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Question about Commissioning a New BOff

mistervertigomistervertigo Member Posts: 2 Arc User
edited February 2014 in The Academy
Hello all! I'm still kinda getting started in this game and this is my first post here. I apologize if this has been answered before (I'm sure it has somewhere) but I had no luck finding an answer.

I am currently a rank Lt. Commander, and I just got my first ship upgrade not long ago. My Captain is a Tactical Officer, and I'm flying around in a Cruiser.

So far I have completed two missions that rewarded me with a new Bridge Officer. However, the game tells me there is no room on my ship for another officer. I get the option of having them train an existing officer or I can let them go. I have chosen them both, but I haven't done anything at all with them yet.

Right now, I have four Bridge Officers: Two tactical, once science, and one Engineer.

My question is that I see posts on the forums of people that have have a set of Bridge Officers for space, and another set for ground, and they swap them around based on the situation. Right now, it does not appear I can have more that four at once. My ship has a total of four station consoles, including an empty Engineering Console with no officer in it. The last quest reward I got I chose the Engineering Officer, but I can't commission him because "there is no room". I don't really want to decommission one of my tactical officers because I like having him for ground combat.

Am I missing something, or am I only allowed to have four Bridge Officers? Is that a limit of my rank, or is it because of the ship I fly? Or is it because of something else? Or am I missing something altogether?

I'm really enjoying the game so far, and any advice for this situation would be very much appreciated! Thank you!
Post edited by mistervertigo on

Comments

  • revandarklighterrevandarklighter Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    My Captain is a Tactical Officer, and I'm flying around in a Cruiser.

    Lol. The way 95% of the playerbase started :rolleyes:

    However...
    You will gain additional Bo slots while ranking up and you can buy additional ones to have more active bridge officers. (I don't know how many a f2p unlocks).

    But ultimate you are not supposed to use every Bo candidate you get. You'll have to pick the ones you want and dismiss or sell the rest or use them to train your bos particular powers (but most powers you can train at esd too. You can also only storage a limited amount of candidates. (Pitifully there is no other use I know of for obsolete candidates)

    Also (for that reason) bos are extremely cheap in the exchange should you want a particular one.
  • adverberoadverbero Member Posts: 2,045 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    As you rank up and unlock ships with additional Bridge positions you will be able to have more officers, But there is a hard limit, You can however Buy additional slots to add more Bridge officers to your crew , I have done this ( Mainly because i liked having the familiar boffs around , but i also wanted to get some unique ones as well ) so i now have 10 slots on one of my characters

    The purchase is in Zen from the store, However I effectively bought mine using traded Dilithium so there was no real money cost to expanding my crew

    There are certain benefits to purchasing the extra slots, Mainly you have more flexibility in ship choice, as you are more likely to be able to fill all your seats , and have unique space ground teams, though thats not really a gameplay function for myself and more of a aesthetic function
    solar_approach_by_chaos_sandwhich-d74kjft.png


    These are the Voyages on the STO forum, the final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore Pretentious Posts, to seek out new Overreactions and Misinformation , to boldly experience Cynicism like no man has before.......
  • mistervertigomistervertigo Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Thank you for the responses! It sounds like the number of Officers I have is tied to my rank, unless I buy more slots in the store.

    Is there a place I can view what my limit is? Obviously by limit right now is four since that is how many I have and I cannot hire a fifth, but I didn't know if there was a place in the UI that displayed that information.

    Thanks!
  • stf65stf65 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Free players only get a maximum of 5 boffs. 5 also corrisponds with the maximum usable on any ship. The 5th slot doesn't unlock until either captain or rear admiral rank; whatever the point in the game where you need a 5th boff for your ship.
  • admrenlarreckadmrenlarreck Member Posts: 2,041 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Thank you for the responses! It sounds like the number of Officers I have is tied to my rank, unless I buy more slots in the store.

    Is there a place I can view what my limit is? Obviously by limit right now is four since that is how many I have and I cannot hire a fifth, but I didn't know if there was a place in the UI that displayed that information.

    Thanks!

    Click on the rank bar that shows your experience level. Cant remember if its a right click, but its one of those. A list will open up and will tell you everything you get and at what level you get it.
    fayhers_starfleet.jpg


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  • mithrosnomoremithrosnomore Member Posts: 400 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Lol. The way 95% of the playerbase started :rolleyes:

    What I am still doing most of the time now. :cool:

    =========

    You can always choose to not pick anything on a Boff and let them wait for later.

    As already mentioned, you can choose to sell any unwanted Boffs for a little money.
    Boffs with space traits are more in-demand, particularly those with the efficient trait. For the federation, this can be found on Saurian Boffs. If you find a Saurian with the efficient trait and go to sell them, do not short-change yourself.

    For most others, don't overlook the training potential. If you find a Boff with a rank III skill, it may be the only way for you to add that skill to your crew.

    The Wiki has a page that might help you sort it all out.

    ========

    Otherwise, what they have said... You will unlock more slots as you level up, and five is the most that you will ever need. That will let you fill out any ship and your away team.

    Extra Boff slots are not a terrible way to spend a couple of dollars on this game, though.

    Nine Boff slots will let you fully man any three ships in the game (the most any ship has is three stations for the same type of Boff, so three of each type of Boff).

    Beyond that, some people will have exclusive away team Boffs and leave Boffs with space-only traits on their ships.
    Each Boff has four traits. If they have a space trait (making you stronger in space combat) that only leaves them with three ground traits, thus making them weaker than other choices may be when it comes to away team duty.

    And even without extra ships and alternate away team only Boffs, you may just find that you like an away team set-up that doesn't match your ship set-up.
    If your ship of choice uses two engineers, two tactical officers, and one science officer then you need to fill your Boff slots with those officers.

    But what if you wanted to run two science officers on your away team? Or three engineers or tactical officers?
    If you only have five Boff slots then you are out of luck. A couple of extra slots can give you a lot more flexibility.


    Good luck and have fun.
  • shireknightshireknight Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    I've been waiting for a sale on the lifetime membership deal however in the meantime yesterday I purchased a months gold membership in order to get a bigger inventory and unexpectedly found I have now also inherited four extra Bridge Officer slots as well which I'm hoping I will keep after the month is up.

    I'm just about to start a thread on this subject and if the response is as I hope then it may be well worth you buying Gold membership just for one month to get some slots as well :)

    I'll post a link here when it's up.

    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1025531
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • dracounguisdracounguis Member Posts: 5,358 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    My advice... go to the Exchange and buy some Rare or Very Rare Boffs. They are fairly cheap. Better to spend your Boff XP on good boffs than the Uncommons the missions give you. Cause really, at some point you're gonna want to ditch the Uncommons for better anyway and when you toss them, you lose the XP spent on them. A little forward thinking will save you from having new Boffs later and not enough XP to get them maxed out.
  • antzudanantzudan Member Posts: 231 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    stf65 wrote: »
    Free players only get a maximum of 5 boffs. 5 also corrisponds with the maximum usable on any ship. The 5th slot doesn't unlock until either captain or rear admiral rank; whatever the point in the game where you need a 5th boff for your ship.


    That's not true. F2P gets an extra BOFF slot at Captain and another at Vice Admiral for a total of 6 free BOFFs.
  • tangent90tangent90 Member Posts: 56 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    antzudan wrote: »
    That's not true. F2P gets an extra BOFF slot at Captain and another at Vice Admiral for a total of 6 free BOFFs.

    Yeah, this is where my character is at. It's kind of tight, but if you just have one type of ship you can get by with six. The problem arises when you want to have two different kinds of ships, like a regular science vessel and the Solanae science destroyer, which uses more tactical than engineering officers.

    But that's the incentive to get you to spend some money. A fair tradeoff, all things considered.
  • antzudanantzudan Member Posts: 231 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    I bought 2 extra slots on both my alts and about 6 on my main, doesn't take too long to get the dil for that.
  • bigblackafricabigblackafrica Member Posts: 153 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Your best bet is to buy one month of Gold membership for $15 US. Sure you can convert Dilithium to Zen and get slots for $0 real world monies, but if you level a character to 50 as a gold subscriber:

    You will get 6 more Boff slots for a total of 10. That's 4 more than a silver account gets.

    You will also get increased inventory space, increased bank space, an account bank which can be used to pass equipment and other non character-bound items between alts, and a respec token every 10 levels.

    I've never done the math to figure out what the zen cost would be to buy all the stuff you get free with a gold membership, but the account bank slots are 2k zen alone and you keep them when you become ex-gold.
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