I've been playing Dust for about a week & noticed the following:

• You start the game with a TON of SP.
• You generate a TON of skill points (SP) over time. I haven't take the time to get exact numbers, but I'm earning over 15K SP per day when I'm not in the game.
• There's a cap/pool of possible SP you can earn per day that's around 200K.
• You get a TON of money (ISK) at the end of every battle. When you lose you get close to 100K ISK. If you're playing well and you win, close to 200K ISK.
• Unlocking a skill cost money which can usually be purchased for around 150K ISK.
• Training a skill is based on a flat multiplier instead of being exponential. If training level 1 of the skill is 10K SP, then level 2 is 20K SP and level 5 is 50K SP. This means that training all the way out to level 5 would cost you 150K SP.
• IMPORTANT: You get between 1.5K SP & 7K SP per battle, depending on if your side won and your performance.

My conclusion is the game appears to be rewarding "burst" gaming. I feel like I'm better off signing on every 3 days or so when I've banked enough SP to train a real skill. If I need to unlock a skill, 1-2 battles will get me the ISK I need to unlock it, but it doesn't make sense to try and grind SP when I hardly get any from battles. Maybe this will all change once there's more interactions with corporations and planet ownership, but it seems like I have to play this game in a casual way. Not complaining, just making an observation.

Am I missing something here? Is anyone else feeling the same thing?

Personally, I don't get that feeling from the game, but I've never been one to go too deep into a shooter. I tend to log-on daily and get in a few matches. Currently, with both active and passive skill boosters, it's taken me a few days to save up enough to unlock a 4th level skill at 400,000+. Currently, I've got about 3.5 million Skillpoints and there's SO MUCH more that I feel I need to unlock in order to have an effective character; not to mention on that is capable of multiple rolls. As with EVE Online, there are a shit ton of skills to learn and always something else that you need.

On your notes:

• You start the game with 500,000 Skill Points. This is a change from the beta, where you started with a set of predefined skills depending on the class you started as. Now, you can take about the same amount of points and invest them however you want.
• I've been told the passive gain is about 800,000 per month, or 1.2 million with the Passive Booster.
• The cap of about 190,000 is set weekly. Once you hit that cap, you can't earn more than 1,000 SP per battle.
• Yup. Sounds like a lot, but if you get into the corp warfare side of things, starter kits for clone deployment run a nice 8 mil. There's ALWAYS something to buy!
• This amount you pay for Skillbooks will go up as you get into the higher tiers.
• This sounds about right, though as you get into the higher skills they add multipliers to them. As I mentioned above, the Level 4 of the Dropsuit Mod skill that adds CPU ran over 400k.
• Yup.

Just my quick thoughts. I've really been enjoying the game and plan to play it for the long haul - if only to see the changes and additions CCP has in store. Maybe we'll see ya' on the battlefield!

I've been told the passive gain is about 800,000 per month, or 1.2 million with the Passive Booster.

This is my point. You get nearly 1 million points per month by doing nothing, but far less by actually fighting. I understand that:

• though this game is free-to-play, CCP needs to make money in the store.
• boosters are a great way to get that money from users who are serious about creating a powerful character quickly.

...but I also understand that I'm always gaining. Ultimately, the following is true everyday in Dust:

• shoot and die (working really hard not to do the latter) = get some SP (10K every 2/3 fights if you're doing well)
• do nothing = get a ton of SP (26K/day if your 800K/month estimate is true)

Granted, you're having fun shooting, fighting, & dying...but employing 0% effort and you getting so many points is pretty sweet. This is why I consider it "burst" gaming. If you play the game every 4 or 5 days instead of every day, you log in with a TON of SP & can upgrade your character which makes battles easier. If you log in and you don't have enough points, you can simply log out and try again in a few days.

On the other hand, If you log in everyday trying to grind SP, you'll only nudge forward & capture a skill upgrade a little sooner than someone doing nothing.

Like I said, however, I hoping this changes when corporations get involved in a meaningful way.

** Full Disclosure, I want Dust to succeed and I've purchased a passive booster :-) **

Yes, but that 800K a month for doing nothing, is nothing in this game really. When it takes 10 million points to level up a skill, what is 800K passive points in 30 days, not much in the grand scheme.

Also, there are a boat load of people who were in the beta, and are already way ahead of us new players. So having that gain is nice to try and catch up to them.

Yeah, the passive skill mechanic is taken from EVE where that's the ONLY way you can skill up; so, to me, the skills you get from matches are a bonus. Honestly, this burst way of playing DUST that you've mentioned seem to be as completely valid to me as jumping on daily and playing a few matches. The burst method, I think, is great for casual players. They jump on when they can, see they have some skills to spend and it keeps 'em coming back.

So I call it win/win. \o/

The more I play the game, the more I realize you guys are totally right. :) I've got level 4 assault rifles now and both types of SP boosters. The game is really opening up now. Win/win indeed.

Glad to hear it, @spidermanga!