No my engineer stayed at his post. I'll watch that one next game, it seemed odd at the time and I wonder if perhaps there was a bug in there somewhere. I've also tried lowering and raising shields in battle, and it had NO effect on the XP of the guy manning that station. Hmm... You absolutely sure ...

the anti-personnel drone and repair drone also have blue event options tied to them. You say that it seems better to substitute the boarder drone with a boarding party... why not complement the boarding drone with a boarding party? send out the drone and a pair of mantis to wreck havoc on the enemy...

It is shield charges, not shield hits. You can, during battle, lower your shields and turn them back on for experience.

@Janos Would you mind updating the events list? I believe the update introduced some new ones. That would spoil the requirements for slug ship, so I am going to wait until someone finds it first... Pretty sure this entire topic is spoilers, and ship unlocks have their own topic. Just need to update...

If you kill the crew of both ships with boarding parties, the second part of the quest won't trigger.

so which events use the anti-personnel drones?

5 asteroid fields in a row as a stealth ship, over 200 spare scrap on death because you can't spend in dangerous areas.

uncharted nebula sectors do not slow down the rebel fleet. You would only go there if you are looking for some dangerous/opportunistic events more frequently. Having teleporter, cloaking, engines, scrap arm, or reinforced hull might help with some events that occur there.

This brings up the question... can you train piloting/engine/shield against an opponent that only has beam weapons that can't pierce shields?

upgraded medbays are also used in certain events.