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[Random Sentience]

Even without cloning technology the capsule offers a huge benefit over "conventional" EVE ships. It isn't the fact that the Capsuleer is doing what "any helmsman can do". The real innovation is that he is also doing the job of the captain, sensor operator, navigator, and a whole lot of other crewmen. Add in cloning tech and you have a pretty nifty war machine on your hands, one that can adapt to a situation and learn from it's catastrophic mistakes. Not only that, but every Capsuleer ship you send out can conceivably replace a fleet of conventional ships due to the fact that they can do what "any helmsman can do" and then some, as well as the fact that these ships are optimized through the use of optimized systems allowed by skill books.

At least, that's the explanation provided by canon.

[Desiderya]

They won't rival a capsuleer - but that doesn't make them unable to pull the same maneuvers as capsuleers as long as we're not talking about pure numeric details.

Yeah, that was kind of covered.

[lallara zhuul]

One of OPs examples were training a science skill...

Which in a way is pure information, pure knowledge, which is something where overwriting empty gray matter through an uplink would actually be pretty useful.

If science would be just about regurgitating old facts.

It is not, especially when we are talking about research, where the science 'skills' that the capsuleer has comes into play.

To me, the science 'skills' are just like the rest of the 'skills' that the capsuleer has.
Changing the capsuleers brain so that it interfaces better with hardware so that the overall usefulness of the hardware become more efficient and whatnot.
In other words, when you get a research agent, you lease out your brain for their mainframe so you can help them crunch numbers more efficiently.
Hence you get more RPs the higher your science 'skills' are, that you can use to buy datacores, that you can use to 'invent' t2 items by decrypting ancient data with blueprint copies with the specialized hardware that is your brain.
Just like in the game mechanics.

Which is pretty interesting on itself.

The mindlock that the people can suffer from being stuck in the pod and bombarded with data so they go into a full body sensory overload is not something that us space bound capsuleers suffer from.
Mindlock is not a problem for the guy working in a pod and just twiddling about with monitoring and adjusting the communications data in the chron.

So... is there 'lesser' capsuleers about.

People that have similar implants that the capsuleers have, that can be used to change their brain matter into more efficient parts of hardware, who just rent out their services to different corporations as living circuit boards.

Most of the older capsuleers seem to be doing exactly this as they never seem to undock.

Hell, a person who is about to die and has a perfectly functional brain could have their whole brain overwritten to be a wetware circuit for a mainframe to get money for their family.

Perhaps this is the reason why the Sansha are so capable in the matters of science, they have mainframes built out of specially modified brain matter so that they can run all sorts of simulations much more efficiently than the more morally restricted peers in the empires.

Just a few thoughts floating about before I go hunting for brekkies.

[Louella Dougans]

the jovian wetgrave short story describes the capsule & pilot as working as:

"The capsule is like one gigantic computer, with the captain at the core, controlling everything"
" As I said, the captain acts as the central unit in a highly advanced computer. This role allows him to access and evaluate data at extreme pace. He can easily handle the jobs it takes 5 or 10 people to do normally."

instead of:
ship system -> bridge station display -> bridge operator's interpretation of display -> decision to inform captain -> Captain's interpretation of report -> Captain's decision -> bridge operator's interpretation of orders -> ship system controls.
it goes:
Ship system -> capsule display -> Captain's interpretation -> captain's decision -> ship system.

Skill book systems are possibly not what you might expect.
e.g. Engineering skill, doesn't necessarily increase the power output of the ship, but instead, the capsuleer training engineering can use more of the ship's power without brainsploding.

And it's all mental exercises or some such, rather than actual knowledge of spaceship reactors.

Like, you don't just put on a pair of running shoes and then go do the Marathon. You start off doing shorter distances first.

[Mithfindel]

Science skills are indeed an interesting case. Like Lallara noted, it might be renting out part of your brain. Or monitoring (possibly over a remote connection) a set of simulations or whatnot. After all, these days the "research" is increasing ME, PE, copying, or making T1 into more advanced (but already existing) T2 designs (essentially invention is just reverse engineering the advanced designs whe can't have BPOs for). Most of this might be relatively routine things.

[Verone]

I've always seen the skill training system as a neural upload, yes, as cliché as it is, similar to that used in the Matrix.

It's a data package that you buy, and it contains all the relevant knowledge you need to pilot a given ship or use a given module.

Basically, I see it as like downloading an instruction manual for whatever you're training into your brain. Level 1 gives basic competence, Level 2 a little more depth, and so on and so forth. How each capsuleer actually interprets the instruction manual is down to them personally, as a pilot, hence varying pilot skill levels irrespective of how high they're trained.

[Vieve]

How each capsuleer actually interprets the instruction manual is down to them personally, as a pilot, hence varying pilot skill levels irrespective of how high they're trained.

Y'know, that does seem like a reasonable way to explain why there are pilots out there who couldn't figure out how to unscrew a lightbulb even if they've trained both Engineering and Mechanics to V.