What equipment do you give your crew?

[Wayfare]

I'm trying to come up with excuses to put those cool pilot hats and streamlined berets on my crewpeople, but can't other than looks. It seems the best choice is to turtle up all your crew in the heaviest armor you can afford, except for the engineer who gets light gear so she can run around fixing things and getting ammo for the nose gun if needed.

[OffBrandSpen]

with gear?go to the crew gear. with items while flying? click on your crew member then left click on the fire extinguisher or med kit. Once a fire extinguisher or medkit has been chosen new icons will pop up. Med kits can only be used when the crew member goes down. To heal them during a flight, make them go to the bed.

[Kourgath223]

Originally posted by Spentaneous:

with gear?go to the crew gear. with items while flying? click on your crew member then left click on the fire extinguisher or med kit. Once a fire extinguisher or medkit has been chosen new icons will pop up. Med kits can only be used when the crew member goes down. To heal them during a flight, make them go to the bed.

You appear to be misunderstanding the question being asked. Wayfare doesn't want to know how to equip your crew they want to know what people equip their crew with, ie what gear you put them in.

To answer your question Wayfare all my people are in the heaviest armor I have, even the engineer, along with the warmest cloths. The idea behind this is that I can safely fly at high alt. and not have to worry about getting shot at much, outside of the me 163s, me 262s, and apparently Hortens later on.

[Team Triss]

I give the gunners, who are usually in the direct path of fire, heavier armor and helmets. The pilot gets the funky hat (anyone know if survival statistics are on a per person or per crew basis?) but I get the engineer the service hat to maximize his speed, since he's running around the plan at all times.

[Alf]

It's a balance between speed, armour, survival ability, and how much you're willing to spend. The presets actually work pretty well when you have lots to spend later in the game. Here's what I'd recommend:

- Pilot: Focus on survival gear; the pilot doesn't get shot much and doesn't need to move around so speed and armour doesn't matter.
- Gunners: Turtle up with a lot of armour.
- Bomber: This is where you can save money. He doesn't get shot much and doesn't need to move much. Combination of survival and armour recommended if you have cash.
- Engineer: It's all about speed, this is the crew member that needs to run around most.
- Navigator and radio operator: Depends on what you want to use them for, but probably a combination of survival, speed, and armour.

Also try to experiment with different strategies. I often use the navigator to heal people when my engineer is manning the ventral turret, because if I'm already flying in the right general direction I don't need to adjust course all the time.

[FreedomFighter]

Ignore the survival gear and upgrade. If you need to go down that path, it is mean your bomber is going down which already mean soft-restart anyway. Armor everyone up around 20-25 is good start since sometime, someone will get full strafe run from fighter and it will kill them if they have armor too low. Everyone that doesn't need to leave their station; go full armor with them. Keep repair man speed around 75% is good enough.

[Wayfare]

Originally posted by Kourgath223:

Wayfare doesn't want to know how to equip your crew they want to know what people equip their crew with, ie what gear you put them in.

True! I edited the post title to better reflect this, sorry for the confusion :)

Originally posted by FreedomFighterEx:

Ignore the survival gear and upgrade. If you need to go down that path, it is mean your bomber is going down which already mean soft-restart anyway. Armor everyone up around 20-25 is good start since sometime, someone will get full strafe run from fighter and it will kill them if they have armor too low. Everyone that doesn't need to leave their station; go full armor with them. Keep repair man speed around 75% is good enough.

This is the path I currently follow and it's working well so far, 3 critical missions in and about 25 sorties flown. I am intrigued about other options though and glad to hear people are having success with them.

My current bomber "High Roller" is all muscle, beating its way through enemy fighters and flak with big guns, thick skin and a heavily armored crew. I'm tempted to start a second career and make a lean bomber with the crew wrapped up in warm clothes and fly hi-lo-hi profiles.

[David]

Yeah I find my gunners (back and top) are getting shot up the most too.

Right now everyone has a heavy helmet, medium O2, light flak vest and light clothing. Even the engineer, because mine mostly stays put to change fuel and uses the automatic extinguisher and he gets shot up just as much as the R.O. and Nav if not more. It's something to consider to maybe pad up the gunners since they never really move, same for the pilot even if he doesn't get shot much.