Suggestion: Extra Crew Training

[Jason]

Ever had a run and got more crew than there are crew places? Normally there are only the pilot, engines, weapons and shields to man so if you have more than 4 crew the only other places for them are fighting and repair. But both of those are situational they require either boarders or broken systems to repair otherwise the extra crew just hang around.

So I though why not make it that if you put an extra crew member in a subsystems room like the cockpit or weapons room they learn at a reduced rate to the person using the system, they have no effect on the subsystem itself they just learn by watching say 1/4 the speed of the person using the system? this gives a meaning to the extra crew as a backup in case something happens to your main crew.

Maybe they can also only upgrade the green bar and not the yellow so as to not overpower your crew by simply piling them all into one subsystems room.

[kylarus]

I'm down with the extra crew getting a decreased learning for certain skills, but how about a room on the PC ships where marines and engineers can slowly train combat and repair skills as well?

Also, not sure about the extra crew providing extra green bars, what do you mean by that? Providing extra capacity up to the maximum purchasable that still needs a bar of power to make use of?

[Gorlom]

I think he is talking about the green experience bar (aka 1 star out of 2 for specialists) not the energy bars (zoltans already do that)

[Jason]

Sorry what i mean is that there are two experience bars a green one then a yellow one, once the green one is mastered it starts on the yellow one.

So what I suggested is that by simply being in the same room as a subsystem that crew member will get reduced experience in using that subsystem by simply watching another crew member use it at a rate of 1/4 the normal rate but only to a max of the full green bar, if you want to max the yellow bar that crew member will have to take over and use the subsystem.

[Gomisan]

+1 to this suggestion

[Mandabar]

I approve of this idea

[beetnemesis]

This would be great.

Hm, as much as I like the idea of a dojo or battle room or whatever, I'm not sure how it would work- all the other "jobs" only gain experience when in actual use- that is, you gain weapons system exp by firing weapons in battle, and so on. Having a dojo would mean that you could just sit around a star for an hour while your guys learned kung fu.

I definitely like the idea of gaining reduced experience by "watching," though.

[Sacarathe]

This would be great.

I definitely like the idea of gaining reduced experience by "watching," though.

Thats how i'd describe it too, though i have had crews before where everyone, all 8 had a level 2 skill, and 4 of those had a 2nd level 1, and even one of them had a 2nd level 2, so the watching learn rate would have to be very low, ie 10 % - so when one guy reaches level 1, they swap or something.