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bridge officers and skills
lazell
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I recently made Subcommander (level21) as a Romulan with the Federation, but I've skipped putting any points into bridge officer skills so far. I'm still overwhelmed by all the choices, so I don't know what "final" skills I actually want my officers to have.
Q1: If I put training points into a skill now, then later I retrain that skill slot to something else, do I get those previously-spent training points back, or are they lost forever?
Q2: In general, is it best to get the "characters" that I want on my bridge first (such as all-Romulan, or all with specific Traits) then learn individual skills as opportunity permits?
Q3: As I train officers in better skills, does their quality rating ("color") improve too?
Q4: Once a character joins my bridge crew (not just a candidate), then is there no way to make them "stand down" or "take shoreleave" (go to the candidate pool) so I can give one of their skills to a different character before losing them? Or once they're a bridge crewmember, then is the only option to lose them forever with no chance for them to train their replacement?
Q1: If I put training points into a skill now, then later I retrain that skill slot to something else, do I get those previously-spent training points back, or are they lost forever?
Q2: In general, is it best to get the "characters" that I want on my bridge first (such as all-Romulan, or all with specific Traits) then learn individual skills as opportunity permits?
Q3: As I train officers in better skills, does their quality rating ("color") improve too?
Q4: Once a character joins my bridge crew (not just a candidate), then is there no way to make them "stand down" or "take shoreleave" (go to the candidate pool) so I can give one of their skills to a different character before losing them? Or once they're a bridge crewmember, then is the only option to lose them forever with no chance for them to train their replacement?
Post edited by lazell on
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This is only for your bridge officer skill points, not yours since boffs are the ones you are asking about.
Q1 when you spend points in your boff ground or space abilities and later you choose to retrain those abilities the points are lost. But no worries cause even at level cap you continue to earn points.
Q2 since you mentioned Romulan bridge officers it will be kinda hard to get the ones you want. Romulans and Remans have traits available only to them so because of that if you are picky about the traits you want them to have even their sex then it can get really expensive. Other races from your host faction wont be as expensive though. Did you have any particular traits in mind? or you just wanted an all romulan boff team just to have it?
Q3 no as of right now their base quality and traits stay the same. I dont know if the next expac has plans on making their traits and quality upgradeable though.
Q4 once a boff is placed on your active list, the only way to clear their spot on the active list is to dismiss them and you lose them. Some certain boffs like the Jem Hadar tactical boff you can get more then once but only equip 1 of. As you gain levels you also gain more slots on your active boff roster. And you can also go to the C-store and buy extra slots for zen. It is under C-store > services > Two Bridge Officer Slots. There are a couple of "buy two of XXXXX" such as buy doff slots, buy character slots, buy outfit slots so make sure you are looking at the right one.
Before you get too overwhelmed, I recommend that you visit this STO Wiki post about the bridge officer abilities and what they all do: http://sto.gamepedia.com/Bridge_officer_ability
As you can see, there appear to be a whole range of them, but the number merely represents the 'power' of the same skill: for example, Engineering Team does the same thing, with 1 doing the least, and 3 doing the most of that same thing. The article also gives a very quick snapshot of what each skill does and who trains it. Also, note that a name doesn't necessarily give a good indication of what it does. "Hazard Emitters" sounds nothing like "cleans the hull of annoyances like plasma fires".
One thing to look for is what your ship does not need. For example, all-beam ships do not need any skills to do with cannons, so that means you can disregard "Rapid Fire" and "Scatter Volley" right off the bat. Attack Patterns need skills grid points in "Attack Patterns" to work well, so if you don't want points in that, then ignore the Attack Patterns as well.
I would suggest that you experiment and trial a whole range of bridge officer abilities so you see which ones you like and which do nothing for you. Your bridge officers' skills points pool will build with everything you do even after you hit Level 50/60, so don't concern yourself too much about those.
In terms of 'Final' skills, there's really no such thing. If you have a ship for any length of time at end-game, you'll want a change and often, investing in a new skill or two to take advantage of a different ship layout is worthwhile.
In terms of your questions:
- Q1: No you don't get the points back but it's irrelevant... most of my toons have millions of bridge officer skills points available, I'll never use them all. Think of your current small pool of points as like a "temporary cashflow shortage" that will basically turn into a flood later.
- Q2: Spot on. Especially for Federation characters, there are far more ground traits than space traits, so you want to look at the traits first, skills later. Just beware: to train your boffs in Captain Skills, they must be tradeable. C-store, lobi store, and (I think) Fleet boffs cannot be traded (though they can be trained by rare/very rare boffs).
- Q3: No. The 'rarity' of boffs relates to the quality of their Traits. For example, a purple boff might have Superior Creative, whereas a white boff will have Basic Creative. This may or may not be relevant depending on your use and build (e.g. if you have a boff that sits on the bridge and never leaves, the lack of superior ground anything is irrelevant compared to that "Efficient" space trait they bring). Also note that a few boffs have this color rating buggy e.g. some Saurians and AFAIK all Gorn will show purple on exchange, but will be Blue when unpacked. Consensus is, they're a purple.
- Q4: Correct. Once you commission a boff to be part of your crew, then that's it (apart from 'trading' to another captain to train them for you). You can't return them to the pool, only either trade or dismiss them (or as I have done with good boffs that just weren't quite right, give them away by 'trading').
Just a few final comments: if you want a boff-trained skill, you can get a Federation boff to train it if you have a Federation boff in that career on crew (i.e. to use a Federation Science Officer to train your Romulan sci boff, you'll need a Federation Science Officer already on crew... you can get a real cheapie to sit there for 2 minutes if you need). Secondly, don't underestimate the value of training people's boffs or trading to get your own trained up in those valuable Level-3 captain trained skills! Just be sure you ask for a "Fed-Allied Romulan" captain to train, as Federation players and Romulan-KDF players cannot train your boffs (annoying but true).How does this process even work? Have never tried to do this or seen an explanation. As far as I can tell, a BOff has to be part of your bridge crew, and bound, before you can train them, so the idea of training someone else's BOffs, or having someone do so for me, makes no sense.
How did it work? IIRC...
1) find someone you trust (you have to give him/her the Boff)
2) open trade window and drag the Boff into it and accept (it worked even with bound Boff and your mate needs a open BOffslot)
3) your mate trains the Boff
4) He/She gives back the Boff in the same way
Finish.
Sorry for hijacking this thread but I am new so I cannot make a new post. I've just been playing the game for a few days. Right now I am at the rank of captain. I have 6 slots (I bought 2 because I was dumb and I didn't know what I was doing). Initially, during the first few missions, I got at least 3 bridge-officer candidates. But I didn't have room for them. When I finally got the heavy-cruiser refit (I think). I had room for 4 officers. But the guy I got was a tactical guy. So at that point I had 3(!) tactical officers, one engineer, and one science. So then I discharged my new tactical guy (I hadn't spent any points on him) hoping I would get a new candidate (I would like to get another science officer). I also went on the exchange to get a new bridge officer but the only officers up there are Klingon Bridge Officers. So how do I get new bridge officers? Are there any missions I should complete?
Ok, that makes sense! I will keep playing and hopefully I will get a new one. I am also going to check out the exchange. When I checked last night there were only officers available for Klingons. Hopefully there will be more tonight. Thank you!
When you go to the exchange do a search. Obviously make sure the category on the left is set to Bridge Officers. The below search terms are the ones you can use for each faction:
If Federation:
Human
Vulcan
Betazoid
Andorian
Trill
Bajoran
Ferengi
Tellarite
Bolian
Rigelian
Saurian
Pakled
If KDF:
Klingon
Orion
Gorn
Nausicaan
Lethean
If you are a Romulan you can search for Romulan and Reman. If you are allied to Federation you can also search for the species mentioned above under Feds. If you are allied to the KDF you can search for the species above under KDF. As a Fed or Rom-Fed you can also search for Klingon boffs since they *are* available to Fed as well. But you will also get a lot of KDF hits that you will need to filter through. Also as a Fed, Rom (either alliance) or KDF you can search for the term "Alien" but that too will also come up with a lot of hits for both Feds and KDF. One last tip when you are searching...use the name of the races i've mentioned then after the species name use tac, eng or sci to find those specific career paths only. So Human Tac, Vulcan Sci, Gorn Eng, Romulan Sci, Reman Tac and so on.
EDIT: ohh and also if you are playing a Romulan (either faction) pay attention to their space traits. Hold on to the ones that say Superior Romulan Operative (SRO for short). Basic Romulan Operatives, Romulan Operatives and Infiltrators are also ones you want to watch for but the SRO is the really good one. If you go on the exchange and search for Romulan boffs especially rare and very rare quality boffs you will see that SRO sells for around 4-5mil sometimes higher. And believe it or not female versions of boffs sometimes sell for more. I'll let you work out in your head on your own why that is hehe.
Try searching with a Fed-side race name in the search bar. (alien and Klingon are available both sides, Benzite boffs do not exist)
Damn, pipped.