Originally by: Tippia

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Edited by: Tippia on 23/09/2009 13:00:22
When it comes to ships, the skills in and of themselves provide no bonuses ù they simply give you access to the ships they control. What you should be looking at is the actual ships, because they will all list (sometimes numerous) bonuses that increase as your ship skill levels increase.

For instance, the Battlecruisers has no bonuses listed, but, say the Drake battlecruiser states that each level of the skill gives you a 5% bonus to kinetic missile damage and to shield resist.

You'll also note that the Drake requires Battlecruisers II to be flown, in addition to Caldari Cruiser III, so that's another reason to increase these skills: the higher the level, the fancier the ships you can fly. All T2 ships, for instance, require the base hull skill at lvl V (so all T2 cruisers require their respective racial cruiser skill at V; the T2 destroyers require Destroyers V etc).

In addition, many "ship class" skills (such as Assault Ships and Battlecruisers) are prerequisites for more advanced ship types ù the Command Ships skill, for instance, requires Battlecruisers V. Digging even deeper, we find such examples as Heavy Assault Ships, which require the "normal" Assault Ships skill at IV, but since HACs are also T2 cruisers, that skill alone isn't enough ù you also need to train some cruiser skill to V.

Looking at the Command Ships skill again, you'll probably find an even more extreme example: the skill itself requires Battlecruisers V (and a number of other skills), but to fly the actual ships, you need a lot more. For example, look at the Astarte and Eos ships: the are the Gallente command ships and in addition to the CS skill, they require that you have trained the aforementioned HAC skill and/or the skill in flying Logistics ships (another type of T2 cruiser). So to get the most use out of the CS skill, you need to have trained not only Battlecruisers to V, but two types of T2 cruiser skills to IV, and a T2 frigate skill before thatà


In short, the lesson is this: while many skills will list a bonus for the skill, the equipment skill unlocks might have additional item-specific bonuses that are tied to those skills, so make sure to look at the actual items as well.

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