How to add new crew member to bridge?

[Hemperbud]

So i just started playing and got to the point with my federation character to get a new ship, so i picked the cruiser. Now i have an empty spot on my bridge and also an officer i could put in that slot. problem is, everytime i go to "commission" said officer, desiree comes on screen and tells me my ship doesnt have room for another crew member. Am i lost here or do i just need to continue the story to gain access to adding crew members?

[Agnithrax]

Afraid so, you should be able to pop your Boff open at the next tier where you get rank, then 1 more each next rank until i think it's rear admiral maybe where you can have your hearts content of Boffs and you start kicking them for not being purple enough or not having multiple Space traits and upgrade the quality of Boff's in the slots you gots. Also, don't forget to promote your Boff's; be conservative about it at first because it takes something called expertise which you won't have a lot of to start but eventually you'll need to promote those guys to get the most out of their skills. Full promote all your ground duders, but just inch the Space ones up in promotion as you'll be switching those around alot and you could jam yourself up there without enough expertise to man your ship well enough.

[ytre]

you need space in the list of active BOFFs. That is the list that is continuation of the captain, the active ship then active BOFFs.
besides that you need space in the stations on the active ship.

[Hemperbud]

Originally posted by ytre:

you need space in the list of active BOFFs. That is the list that is continuation of the captain, the active ship then active BOFFs.
besides that you need space in the stations on the active ship.

so i'll get more spaces as i rank up? my ship already has an open spot

[Maj_Cyric]

Something to know about Boffs and the Boff slots on the far left side in this Screenshot, which are how many Boffs you can have commissioned at a given time..
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2423809306

Every player starts with 4 slots, Silver account player (100% F2P) will get another 1 slot added to the starting 4 slots upon reaching levels 20, 40, 50 and level 60 for a total of 8 Boff slots for free just from leveling up..

Players with a Gold account (Accounts from back in the monthly Script days and Lifetime Subs, I.E. Legacy/Lifetime accounts) get 2 Boff slots at levels 10, 20 and level 40 for a total of 10 Boff slots..

As for expanding to have more than the free 8 or 10 Boff slots from leveling up, the most Boff Slots a player can unlock (expand) is 54 total commissioned Boffs..

Adding more Boff slots requires a player to buy the "Bridge Officer Slots (2)" in the Zen Store, for a cost of 250 Zen for extra 2 slots (In the "Slots/Services" Tab) .. or if the "Elite Starter Pack" is bought which costs 1000 Zen (best only to buy this when it's on sale), will also give 2 extra Boff slots (also upgrades a silver account to a gold account and giving a player more than just 2 Boff slots)

As for what you can do when limited with only 8 or 10 Commissioned Boff slots, is to best keep only the Boffs that are Purple (Very Rare) or Blue (Rare), and only keeping your starting Common/Uncommon (White/Green) Boffs until you can find a Purple replacement (Very Rare).. Which is because Rare & Very Rare Boffs get Superior Traits (Blue get 1, Purple get 2), Common & Uncommon Boffs (White/Green) ones do not..

A safe Boff count is to have 2 of each (Tactical, Engineer, Science) with the rest based on whatever your needs are in game (I.E. a class type focus or favoring etc).. That way if you find yourself in a ship with 2 seats for certain Boff class then you will at least have 2 Boffs you can fill the seat with.. There is only a tiny handful of ships that seat 6 Boffs, the KDF Na'Qjej Intel Battlecruiser is one of them, and every ship has at least 1 seat for each class..

Which to help players who might get a Boff but either lacks an open slot or just isn't ready to Commission them yet there is the Boff candidates "Storage" space..
Located on the Stations tab at the bottom (it can hold 15 Boffs at a given time)

As seen in this Screenshot where it open showing the Boff candidates in waiting, which can be either commissioned adding them to the list on the left, turned into a training manual or if not bound, could be listed/sold on the exchange)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2163092749

Now, as for placing/using your Boffs on your ship..
Each ship has Boff stations (Seats) which based on the Tier and the Class of the ship, it will favor Tactical, Engineering or Science seating (can easily be noticed in T6 ships with it having a Commander seat, I.E. Seat that allows a Boff to use all 4 ranks of skills)..
So based on the ship you are using at the time is what Boffs you will or won't be able to use or not use..

Example The Screenshot above shows the Boffs the seating for my old KDF D9 Dreadnought Battlecruiser.. It is able to seat 5 Boffs.. those 5 Boffs are 1 Engineer (Cmd Rank), 1 Engineer/Command (Lt Rank), 1 Tactical/Temporal Operative (Lt. Cmd'er Rank), 1 Science (Lt Rank) and 1 Universal (Lt Rank).. Universal seats (most common in Raider Class ships) isn't limited like a Tact/Eng/Sci Seat where only that class of Boff can be stationed there, but any Boff type can be seated in a Uni Boff seat...

[cap-boulanger]

Originally posted by Hemperbud:

Originally posted by ytre:

you need space in the list of active BOFFs. That is the list that is continuation of the captain, the active ship then active BOFFs.
besides that you need space in the stations on the active ship.

so i'll get more spaces as i rank up? my ship already has an open spot

Your *ship* may have an open slot but maybe your captain's officer roster does not.

If you look on the captain status screen you'll see a column of tabs on the left, listing your captain, then ship, then all the officers you currently have. At the bottom of that list there may or may not be gray bars that say [No Officer] (or something like that). You need one of those bars in order to add an officer.

You can get those either by purchasing them or by levelling up (they are usually awarded at levels that are multiples of ten).

You can then choose the appropriate number and type of officers from that list (which is permanent) to fill the seats on your bridge and/or the four away team slots.