Question About Manning Stations

General discussion about the game.
Zaffre
Posts: 144
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 5:09 pm

Question About Manning Stations

Postby Zaffre » Sat Sep 29, 2012 12:26 pm

For the longest time, I have used my starting crew of three for the weapons, helm, and engines. Here's a question, though. Which is more important: engines or shields? Which one has more benefit from manning the station?
Cappelen
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2012 12:44 pm

Re: Question About Manning Stations

Postby Cappelen » Sat Sep 29, 2012 12:29 pm

I'd go with shields.
zarakon
Posts: 78
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:41 pm

Re: Question About Manning Stations

Postby zarakon » Sat Sep 29, 2012 1:07 pm

Depends on what the enemy has.

If they have a drone, lasers, and beam weapons, you probably want a guy on shields.

If they have missiles and bombs, you probably want a guy on engines.
JHawkInc
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 3:57 pm

Re: Question About Manning Stations

Postby JHawkInc » Sat Sep 29, 2012 1:58 pm

When I play the Bulwark (Rock Cruiser A), I put someone on helm, engines, and shields. And the first crew member I gain goes on weapons. Weapons trains faster than others (you start with missiles so ammo is a concern, but I always manage to find some non-ammo weapon eventually; last run I ran out of missiles, and had two Ion Blast II's, and managed to pin down shields, weapons, and O2 until I suffocated my opponents...). Otherwise, I never seem to have anyone that's any good with shields, which trains dirt slow (at least, for me).
Zaffre
Posts: 144
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 5:09 pm

Re: Question About Manning Stations

Postby Zaffre » Sat Sep 29, 2012 2:00 pm

Thanks for the information. Right now I'm doing a run with the Stealth cruiser and no shields, but I'll keep your information in mind for later playthroughs. Thanks. :)
Alblaka
Posts: 98
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 1:41 pm

Re: Question About Manning Stations

Postby Alblaka » Sat Sep 29, 2012 3:44 pm

Engines.
Manning engines can give 5, 7 or 10%. Effectively, a leveld engine-officier gives +5% dodge.
That's the value of 2 engine levels (later on).

20% faster shield doesn't really compare to that, imho.

Manning priority for me is Helm (duh), Engines, Weapons, Shield, Cloak (aka, the repair-duty guy sits there to get it quickly back online :P)
Greetz,
Alblaka
got_milk
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2012 6:09 pm

Re: Question About Manning Stations

Postby got_milk » Sat Sep 29, 2012 3:57 pm

Keep in mind that for getting experience in Piloting and Engines your ship needs to successfully evade a projectile. So the more evasion you have (guy on engines) the quicker he and your captain get experience and the quicker you get even more evasion!
Derakon
Posts: 111
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:05 am

Re: Question About Manning Stations

Postby Derakon » Sat Sep 29, 2012 4:04 pm

Manning shields is only useful if the enemy is attacking fast enough that recharge time is a problem. Thus they're most useful in asteroid fields and against anti-ship drones. Otherwise, typically enough time will elapse between the enemy's volleys for your shields to naturally recover on their own.
Zauron
Posts: 23
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:26 pm

Re: Question About Manning Stations

Postby Zauron » Sat Sep 29, 2012 8:12 pm

In my opinion the only reason you'd pick someone manning shields over engines is to have someone there to repair the shield right away if it gets damaged somehow. On the Rock Cruiser type A, for example, the shield room is quite far from the others and the rock crew members are slow, so if the shields get damaged it can take a while to get someone up there to fix them. Other than that I'd rather have engines for reasons stated above followed by weapons because faster weapon charge time = more likely to disable THEIR weapons before they can shoot you.

I've sometimes been known when short on crew to have someone man weapons until the first volley is fired (in the hopes of taking out their weapons first), then quickly move them over to shields so they can be there to repair them if they get damaged.
Taron Millet
Game Director & Programmer for Crazy Viking Studios