Can't do anything due to pilot skill level

[Hopeless Knight]

Just finished building my first space station and I can't make the subordinates mine the necessary resources from different sectors due to the skill level. How can I solve this or better yet ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ remove it?

Honestly this all skill level is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ terrible design, not only it has increased the necessary micro in early game to chain orders of mine -> sell -> mine instead of just clicking a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ button to simply auto mine from neighboring sectors but after 20h+ of playtime they barely gained a single star. And as I write I watch the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 3 star level requirement for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ auto trade/mine and it's making my blood boil just thinking about how much more time I'll need to micro fleets of ships just because the developers had a brainfart and thought this was a good mechanic. Honestly, if there's no way to remove this mechanic I'll just throw this game to the trash bin for crying out loud.

[Killzad]

You can dock at your station go to trader corner and check the trader if it has Management seminar Book that you can via the com give to your Station manager. The shop could have two tires of books one is once given to your manager it takes him from zero star to full 1 star an the second is from 1 star it takes him to 2 star. Mind you if your manager is at 0.99% full of skill star he will go to 1.99% and with the second book it will take him to 2.99% this is almost 3 star.

If you have +10 reputation with Teladi check your missions tab there should be a mission that say to meet faction representative and accept promotion once you do if you haven't already. A new mission will be available that ask you to go and talk to a guy from trade guild once you pay a small fee to join the tap with missions will update and now you can accept missions from your mission tab once you are in Teladi space. this missions can have as rewards Manager Seminar books that give skills from 2 star and up and 3 and up and 4 and up so if you do some missions you can go all the way train instant a manager up to 5 stars.

[Azunai]

Range of operations for subordinates is determined by the station manager level, not their pilot level.

[atrox]

If it's about the range, it depends on the managers level. Get skill books/seminars to raise it immediately, or assign some traders to the station which will raise management slow but continually.

As intermediate solution set your miners to basic automine, set range to 0 sectors for selling where your factory is. If you set high enough buy prices the autominers will supply your station quite well.

Also check your crew(s) on your ship(s). They often level up a second or third skill like morale/management and so on. You can switch out managers/crew at any time.

A fast and reliable way to skill up pilots/crews is to set them on explore, second best is basic automine, especially with S miners. Check the crews from time to time if some manager is among them.

And if you are really desperate, check all the wharfs/equipment docks/trade stations if you can find a manager to hire.

[Venerable_Sin]

Yeah, unfortunately some things seem like a great idea/game mechanic to design your game around. Don't get too upset, they know a lot about programming, but not so much about engineering. Everything we (humans) think we know about the universe is based off of our understanding of light and material sciences. We think the are smarter than ancient man, but the fact is we are more oppressed and, in many respects, more ignorant than them. The only difference is our understanding of material science and the scale of atrocities that happen which makes us think we're superior. They knew how to feed themselves, we know how to go to a grocery store. With that said, try to understand they are human and sometimes do things that don't make a whole lot of sense or have no basis in reality, which aligns perfectly with their sci-fi theme, because... Lets face it.. Most people don't know many things and they will get away with the ignorance of it all. After all, you can't build a house without a foundation, right? Or.. as most people will say: It's a game, it's fantasy, just enjoy it.

So to answer your question: There are two workarounds, that I can think of off the top of my head, you can do which will negate or work with the poor theme of "star level requirements". The immediate answer to your question which aligns with how the developers designed their game to be played is to simply increase the station managers management skill level or have a station close enough to where you're mining.

Any ship assigned to a station is subordinate to the station manager. One way to think of it is: The station manager becomes the pilot, not the pilot. The range of the ship is then determined by the skill level amount of the management skill of the station manager, not the amount of stars of the pilot skill of the captain of the ship. The pilot basically means nothing when assigned to a station with a station manager. Confusing? Yeah, they want it to be. This basically means any ship will not be able to see anything outside of the range of the station manager's star level. Each star adds one sector range. To further complicate things, the station manager requires resource probes near the resources you're looking to harvest in order to see the resource. Otherwise the ship will wander around looking for resources very ineffectively. You can increase the management of the station manager by having a lot of successful trades (They must be profitable). The more trades, the faster the manager levels the management skill. Another way is to give the station manager a skill book. You can get level 0-1 books from any traders at a station and sometimes from NPC loot. Level 2-4 are only obtainable via quests, so you can explore your galaxy for those. (Access to quests are linked to your reputation to factions)

If that isn't amenable to you then you could do this instead: Many people build relay stations or mining outposts. You can build a dock with a storage module in the system you are mining. (Requires level 0-1 management station manager or pilot) Then assign the miner to the station manager and transport the ore/gas from the outpost to the production site. You could get fancy with this and do many things other than just assign to the station manager, but if you go this route, that is the least complicated. Have a small outpost, transport from outpost to production facility via repeat order, manual orders or a station manager with the skill level requirements.

If that doesn't work for you: Enjoy another game and don't sweat the small stuff. It's not worth it. Anyways this game is a love/hate relationship. When you forget this enough to attempt to enjoy it again it will be there for you, along with all of us who are willing to help or "have been there too". Good Luck!

Oh, and don't get me started on the priority ware issue. You should have a few hundred hours of enjoyment before this becomes a problem for you, if it ever does or if you're even the type of person who will notice this enough for you to give a darn. :)

[Alakbar]

I really haven't had an issue with station managers and pilots skills, I've even gone as far as to fire a 2 star pilot to start a new one who's a 1 star because I feel like it. The cost for a 1 star session isn't much. Plus it adds to the 1 star so you get 2 stars. I've added 2 freighters to a station manager to trade for and just let them go on their own. They will figure it out. Now I have an almost 5 star station manager with 3 star freighter pilots.

I saw on another thread something about maximizing skill gain because of station space available or something like that.

[Venerable_Sin]

Originally posted by Alakbar:

I saw on another thread something about maximizing skill gain because of station space available or something like that.

Without getting too complicated, the easiest way to think of it is this:

Pilot skill level: Most effective way to level a pilot is via the pilot school. The 2nd most effective way to level a pilot is by scoring kills of a ship that has a larger threat level than the pilots ship. The maximum gain for time invested tops out at 3 stars, or 9/15 stars. Anything after that takes more and more kills from the pilot, making it more likely to lose the pilot.
Moral skill level: Quickest way to level this is by combat or by rescue. 2nd quickest is with profitable trades. Unprofitable trades will reduce this.
Management: Quickest way to level this is by having profitable trades. The more ships completing trades, the more is added to the skill level.
Marine: Quickest way to level this is via the marine school. The other way is by pirating a ship.
Engineering: The quickest way to level this is by building stations with a construction ship.

Station storage space really only determines the automatic pricing of a buy or sell order