Subset Games Forum

Leveling crew abilities was something I didn't notice right away, however it can give an incredible survivability advantage especially in the earlier sectors.

To begin leveling your crew try to keep the same members doing the same jobs at all time, this will provide you with small benefits and will allow them to work towards mastering that system.

The real trick usually begins when you manage to acquire level 2 shielding (usually a minimum for this scenario), I always try to snag it as quickly as possible in sector 1 or 2 because during these sectors most ships will have 0-1 shielding as well and you can enter into 'no win' situations with them. NW situations are gold mines when it comes to leveling your crew.

A 'no win' (NW) situation is simply one where either you cannot kill the enemy and he cannot kill you, or he cannot kill you. The situations usually come up against automated drones that do not have missile launchers of any type. With level 2 shields you should be able to withstand their 1-2 laser/ion shots without ever losing all of your shielding.

Once you've identified a NW situation (in your favor) all you need to do is disable your weapons, and have a crew member man the shields, engine, and piloting positions. Engine/pilot tend to level much more quickly than shields (especially as your dodge goes up, missed shields don't recharge and thus don't get points towards level). If you hit a rare situation where you are unable to kill the enemy either (they have 2 shields and you can't penetrate them), you can simply set your weapons up to autofire add a crew member and have him level on weapons.

The benefit to a max level pilot and engineer amounts to 20% additional dodge, and that is huge! Especially since it is essentially free (or at the cost of level 2 shielding if you want to be technical), easily beating any upgrades done to engines and especially any engine upgrades over level 4 (where dodge/scrap values plummet). In addition to having 20% dodge, a max level crew on shields increases recharge rate by 29%.

A max level weapons crew member increases weapon recharge rate, which can be beneficial as well but in my opinion pales in comparison to the static defenses you garner from masters in the other systems.

I thought I might add my thoughts to this (video of this in practice is here).

The key for the "no-win" situations is to get into a battle in which neither side can do hull damage. For your layout, you'll want

• A minimum of two, but preferably three, shields
• Greater than zero evasion, but the higher the evasion the quicker you'll level piloting and engine experience
• Laser or ion weapons, where faster firing rates are preferred

For the enemy, you want to look for a ship that

• Has at least as many shield levels as shots from your weapons (e.g. if you will be firing a burst laser with two shots, the enemy needs at least two shields)
• Has no direct hull or system damage weapons (e.g. no missiles or bombs, and preferably no ion weapons)
• Has no attack drones (you can still do it with attack drones, but it gets tricky)

I actually found the rebel ships chasing you in zone 2 or 3 to satisfy most of these criteria and you can simply keep jumping around to find one that does.

Crew members get experience by operating the specific system when the following action occurs:

• Piloting = One experience point for every missed enemy shot
• Engines = One experience point for every missed enemy shot
• Shields = One experience point for every shield regenerated
• Weapons = One experience point for every shot fired

Farming crew experience in way can lead to some very powerful early game bonuses, in particular:

• Max Piloting = +10% evasion
• Max Engines = +10% evasion
• Max Shields = +29% faster shield regeneration
• Max Weapons = +19% faster firing rate

Now, you technically don't have to max experience for all crew members, but I find that doing some has benefits because I like to rotate crew members during combat for healing and repair.

I posted this game thing a few days ago but your format looks much better!

The no win situation is pretty easy to get into in second 1-2. Just get level 2 shields have 4 crew members so you can maximize your xp and then find a ship with 1 missile and 1 laser and wait for them to run out of missiles takes a bit of hull damage but you get max xp crew early on. If you have an ion blaster its super easy to get max weapons if you have a pea shooter you can do it as well.