Skill Trees

Skill Trees

ATF Features two distinct skill trees or Drums since they wrap around and aren’t like a traditional skill tree, the two trees are Space and Ground. There is also a supplimentary skill tree that covers skill used both in space and on the ground.

Skill Tree Layout

Both the main skill trees are laid out in an identical fashion, there are six main branches that contain 6 levels of skills, below are the precursor skills, there are 4 levels of these and these must be gained before you can take any skills from the main tree, these precursor skills are quick to gain and require little XP and give your character a grounding in all the skills across the 6 main branches, between each main branch are the secondary skills, these start at level 2 of each branch and require the skill on either side before you can take them, note that the tree wraps around (hence the Drum reference) so every secondary branch has a main branch on either side of it. There is a difference between the XP requirements for space and ground in that on the ground it’s possible to gain 2 full main branch plus 2 full secondary branches, while in space it’s only possible to gain 1 full main branch plus 2 full secondary branches. There is also enough XP to gain 2 full supplimentary skill branches, or you can spread the XP around wherever you like.

Space Skill Tree

Space Skill trees are divided into classes of ships that you can use, note that most larger ships will be designed to require 2 or 3 different classes to operate, the secondary skills allow you to added certain facilities or weapon types to the ships (each ship has a primary weapon type that can be used with the ship, gained with the primary skill, the secondary weapons aren’t stronger than the primary, just different in nature, eg Cruisers have the ability to use drones or turrets as secondary, Warships have LACs (Linear Accellerator Cannons) or Missiles, below is the full list of trees and secondary trees

  • Warships
    • Missiles
  • Frigates
    • Turrets
  • Cruisers
    • Drones
  • Transporters
    • Passenger Facilities
  • Liners
    • Entertainment Facilities
  • Stations
    • LAC Weapons
  • Warships (wrap from above)

As you can see every main skill shares two secondaries with two other main skills, these secondaries are related to the function of the ship.

Ground Skill Tree

The ground skill tree is similar to the space tree in layout, it consists of 6 branches with six secondary branches between them in a Drum layout, however the ground skills are much more class/profession orientated, they determine how your character interacts on the ground, the secondary trees act as stat modifiers rather than skill modifiers, these stats improve your overall ability by making you faster,more accurate or even more perceptive, below is the main skill sets and the stats the secondaries adjust.

  • Ranged Combat
    • Dexterity
  • Droid Operator
    • Constitution
  • Melee Combat
    • Agility
  • Armor
    • Stamina
  • Medic
    • Intelligence
  • Tracking
    • Perception
  • Ranged Combat (wrap from above)

I’ve tried to pair the attributes with the appropriate skill, so Ranged combat will benefit from perception (faster target aquisition) and Dexterity (firing faster and more accurately), Medic has Stamina and Intelligence (Ability to run to targets and More Healing), Tracking requires intelligence (to recognise tracks) and Perception (to spot tracks)

 Notice the lack of trade-skills in this tree, this is because trade skills are all in the supplimentary trees, along with skills that dont fit within the standard trees (such as bounty hunting) 

Supplimentary Skills

(Note this section is incomplete at the moment, but should give you some idea of what we’re planning on supporting)

The supplimentary skills are all 4 levels high and pull from a supplimentary skill XP pool, you will have enough XP to learn 2 1/2 full lines. Here are the skills currently envisioned for secondary skills

  • Bounty Hunting – Bounties are seperate from the APS system, bounties can only be placed in PvP or in special PvE involving The Players (usually when you annoy one of the players they may place a bounty on you, but there will be ways to avoid the bounty, either by working or paying off the person).
  • Mining – Mining is a special skill, mining is done either planet-side or space-side, planet-side mining is limited in scope since most resources come from asteroids and planetoids in space, however you can prospect for and pull small amounts of resources (suitable for making ground equipment) on any planet.
  • Refining – Refining raw resources into usable resources is a skill in itself, this skill allows you to make more complex alloys and get better yields from refining elements.
  • Crafting – Crafting skill is the maximum complexity of object you can build, you have to buy (or create your own if you have the skill) blueprints to be able to build items.
  • Business Man – Thinking of starting your own company, then you need to prove your worth, this skill allows you to add additional features to your corporation.
  • Smuggling – Want to stay off the Factions law enforcement’s radar, then smuggling skills will allow you to hide or change your manifest and allow you to take illegal items all over the galaxy.

(More supplimentary skills to come later)