New to the crew stuff

[Damiano Anger]

I've finally reach sector 51 but I don't understand when retire the crew member...Is retire=prestige? Should I wait till my first mastery point to retire the man? Thank you in advance

[Hunu]

Yeah retiring a crew member is like prestige for them, assuming you are reprinting them. I don't remember when the best time to reprint your first dude is, but I guess it's when the experience to level seems insurmountable, typical stuff.

[Dragon]

The idea for crew members is they learn when they are awake (cloned into the new body/Print), Then when they are no longer needed they save their knowledge (retire). When you need them again (print) they have a bonus (XP gain) to relearning previous knowledge. If any stat reaches the Rank breakpoint they get a talent point to spend, this also gives a bonus to rank up faster on subsequent prints. Rank/Stats are also totaled into a combined Rank/Stat values for every crew member. the extra bonuses are on the second tab. If you use a crew member enough times in one prestige they can gain mastery levels. First one is 500 and easy to achieve with 2-4 bio sleeves. you can spend those master points for perm buffs on the 2nd tab. Mastery makes it easier to level your stats on that specific crew member and doesn't reset.

What does this mean? Reprint the first one enough times to earn a mastery point, make sure you go over the previous stat max from the last time. use mastery points for extra bio sleeves and crew EXP at the start to get mastery 1 on each crew member. this will take a few prestiges before you can do it. You also need to run each crew member a few times to get 5-10 ranks on them to unlock more crew members over time and more crew slots for prints.

I think my first play through was about 2-4 prestige to understand what i was doing and just leveling up the crew instead of progressing. you will need to level your crew for the combined stat/rank bonuses for progression in the early 50's. you won't gain significant crew XP <sector 51 so you have to farm in higher sectors. as you keep pushing you can reach higher stats/rank values and it gets easier to just use your bio sleeves for the min/max routine once you hit sector 60+, get some Vshards, and full set of 4/8 crew members active. eventually you will work on mastery 2's for the more important bonuses like warp essence gains.

[Huillam]

First mastery should happen much later.
The first two mastery points (the third is a late game thing) are earned through specific runs:
Once you're confident you can reach a total (among multiple reprints) of 500/5000 levels you prestige and only print that specific crew member. When it reaches a cumulated level or 500 (or 5000 for the second) divided by the amount sleeves reprint it.
For example if you have 10 sleeves available, you reprit that crew member every 50/500 levels.

I'd suggest to carefully read every skill description as a proper understanding of crew members can make a huge difference.
Skill with a black background and a white icon are powerful but come with a huge malus to a specific area of the game (for example for the Energy Technician it multiplies void power and void power generation but halves bases output).
When a skill say "Bonus per [Skill]" the skill in the one from that specific crew member. For example for the Energy Technician "Tech Know How" is based on its Acumuen Level.
On the other hand when a skill say "Bonus per [Active Skill Total]" it's based on the sum of all your active crew members skills. The skill "Coordinated Power" for example is boosted by every active crew member having the Engineering skill.

[Dragon]

When i read the USI guide followed the majority of the advice and did multiple prestige and got my first 6 mastery points right away, it made it a lot easier later on to push both crew and pushing sectors at the same time for dedicated purposes. Mastery points are easy to obtain if your willing to prestige right away. 10 Bio sleeves is more then enough to even push out mastery 2's in the early levels.

[Cigaretteofdeath]

I still dont really get it. Also unlocked crew yesterday. I guess its some learning by doing stuff. But no idea how long it usually takes to get 1 mastery point. Because post sector 51 seems like a heavy wall for me right now as base production and salvage gain isnt that big anymore.

[frognik]

Just hover your mouse over a crew members skill XP bar and you'll see "XP Bonus from highest:". It'll be 1.05^max skill level.
This is the XP bonus you get after reprinting and it will allow you to get an even higher max skill level next time.
Rinse and repeat.
Eventually once you get ~10 bio sleeves or are willing to wait for more you can keep reprinting the same crew member within 1 prestige which will increase mastery level each time and if it hits a certain limit you get a mastery point.

[frognik]

Originally posted by Egnats:

I still dont really get it. Also unlocked crew yesterday. I guess its some learning by doing stuff. But no idea how long it usually takes to get 1 mastery point. Because post sector 51 seems like a heavy wall for me right now as base production and salvage gain isnt that big anymore.

At sector 51 - 60 just focus on reprinting for higher and higher XP bonuses and levels.
At those sectors XP is heavily reduced, 60+ is where the real XP is and I would worry about mastery until then.

[Cigaretteofdeath]

But i currently have no feeling yet for how long such a prestige should last. 6 hours? 12 hours? 2-3 days? I know it depends on a lot of stuff, its just often not really clear when is a good time for prestige.

[Dragon]

Depends on where you are in crew stats honestly. When you run out of Bio Sleeves you should consider doing a prestige. normally primary stat 30-40+ and secondary stat 20+ is a good number to reprint your crew members once you establish a routine. if each stat gain is taking more then an hour for a single point you might want to switch to a different crew member or just print that one until you get a mastery.

It does take time for the crew system to make more sense, but it's easy to recover as all you need to do is prestige to reset progress. the long your run lasts the longer it takes the Bio Sleeve's to regenerate.

Crew is just another reason for prestige that make it more meaningful. Core load outs, Base updates, and crew resets are the main reasons for using a prestige in general. each one really depends on your individual progress and how far along you are so it's not something someone can tell you in detail ahead of time.

[frognik]

Prestige when you run out of bio sleeves if you want to 'power level' crew members.
Or you could wait for some bio sleeves to generate and use them first before prestiging, its up to you and how long it takes to get back to sector 51 or wherever you are.

My advise if you are at a road block is to focus on one thing per prestige.
For example prestige then only focus on research and spec out everything for research bonuses using ship, v-device etc bonuses.
Once research gain slows down too much then prestige and focus only on synth etc.

[Huillam]

Originally posted by Egnats:

But i currently have no feeling yet for how long such a prestige should last. 6 hours? 12 hours? 2-3 days? I know it depends on a lot of stuff, its just often not really clear when is a good time for prestige.

For masteries?
How long it would take you to generate one or two sleeves I'd say.
If I remember correctly (but it's been a while) roughly one hour per crew member.

For regular runs?
When it feels like you hit a wall. Either switch crew to progress in synth/base/reactor/whathever. If you're out of sleeves or if you can't make any progress, it's all about your new maximum levels for your crew: If it's above the previous one by a decent amount prestige. If not wait until their earn more experience.

[Virtuella]

new to crew as well and still don't get it.
I have been 5 days idling in zone 53 and my crewmember 1 is only at 68/500 masteries.
I think his level is 76 atm and trying to get him to 78 so i learn a new active member so i can have 2 active crew. Still a long way to go from 68/500 to 500/500 and since i only reached 68/500 in 5 days i must be doing something wrong.
Should i have reprinted him sooner?. I think i have 7 active sleeves atm.

[best bulliet target]

yes. you'll want to increase the brackets (X) that number is the prevous highest value and gives a bonus to the expriance to relearning and helps push higher, but there is a cavart where the zone xp and the highet stat stall.

You'll also want to check syth not sure when but there is a new module at some point that agian increases crew XP, and later a shard well drop.

the rough idea for leveling the brackets is 15 levels or more. But you can also add scarp to add more xp, or try to push futher zones. but if you mouse over diffent parts of the crew (mastery and stats) you'll gleen further infomation about diffent values to aid in your pursuit.

But yes you stalled because you didn't reprint the crew. try to reprint him when he takes about 5mins to level a stat by 1.

[Dragon]

If your still on your first crew member don't worry about the mastery. Mastery is a build up of how many times you have reprinted that same crew member in a single Ship Prestige. reprint your first one and wait for the crew stats to be higher then your last run. that crew member will earn more XP based on his highest stats from all prints, and highest Rank achieved.

Cycle looks like this:
Print Crew Member
Earn XP by killing ships in sector 50+
When Stats (primary and secondary) are not going up anymore retire them
Print Crew Member again
Earn XP (now significantly more because higher stats/rank)
Repeat print/retire cycle until:
A - you need a different crew member or you meet your mastery goals (different crew)
B - you run out of Bio Sleeves or your unwilling to wait for the timer (ship prestige)
***Ship Prestige Resets mastery points earned ( your 68/500 will go to 0/500), resets your bio sleeve generation time and retires all active crew members.***
Repeat this ship and crew prestige cycle until you unlock new crew members
Repeat this process for new crew members
Advance in higher sectors to earn better XP as you will eventually cap your crew max stats based on possible XP earned in each sector, by equipping Vshards, or spend mastery points for your crew.

Benefits: higher Combined stats and Combined Rank for all crew members unlocks perks in the 2nd tab, spend mastery points (you can only reset these with AI consumables, chose wisely)

---- This has been a consolidation and rehash of all the advice given in a more linear format. I hope this helps first run players ----

Now back to your "how long should this take". it all depends on you. crew members require a lot of activity at the start and a lot of ship prestige to reset your bio sleeves as the generation time caps at 48 hours per sleeve. so in the first day or 2 you should get a feel by letting their stats go above the last one, and retire/print them again when it slows down or you unlock a new crew. you will get a feel for it. you should be able to unlock a few crew members in the first day if your active enough. The benefits that come from leveling your crew will push you to higher sectors for better XP so expect a lot of Ship prestige.