Very Confused about Character stats vs Ship stats, Help?

[John Robinson]

I really need help figuring out the character vs ship skill numbers.

I dismissed all officers and crew, keeping 1 swordsman.  Then I'm displaying before and after results of promoting
the swordsman to an officer.  I have 3 questions.

Now I have an environment where The Character skills, and Ship skills are identical. In this example.
1.)  What type of tests use the Character skills exclusively?
2.)  What type of tests use Ship skills exclusively?
3.)  Are there any tests that use the Officer/Ship skills combined?

Crew character stats:

Captain Rank 1 Merchant:  Template skills I gave him +6 Negotiate, +2 Doctor

Negotiate

2 (8)

Tactics

1

Command

1

Doctor

0 (2)

I got rid of all the crew and officers except 1 swordsman
Rank 1 Swordsman don't use Intimidate so this would be a bonus if promoted to officer.

Blades

3

Evasion

1 (5)

Intimidate 0 (5)

Ship Status Screen:

Juror Class
Ship Stats; Officers (1/4), Crew (1/18), Pilot (0/13), Ship Ops (0/26), Gunnery (0/20)
Electronics (0/13), Navigation (0/13)

Repair 9 (+0), Tactics 1 (+0), Command 1 (+0), Negotiate 2 (+6), Intimidate 0 (+0),
Stealth 0 (+0), Doctor 0 (+2), Explorer 0 (+0)

Now I promoted the Swordsman to an officer:
Now Ship stats are identical except Intimidate reads 0 (+5)

[grävling]

Skills come in 3 sorts. 3 columns in the template.

There are combat stats. Blades and evasion are examples. They are used in crew combat. They always stick to the individual who owns them. They do not join the pool. (This bit was wrong. Blades, Pistols, Rifles, and Evasion do not join the pool. Tactics and Stealth do.) But your Evasion 1(5) Swordsman got 4 more points for his personal use when you made him an officer. (That bit was also untrue. In combat you use the higher value, even if you aren't an officer.)

There are ship op and personnel skills. When an individual crew member is using a talent or trait that depends on a skill it is just his skill that is used. The rest of the time it is the pool that is being used.

Stealth and Tactics are special. They are combat stats, so when you are in crew combat, a fighter will always use the higher value. But they are also pooled stats. So when the log says 'Failed a Tactics save' it was using the Pool value. There, the first number is what the pool gets if the person isn't an officer, the second sort is what the pool gets if the person is an officer, same as all the other times you use pool stats. Traits and Talents that likewise use Stealth and Tactics, want the first number in non-officers, and the second in officers.)

When the log says 'failed a doctor (or any other skill) test' ... pool.
When the captain is doing a mission and selects X and Y, X is skill, pool. (Y is attribute, captain's personal).

[fallen]

The Intimidation promotion sounds exactly right. Glad that part makes sense!

grävling's response is on point.

Combat - Individual
Talent - Individual
Trait - Individual

Traveling and Hyperwarp Jump Tests - those are ship tests, entire crew
Missions - entire crew
Explorer / Patrol /etc - entire crew

[John Robinson]

Perfect! Thank you both.

grävling The x and Y explanation is a real turning point in what I haven't been able to get my head around.

fallen Putting it in a list form, excellent.

I'll be keeping this one bookmarked for along time.

[bobc]

Slightly confused here myself now. My understanding was that in crew combat the character used their maximum combat skill. So in the example the swordsman gets 5 evasion regardless of whether he is an officer or not.

[grävling]

May 27, 2017 3:41:09 GMT -5 bobc said:

Slightly confused here myself now. My understanding was that in crew combat the character used their maximum combat skill. So in the example the swordsman gets 5 evasion regardless of whether he is an officer or not.

Well, one of us is mistaken about this, then. We will wait for the ruling from the men who write the code, and then if my note is wrong, I will change it.

[fallen]

May 27, 2017 3:41:09 GMT -5 bobc said:

Slightly confused here myself now. My understanding was that in crew combat the character used their maximum combat skill. So in the example the swordsman gets 5 evasion regardless of whether he is an officer or not.

In crew combat, an officer OR a crew dog uses their Skill Bonuses for Rifles, Pistols, Evasion, Stealth, etc -- all Combat Skills.
startraders.gamepedia.com/Skill_Bonuses

[grävling]

May 27, 2017 3:41:09 GMT -5 bobc said:

Slightly confused here myself now. My understanding was that in crew combat the character used their maximum combat skill. So in the example the swordsman gets 5 evasion regardless of whether he is an officer or not.

And you are quite correct. So, John Robinson's Evasion 1(5) Swordsman. In combat he uses 5 points whether or not he is an officer, but if some trait, or talent talked about an ability based on evasion
then that would test against 1 if he were crew but 5 if he were an officer?

[fallen]

You'll find that there are no non-combat Traits or Talents that call on Evasion, so this is not something to worry about.

[John Robinson]

May 27, 2017 10:39:30 GMT -5 fallen said:

May 27, 2017 3:41:09 GMT -5 bobc said:

Slightly confused here myself now. My understanding was that in crew combat the character used their maximum combat skill. So in the example the swordsman gets 5 evasion regardless of whether he is an officer or not.

In crew combat, an officer OR a crew dog uses their Skill Bonuses for Rifles, Pistols, Evasion, Stealth, etc -- all Combat Skills.
startraders.gamepedia.com/Skill_Bonuses

fallen

Thanks, it took along time for me to understand the term "effective skill", got it now.
Follow up questions: Probably redundant the wiki page spells it out, just want to double check.

Swordsman as Officer:
1.) Evasion 1(5) effective and maximum skill value = 6 or 5 during crew combat?
2.) Intimidate 0(5) effective and maximum = 5.

Swordsman as Crew:
1.) Evasion 1(5) effective and maximum skill value = or 6 during crew combat?
2.) Intimidate 0(5) effective and maximum skill = 0 added to ship intimidate skill pool?

[fallen]

The number in the (x) is the final value. No math is required to determine the final effective skill value.

Swordsman as Officer:
1) Evasion 1 (5) and the maximum skill value is 5.
2) Intimidate 0 (5) the effective and maximum is 5.

Swordsman as Crew:
1) Evasion 1 (5) and the maximum skill value is 5.
2) Intimidate 0 (5) adds 0 to the ship's intimidate pool.

Makes me really glad we removed the idea of On Station vs On Patrol lol.

[John Robinson]

May 27, 2017 15:06:28 GMT -5 fallen said:

The number in the (x) is the final value.

Makes me really glad we removed the idea of On Station vs On Patrol lol.

Me too!

[grävling]

May 27, 2017 14:27:41 GMT -5 fallen said:

You'll find that there are no non-combat Traits or Talents that call on Evasion, so this is not something to worry about.

Well, are there any non-crew combat Traits or Talents that call on Pistols, Rifles, Blades? Or is there any other non-crew-combat part of the game that cares about these? (I know there is part of the game that makes saving throws against tactics and stealth, so having a good pool of Tactics is useful. Is having a good pool of Blades ever useful? Or are there no pool tests for Blades?)

Because I am wondering why we have characters who have stats like:

Blades 3(7) and evasion 1(5). If in crew combat, you always use the higher figure, even if you are not an officer, and the only time it is used at all is in crew combat then --

a 1(5) Blade
a 0(5) Blade
and
a 2(5) Blade

all are equivalent.

You could just call them 5 Blades, and that would be fine.

Or am I wrong about this?

[fallen]

May 29, 2017 4:22:07 GMT -5 grävling said:

You could just call them 5 Blades, and that would be fine.

Or am I wrong about this?

I think yes, you are wrong.

Because players will say "I only get 2 Skill from Swordsman, why 5?"

We are calling them all x (5)

[grävling]

Hmmm. That might have been true in the old days before crewdogs, electronic tech, and all sorts of other riff-raff were being given blades as a starting stat, but now your job stats are only what you get in job training when you add a job to an existing character. What your starting stats are -- well, you can be sure that they are at a minimum the job stats for your existing job, but that's all you can tell.

But we see what other people think. I for one think that the notation

X(Y) -- means that somewhere in the game there is a pool for this skill, and X is what the pool gets for non-officers and Y is what the pool gets for officers.
X -- means there is no pool used for the skill.

is a lot easier to understand than.

X(Y) -- means that somewhere in the game there is a pool for this skill, and X is what the pool gets for non-officers and Y is what the pool gets for officers, unless it's a combat stat, where Y is what is used regardless, except for Stealth and Tactics, which are special, and despite being combat stats are pooled stats.

I assume stealth and tactics are both used in crew combat, and crew involved in crew combat use their higher second number for that when it is used, but I had better check -- are these two used in crew combat?