So? when CCP originally talked about the skills way back in closed beta they said over 7 years of playtime just to max out everything, we've been playing with shortened skill trees so that we could test things out, now we're getting to the real meat and potatoes of the game and actually looking at a full game here

You only need Weaponry level 3 for light weapons and it doesn't offer a damage bonus anymore so there is no need to get it to level 5 unless you plan on using heavy weapons.

You only need Weaponry level 3 for light weapons and it doesn't offer a damage bonus anymore so there is no need to get it to level 5 unless you plan on using heavy weapons.

Thanks, this is what i've been wondering. So about 10,000,000 for a maxed out proto? I'm 2 million short. I'm going to miss all the variety I have now, need to specialize this time.

7 years to get EVERYTHING.
This is just CORE SKILLS THAT EVERYONE NEEDS (minus armor skills but then you need shield skills) + AR specialization.
Doesn't include dropsuit specialization.
And I've been playing a lot, so imagine how a newberry will feel trying to get to 10mil.
As I said, I'm not complaining, just want to discuss this to see what others think.

Good thing you have all of the standard and advanced equipment to fill the gap, eh? Lots of 5's you put up there on that list..

EVE Online Thanatos takes what... a few hundred days from scratch? HTFU.

EDIT: Also, you shouldn't NEED proto to be good.

nobody is going to believe the bold portion.

Thanks OP i was working on the same figures glad we both came to the same number

im surprised its so low personally

i expected the dropsuit skills to take much more to get out of basic suits, i was expecting that my play time may let me get into the first of the role based suits

the whole idea is that you cant max out all the core skills, you should only be maxing them when there is nothing else more important for you to get

I have no intention of maxing those skills, i have them on my list and will be building my fit as i like it then skills to make sure it works, hopfully that means i dont need to max them from the start

We shall see

That's a lot of skillpoints right there, cat, but you might not wanna spend your hard earned SP exactly like that and let me tell you exactly why, man. I'm not going into too much details in this thread but I'm gonna just throw a couple of general pointers out there for you, bro. Number one, we all know the Dust skill system works in a way that every level in a skill increases in cost which makes it sometimes so that you might not wanna go to level 5 in some skills. Let's take engineering or electronics as an example, guys. You might not wanna go blindly rushing there because in many cases your fitting doesn't even require that skill at all, because as we know any unused CPU/PG doesn't give us any bonuses, boys and girls. So go ahead and check your fittings before spending all that SP so fast.

Number two. Some of those requirements skills you mentioned do not need to be at level 5 for you to access the skills following that in the tree. And yeah, you might wanna skill up them eventually for a bonus, but like you said, man, you're on a budget so you might wanna be very selective on what you going after. Peace out!

how much can i get with just 4.5m sp? O.o
I could do without max armor plating and repairs and biotics..

That is true except for:
As an assault, even a proto one, I'm always tight with the fittings, in fact I got my fit maxed out exactly to the amount of CPU/PG I have.
And that's with the maxed out skills + a few extra skills that reduce cpu/pg usage of some modules, as needed.

Those skills don't take much.
The main SP hogs are:
*Dropsuit electronics
*Dropsuit engineering
*Assault rifle proficiency

Well then you've already calculated everything, I don't need to say no more. Other than I still think I'd save somewhere and go for a better suit skill. I was thinking of going for at least the prototype generic suit, but I still haven't decided anything. On a side note, and as a scout player, bro, I was inspecting the stats of the assault suits compared to logis and I might be missing something here but it seems like logis are superior to assaults in so many ways. What do you think about that?

Well then you've already calculated everything, I don't need to say no more. Other than I still think I'd save somewhere and go for a better suit skill. I was thinking of going for at least the prototype generic suit, but I still haven't decided anything. On a side note, and as a scout player, bro, I was inspecting the stats of the assault suits compared to logis and I might be missing something here but it seems like logis are superior to assaults in so many ways. What do you think about that?

how much would neglecting assault proficiency give in sp?
Also, by electronics and engineering, is it considering mostly circuitry and combat engineering (plus shield enhancements), or is it considering all the skills in those?

Weaponry is a core skill.
Everything that gives a buff that relates to what I need is put to lvl V.
Also, that skill is a x1 skill, even if I drop it to lvl3 it won't make much of a difference.

Yes, that is a core skill to what YOU need.

But if I'm Logistics with a focus on repairing, reviving, and resupply, weaponry will not be a core skill (after Uprising, like Spy Mouse said, it no longer gives damage bonus).

And If I'm a tanker, Weaponry before OR after Uprising build wouldn't help me since I would need turret skills, not handheld weapon skills.

So it should be "Weaponry is a core skill [that I need]."

Assault proficiency will set you back by 1,554,600sp.
That's the same for Electronics and Engineering each.
And I don't understand your second question, could you rephrase that?