Bridge Officers - Training question

[jeandeaux]

I've been searching the forums to see if this has been answered and haven't found it. I've read where you can train BO's with one of your skills or from another NPC BO candidate from a mission you've completed. I'm a little confused as to how and why so perhaps I'm not understanding the message on this. Am I training my bridge crew with skills I have? If I understand the latest skill progression q/a correctly, you cannot reskill your own set at this time. I would think training a bridge crew member with a skill my character knows would allow me to forget that skill to learn a new one knowing that at least someone on the bridge still has the talents to use the skill. Perhaps the more officers with the skills allows for better performance of that particular skill? Perhaps having someone else with the skills allows me to load a different skill set knowing the other officer has the ability? Or am I getting the message all wrong and that I need achieve skill points as payment in order to train my BO's from their own private pool of skills?

[Pyrceval]

I read it as your bridge officers will have their own skill path choices, just as you do, only from a smaller pool than a player character will have. They will gain experiecnce and skill points as well and you can purchase thier skills from the pool available to their profession as they level up.

[Rgoodfel]

I read it as your bridge officers will have their own skill path choices, just as you do, only from a smaller pool than a player character will have. They will gain experiecnce and skill points as well and you can purchase thier skills from the pool available to their profession as they level up.

Also, combined to this they have mentioned that if you find a BO candiate who has a skill you want want of your officers to learn they can teach it to another BO but that "consumes" the BO candiate.

[jeandeaux]

Also, combined to this they have mentioned that if you find a BO candiate who has a skill you want want of your officers to learn they can teach it to another BO but that "consumes" the BO candiate.

Yah, I made comment to that in my original post. My question really is why do I want to train a Bridge Officer with a skill I already have?

[Zepath]

My understanding is that what you learn, and what your BO's learn are different enough that you don't train your BO's in their skills ... they learn them from other BO's or BO candidates.

And really that makes sense.

As I said in another post ... I see it like this (in a traditional MMO example) ... your BO's are your healers, your melee, your ranged DPS ... and you are the Paladin, providing buffs and some unique contributions of your own.

[Varrangian]

Here is something from the recent Ask Cryptic

Liquidblaino: if I'm a Lt Cmdr and I need to spend X skill points to be offered a promotion, does it count if I spend those points on Lt skills or just Lt Cmdr skills? Can I even go back and spend points on skills in the lower ranks?

You can go back and spend skills in lower ranks. You don’t need to spend X skills in a particular rank to be promoted; it’s just X skills total. For the sake of discussion, let’s say as a Lieutenant you need to spend 100 skill points (this is not the real number) anywhere to become a Liuetenant Commander. When you’re a Lieutenant Commander, it’ll take 300 skill points (again, not the real number) to rank up to Commander. It doesn’t matter where you spend those points; you can spend them on the ground, in space, in Lieutenant skills, in Lieutenant Commander skills.

That formula is true for you and your Bridge Officers. Bridge Officers follow the same path as you. They have much smaller skill sets, but their progression works the same.

The language here is a bit confusing, but the way I read it is that they have their own skill sets (smaller one), but they are unique. Now there could in fact be overlap, and while at first it might seem you wouldn't want overlap, I think there is a reason for it.

As we've heard, "You can max out every skill eventually." But the way it works is that when we "rank up" new more focused skills open up to us. So the balance at least at first is to develop a broad range of skills or focus some specific skills. By having overlap between Bridge Officer and PC skills you create a system where you can focus early on, on specific skills while not being completely gimped. I.e. if in the first few ranks I focus on beam weapons, I can have a Bridge Officer with a Shield focus, so I don't die in every encounter.

Now I think there are a number of questions we still need answered. How does XP work for Bridge Officers? Do we gain separate pools of xp one for our character and one for Bridge Officers or do we share a pool? How focused are their skill paths? How hard is it to gain new Bridge Officers? Etc...

[Acyl]

The language here is a bit confusing, but the way I read it is that they have their own skill sets (smaller one), but they are unique. Now there could in fact be overlap, and while at first it might seem you wouldn't want overlap, I think there is a reason for it.

My personal guess is that the skills our captains pick up won't be the same as the skills BOs can learn.

But say they are similar...

That's still not an issue. Someone asked the devs about BO skills in one of the video or podcast interviews. I forget which, else I'd provide a link. But it was something like...say we have three tactical bridge officers with similar skills. All three of them have the ability to do a triple torpedo salvo.

Does it make sense to equip all three on the same ship?

And, well, yeah...you get some benefit for doing that. As the explanation went - I think it was Zinc who said it - there's both specific skill cooldown and global cooldown.

Say you have Bridge Officer Alpha fire a torpedo salvo. BO Alpha can't fire a torpedo salvo for X seconds. No other BO can fire a torpedo salvo for Y seconds.

But Y is less than X. Once the clock ticks over to Y seconds, BO Alpha's salvo is still recharging.

But BO Beta, who also has the salvo ability, can now fire his salvo.

As the devs said, this might not be the most efficient use of your BO slots...

...or it might be. It really depends on your setup. But either way, yes, you can stack BOs with the same abilities, and you DO get something out of it.

If my captain and bridge officers have the same skill, it just means I can use that skill more often.

[Loekii]

My understanding is that what you learn, and what your BO's learn are different enough that you don't train your BO's in their skills ... they learn them from other BO's or BO candidates.

This is how I understand it.

It is sort of like how your various 'Pets' in WoW (hunter/Warlock) have independant abilities that are trained.