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Do You Ever Retire Bridge Officers?

So for three years now I've had the same great Bridge Crew. Due to promotions over the years, my Bridge Crew is now top heavy in rank with a Captain XO, and a lot of CMDR's rounding out the staff.

So my question would be do you ever retire reliable Bridge Officers to keep the Junior Officers advancing? And if so, why?

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Comments

  • ltminnsltminns Member Posts: 12,572 Arc User
    Not really. Most of my Boffs are Commanders. Remember after your Character plays for a bit of time you can usually have millions of Skill Points so using the paltry amounts needed to promote them is no big deal at all. You can use far greater amounts of Skill Points on Starbase Upgrade Projects than you will ever use in promoting Boffs.

    On very rare occasions do I ever send a Boff to the Solyent Green tanks. Usually to make room for another.

    After the Boff Skills update you don't need anywhere near the numbers of Boffs as in the past. My active six to eight will normally have all four Specializations trained. Some of my main ones heads will explode with all the Skills Trained.

    I will vary around Boffs usually on the Away Team more than in Space Seating. Basically to get some variation where you can actually see them. As there are not many Space Traits available to Boffs in comparison to Ground Traits there are not as many races to assign there. Ground is where you can mix it up as far as Traits are concerned.

    While my original Characters may have dozens of Boffs on Active Duty, newer ones have far less. Even though I might have never even used an Active Duty Boff, I still hsitate to send them to those 'tanks'. Sentimentality I guess.

    I don't RP either so that would color my response.
    'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
    Judge Dan Haywood
    'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
    l don't know.
    l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
    That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
    Lt. Philip J. Minns
  • nikephorusnikephorus Member Posts: 2,744 Arc User
    Recently retired several officers by condemning them to oblivion or wherever the dismiss button sends them. I'm not really attached to any of my bridge officers. I replace them when new ones are released with more or superior traits.
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  • ussexeterussexeter Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    Thank you for your very detailed and informative response.

    So how many Boff's do you think you've sent to the Solyent Green tanks to make room for another? And what was your rational on selecting which bridge officer would be the unlucky one?
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    Boff promotions are an obsolete game mechanic, IMHO. I have like 60 million XP, and a promotion costs like what, 2,000? :)


    I'm personally very attached to my crew. I *have* replaced boffs, but only with upgraded versions of them. Like my Rom Engineer, Vehil. I replaced her with an SRO, at some point, but kept her exact appearance. (Basically I consider that just a makeshift boff Trait system: if I can't bring Traits to my boffs, I just get new boffs with the Traits wanted)

    After the boff revamp, I only keep like 5-6 boffs active, and they have been taught all abilities available to them, and all Specializations. The rest I still have (mostly male SRO's), but will ditch one now when I need room for a new one, like the K-13 Android, or Leeta. But my regular, loyal crew, I am very fond of, and will never dismiss.
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  • johnnymo1johnnymo1 Member Posts: 697 Arc User
    I have never retired any, there are a lot of mothball ones at the bottom of my roster, but they always tease with the idea of having a first officer get promoted to a new toon, so I will never get rid of one that I have put effort into building up.
  • tiberious#6095 tiberious Member Posts: 183 Arc User
    I have only been playing 3-4 months on the PS4 and I have retired almost all my boffs except for Flores or Tovan on my Fed or Romulan crews plus I have retired add'l boffs as I get new ones I end up liking better for my crew build.

    As all my captains' skills are balanced to switch between flying different type of ships, most of my boffs have been promoted high enough to use abilities for seats they are assigned since they have been in escorts, cruisers and science ships which requires promotion for them at some point.
  • stee1maxstee1max Member Posts: 227 Arc User
    You are trying to materialize game assets, which is silly.
    Everything gets wiped out except for SRO, Krenim, and other valuable boffs. The rest is vendor trash.
  • salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    stee1max wrote: »
    You are trying to materialize game assets, which is silly.
    Everything gets wiped out except for SRO, Krenim, and other valuable boffs. The rest is vendor trash.
    Yeah pretty much this. SRO, Krenim, and Pirate if that's all you have access to. Leadership sucks. Efficient sucks. And worst of all, no space trait is absolutely useless. Those with no space trait are best saved for ground which doesn't really demand having the "perfect" traits alignment.
    When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
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  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    I only got rid of my Reman featured episode reward because he is not costumizable and I didn't need another sci. All of my BOffs have to be able to change their appearance. (Its kind of a requirement.)

    The only ones that I've allowed to stay are Nelex Exil (because Dinosaur...) The Bream tac BOff because I need a tac sometimes. And the Jem'Hadar. Though now that I think about it, I could request Flores and dismiss my Jem BOff because if I ever need/want him again he is a mission reward...

    Hey thanks OP, you made me come to a new conclusion! :)


    'Bream'?!? You mean 'Breen'? Didn't even know they had a boff.
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  • dracounguisdracounguis Member Posts: 5,358 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    Now that your Boffs can know EVERYTHING at one time, you really don't need to swap out for different ones. Unless Cryptic makes new 'gotta have!' traits for them, getting new boffs just means training them up again and possibly losing any expensive or hard to find skills.

    I've essentially had the same boffs since STO launched. I have a ship crew (aka have space traits) and an Away team (aka all ground traits). My Veteran traited boff does double duty. And then there are some hold-over boffs I have from when they could only know 4 skills at a time that just sit around and hold my extra gear. I think I have 12-13 boffs right now.

    Only boff I retired was an inefficient Saurian when I got an efficient one. Used the same name and toon build, so essentially just a clone. Not sure if that counts as actually retiring a boff. ;)
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    Yes, I have and I will continue to do so.
  • ssbn655ssbn655 Member Posts: 1,894 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    ussexeter wrote: »
    So for three years now I've had the same great Bridge Crew. Due to promotions over the years, my Bridge Crew is now top heavy in rank with a Captain XO, and a lot of CMDR's rounding out the staff.

    So my question would be do you ever retire reliable Bridge Officers to keep the Junior Officers advancing? And if so, why?

    Yes to make room for purples and make an all female crew. I wish I could retire Toven! I so hate that BOFF worst move ever by the Devs making him locked and undeletable.
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    ssbn655 wrote: »
    I wish I could retire Toven! I so hate that BOFF worst move ever by the Devs making him locked and undeletable.


    Yeah, that dweep is still on my crew too. And worse, he always appears on my bridge!
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  • salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    ssbn655 wrote: »
    I wish I could retire Toven! I so hate that BOFF worst move ever by the Devs making him locked and undeletable.


    Yeah, that dweep is still on my crew too. And worse, he always appears on my bridge!
    I have 3 RR chars and Tovan is my first officer on 2/3 crews. The last being all Cardassians that use Romulans in space and Alien-Cardassians on ground and in the doff "department heads" screen.
    When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
  • nikephorusnikephorus Member Posts: 2,744 Arc User
    If Tovan had sro people probably wouldn't whine about him so much.
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  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    nikephorus wrote: »
    If Tovan had sro people probably wouldn't whine about him so much.


    No, he'd still find himself on the wrong end of an airlock. :)
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  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    I recycle them as better or more interesting options appear, stuff like krenim or kobali etc.
    Seeing as you can train anyone in anything now there's n reason to hoard lots of boffs and you can easily just recreate the same look of favs if you want to keep a consistent look.
    Only thing I hate is not being able to customise my Voth and Mr Potato Head boffs, or they'd get more prominent roles.
    Mr Potato Head is a great boff but he isn't allowed out in public looking like that....he gets locked up in his cabin when there's an away mission.
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  • bcwhguderian1941bcwhguderian1941 Member Posts: 804 Arc User
    I have the same "senior" Boff's that were aquired as I leveled up (been playing for four years). I have a total of (18) Boffs on roster. 4-Cmdr., 3-Lt. Cmdr., 3-Lt., and 8-Ens.. As I Rp quite a bit, they all get used at one time, or another. It gets wild at times with low level landing parties in the initial stages of a mission. Just my way of keeping things fresh.

    BCW :)
  • timonicustimonicus Member Posts: 89 Arc User
    I have swapped out all of my Boffs recently so have a whole new crew. I have some for space traits like pilot and others for ground that are good in melee or have special ground abilities
  • byozuma#0956 byozuma Member Posts: 502 Arc User
    I sent all of my starting officers back to the Academy to make room for my little side project. It was fun and a real adventure getting the bridge officers I needed for it.
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  • thunderfoot#5163 thunderfoot Member Posts: 4,545 Arc User
    Retire Boffs? OP, I've retired characters. So making a BOff do the 'duffelbag drag' doesn't really bother me at all. If I want to try out a different set of Traits or Abilities or Specializations, I'll trade them out very quickly. Thanks to byozuma's little side project, I am thinking about giving one of my Fed chars an all Kaminoan Bridge crew. Of course I'll need about six or seven of those all white Solanae suits to go with them, lol
    A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    ussexeter wrote: »
    Thank you for your very detailed and informative response.

    So how many Boff's do you think you've sent to the Solyent Green tanks to make room for another? And what was your rational on selecting which bridge officer would be the unlucky one?
    I often do the doff recruiting missions for boffs, and that means dozens of extras that often get turned to training manuals. That said, I love customizing boffs, and rarely get rid of boffs afterwards.

    Examples:
    borgcollective2_by_marhawkman-d979ns2.png
    The top row is JUST the preorder borg boff. :p
    7_of_13_crew_by_marhawkman-dao2y66.png
    Here we have the entire crew of 7 of 13's ship.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
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  • ashstorm1ashstorm1 Member Posts: 679 Arc User
    I did retire a few BOFFs on a couple occasions to make room for more interesting ones, especially when i wanted to use alien BOFFs in order to create canon alien species that are not officially available. This allowed me to add some rather interesting new species to my bridge, including Herald and Vaadwaur (thank you, Lobi store for the awesome costumes), or more simply canon aliens such as Reman, Hierarchy, Cardassian, Xindi-Primate, Hirogen, Vorgon, etc... all of which are very easy to reproduce via the tailor.

    Aside from this, i rarely ever retire BOFFs. My Captain has been through highs and lows with many of them, and i have gone as far as writing down a personal biography for most of them. They are all part of my personal Star Trek saga, and I just love those guys too much to even think about dumping them.
  • evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,951 Arc User
    Had to airlock a few to make room for my second away team. This second team wears MACO uniforms, and is to be used on known (to my character, not me) combat missions. For example, missions like the one where you go to the signing of the Temporal accords I would use my original team, while in missions that involve the Borg I would use my MACO team.

    If we could give boffs multiple costumes I wouldn't have had to ditch any of my old ones, but oh well.
    Lifetime Subscriber since Beta
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  • ltminnsltminns Member Posts: 12,572 Arc User
    The ones I 'retire' are mostly so that they may arise again in a Very Rare form. To be clear, Boffs in the Cargo Hold or that await patiently in the Officers Ward Room are very much subject to sale or 'recycled' for Skill Books.

    The TOS Boff T'Met has two incarnations on my TOS Captain. The original Uncommon that had dozens of Space Skills trained before a suitable VR substitute could be found, retains Science Bridge duties in ship seating, while her VR clone is assigned to the Away Team.

    I have also gotten rid of a few of the Uncommon Bridge Officers that were awarded early on in the Leveling of the Character.
    'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
    Judge Dan Haywood
    'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
    l don't know.
    l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
    That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
    Lt. Philip J. Minns
  • risian4risian4 Member Posts: 3,711 Arc User
    I'm usually removing the standard officers, T'Vrell, Elisa etc. Or I rename them and change their appearance if possible. They don't really feel like my crew if literally all other Fed players get the exact same copies.

    Other than that, I don't really remove Boffs although I stop using some of them after a while. Only when I need more space because new boffs with interesting traits come available or when I decide I want a new Boff modelled after another character or one of his boffs, do I remove some of these retired officers.
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  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    azrael605 wrote: »
    @meimeitoo

    The Breen Boff is a reward for one of the missions in the Breen arc, but only when a Featured Episode Replay is active. Just like the Reman Boff in the Romulan Mystery arc.


    Thank you! :)
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  • ashstorm1ashstorm1 Member Posts: 679 Arc User
    Had to airlock a few to make room for my second away team. This second team wears MACO uniforms, and is to be used on known (to my character, not me) combat missions. For example, missions like the one where you go to the signing of the Temporal accords I would use my original team, while in missions that involve the Borg I would use my MACO team.

    If we could give boffs multiple costumes I wouldn't have had to ditch any of my old ones, but oh well.

    Actually, you can give your BOFF several costumes by saving various appearances for them in the tailor. Naturally, you will have to go through the tailor screen each time you want to go on a particular mission, and load the costumes, but that is still a workaround of sorts.
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