3 replies to this topic

[Cy Mitchell]

Because of the way the new Firepower Tree is laid of cost of respecs that are due to switching weapons will be minimal.

You can freely change between types and sizes of Lasers without a respec.

You can freely change between sizes of UAC without a respec.

You can change between different size ACs. without a respec.

You can freely change between missile types such as SRM. LRM and SSRM without a respec.

You can change between Gauss and UAC or AC with much less respec than old tree.

Many of the nodes affect more than one weapon type so they will still give benefits and do not need to be repecced. There will therefore be less negative impact on experimentation or adapting variants to different situations.

[Gas Guzzler]

Yep that is true. I also like that the firepower tree supports the good type of mixed builds, such as AC/SRM, PPC/AC, PPC/Gauss, and different types of lasers together. Even going all laser skills with a Gauss rifle means you still get some range and cooldown for your gauss as well as the heat gen and laser duration for your lasers.

[Cy Mitchell]

Another thing that is good(?) about the new skill versus the old Skill tree and the LIVE skill tree is that youo can buff all your weapons of one type without having to buy additional modules or having to choose which weapons to buff. For example: a Laser vomit build quirks both its large lasers and its medium lasers with the same skill nodes. A UAC Mech quirks both its UAC5s and UAC10s with the same nodes.

What all this means is that, in effect, you are freeing up what used to be limited module slots so that you can carry Radar Derp, Seismic and Target Info Gathering on the same Mech as well as quirking all your weapons.

As it stands, this system gives a lot more benefits than the old system.It gives a lot more freedom and a lot more benefits. The only drawbacks are that those that only want to min-max cannot do it to the extent they want to and under the new system all the Mechs are going to be across the board better outside of agility.

Once the deceleration numbers are adjusted to make the Mechs slow, stop and reverse better, I think I am going to really like the new Skill Tree and Engine Decoupling.

[ForceUser]

What I did find interesting as well is you can grab all of the generic skill nodes from one half of the tree without having to dip into any of the specialized weapon nodes. You do have to grab either a velocity or laser duration node for a pure misile build though. (not sure if it affects SRMS). I think that's the only real change I would critique regarding the weapon tree is to make it a bit more clear what weapons some of the nodes affect but that's mostly just a small UI fix. Regardless I have honestly been having a blast playing around in the new weapon tree, feels very rewarding.