Fused or sticky skillsofts
Till death due us part

I like the idea of a -single- socket fuse soft. Can not be removed, uninstalled. And once slotted it's there and stays there. You can not install any more skill soft sockets, even removable once. You make a choice. You slot it in. It's now permanent until death.

I think it's pretty grossly unfair that skilled combatants can steal non-combatants jobs with easy and without risk while non-combatants use of skillsofts is literally based on a roll of the dice for effectiveness.

While any changes like this would greatly offset what is currently coded - things like this is why Sindome remains 90% in the hands of players who can create red text vs those who tell stories.

Perhaps ONLY combat skillsofts can be perminantly slotted to balance that then?

It does seem a little archaic, and Reefer rather rightly points out it disproportionately punishes non-combatants (or low-UE combatants) compared to anyone with high avoidance rolls.

However I don't think a skill check on any specific technical skill really makes sense because it implicitly sorts skills into skillsoft-effecting or not. It would make more sense to me just to have no ejection on combat, which encourages combat soft use which is cool as hell.

My personal preference is that skillsofts just don't eject on impact outright, because platinum softs take eight days to load and unload quickly after removal/ejection (sometimes instantly as has happened to me one or twice), and ejection was balanced around loading instantly. However locks on combat softs would have an internal logic to it, and they're one of the biggest missed opportunities in terms of enabling interesting gameplay so I think they would be worthy of extra love.

Skillsofts in general got so much misdirected ire from players for taking 'their jobs away' that I was half expecting No Irish Need Apply style propaganda to start coming out against them. The rework did give interesting new life to bronze and silver softs which I think is cool, but platinums have become extremely limited in terms of only some skills ever really working within the new design and combat ones especially being left utterly by the wayside as a casualty of war.

@Plebe regards making it a job, I made that point in the OP, but I am a little on the fence about it.

I think it also gives options to those that might not have put into combat skills and their character 'has a change of heart' late down the line.

A pacifist for several years, but looses something they can never forgive and wants to fight.

That sort of deal.