Some quick crew questions

[dunkmujunk]

So im making some progress knowledge wise, starting to get more comfortable with STF. My biggest roadblock has been crew related. Mainly I'm wondering how people utilize their crew/officers/captain.

I'm currently not running any officers in combat, aside from my doctor/combat medic (which I want to stop doing). I don't run my captain in combat, and I don't run any crew (pilots, navigators, gunners, etc) in combat. I keep a dedicated squad for combat, starting with 2 soldiers, a swordsman, and a pistoleer.

Is this more or less a good route to take as I learn the game, or is there a very good reason to run my captain/officers in battle? Am I hamstringing myself by not using them in combat?

Crew combat is by far where I am the weakest knowledge wise, but I'm learning. Currently playing on demanding with Capt/officer permadeath on. I'm slowly starting to learn how to mix my teams move up/move back abilities into combos, and I'm starting to come across contacts that give me access to some of the specialized units (sniper, zealot).

And also I have to bring this up, but I became side tracked at one point chasing contact rep and ended up accepting a mission to deliver 106 units of vudka to a wilderness stash. I was not happy, as my cargo hold was only 50 units. I tried to forfeit the mission, found I couldn't, and decided I'd try and deliver a partial load just to see if maybe I could complete the mission by bringing a few smaller loads. AND I COULD!!! I can't give any examples, but I've obviously been conditioned by other games to think in a situation like this I have to have the full amount of mats on me at once or I cannot complete the mission.

This was honestly a really big deal for me (it's silly I know) and I ended up taking some more cargo missions because of it, got into the Atlas more, realized how much info there was to be had (and it's presented very well) and now I'm actually considering making a merchant character one day, something I never do.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm having a lot of fun playing, great game.

[fallen]

Sept 20, 2021 10:37:17 GMT -5 dunkmujunk said:

And also I have to bring this up, but I became side tracked at one point chasing contact rep and ended up accepting a mission to deliver 106 units of vudka to a wilderness stash. I was not happy, as my cargo hold was only 50 units. I tried to forfeit the mission, found I couldn't, and decided I'd try and deliver a partial load just to see if maybe I could complete the mission by bringing a few smaller loads. AND I COULD!!! I can't give any examples, but I've obviously been conditioned by other games to think in a situation like this I have to have the full amount of mats on me at once or I cannot complete the mission.

Glad to hear you stuck it out through the tough mission. You can always cancel -- select the Mission > Actions button > Cancel Mission.

But it sounds like some valuable lessons were learned All missions that take delivery amounts (intel, stashes, cargo) can be partially completed and done in multiple runs.

I cross posted your request for crew advice to our Discord, hopefully some pros will drop in and share some suggestions.

[LordofSyn]

There is no wrong way to play but that being said, you might be challenging yourself further by not utilizing Officers for your CC. That doesn't mean that if you did that anything would change. Based on your difficulty, it might behoove you to use save points often and test some things out.

The benefits of using Officers for Crew Combat is that they can use Gear and usually level up faster allowing you access to higher ranked Talents that can broaden your strategic horizons.

Don't forget Captain, that we always have your back. Væ Victis! o7

[MTKnife]

I think most experienced players run at least 2 officers in combat, and some run officers in all 4 slots--esp. as you move into the bigger ships, with as many as 7 officer berths. Some people even do use their captains; while that seems risky on its face, in actuality, having a key combat crewman die can effectively end a game anyway, whether or not it's the captain.

As @lordosyn said, it's easier to equip officers with devices (though nowadays a limited number of ordinary crew can equip them as well). Officers with multiple jobs can also blend a variety of Talents to create combos not available to single-class crew. However, from a mechanical standpoint, probably the biggest advantage of officers is the ability to stack Skills: a character gets a lot more skill points at the lowest ranks, meaning that an officer with a given number of job ranks gets a lot more skill points than an ordinary crewman of the same level--and that officer gets more job ranks in the first place. Note that this principal applies equally to non-combat officers, making combos like Smuggler/Diplomat/Merchant (Negotiate on all 3, Intimidate on 2) or Quartermaster/Commander/Military Officer (doubling up on Tactics, Command, an Intimidate) very potent.

Later in the game, as you have more crew berths and gradually recruit the hard-to-find specialists, you can build up good skill pools without stacking skills from officers, but that never applies to combat crew, because in crew combat, a combatant only benefits from his own personal skills--so that stacking is critical to keeping ahead of the curve of ever-improving enemies. As for you Doctor/Combat Medic, you really, really want to keep using that: not only can you stack Doctor skill (with all 3 job slots if you want to choose Scientist--I think the Evasion from Pistoleer is more important, but since you're only getting it from one job at most, it might not be that useful in the late game), but also that officer comes with a hefty Doctor bonus, and, critically, since it's the start of the game, you can re-roll until you get a good one.

BTW, I generally keep a spare front-rank combatant (i.e., a blade-wielder, pistol-wielder, or shotgunner), to avoid having to go into combat with an injured crew member in the vulnerable #1 and #2 slots, or in case a combatant flat-out gets killed. I like a boarding strategy, so I personally recruit Wing Commandos for this role, as I use a boarding strategy, and need them as pilots, but Swordsmen are very strong single-job combatants.

Finally--though this may seem silly--you will soon discover that there are three story characters that who recruitable as officers; indeed, there's one vignette that can't be completed without taking on a particular character. There's a fourth character who usually doesn't appear, and doesn't have to take an officer slot, but who makes an excellent officer if you do decide to promote her (a tip: always leave a free crew slot in the first few years of the game, as that's a precondition for her vignette to be triggered). Once you figure out who these characters are and what they can do, you'll probably want to plan you crew around them. For example, I always regard my Engineer officer as temporary--I have this officer take some combination of Explorer, Scientist, and Scavenger, and I only worry about the implications of her build for the early game, because I know there's a character coming down the pike with a ridiculous bonus in one of the key skllls; indeed, because I know this cfficer is temporary, I don't mind taking Engineer/Explorer/Scientist, which doesn't stack skills well but has a bunch of key Talents.

[Enrico Matassa]

Personally, I have always used officer slots for crew combatants, as well as used my captain for crew combat, for reasons that start to become apparent mid-game. Early on, your default officers can provide some nice talents that your regular crew will not provide until later on, but will eventually, so the more you progress in the game the more your crew will cover gaps in talents that non-combat officers do early on. Crew-combat officers, on the other hand, benefit from multi-classing (good for mixing combat talents from multiple jobs) and a higher rate of advancement compartment to non-officers, so the gulf between their abilities and the abilities of non-officer combatants will actually increase the further you get in the game. Additionally, you will never have to worry about officer combatants abandoning you if their morale tanks during a fight.

Also, re: using the captain as a combatant, I like to do so because they can be spec'd so they're basically super-human. Like, 200 hp with initiative ranging from upper teens to upper twenties. Granted, you open yourself up to the risk of your captain doing in CC, but that can be mitigated by having a good healer or, as is my preference, two healers. And, if you've never tried it, I would highly recommend combat medics as they have both a group heal, which is the most efficient heal talent from the perspective of HP mended per initiative spent, as well as the most potent single target heal, which they acquire at lvl 8.

Lastly, although it wasn't part of your query, I would highly recommend unlocking the FDF commander as a starting contact because they recruit military officers. They have proven to be one of the most indispensable classes for three reasons. The first two are their commanding sweep and recruiters eye talents (both lvl 5), the first of which makes managing rep via patrolling way easier, and the second allowing you to pick up higher quality recruits, which is especially useful if you have to recruit new combat crew. The third reason is that they provide lots of command and tactics, both of which provide bonuses to virtually all actions in ship combat and have no cap on the number you can use. I would highly recommend looking at the wiki for more info on the command skill to understand how unbelievably potent having a lot of it can be. When I defeated the Jyeeta scourge on impossible, I largely credit it to having something like 50 percent + of my crew being MOs, and installing lots of defense pattern matrices 4 on my ship.

Anything else you were curious about?