quick questions about BOF skills

darshie101

I'm going trough a sweep of my current BOF, and would like to know who should I keep and who should I let go, to make space for more qualified and better BOFs

So far I have looked around and still don't get how can you tell if a BOF is common, uncommon, rare or very rare, since they have no color once they get on duty on your ship....that may help to have at least an idea of whom should I keep.

Second: how do I increase the skills from lvl1 to lvl2 and lvl3? I've checked the vendor on starbase and many skills are not available at a specific rank, while I have some BOF that has that skill at that level....does this means that they are either rare or very rare?

I wish that would be possible to respec them just with the traits that I need (AKA skills), but so far I've found this almost impossible, since I cannot choose the BOF with the skills that I want from the vendors, nor I can buy the skills and replace them.

Anyone can give me some advices about how this works? checked the wiki and the only thing that it says is to go to the vendor and buy the skills that you want, replacing the existing skills for a BOF.

Thanks!

ltsmith

Ok once you have a Boff join your crew you cannot see if they are common, rare, or very rare, but that does not really matter on who you should keep. Also you cannot really ?respect? a Boff, but you can change out their current powers or skills whatever you want to call them. The Boff trainer at Earth Space Dock (ESD) is who you can talk to for changing what powers your Boffs have. Also do not buy Boffs from the vendor because it cost dilithium just buy Boffs from the exchange under the Bridge officer section and in the search bar just type ?Engineer?, ?Tactical? or ?Science? this way you just spend easy to earn Energy credits instead of the more valuable dilithium. Use the Boff trainer to pick powers you want for your officers for example let?s say I want a Tactical officer to have the space power beam overload 1 which is a ensign level ability go to the store and scroll down until you see the power beam overload 1 click on it and then you will get a list of Boffs that are able to be trained pick the officer you want to have the power beam overload 1 then buy it and it will train him.

Hope this helped just post if you need any more help.

latinumbar

Rarity:
http://www.stowiki.org/Boff#Rarity

As far as your second question, you can't 'upgrade' a BO ability per se. The level of the abilities are set by rank. For example, engineering team I is always an ensign ability. Engineering team II is always a Lieutenant ability. You can't 'upgrade' eng team I to II in an ensign slot. You can, however, train eng team II to the Lieutenant slot from the bridge officer trainer. He is located next to the doorway to sick bay at ESD.

Most level I and II abilities can be trained by this trainer. Some level III abilities can by trained by you, depending on how you allocated your skill points and what career you are. If you are a tactical officer and have put at least 6 points into torpedo skill, you can train tac BOs in High Yield III. Certain other level III abilities have to be obtained by luck of the draw, or bought on the exchange.

crusty8mac

http://www.stowiki.org/Bridge_officer_ability

This shows which abilities are available, and where to train them.

Don't like the current set of abilities? Just retrain them.

darshie101

Thanks a lot for your replies!

1) so does not matter the rarity of a BOF? Since I see their color before that I assign them I was wondering if it makes any sense to keep X instead of Y, but looks like it does not really matter at all.

2) I am aware of the trainer at the ESD, but I can't see various traits that I've seen on the wiki page (thanks for the link! That was the one that triggered my whole confusion about how do i go from a level to another); so basically some high level skills are a matter of luck? (look for a BOF until you find one with that skill, otherwise you cannot get it).

3) so there is no way to see an ensign with for example, fire at will 2 or a lt with a fire at will 3?

4) I play a science officer on a fed athrox carrier; is there anything that I should respec in particular to get useful skills for my BOF?

Thanks a lot!

ltsmith

1) Rarity plays a little bit into what traits the Boffs might have for example a Boff with the trait efficient will most likely be very rare.

2) traits on the Boff are like the traits you picked during character creation, but on Boffs you cannot change them you just have to find a new Boff if you want a certain trait.

3) All Boffs start out at ensign until you promote them. As for skills they are mostly random, but you can look at what skills the Boff has before you buy it off the exchange by hovering the mouse of the Boff you are thinking about buying.

4) Gravity well 2, Tyken's Rift 1 or 2, Science team 1 and hazard emitters I find very useful for my Boffs.