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Bridge Officer Quality

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited March 2010 in The Academy
I used to think that Bridge Officer color-quality (e.g., Common White, Uncommon Green, Rare Blue, and Epic Purple) reflected the list of starting BO skills and traits. However, I have been reading reports that color-quality influences "how well a Bridge Officer performs their tasks", regardless of the skills and traits that they have.

Can anyone please clarify? Does a better-quality (e.g., Epic Pueple) bridge officer do, for example, more damage than an identical lower-quality (e.g., White Common or Uncommon Green) bridge officer with the same skills and traits?

Thanks for the insights!
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    on first glance the only difference seems to be the color coding :-P

    but upon reading all those stats i found that the rarer the BO the higher the probability of him/her having not only BASIC *insert trait, like reptilian strength etc.*, but ADVANCED *insert trait*, which has better percentages. also different is the lvl of the starting skills. I and II are common, with a III thrown in most of the time starting the blue BOs.

    other than that i cant tell, since im waiting till i finally end up RA5 and have purple BO candidates beofre switching my crew.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    To me, it would be a shame if this was the case. It would mean that you really couldn't have rare (ex: blue or purple) Boffs train your existing Boffs to the extent that your existing Boffs would do as good a job at that skill as the rare Boff training him/her. That would mean that people who are really trying to squeeze as much skill and power out of their Boffs and ship as possible would be forced to ditch their old Boffs for new ones.
    I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm kind of attached to my Boffs. When I get a new one, I usually have that new Boff train my existing Boff. They're my bridge crew, and we've been through a lot together. I know some people (maybe a lot) would find that silly. They're probably the same people who don't care about immersion (ex: running around starbases with their guns out, jumping over people and throwing grenades), and that's fine. They paid for the game, too.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    While a white (basic) BO will have two basic traits (basic lucky, basic aggresive, basic creative, etc...) a purple (very rare) will have those same traits, but higher quality (Superior resiliency, Superior peak health, etc...)

    I think blues have Improved and greens have the standard (Not sure about those two because I really only deal with purples. I always use the blue, green, whites to train my purples.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Jonbre wrote: »
    To me, it would be a shame if this was the case. It would mean that you really couldn't have rare (ex: blue or purple) Boffs train your existing Boffs to the extent that your existing Boffs would do as good a job at that skill as the rare Boff training him/her. That would mean that people who are really trying to squeeze as much skill and power out of their Boffs and ship as possible would be forced to ditch their old Boffs for new ones.
    I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm kind of attached to my Boffs. When I get a new one, I usually have that new Boff train my existing Boff. They're my bridge crew, and we've been through a lot together. I know some people (maybe a lot) would find that silly. They're probably the same people who don't care about immersion (ex: running around starbases with their guns out, jumping over people and throwing grenades), and that's fine. They paid for the game, too.

    This is exactly what you have to do becuase your old whites will never be as good as your purples traitwise. In fact, your own character will never be as good as your bo's traitwise becuase a "Superior" trait is better than what we get at character creation. Those traits can never be increased either for your player or your bo.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    From my noticed

    Common: have only skills that are purchasable and only normal traits
    Uncommon: Have skill(s) that is non-purchasable and only normal traits
    Rare: Have skill(s) that are non-purchasable and one Superior Trait
    Very Rare: Have skill(s) that are non-purchasable and two Superior Traits.

    The Superior Traits are always traits other than the standard two for that race, and some VR BO's have duplicate Superior Traits (I do not know if the effect stacks)

    I purchase VR's only for crews based on traits only, and use rares and uncommons to get the skills I want. I see no reason spend any training points on any BO's other than VRs. I am not sure of the number of skills on Uncommon+ BO's since you can only pull one off them.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Kaelon wrote: »
    I used to think that Bridge Officer color-quality (e.g., Common White, Uncommon Green, Rare Blue, and Epic Purple) reflected the list of starting BO skills and traits. However, I have been reading reports that color-quality influences "how well a Bridge Officer performs their tasks", regardless of the skills and traits that they have.

    Can anyone please clarify? Does a better-quality (e.g., Epic Pueple) bridge officer do, for example, more damage than an identical lower-quality (e.g., White Common or Uncommon Green) bridge officer with the same skills and traits?

    Thanks for the insights!

    The way I understand it, Green means they have a skill that can only be taught by other BOs(not available from trainer nor White quality BOs). Blue means the same as green plus one Superior trait. Purple means they have 2 Superior traits plus posbily a special skill.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    One thing I noticed about the difference between BOff rarities is the Advanced and Superior traits are higher but only marginally so.

    For example: I was comparing traits between a Blue and White BO. I didn't exactly remeber the trait but the difference between regular and superior was 5%. It wasn't anything major like critical chance (that I would have remembered), I think it was additional healing from kits or something. That's all well and good, but how much of an impact is that in real numbers. I mean if my heal is 200 does adding another 10 points to the heal justify the skill retraining costs if I decide to replace the Rare BO with the Common one? If they have a rare skill that I need that's what retraining is for.

    I like to crunch numbers as much as the next guy but trying to wring out that last 5% usually isn't worth it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Raithnor wrote: »
    One thing I noticed about the difference between BOff rarities is the Advanced and Superior traits are higher but only marginally so.

    For example: I was comparing traits between a Blue and White BO. I didn't exactly remeber the trait but the difference between regular and superior was 5%. It wasn't anything major like critical chance (that I would have remembered), I think it was additional healing from kits or something. That's all well and good, but how much of an impact is that in real numbers. I mean if my heal is 200 does adding another 10 points to the heal justify the skill retraining costs if I decide to replace the Rare BO with the Common one? If they have a rare skill that I need that's what retraining is for.

    I like to crunch numbers as much as the next guy but trying to wring out that last 5% usually isn't worth it.

    Dont forget that you can get an infinate number of BO skill points. So it might not seem economical to train up a Rare BO to replace a non-Rare but eventually you will get the points to fully train the new BO.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    This is a very insightful post. Personally, I know that as long as I can train my present Boffs with new skills from the very rare Boffs, I will be keeping them. I'd like to think that as a captain, I have loyalty to my crew. They certainly have put it on the line for me in the past.

    Yes, I know, I know - very silly. But I'm a bit into the RP thing and immersion (to a certain point).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    It seems to me that the boff Traits affect ground ops only, or did I miss something?
    I don't think I've seen a boff with spare-related traits
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Stefx73 wrote: »
    It seems to me that the boff Traits affect ground ops only, or did I miss something?
    I don't think I've seen a boff with spare-related traits

    uncommon Saurians can have efficient which is a space trait.

    Having said that they really need to look into Boffs and their traits since uncommon saurians being the only ones capable of getting a space trait seems a bit unfinished.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Jonbre wrote: »
    ...Personally, I know that as long as I can train my present Boffs with new skills from the very rare Boffs, I will be keeping them. I'd like to think that as a captain, I have loyalty to my crew. They certainly have put it on the line for me in the past.

    Yes, I know, I know - very silly. But I'm a bit into the RP thing and immersion (to a certain point).

    If you have to find a way to justify it to make removing a BOff more palatable, just do what I did. I had a new Sci officer get assigned to me with a couple traits/skills that I wanted, but my senior Science officer had been with me since my Lt days. I just figured that he had demonstrated that he deserved his own command and was being replaced by the new officer I was receiving.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Jonbre wrote: »
    I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm kind of attached to my Boffs. When I get a new one, I usually have that new Boff train my existing Boff. They're my bridge crew, and we've been through a lot together. I know some people (maybe a lot) would find that silly.[/QUOTE

    I thought I was the only one who felt this way! My crew are my crew, I won't change them.

    Dr. S.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    I'm attached to my BOffs too.

    I would like the opportunity to train up their innate abilities - or to make them Rare or Very Rare. Space abilities (like my Borg BO's efficient) would be good.

    Speaking of BOffs, I'd like to see missions that revolve around them. This sort of personalized attention made the NPCs in Baldur's Gate seem like team members. STO could do something of that sort, too.
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