Yup, though it's slower than in your home ships.
Tia - Character progression may be exponential with respect to stats, but it's not exponential in how "good" your character is.
As you develop, smaller improvements make more of a difference.
For example upgrading from 90% absorbtion to 92% absorbtion is actually a 20% upgrade, as the damage you're taking is reduced to 80% of what it was.
Not to mention that some of the later skills give massive boosts (such as upgrading to a new battleship).
I agree, a years difference after 10 years will be less important than a years difference after 2 years, but the gap’s still there.
There’s enough depth to the game mechanics that skill, experience, organisation and equipment make more of a difference than character skills, so it’s nothing to lose sleep over. Plus, the fact that activety doesn’t affect char skills means the more competitive/obsessive gamers can actually get some sleep now and again.
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