Level up Miners/Traders to 3 *help*

[Doctor Tiki]

I have had my Miner and Trader doing AutoMine/Trade stuff over long 12 hour sessions of gameplay but they don't ever move past 2.5 pilot skill. (Which is basically where they started at)

I really want level 3 piloting so I don't have to micromanage them so much since I will gain access to the Advanced version..

Is there a trick to doing this, am I even getting any Pilot XP for my Miner/Traders by having them do their normal jobs of Mining and Trading? If there is an alternative solution that is very cheap and accessible early game then I would love to hear it, in case I am on the wrong track here.

Any insights are appreciated!

[Itchy.de]

It's so much easier to search stations for 3-Star Pilots and hire them than trying to level them up, unless you have the required training items for this.

Training pilots on the job can takes several days since the chance for experience gains is so tiny. I believe there are mods addressing this issue, but if you play vanilla then it's so bad you consider it broken.

[rasabt]

i'm 160+ hours on my current save
without seminars pilots will not level to 3 Stars
exactly 0 pilots got to 3 Stars themselfes, even after 150 hours, doesn't matter if they are auto sector trading, distributing, auto trading, mining, manual traders/miners or camping enemy territory
i'm throwing a party when i see someone even get to 2 stars, after 150 hours

either get the necessary seminars or search for 3 Star pilots yourself...which is horribly annyoin. you need to look for stations with habitats for own sanity's sake.

funny enough engineers, managers and even marines achieve their Star-upgrades pretty fast (with managers it's kinda obvious)

and we all need to hope EgoSoft will one day understand that the whole Star-System is not logical and a pain. there's a reason classical exp-leveling became a thing: you do something, you get better at it, all the time. more philosophical nuance only makes sense in rl not in a game.
give more context to the system and could even create a new macro-gameplay-loop, where players would build their own "cadet"-schools, managing personal depending on what levels what skil how fast.

[Doctor Tiki]

Originally posted by Itchy.de:

It's so much easier to search stations for 3-Star Pilots and hire them than trying to level them up, unless you have the required training items for this.

Originally posted by rasabt:

either get the necessary seminars or search for 3 Star pilots yourself...which is horribly annyoin. you need to look for stations with habitats for own sanity's sake.

Are there any tips to finding the already 3 star pilots? Certain types or size or areas of stations? Certain areas of space? Do they even have seminars that can raise up to level 3 pilot?

[Bert]

Originally posted by Doctor Tiki:

Originally posted by Itchy.de:

It's so much easier to search stations for 3-Star Pilots and hire them than trying to level them up, unless you have the required training items for this.

Originally posted by rasabt:

either get the necessary seminars or search for 3 Star pilots yourself...which is horribly annyoin. you need to look for stations with habitats for own sanity's sake.

Are there any tips to finding the already 3 star pilots? Certain types or size or areas of stations? Certain areas of space? Do they even have seminars that can raise up to level 3 pilot?

rng / pure luck

[narokusama]

3500+ hours game play and VERY few pilots have reached 3 stars yet...
Vanilla life is harsh

[insolent1]

Captain skill is a combination of morale + pilot skill so both are important, I have many 2 skill pilots with high morale and this makes them 3 skill captains able to do autotrade.
Exploration is best source of 3-4 skill captains. I send out 10 scouts early game to explore map and I fill the ships with service crew(2) as these gain a lot of morale and also some pilot skill along with the captain. Later when I need 3 skill captains you can make them from the service crew as they will have high morale and with a 1 skill and maybe a 2 skill seminar they will be 3 skill captains.
Join the teladi and antigone trade guilds as these missions give lots of 2/3 skill seminars. Teladi trading stations have +4 traders in them so good source of basic & 1 skill seminars.
Later when your autotraders have been active for some time their service crews are good source of recruitment due to high morale.

[rasabt]

yeah...i dunno. i got probably 20 scouts circling since about 100 hours and neither of them gets a combained 3 Star-rating even when i send them on 2 and 1/2 star ships, only with seminars.
that's the issue: yeah, seminars do the job, but on their own i haven't seen any ship, any crew achieve enough rank to do any auto-trading or mining.
i do now that it should exist; in my previous playthroughs that was a non issue, but after certain changes i cannot, without a seminar, get any sort of auto trader or miner.

Doctor Tiki:
the station doesn't matter, what will help a lot is a station with any sort of habitat module.
you could also (if you are that far) build a station with a habitat module yourself, but this will take time.
however do expect to pay a lot for 3 captains beeing able to auto trade/mine. i only found them with more than 2 off-stats higher, which means they will cost quite a sum.

[narokusama]

never seen any three star pilots in any station in my game... perhaps cradle will open that up

[Scullhead]

Use Mods, there is no other way.

[narokusama]

Not gonna use mods after 3500 plus hours, I got by so far, i keep making trade lists it takes a week of afk to complete.

[Takichi]

Originally posted by Scullhead:

Use Mods, there is no other way.

Or use Fighter Pilots, S Mining Ships and Scouts to lvl them to 3 and above instead of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Mods.

[Itchy.de]

That's strange, I have little problems finding decent pilots. That being said, I only have around 20 of them, I'm not going to spam the whole universe with autotraders and autominers.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Doctor Tiki:

Is there a trick to doing this, am I even getting any Pilot XP for my Miner/Traders by having them do their normal jobs of Mining and Trading? If there is an alternative solution that is very cheap and accessible early game then I would love to hear it, in case I am on the wrong track here.

Any insights are appreciated!

The trick is to forget about levelling up miner and trader pilots and forget about autotrading and expert mining.

There are enough good locations for a small fleet of sector miners to work in the early game to get started. Places like 18 Billion, The Reach and The Void should be scouted. Drop probes where you see concentrated ore asteroids to find the big yields. But do not over-saturate any one sector. That will tank profits. Stay mean and keep 'em keen is the way to do it. Don't spam. I only used four sector miners like this in my current new CoH save. You could do a few more if you so wished.

Next you build your first mining station. I recommend two ore refinery and two silicon wafer fabs but you can always start with one of each, or even one of either. It's easy to train station managers to 2* with readily obtained basic and 1* management seminars and this gives mining station ships a two sector range out of the gate. So position your mining station within two sectors of good mining spots and scout out and sat up all stations buying refined metal and silicon wafers in the area and strategically placing the station to cover as many as possible. You will find a lot of stations buy refined metal and silicon wafers. That's why mining stations are so good. These mining stations are very profitable.

After building a couple of these mining stations consider your first trading station. Analyse what your local shipyard is most short of and pick a couple of the shortest to trade in. Also trade stations do steady business in supplying station build projects - I've found my trade station sells a lot of turret components, hull parts and claytronics to build projects. So I would include Claytronincs on the list but be aware you need a substantial grub stake budget for dealing in them a they are expensive.

Trade stations do not make as good an ROI as mining stations initially ('cos they need substantial operating budgets) but they get better and better. They are cheap to build requiring only a dock and some storage. Analysis of the local market is the key for trading stations, you want to trade in stuff for which there are multiple supplier stations within range of your trade station to get the best buy prices. The importance of trade stations is again that station ships start with a two sector range so they effectively replace autotraders and they also have much more strategic significance than autotraders do.

Building a network of mining and trading stations like this means you can laugh in the face of 3* pilots - they are irrelevant. Their station managers level up really fast too so they just get better and better.

[Astasia]

0 and 1 star seminars are trivial to get, just buy them from stations. 2 and 3 star seminars show up as rewards very often for trade guild missions as mentioned, PIO is another good option for them. I usually have a stockpile sitting around so when I get a new ship I can instantly boost them to 4 stars.

[Inkarnus]

Originally posted by Itchy.de:

It's so much easier to search stations for 3-Star Pilots and hire them than trying to level them up, unless you have the required training items for this.

Training pilots on the job can takes several days since the chance for experience gains is so tiny. I believe there are mods addressing this issue, but if you play vanilla then it's so bad you consider it broken.

Do terrans even have lv3 pilots ? only saw 2 stars full or below.

On the note on leveling its kinda a bad move to tie resource gain to leveled crew when some commands dont even level them above 2 stars -_- atleast in my view