So, you’ve been living the high life, rocking that shiny Omega status, training skills like there’s no tomorrow, flying the biggest, baddest ships… Living the dream, right? But then reality hits. Maybe the wallet’s feeling a little light, maybe life gets in the way, or maybe you just wanna take a break without completely abandoning your digital space-life. Whatever the reason, your Omega time runs out. BOOM. You’re an Alpha again.
Now, here’s where the confusion sets in. What the heck happens to all those fancy skills you spent ages training? Do they just vanish into the ether? Are you suddenly a newbie again, stuck in a frigate with more duct tape than hull plating?
Thankfully, no. Your skills don’t disappear. Think of it like this: they’re frozen in carbonite, like Han Solo. (Okay, maybe that’s a *little* dramatic, but it helps!). They’re still *there*, just… inaccessible. The game will still *show* you have Gallente Cruiser V if you trained it, but as an Alpha, you only get the benefits of Gallente Cruiser IV, because that’s the Alpha limit. I honestly thing that is a bit unfair, I mean, I put in the time!
Basically, any skill level that requires Omega status to *use* becomes inactive. You can’t use ships or modules that require those Omega skills, and you don’t get the skill bonuses from them. It’s like having a really powerful computer but the software license expired, so you can only use Microsoft Paint. Frustrating, right?
And here’s where it gets a little… wonky. Say you trained something *completely* Omega-locked. Like, a skill Alphas can’t even *start* training. Well, that skill is gonna be totally unusable. Just… sitting there. Taunting you. Wishing you had more money.
Honestly, it’s a bit of a bummer. I get why they do it – gotta incentivize those Omega subscriptions, right? – but it still feels a little… mean. Like, I worked hard for those skills! Lemme at least, I dunno, *look* at them fondly!
So, what’s the takeaway here? If you’re planning to go Alpha, keep in mind those Omega-only skills will be locked. You can still resubscribe later and pick up where you left off, but in the meantime, you’re stuck with the Alpha skill limits. Plan your training accordingly, or you might end up with a character who’s really, really good at… nothing much. I mean, nobody wants that, right?
Oh, and one more thing: don’t even *think* about trying to game the system by training a bunch of Omega skills and then downgrading to Alpha to get a “free” head start. CCP (and the Echoes devs, I guess) are way ahead of you. They’ve seen it all, trust me.