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Skill Discussion

Lieutenant

Hull restoration

Hull healing powers increase no difference from tooltip
Helps heal yourself and others
Recommend rank 2 for everyone

Hull cap

This is hull increase on the base of the ship before buffs (cat1), so in some case may only get 22% increase to a buffed hp
Recommend rank 1 for everyone, rank 2 for tanks

Shield restoration

Shield healing powers buff. No difference from tooltip
Heal the shields of yourself and others
Recommend rank 2 for everyone

Shield Cap

This is buff on base of shield
Does not cover after buffs (cat 1), so on epic gear and after buffs may only get 18% total shield increase for rank 3
Rank 1 for everyone

Energy weapon

Increase on base weapon damage (cat 1)
After other buffs and 125 weapon power, may only get 10% increase in energy weapon damage for 3 ranks of energy weapon

Lt. Commander

Eps flow

Useful when combined with over-capping (over 125 weapon power). Help transfer power to weapons during the firing cycle
Necessary rank 2 for 8 beam fire-at-will builds, also get plasma integrated warp core (exchange, or fleet). Plasmonic_Leech console can substitute
Recommend rank 1 for other energy weapon types or get plasma integrated warp core (exchange, or fleet)
Will help change between energy presets faster

Impulse Expertise

1 rank unless you are building to go slower at full throttle
Consider 0 ranks if using front weapons with “improved pedal to the metal” (20% damage buff)
Can still use full impulse to get you around with 0 ranks
Rank 2 is useful for extra defense

Control Expertise

Increase in sci power hold effects
Also helps resist hold effects.
2 ranks will allow escaping grav well, not much effect against tractor beams
1 rank would require some power shifting to engines to escape grav well
0 ranks would need evasive maneuvers to escape grav well
Some deflectors can provide enough to not need this

Drain expertise

2 ranks for drain builds.
Helps resist drains a little bit, shield drains still drain a large amount (hopefully they fix this crazy drain from npcs)
Plasmonic_Leech console benefits

Drain Infection

Adds a damage over time to sci drain powers
Shield penetrating?

Defensive Maneuvering

Direct defense no matter what speed you are going
Recommend rank 1 or 2 for every build
Get rank 2 in impulse expertise if need more defense

Commander

Hull plating

Rank 1 just about equal to one neutronium alloy armor mk xi. Think of this as an extra armor slot

Shield Regeneration

Over powered keep an eye on this. It is my opinion it might get nerfed
A percentage of your total buffed shield HP as regeneration. Independent of shield power and base regeneration. Extremely useful on all builds especially high shield HP builds
Rank 3 on every build unless using some other way to recharge shields such as Shield_Absorptive_Frequency_Generator for warbirds

Shield Hardness

Direct reduction on shield HP loss
Not related to bleed-through (10% normal shields, 5% resilient)
Kinetic shield damage is always reduced to 25% before shield hardness applies
Independent of power level
Shield hardness stacks as a product of the damage multipliers
Capped at 75%
Example with 100 shield power 20%, 3 ranks shield hardness 20%, emergency power to shields III 30%, Transfer shield strength 15%, Rotate shield frequency 34% ⇒ 1-(0.8*0.8*0.7*0.85*0.66)=74.9% shield hardness
1 rank would be battle equivalent to extra 10% shield regeneration and 10% shield HP after buffs (cat 2)
Recommend 3 ranks for all builds

Weapon Amplification

Increases the Crit serverity by 10%. If your build can do 20% crit chance put 1 rank in this. Otherwise pass.

Weapon Specialization

Increases crit chance
Recommend 2 ranks

Captain

Subsystem Performance (weapon, shield, engine, auxiliary)

Rank 1 of both recommended
Benefits of rank 2 would depend on if you are running a warp core with [AMP]. If rank 2 can boost a power above 75 take it.

Long Range Targeting Sensors

Reduces damage drop off at long range for all energy weapons (cannons and beam now have same drop-off)
0 rank stay close to target for no damage drop off (2Km)
3 ranks for standoff fighting (npcs lose 50% at 9km)
Maximize area of effect weapon firing (fire-at-will, cannon scatter volley)

Hull penetration

1 rank would give 5 armor penetration, anywhere from 3%-5% damage increase depending on total damage resist of target

Shield Weakening

Direct damage buff against shields of target
Once shields are gone, does not help
Recommend 0 or 1 ranks

Admiral

Warp core potential

Good power increase for all power levels
Recommend at least 1 rank
Just like subsystem performance, use rank 2 to get a system above 75 if using [AMP] warp core

Warp Core Efficiency

Recommended
Great additional power to systems set below 25 power
Reducing scale up to 75 power setting

Engineering, Scientific, Tactical readiness

Reduces cooldowns on bridge officer abilites
Some ship traits, duty officers can do similar
Does not reduce cooldown below global cooldown of duplicate abilties
Example chaining APO and APB, or chaining 2 tachyon beams dow to the global cooldown
The [SciCdr] mod that appears on deflectors is +50 Scientific Readiness

Shield mastery

Coordination Protocols

This buffs pets and other team members
If all 5 team members had these, would yield 20% hp, damage, accuracy, defense for everyone. Extra for pets.
If solo, still helps NPC allies

Table of Contents

Skill Discussion

Lieutenant

Hull restoration

Hull cap

Shield restoration

Shield Cap

Energy weapon

Lt. Commander

Eps flow

Impulse Expertise

Control Expertise

Drain expertise

Drain Infection

Defensive Maneuvering

Commander

Hull plating

Shield Regeneration

Shield Hardness

Weapon Amplification

Weapon Specialization

Captain

Subsystem Performance (weapon, shield, engine, auxiliary)

Long Range Targeting Sensors

Hull penetration

Shield Weakening

Admiral

Warp core potential

Warp Core Efficiency

Engineering, Scientific, Tactical readiness

Shield mastery

Coordination Protocols