comp Ops for reasons you stated. Trade is another skill you either want at 5 or not at all - its only really useful for FI, and with the number of Trade 5 skill people out there 'working' for free means that anyone with less won't really be used and just a waste (yes I think it gives a discount to the NPC market, but when there is anything there its generally much cheaper than the player market anyway its not much point).

Theft/Deceit is one you might want high if you plan on making lots of doors, but 1 point allows you to make blast doors, albeit at something like a 10% chance.

All other skills are useful to have, but not required to have at maximum. At least at the moment.

Thank you all, for the advice.

One thing I noticed when I did some calculations about travel speeds, is that the hyper speed of the ship is more important than piloting skill. And that high piloting skill makes a more significant difference on very slow ships than it does on faster ships.

As for logging in, I probably log in most days. Have done so for the past year or so that I've been playing. :)

Even within the circle of friends I play with at the moment, there are a few high Leadership (and possibly Trade) players around. No Comp Ops though.

One thing I'm kind of taking from Ellias' statement (correct me if I'm wrong) is that it's more productive to specialise in a niche skill (or set of skills) than to spread yourself too thin.

(although as Kyria says... she manages well with no skill above 3)

I have leadership 4, so most people i know send construction work my way, which is annoying. I also have Theft 2, so I've just got enough skill to sort of build blast doors more effectively. I support the Comp Ops 5, i know one of the mining factions is giving a 5 million sign on bonus to anyone who joins with that sort of skill.

I got CompOps 5, got crappy jobs prospecting, and then went pirate because it is gazillions of times more fun than what I was doing. It takes approximately 0 skill points to be a pirate. I was given a planet to be in charge of and I put the CompOps 5 to good use scanning for and mining RMs for my personal use to build FI facilities. Did CompOps 5 make me money? yes. Did it make me money by being a prospector for a faction? no.
So the skills you get now might not have the effect you thought they might later.
In other parts I decided to RP the whimpiest character I could think of for the fun of it. Most people try to be cool badasses so I went for the opposite. Instead of weapon skills I have Run and stealth. I have flight, but zero combat. SO for me it made sense to get freighter skill of 4, for other people I might recommend to get 3 and some dogfighting skills.
For perspective, flying from 500,500 to -500, -500 in a hyper 6 ship with pilot skill of 0 takes nearly 14 days. Pilot skill of 5, 11 days. For me, 3 days is not a lot of time saved for 15 skill points. For others though, 3 days makes all of the difference.

I like the idea of installing blast doors on ships. Makes passenger escorts a little safer... until the right combination of PvP combat, a high Theft skill and an Electronic Lock Breaker come along. :p

I can imagine your frustration Fuikai. Especially once word gets around that you have high skill in Leadership. I may rethink that one.

Umbeck, a lot of what you said resonated with me. My current character, largely designed for RP, has a Medical Treatment of 4, Ship repair of 4 and a number of Piloting skills. (I made use of the Human Freighter Piloting - skill 5.) He has zero combat skills, unless you count Vigor, which I considered for his immunity to general sickness. I wrote a backstory for the skill choices too.

And yeah, in a Hyper 1 ship, a Piloting skill of 5 can shave almost 2 weeks off your journey time, a not inconsiderable saving, but in a Hyper 7 ship, the same trip, you'll only save 2 days. As you say... not worth it for me. Not in a game that takes so long to do anything. (Not a complaint, merely relative to the instant gratification of other games.)

Oh, and "Yay!" for you playing a Siniteen! There are so few of them, compared to the Humans. =)

(My former character was an Ithorian. I like the more gentle races, like Ithorian and Siniteen.)

Well I started with prospecting not knowing any better and I got myself a TON of XP. Level 12 really is not shabby, and if I knew what I was doing I probably could be around 15.
So that is just another option. Pick a skill that gives you a lot of XP, and use alllllllll of those extra skill points to level the skills you want when they become enabled.
Prospecting gives you a good doss of xp. I dont have much personal data on full-time construction work, but I believe it to be a good deal too.

For prospecting 3 months you can be around level 4, level 6 in a year, that is taking it easy too, calculating only 100 points a day, just 2 FAILURE scans and no moving in 24 hours.

That is a lot of extra points to refine your character with. It might be a roundabout way of doing it, but by XP grinding first (like me), you may very well get both the currently useful skills and a good job giving you good money, but also when the future skills become usable you will have more skill points saved up than the average person and can use them to be more effective than someone that started out diverse and hasnt leveled up nearly as far.
I didnt start out into the RP of this game so I didnt base my character around what skills he would have, I just figured I would get what worked now, and deal with the rest as it came because I knew I always had the option to start over.
--Arch, out.

Arch, that's a great point. The game requires patience anyway, and the three week death wait isn't that big of a deal. (The first time around, I just logged in every day to click my CP points. I now have over 100,000 CPs saved.)

So yeah, rerolling with what works now, with a view to rerolling in a year's time, when the game has expanded and developed some more, isn't a bad thing. While your character starts from scratch, (CP ships excluded... I love the CP system!), you always have your network of friends to come back to. (If making friends with the players behind the characters is your thing. But hey, with the general character of people I've met in this game... why not make friends?)

The prospecting XP sounds really good! I just wish there was a race that had both Prospecting *and* Trading bonuses! :p

The Hutt is a great race, with a Trading of +3, except for the inability to prospect. (Unless there's a way around this? For example, can a Hutt in a Cap. Ship use the mining sensors of a docked vessel in the Cap. Ship's hold? Or does a being have to be *in* the cockpit of the FK-7 or Groundhog to actually operate it?)

The way I'm leaning, is to go 5 in Comp Ops, get Trading as high as I can (or not take it at all, as Ellias suggested) then round out the character with some Leadership (to aid production time/costs) and Diplomacy for NPC hire. And of course the mandatory handful of points in piloting ships and vehicles.

I tell you what... you gotta love the helpfulness of the player base here. You guys are awesome! <3

If you aren't giving your character primarily RP skills, and intend to add in skill points to useful skills as the both come (or just plan on dying and making a new character entirely) then you are on the right track. For what you seem to be doing I don't see a use for Trading 5, or a trading skill at all for that matter. Why do you want Trading exactly?

Siniteens are cool, but if you aren't picking a race from a strong RP perspective but from a skill standpoint, what about Bothan?
CompOps of 1, meaning you can start with level 5
Perception of 1 to help see stuff you might miss (including people and creatures, might come in handy)
Theft of 1, making it easier to install door and perhaps gain more XP on long hyper voyages.
If you do that, here is what I would pick in your shoes.
Science 1, Social 2, Space 3, General 4, ground 5

General: Strength +2 (carry stuff) Perception +3 (see creatures/hidden people more easily) 1 point leftover
Science: CompOps5
Social: Stealth 2 (hiding) Leadership 3 (squads?) Theft 3 (make doors) medical treatment 1 (healing when you get hurt by doors)
Space: Freighter 3, capital 3.
Ground: Speeder 2, vehicle 2

alternatively make space #2 and social #3. freighter 4, cap 2 and ditch leadership.
So yeah if you take Arch's idea, go prospect and gain a lot of XP, you will have a lot of points available to you should more skills come online. Add a few weapons points and you have a solid combat character I would imagine. Add a few starfighter combat points and you have a solid pilot. Up to you.

Infantry command defines the number of squads, not leadership.

Wait crap, I knew that. Why did I say that?

If I'm reading the skill descriptions right, then Infantry Command and Leadership will go hand in hand.

Leadership - "ability to inspire others around him during battle. A character with Leadership increases his group's overall performance during a battle."

Infantry Command - "Ability of the character to quickly strategize and give commands during ground combat. Characters with this skill enhance the overall performance of their group and of their own NPCs in ground combat."

You're relying on skill descriptions, which are not always accurate. For example, leadership says nothing about construction, production, or any of the other timed events that it modifies. Don't take them at face value.

Jevon, speaking of skill descriptions... the Squads and Ground Combat pages mention a 'Ground Command' skill. Is this the same as 'Infantry Command'? (Since there appears to be no 'Ground Command' skill in character creation.)

Yes. It used to be Ground Command, but was renamed as the combat rules were expanded on.

Thanks Ellias! Much appreciated. :)