Extra Bridge Officers, Why?

galahax01

Extra-noobish question. I am currently level 21, and just recently switched from silver to gold account status. I see now i have a good few extra slots more for BO's. I have to admit I am puzzled as to why so many extra slots are given for BO's, since its my understanding that on any given ship, you can only "equip" 5 or 6 at most for using abilities.

So my question is, "Why would i want to harbor more than 5 BO's?"

Am i still to early in level to understand? Is something else coming down the road? Is it a mechanic players like to use to switch out BO's with different abilites to fight different enemy types?

Please shed some light.

Thanks

terloki

You may wind up having multiple ships that have different Boff configurations, some people may also use a different set of Boffs for ground than space (like if you wanted to take 4 engineers and make the mother of all fortresses). Then there's people like me who get 9 Boffs just so everyone on the bridge wears the same uniform style instead of the default.

garaks31

i believe every bo's space special ability counts like efficient and human bo's special abilities even when they don't stationed in ship

toslover

I find there are many different reasons to having more than 5 Bridge Officers.

• Different configurations (1 Tac, 1 Sci, 2 Eng/2 Sci, 1 Tac, 1 Eng/etc.)
• A different set of abilities for [as far as I know] everyone (male and female of the same species both have different ground and space abilities, if I remember right)
• If you want to put them in different uniforms (i.e. one in TOS Red, one in DS9 Blue, one in TNG Gold, one in Section 31, one in Bajoran Militia, etc.)
• Different (i.e. Varied) set of abilities in space
• Different (i.e. Varied) set of abilities on the ground

At least that's my take on it.

decker02

Stacking efficient lethians.

akalayus

garaks31 wrote: »

i believe every bo's space special ability counts like efficient and human bo's special abilities even when they don't stationed in ship

This is incorrect. Only the traits of BOs actually equipped in ship slots count.



And to answer the OP: It's for variety and because you can use different BOs on ground missions

bohiap

I ended up with 4 Doffs dedicated for my away team. For space I ended up needing different boffs for different ships and didn't want to get rid of/change the boffs I had.
Although at this point I'm pretty much set. But, I don't want to get rid of boffs that I've had for a year.

dudeman32569

Personally, I have 6 different tactical officers for my Excelsior, even though it only has one tactical slot. Since you can swap your boffs any time you aren't in combat / under red alert, this allows me to swap between officers with multi-target abilities (like Fire at Will and Torpedo Spread) or single target (like Beam Overload and High-Yield Torpedoes).

I'm sure there are plenty of other situations where you would want a different skill layout for a certain boff slot, and with "extra" boffs, you can slot them in and out as you please without heading back to ESD for retraining.

galahax01

I see. So far this early on, ive just been purchasing or (in the rare instance), training up officer skills to fit the 4 i currently have ship equipped.

Thank you everyone for your response. Its appreciated.

naharikajal

I have 16 BOs.

First reason is - as stated before - to be able to switch abilities depending to my "role" in the team (Star Cruiser: solo PvE = more DMG, Group STF/PvP = Healer).

The other reason is simply Role Play. I have a first officer (who is also my alt), first tactical officer, second tactical officer, some "Red Shirts", a counselor and so on...

Now with my 700 Day Veteran Reward I have to extend my roster with my "personal" Data.

lomax6996

Some people need different BO layouts depending on the ship. I have one Fed Tac Capt. and one Fed Eng. Capt (same on KDF). Yet both Capt's have bot escorts and cruisers to fly (different ships for different missions and... well... just 'cause I wanna :P). So I need different BO layouts for each ship type. Escorts, for instance, need Tac officer with Cannon Rapid Fire and Cannon Scatter Volley while Cruisers need Tac officer with Beam Overload, Beam Fire At Will and Torpedo Volley. Hence the need for multiple BO's (also need various ground abilities).

quiscustodiet

garaks31 wrote: »

i believe every bo's space special ability counts like efficient and human bo's special abilities even when they don't stationed in ship

No.



OP: Flexibility is always good, even when your character only uses 1 Ship/Ship type (which is highly advised given the specialised Skill builds anyway); for instance I switch between 3 Tac BOFFs routinely on my Escorts: one with CRF, one with CSV, one that replaces APB with THY; depending on whether I'm doing something that requires single-target focus (like Elite STFs & phase 2 of Starbase 24), AoE focus (Fleet Events, phase 1 of Starbase 24) or PvP (APB being useless there).

And that's just one example among many... and I don't even run a BoP char anymore. One of the massive strengths of BoPs is the ability to switch BOFFs to fit the situation pretty much on the fly.