Engineer skills

[Wrathinside]

Now, I can understand Gunner skills: activate and effects will proc on shot, and I haven't tried Commander, but Engineer is puzzling me. I am getting to a point of the game, where I'd better not fight a fleet of carriers with 60 points invested in -trooper effectiveness, but something worthwhile. This something I can't quite figure on the spot, as there are no UI or visible effects that say "buff" or "debuff". I mean, Energize and Hack have animation, but it's just skill uptime, not any effect that they cause. I can't see if the enemy is affected or if I am triggering some positive effect on myself. Please, save your guesses, if devs won't be able to clearly explain mechanics, or veterans who had more time in beta and stuff to test it won't be able to clarify the effects... then perhaps it's faster to randomly try it myself.

Hack:
I presume it's single target only, the one, which you have selected. But what of the range? Can I assume hack would work at ~1000 range, as I kite/barrage enemies? What if I change targets? Will effect immediate move to the next target, or will it linger or just not transfer?

Sensor jam, I assume, is a constant debuff for the duration of Hack.
Virus drops target's shields "on hit". I suppose it's my hit, and if so - does it matter what kind of hit? Does it have balancing mechanic between railguns/beams that fire every 0.2-0.3 seconds and plasmas that fire every 0.8-1 seconds? Also - how exactly are the shields dropped? Just by a small number, or it's a chance to outright disable the shield on currently attacked side of the ship? So in theory - it synergies well with distant railguns?

Life-support sabotage - not sure if it even works. But what I found out is that... I don't know where all the veterans and guidewriters took their info about ship defense systems, about troops dying without enemy soldiers... I captured ships at like 5-10% hull remaining. Still lost 2-3 troops per capture period. Didn't see any difference in boarding a fully intact ship. (Offtopic, but would also like confirmation)

Mainframe shutdown - ... what? "Completely shutdown target on hit" Is that total ship deactivation? What is the duration? Duration of Hack? Rather pointless then... Unless it procs immediately and you use it to disable just one ship, it kinda removes necessity of Sensor or Virus, while having same percentage chance.


Rift:
Same question - range? I see rift spawning, but no idea how far it affects. Since I most often could scan rifts safely at 200-300 distance, is that the distance your rift affects enemies? Or does it stretch to at least 500?
The modifiers are more or less understandable from the point of activation you spawn it like a mine and have incoming enemies get "stuck"(I assume that's the reason for speed debuff, EM pulse(it slows engines and systems or what?). It would also emit some radiation damage that I personally don't get how works. At least with all the shield, EM, radiation whatnots, a barrage of plasma takes out carriers at 1000 distance in 10-15 seconds tops.

Energize:
Now that I get - personal buff on demand. However...

Shield Strength - from what I see on my shield generator tooltip, it's the "shield amount". Since it's not anyhow visible in game HUD, except for tactical grid percentages, I wonder - how does it get added? I sure as hell doesn't get added as a "temporary" bonus. I've had about 4 points invested there by the time my ship was big enough to have shield not fluctuate 1-100, but where going below 80% means I'm in trouble. And, interestingly, this Energize didn't give any "Strength" on top of these 80%.
I would assume then, that it temporarily boosts maximum shield, not adds shield. But then if a maximum was increased, current shield has different value. Like, 9000 is 100% of 9000, but not 100% of 11000. Same, I didn't see my shield % change even as a reduction in proportion to the max in combat. Maybe I've missed something, I won't claim anything here, feel free to claim I am wrong, I will re-test.

Shield recharge - now that's a funny thing. For a large ship, even shield recharge item with 400% effect is rather... hard to notice. Like, over 15 seconds it will restore maybe 5-10% shield at best. I haven't dumped that many points into Shield recharge modifier to see if it goes above 400%, but I see that its diminishing returns kick in quite soon, 50>70> and so on. Now that may not be exactly the question of how it works, more of balance: is there really a point in this setup: Shield Strength+Recharge from Energize? If Strength doesn't actually give more shields, and Recharge can barely keep up? How many points are expected to be spent? 20-25? For a single-skill gameplay?

Power Restore - I haven't yet tested it actively myself, might later try dumping a lot of points to see if it gets self-sustainable, more or less. I know that power doesn't regenerate during the skill's uptime, so the meanwhile question is - how much power is restored when the effect is triggered? How many points should be spent averagely(from testing/playing experience) to have real effect? I understand that, once again, sometimes you are barraged by railguns and have "better" chance. Sometimes you are globaled by plasmas and have worse chance. But how many points should I spent to have effect trigger often enough with 3+ targets attacking me?

Immunity - no clue. Negative status effect? Like PTE disabled? Or system hitpoints down? Give me something here.

Disabling shockwave - likewise, no idea. Distance of the shockwave? Is it PBAoE, centered around you with equal radius around? I haven't tried shockwave weapons, but I assume it's some "wave", coming from the selected side of your ship? Does this wave trigger on the enemy that triggered it? In fact, is it triggered by incoming fire or... like, "% per second" of keeping up Energize? How long does the disable last? Again, only as long as Energize?


Enforce:
Also personal buff, that much I get.

EMP Boost - personally saw at least two threads about EMP/radiation damage. Offtopic, but I would still like concrete info about this damage. Is it injected in your damage? 10% of 100 would be EMP damage? Is it bonus 10% of your raw damage that will be added, so practically 10% more dps when activated? I hear radiation does DoT to the hull, and EMP disables systems. If I may take a guess, maybe EMP does bonus damage to shields?

Scramble - ...yet another weapons disable. Again, how long does it last? Like Virus, I suppose, it triggers from your hits, and benefits fast-shooting weapons.

Energy Steal - vise versa cousin of Power Restore. Once again, how many points are expected to be spent to have solid effect?

Overload - clear here, but offtopic question: what is the default crit chance? How is it affected by modifiers on weapons? As raw +% or only as modifiers? Like, 10% chance would only become 12% with 0.2 mod? What is default critical hit damage?

Continuous Fire - I figure it takes from the power of all\random unused battery to fire currently used battery? And chance is "per" shot? So this one benefits slow, expensive shots?


I'm sorry if I sound too stupid or clueless, or if I'm asking for stuff that I am supposed to figure myself. For all I know, I'd test it all, just want to save time, because at least 50% of this info should be much more accessible. I may ask for too much detail, but... this is RPG. And even if not all RPGs are all about system, I unfortunately hail from MMOs. Where durations, effects, modifiers... all matters. So I personally would find the game more enjoyable if I knew exactly what my skills do. Not just 4 skills that I hardly use throughout the game, and when I do - I first need to study and test them to even figure a build.

[ElectroD]

Ok so: The engineer class is currently the strongest one in the game. Most helpful, most OP, most diverse.

Most useful->useless skills in order:

1. Hack -(put all your moneys in Life-support sabotage) - the most useful skill in capping ships. You will benefit from the 5-15% increase early on, but later when you get to 50-60% increase, you can capture carriers with 150-180 troops with 100-110-120 troops and perks. After capture, respeck.
2. Rift- weak early on, after you invest 30+ points in radiation(after respecking from Hack) it demolishes entire fleets. It has a range of around 600(from experience) and it does direct percent damage from enemy hull. Ex: ship at 100%. Your skill does 10% radiation damage. Result: enemy loses 10% of max hull per second. Broken. I managed to destroy almost 40 carriers and dreads in 6 seconds at lvl 70.At once. In one go. From 100%. NEED BALANCE. I haven died since lvl 30. Most broken skill in the entire game.
3. w/e
4. w/e (Energize is the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of them all)

Explanation: the skill system in currently unbalanced. They will tweak it in the future patches, I am sure of it.

This game benefits from focusing on one skill, with 1-2, maximum 3 modifiers. It's bad judgement to spread your skill points, as you cannot follow one power with another, due to severe power consumption and limited power pool.

One skill with all points invested becomes gamebreaking. The fact that you can respec as much as you want gives you the oportunity to get HACK early and later(when needed) to capture the desired ship, then invest in RIFT or ENFORCE to have offensive power.

The game has awful shield balance and concept and only defensive items you should have atm are repair bots and the soak hull thing.

As for the little details, only the devs know them atm, and I suspect they are modifying them every patch so .... Anyway...just go RIFT some fools. It will make you feel better. I promise. :D

[Wrathinside]

Yeah... now I've lost that character, first because of the campaign(mission disappeared), and then because of the SideMission mod, whichI disabled and now is unable to open starchart.
Good to know about Rift, I was using 110% EMP Enforce before starting a new game. Didn't see any solid benefit, but at least it was a bonus I could understand. Hack, to be honest, I tried and found... not that promising. Like, +25% your troops and -50% enemy - didn't really fare better than my +15% troops on Gunner in early game. Not sure if it even worked, but dumping the whole class to questionable capture, which already isn't that complicated - isn't a sign of power.

Now if I could have some points in Hack just to capture, then some sufficient points in Rift to have it unbalanced... maybe if I also used some for Energize to survive - it could be a decent build. Hopefully either devs will post here, or your advice will help new Engineers. I'm going RailGunner and not regretting it for an instant.

[ElectroD]

Man, maybe I didn't explain it properly: you can reset your spent hero/ability/power points (that you gain per level) when you are docked at a station or planet! It's the lowest button at your left. You can reset perks also and spend them another way. So that's what I was saying: capture a ship then dock, reset your points, and reinvest them all in RIFT-> Radiation.

[Wrathinside]

Ahem, I am not that stupid to get so far into the game and not notice it. When I said "If I could", I meant:
1. That my playthrough is lost. Perhaps "I" didn't explain it properly.
2. Theoretical build that could be devised, instead of cookie-cutter build. No mention of being unable to respec.