*** Skills that work, and those that do not ***

Sol Weapons Officer: Lucky shot -- Seems to be working. Had that and Overload I up, hit and destroyed an enemy at extreme range. Maybe proof that Range Boost is also working.
Engineer: Power Boost -- I had enough power on a Liverpool III last night to have both weapons at 4 bars (12 energy in total), Level 4 shields active on all 6 sides, and enough movement to get 10 hex in a straight line. May have had a small boost to sensors too. [may be proof of life for Science Officer: Shield Overcharge skill.]

 

Tactical Officer: Damage Boost -- Seems to be working. But I'm not sure. Sometimes when I hover over my weapons it's showing the additional damage and sometimes not. But, I felt like I was doing a whole lot more of damage when I first bought it on my First Honor. This enhances your damage a lot, even with low charges if you're not flying an Agile Flyer III and have only one weapon.
Captain and Marine Commander: Slaughter -- Does not seem to be working, but I did not do that much with marines, yet.
Engineer: Power Boost -- I thought it was working for me. But, as Vesuvius blew up the ship were I had it I can not check it now. Should be especially useful for ships with good engines, although Agile Flyers will probably not know what to do with all that energy and thus movement any more.

 

I'm not sure if it's supposed to work this way, but it seems the Power Boost skill boosts power after the Allocation round. I've gone from 13 movement at the end of Allocation to 15 at the beginning of Combat, and I've got a few tiers into Power Boost.

-I believe the power boost skill is still 'unfinished', it will eventually show the extra power in green on the allocation round. -Vesuvius

 

Damage boost is my first skill of choice with ships that have multiple weapons. The agile flyer I just power up 1 1 1 and in close up they're doing 3 3 3 damage! The rest give me the freedom to up sensors or just pure movement and initiative

-The Genari Light Lasers automatically do +1 damage at 1-2 hex range, so your damage boost is adding another +1 to that. -Vesuvius

 

Just watch out for that explosion damage. I've lost a few good ships to that.

 

On the Tactical Officer: I've taken the Shield Overcharge ability, but my ship's max shields still appear to be 6.

 

Powerboost definitely NOT working this morning. Available power did not change from no skill points to full skill.

 

Leadership does not seem to work. I still get the same amount of xp with a shot that is powered with the same amount of energy on the same ship, as before.

 

I can confirm Power Boost is not working, at least not on my Honorbound IV.

Manuverability doesn't reflect the added movement points in the allocation phase, but does in the combat phase. I see 8 in the Allocation and 9 in the Combat.

Damage Boost does not have an effect. I have Damage Boost 2, but I'm only dealing 2 damage per attack.

Accuracy doesn't appear to work, with Accuracy III, I'm still seeing the same 84% hit chance from 2 tiles away, just like I saw before training it.

 

Advanced Repair is not stacking. I have it on a Liverpool with +1 natural repair, and am still only getting 3 repair points total, not 4. Whilst it is possible that the one is supposed to supercede the other, if it is then the ability on the Liverpool is less usefull than I anticipated.

It would also go against the damage boost enhancing Ganri lasers at short range mentioned above.

 

OK, skills not working on my Orchis this morning.

Power Boost - no appreciable difference in available power with or without this skill.
Shield Boost - no appreciable difference in shield strength with or without this skill.

 

Lucky Shot - seems to be working. Have only missed once when using it.
Overload - again, seems to be working. Much greater damage than without it.

However, neither skill seems to reset properly. On completing the battle and going to another sector, the skills re-appear during the allocation round, but any attempt to use them results in an error 100 and they can't be used. Only way to get them back is to complete the current battle, get to a friendly station, dock, log out, quit the game, come back in, and go out to a different sector than either the one you used them in, or the one you tried and they bugged. Otherwise, you just can't use them a second time at all, not just a second time in that battle.

 

I've noticed this bug happening with Marine Pods as well.

Speaking of which, I don't think that the Elite Marines skills work at all, I've grabbed the upgrade(s) on a couple ships now and haven't noticed an increase in crew kills or xp gain when a pod hits.

 

Honorable death I: is not working on my captain. i loose a ship at 5200 HP and i dont have any hp/lp back :s
rally offensive I : is not a activated allocation or doesn't work

 

Honorable Death II does work however, just lost a Leviathan, got 50% of the ship's price back (crew not refunded)

 

Sensor Boost II: Science Officer's Scan range boost does not appear to be working. I still have the base range of 4 clearly visible around me with no additional power to scanners (should be +2 with both ranks).

I don't know if damage boost is working or not. I do not see it listed when hovering over weapon. Damage boost is a very powerful skill btw, especially for ships with multiple low-dmg weapons.

I do see range boost when hovering over weapon, BUT the highlighted area indicating weapon range remains unchanged (still 12 hex for a plasma weapon, not 13).

 

Ok, so I've had some time (a day?) to put in some practice and learn the game/test things out.
These may not be the official names, but here goes:

Engineer Repair boost is insanely good (2 base + 1 ship special + 10 from 5 ranks = 13 repairs!), but I would love to knock that down to rank 0-2 and instead take 3-5 ranks of power boost if it was working. -Xeen
Power Boost: Tested, No apparent effect from any rank.
Repair: Tested, All ranks appear to be working correctly.
Dark Matter: Tested, works as expected. Still doesn't seem worth getting over combat skills.
Stress Engines: Tested, works, but not quite as expected. There is a general problem of when information is updated/calculated in various parts of combat, particularly concerning power distribution. Activating this skill DOES increase your power by X%, but you cannot allocate it at all during the phase in which you activate the ability, resolving the extra power to only be used for mobility. Doesn't seem worth getting a 1-off ability (although it does look powerful). If it came with some stiffer consequences + a cooldown of 2 or 3 turns instead of once per battle, maybe. -Once per battle means you can only use it one time in a combat region until you leave the area or dock, not per round. -Vesuvius
And that's why I think it is a terrible investment of limited skill points compared to what you could get that works passively permanently, especially in prolonged battles. - Xeen

Medical Would absolutely take all 5 Escape ranks if working or as many as needed for the respective ship over anything else. -Xeen
Crew Healing: Difficult to test, pvp might help.
Crew Toughness: Difficult to test, pvp might help.
Escape: Locked for beta.

Science Nothing appears to be working/worth getting at this time. -Xeen
Sensor Boost: Tested, enemies are NOT detected at additional range beyond normal maximum fully powered or unpowered sensor.
Sensor Shadow: Difficult to test, pvp might help.
Shield Overcharge: Tested, No apparent effect from any rank.
Targeting/Disable Shot: Tested, button is active during allocation phase, but I appear to have failed my rank I 10% chance. Doesn't seem worth getting a 1-off ability. [Edit: Tested with rank 5 100% chance and nothing appeared to happen, enemy still moved and fired next round.]

Weapons You simply cannot make a better investment than +1 Dmg Boost and 20% accuracy at Rank IV for your points here... Maybe all 5 accuracy ranks with top end ships or throwing in the range booster when working if that will affect effective-range accuracy. -Xeen
Damage Boost: Tested, appeared to be working on one ship (Bengbu with 2 dmg lasers was reporting 3 damage while hovering over weapon) but not with another (Liverpool hover-display unchanged), however I believe I did notice an increase in xp as a result of doing more damage? [Edit: Appears that the tooltip is now correctly displaying +1 dmg on Liverpool now as well. It works, but there are a few kinks ] [Re-Edit: Just figured it out. The boosted damage is not displayed during allocation phase should at least 1 power charge be designated to the weapon. It is only visible during combat phase as +1.]
Range Boost: Tested, not working. Only able to fire the same distance/arc with the same chance to hit. No additional hex shading/ability to reach target or improved accuracy from increased range (at least that's how I think the 50% range-rated accuracy system would work out).
Lucky Shot: Untested, Doesn't seem worth getting a 1-off ability.
Sol Overload: Untested, Doesn't seem worth getting a 1-off ability.
Accuracy: Tested, working well. 5% accuracy increase at half-max range on a 50% acc weapon results in 52% accuracy (52.5% truncated/rounded down? or simply a lack of precision in the display?) Was able to achieve 96% accuracy at 4-6 range with certain weapons, oddly enough, going 1-3 range would reduce accuracy to 95%.

Helm Would prefer to have Tac Adv. + Rotation + 1 rank of maneuver + 2 evasion if they all worked, for now, 5-Rank Maneuver is nice -Xeen
Maneuver: Tested, working well. My only complaint is that most of the skill descriptions say 'rounded up', so when I have 6 energy on a class IV ship for 6 movement points with rank 5 maneuvering (60%), I should be at 6*1.6 = 9.6 rounded up to 10 movement points, but I only have 9.
Tactical Advantage: Tested, no change in initiative with same ship, power allocation, etc.
Rotation: Locked for beta.
Sol Evasive: Difficult to test, pvp might help.

 

Oh, I forgot to add the Captain stuff:

Captain Ideally, I would want 2 ranks in Command (for Class VII access), 2 ranks in fleet (for 2 extra ships if possible, or 1 rank if class restriction extends that far as I read somewhere) and one in support. If I can't use 2 ranks in fleet, I'd put the extra talent in another support ship or Tac Adv, assuming everything is working. Unsure what the max Captain rank/skill points is at this time -Xeen
Leadership: Tested, Pretty sure this is NOT working. I didn't (Edit: It doesn't work) do a controlled before and after study, but a Bengbu yields 20 xp for a kill, still 10% of 200 XP cost (not 10% of purchase * 1.10 Leadership bonus for a total of 22 XP). Like the 1-offs above.. This skill is NOT something I would use late-game because XP can be acquired eventually, but other walls can never be bypassed and the combat potential of other talents is far too valuable to waste points on Leadership.
Fleet Commander: Locked for beta (would love to test this out! Especially since my favorite ship is the Class VII Montana III - 2 or 3 would be awesome)
Tactical Advantage: Untested, it's next on my list as soon as I get another level. The Officer version of this skill does NOT appear to be working, expecting captain one might not either.
Sol Support Ships: Locked for beta (would also love to test this out too!)
Sol Commander: Tested (Testing?), appears to be working fine EXCEPT!.. you can acquire the first rank as a 1-star captain and the second rank as a 2-star captain, contrary to the description. I am currently working on getting LP for a Class VIII Montana III today. Other reports suggest that they may not even be required at this time to purchase high class ships.



Above, before applying Captain's Tactical Advantage I (+2 initiative)
Below, after applying Captains Tactical Advantage I (+2 initiative) NO change to initiative with same power settings.

 

*Votes to fix the AI's power allocation phase bug first*

-Most definitely -Vesuvius