Skills Guide
Skills in Starpoint Gemini 3 can give you just the edge you need to beat that particularly difficult opponent. Skills are NOT one-hit-kill-all mechanisms, but they should be complementary to your playstyle. Skill “groups” reflect that. If you’re mostly reliant on blasters as your primary weapon, if that approach suits you the best, then you should upgrade the blasters skill, as an example. But again, don’t expect to one-shot-kill your enemies. From the start of the game to the very end, success in combat will depend on your piloting, not just your weapons or skill setup. Everything matters.
As you complete tasks and defeat enemies, you will gain experience. When you get enough experience, you advance in experience level. This comes with a reward of one skill point. Use these to upgrade your skills on the aptly named “Skills panel”.
Generally speaking, all skill lanes follow the same paradigm. In between gaining permanent passive bonuses, you’ll activate special procedural bonuses that take time to cool off after they get triggered. If its not otherwise noted on weapon-related skills, all the skills in the same group affect ONLY the weapon type the group is named after.
Let’s go over each skill group.
Blasters
Passive bonuses
- Increased critical hit chance
- Reduced energy consumption
- Increased shield damage
Special bonuses
- Destabilize – Critical hits cause critical system failure of the victim’s flight stabilizers. He’ll spin around without control.
- Weakpoint – When you bring down an enemy’s shield, your critical hit chance is greatly improved.
- Cooloff – Instant recharge of your weapon energy.
Machineguns
Passive bonuses
- Reduced energy consumption
- Increased hull and shield damage
- Increased critical hit damage
Special bonuses
- Dirty shot – Cause the victim’s ammo storage to blow up, dealing massive damage.
- Eager – Gain a temporary boost to rate of fire
- Suppression – While your energy is low, damage is increased. Keep the energy low, but don’t let the weapon go into “overheat”.
Scatterguns
Passive bonuses
- Increased rate of fire
- Decreased projectile scatter
- Increased hull damage
Special bonuses
- Trap – Cause critical engine failure to the victim. He can’t move.
- Unshielded – Create a temporary drain on the victim’s shield, constantly depleting them
- Finishing move – Short-term significant increase in rate of fire
Cannons
Passive bonuses
- Increased critical hit damage
- Increased rate of fire
- Increased critical hit chance
Special bonuses
- Cripple – Temporarily disable the victim’s weapons, on hitBypass – Short-term chance for your hits to pass through the victim’s shieldExecute – Chance to cause absolutely massive hull damage
Missiles
Passive bonuses
- Increased Dumbfire missile accuracy
- Increased Guided missile projectile speed
- Decreased Torpedo reload time
Special bonuses
- Reloaded – Chance to fire two dumbfire missiles for the cost of one
- Seeker – Deal additional damage with Guided missiles
- Chain reaction – Cause residual damage over time with torpedoes
Maneuverability
Passive bonuses
- Increased Booster recharge
- Increased Booster fuel
- Increased Booster speed
Special bonuses
- Auxiliary – For a short time, the Booster doesn’t spend any fuel
- Retreat – When your shield is depleted, booster fuel is completely replenished, giving you a better chance to get away
- Charger – Dropping from boost, gives you a short-term buff to shield recharge
Shields
Passive bonuses
- Increased shield recharge
- Increased shield capacity
- Reduced shield reboot time
Special bonuses
- Reboot – Instant shield reboot and recharge to 50%. It’s like “second wind” for shields
- Kinetic – Getting your shields dropped below 50%, instantly recharges your weapons energy. I guess offense is the best defense in this case
- Blast – When you shield gets dropped below 15%, a missile-destroying blastwave is emitted
Systems
Passive bonuses
- Decreased critical system failure duration
- Reduced radiation buildup
- Increased enemy missile lock-on time
Special bonuses
- Retaliate – Your weapons do more damage, while either your shield, life support or ammo storage is in critical failure
- Evasive – Speed and maneuverability are improved, while either your weapons, the guidance system or the mainframe are in critical failure
- Bulkhead – While you’re experiencing either engine of flight stabilizers critical failure, your hull slowly repairs
Final Thoughts
As can be seen above, there’s no shortage of skills you can improve and it is important to do so since they really can mean the difference between success and death. And don’t worry, if you get something wrong, and somewhere down the line you decide you want to take a different path regarding skills, you can always do a respec. It will cost you in-game currency, but you’ll get all the spent skillpoints back to distribute as you see fit.
