How to hire Pilots

[Ronin Cross]

Anybody know? I need 3 star pilots for auto-trading and other things but my multi-million dollar ships keep coming with 1 star pilots. I've tried firing them while still at the dock but the upgrade menu wont let me add another pilot that way it just promotes the next, even worse, crewmember.

I heard someone say you can hire pilots you see flying ships out in space but how does that work?

Anybody have any tips, it's pretty annoying being crippled because you cant find pilots lol; also haven't seen a single pilot walking around on the stations in my game so far (20 hours in, and checking wharfs/shipyards).

Thanks guys

[ImHelping]

You can buy a ship and hope for the best. Maybe factions skew this? With the Argon, I've gotten 3 and 4 star pilots from cheap fighters and minimal equipment couriers.

My very first 4 star pilot was gained by buying a throwaway disposable argon ship for the antimatter test.

Meanwhile, several reloads to pay over 1 million crefits for a Teladi always gave 2 and 2 2/3 skill pilots.

I've heard people mention that capital ships seem to come with better grade pilots. But actual for reals ways to hire proper staff would be better.

If there IS skill gains, it sure hasn't shown up for me yet.

[Ronin Cross]

Same here on the skill gains;; it would be great if either they gained exp or there was a streamlined way to hire pilots. Theres a market demand for skilled pilots, could just charge a high enlistment fee.

[PrincessXFiFi]

Really the only way to do it while still keeping your sanity is buying a bunch of minimally equipped S miners or whatever is cheapest. Will cost you around 80k each after reselling them, but you'll often get two and three star pilots from it.

[<Gun4Higher>]

This has to be a bug. we should have a list of potential candidates or something... maybe once you have a habitat on one of your station?

[Cat-Poker]

There are "Digital Seminars" that you can buy and sell at trade stations but they don't work. problay in the plans to get some sort of training set up to make more skilled pilots.

[Futt]

This system really needs some work; it seems to be a crapshoot at the moment and as mentioned training for pilots is either broken or glacially slow. To minimize losses I just buy a couple of miners, then if I get 3+ star pilots on one or more, I buy a corresponding number of traders and swap the pilots around if those turn out to be flunkies. Miners just need 1 star, so I set them off to play with rocks; still profitsss

[AJRimmer Bsc Ssc]

and make sure the pilot has a rank,or it will be useless for anything but ferrying around ships

[Spec_Ops_Ape]

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/154
Lets you train your staff using the digital seminars.
Note: using mods adds the modified tag to your save (there is a mod to remove this) and won't let you use the venture system.
Reading another thread here it looks like you can't use venture if you use any mod at all.

[Zaphod]

I'd wish there was visual cues on the skin of the crew what their forte was. It feels so weird going methodically over the local population saying "hello" to everyone look at their stats. Some bars should have premium pilots.

[Gregorovitch]

The best source of three and four star pilots is your miners. Miner pilots level up fast. If you need one, look at you miner fleet and you will almost certainly find one that can do the job. Swapping pilots between ships is a right royal PITA at the moment, but it can be done and once you're used to it gets a bit easier.

[stretch]

Pilots have an 'average star rating' next to their name. This seems to be an average score of
Pilot.
Management.
Morale.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1597918867

3 star pilot still cannot auto trade.

[Aeekto]

I level the pilotskill of my pilots with scouting... all of them are now 4-5 stars in piloting and started with 1-2.
If you want to increase Management either put them on stations with severall traders or put them on miners and let them automine.

I don´t have a single problem to stockpile good pilots for autotrading or even patroling/fighting.

[zidahya]

Teladi seems to come with better pilots. Buy M Trader and M Mining Ships.

[Carlos Spicywiener]

Originally posted by Spec_Ops_Ape:

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/154
Lets you train your staff using the digital seminars.
Note: using mods adds the modified tag to your save (there is a mod to remove this) and won't let you use the venture system.
Reading another thread here it looks like you can't use venture if you use any mod at all.

Does anyone know what this mod actually does? What is the difference between a 3 star and 5 star? Does this mod actually level up each skill, or just add a star?

[BrotherKane]

FOUND A FIX

So I only had one 3 star pilot between 3 ships
1. You will need one 3 star pilot and at least 2 ships
2. Set up behaviours for auto trade on the 3 star ship
3. Force a dock with both ships at the same station
4. Trade pilots between ships
For me at least the ship with my 0 star pilot kept the auto trade behaviours as the 3 star pilot