Okay I just hit commander. I am currently in a Heavy Escort (Akira/Oslo/Norway kitbash).
Current BO's are:
Lieut Tactical - has Torpedo: High Yield and Cannon: Rapid Fire (not the stupid scatter shot)
Ensign Tactical - has Tactical Team 1 (seems kind of pointless...)
Lieut Science - has [something new, I think tractor beam 2?] and Rotate Shield Frequency 1
Ensign Eng - has Emergency Power to Shields 1... need to promote this guy
I only just levelled last night, so I dont recall what the new lieutenant ranks are.
Somehow I also have Hazard Emitters 1. I don't know who is providing it, precisely. Evasive Maneuvers is I think something I just got as I ranked up.
Space wise this has made for a decent combo, lot of burst when I pop rapid fire to tear down shields, followed up with high yield, things usually die or are crippled. Defensive capabilities are strong, I pop both shield abilities and the hull repair and can survive one hell of a beating (like a battlegroup of romulans on me).
Where I fail is in ground combat. I haven't bothered to organize what ground skills my BO's take. BO teams are usually 2x science, tac and eng. They're mostly worthless and serve to draw fire; I gave them whatever dropped without putting any thought into it. For myself, I got lucky with a kit that does cover shield and shield regenerator, so I tend to drop a wall, put a regenerator behind it, and just stay inside the bubble and plink away. Progress on ground missions is slow, but relatively safe - I have yet to be seriously threatened. The psi master didnt faze me.
What i'd like to know is:
- What should I be looking to train on my ship captain at Commander, what should I train on my bridge officers for their LTC skills? I didn't even realise I could train my captain's skills?? I mean.. am I wrong?
- What ground skills should I be looking for and what BO mix should I consider for an away mission? 2x Sci seems useless if I can just give one the AE heal called triage. Speaking of which is that any good? If not, what is good for sci/tac/eng ground?
- What weapons should I equip on ground team? Someone suggested giving them all expose weapons and going with an exploit on myself. Should I find a better kit than cover shield + shield gen on exchange? Reading over the eng kits, it seems really dissapointing, and makes me want to reroll tactical... :-/
- This thought process started when I asked someone on the forums why my BO's couldnt equip kits. They said "their powers ARE their kits" and it occured to me, while i'd bought what I thought were good space powers for them (and me) to use, I never bothered sorting out their ground skills; they're a mess of garbage default skills right now. I was actually saving kits by the truckload, to give them to my officers, without realising they can never equip them. I got a ton of credits from vendoring garbage....
- Since levelling up i've got 2 new slots for BO's and a bunch of guys waiting in the wings. I currently have 2 tac, 2 sci, 1 eng. What should I bring on board to complement this?
Any and all help would be appreciated. I have a ton of credits to spend on kits and merits to spend on skills; tell me which way to go please

Just don't tell me to take a shower.... heh.
Comments
I would look for skills that increase my weapons damage. If you think you want to use Phasers then I would train up the Phaser skill etc.
For BO's I would get some mitigation skills like Science Team and Attack Pattern Omega. These help you when you get held or tractored.
I like having 2 Tactical BO's on away teams. One Science with healing and curing skills, One engineer with Turret, and 2 Tacs with Grenades, overwatch, Focus Fire, etc.
Equip the weapons with best DPS on your BO's. WHoever told you to equip all your BO's with expose attacks has never tried this. Your BO's rarely us anything but just the raw DPS of their weapons. BO skills like Focus FIre and Plasma grenade cause expose. You want an Exploit weapon to take advantage of that.