The 1.2.9 update for the Starhawk Public BETA was deployed during the regularly scheduled server maintenance today, February 10 at 2pm Central time and included the following change:

Added the Skills-System.
Overview:
This kind of system is often referred to as “perks” by players and by other first-person shooters. However, the team here at LightBox Interactive is very aware of how “perk” systems can adversely impact the overall balance of a game and we’ve developed our system to avoid those problems as much as possible while still providing players with some really great incentives and unlockable goals. And to achieve this difficult balance, we’ve made a few very significant changes to the skills in Starhawk that set it apart from the skill-systems found in other games.

THERE ARE NO SKILLS THAT GIVE YOU MORE HEALTH, OR ACCURACY OR MORE DAMAGE!

You can only have a single skill active at any time and you can only change your skill if you are waiting to respawn. You can changes skills while you are alive however the change will not take effect until you respawn.

There is no “skill-tree”. Players never have to unlock skills in order to unlock “higher-level” skills. In Starhawk, we provide players with a flat list of skills. We want players to be able to customize their character to suit their play-style without having to wade through a bunch of skills that they don’t care about.