Trying to get lower level instruction manuals

[Cronniss]

So I'm new to STO. I'm trying to get some lower level skills for my bridge officers. I can make rank III manuals for them (depending on the skill), but I can't make rank I or II. For example, I can make Hazard Emitters III, but not Hazard Emitters I.

How do I get or make Hazard Emitters I? Or am I just out of luck?

Thanks for any info.

[s0t3lg]

the skill trainer is on esd for fed aligned characters. you can open the map and mouse over the different markers to see what they are.

[cap-boulanger]

There are also vendors that sell them at other locations, including one in Ops at DS9, and one on the science level at your Fleet Starbase.

For KDF, there's one in the basement level of the building next door to the Great Hall.

These have the same selection as the one at ESD, though. Ones you can't find there at all, are likely either lockbox ones, or there's also some that are sold via the seasonal event stores and some that are episode rewards. (For examples, I use Very Cold in Space, from the winter event store, and Destabilizing Resonance Beam, an episode reward, on my science builds.)

Also...

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από x1Heavy:

Keep just enough officers on your ship to be effective. Discard the rest.

As with many of x1Heavy's posts, this is not necessarily good or relevant information. You will have space to retain a certain number of officers (and can buy more space if you like). There's no need to discard an officer unless you're replacing with a better one and need the space. Yes, you can only actively use four to six officers on your ship, and four for your away team (and these can be totally separate groups if you like), but there is ABSOLUTELY NO benefit to *only* having six or eight or ten or however many officers... the extras are just "on the bench" so to speak. Think of a basketball team - you only have five players on the court at a time but there's ten or twelve on the roster. You don't (as x1Heavy implied here) get some sort of benefit out of empty roster slots.

[jonnin]

^^ personally, I prefer engineers on my ground team, almost exclusively, and my main ship is a science raider, so it holds as many as 5 science officers (I only use 4). So already I have 4 eng and 4 sci minimum to run my ships, but as I also run other ships I am compelled to have 3 tactical officers as well, as some of my ships also hold 3 of those with no real swapping them out -- many ships hold 3 of the same type, unfortunately, instead of offering a universal seat like the andorian kumari escort has 3 locked in tacs.

your bare minimum is going to be 9, 3 of each type, and each of those 3 having a specialization that matches your ships should have you functional in 90% or more of the ships available. But having 4 of each type is ideal.

Once you have that, convert the rest into high level training manuals to sell or to round out your team. If you are romulan, it may be slightly better to sell SROs -- the price used to be good, but its fallen way off over the years.

[NIkto Barada]

if you can doff, you can get em from turning newly doffed for boffs into manuals.but id settle for the better abilities instead and buy the low ones its cheaper that way

[Cronniss]

Thank you all for your tips & information! It is appreciated!

[delta]

Is there any difference between a green, blue or purple Boff? As far as I can tell, any of them can be promoted and then learn all the same skills with training manuals.

Also when you've got a Boff station for something like, Engineer/Miracle Worker, does it mean it can take an Engineer or a Miracle Worker, or does it have to be an Engineer with Miracle Worker specialization?

[Old Dude 999]

The best way to get the training manual you want is go to the exchange. Buy the bridge officer with that skill. Then instead of join your crew use the option to make the manual. Through the duty officer missions they occasionally have missions to get more as a reward.

For the different color bridge officers just mean they have access to higher level skills. So instead of all level 1 skills across the board they might have level 2, 3 etc.

For the different color duty officers they offer a bonus to mission success of +5 etc.

I highly recommend finding a good fleet to get you started and ask questions there. Enjoy.

[cap-boulanger]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από delta:

Is there any difference between a green, blue or purple Boff? As far as I can tell, any of them can be promoted and then learn all the same skills with training manuals.

Also when you've got a Boff station for something like, Engineer/Miracle Worker, does it mean it can take an Engineer or a Miracle Worker, or does it have to be an Engineer with Miracle Worker specialization?

The difference in color of BOFFs is simply a reflection of the overall quality of their traits. Purple = 2 "superior" level traits, Blue = 1 "superior", green = no superior.

However, traits are so different from each other that *which traits they are* can be much more important than just the quality. For example, if you have an officer with Superior Plasma Weapons Specialist and Superior Soldier - both of which are ground traits - that's not at all equal to another officer with Superior Romulan Operative and Superior Subterfuge - both space traits ; each would be markedly better than the other, when used in that environment. Yet both would be purples because they both have two superior traits.

As for specializations, it's somewhere in between your two assumptions. To use your example, if the seat is Eng/MW, then it requires an engineer officer. If that officer also has MW spec, which isn't required, but if they do, then you can mix and match both Engineer and MW skills.

To use a different example... if you have a Universal/Intel seat, you can place any officer in that seat and use their tactical, science, or engineer skills, whichever they have. And then, if they also have Intel spec, you could mix and match their base skills and Intel skills.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Old Dude 999:

For the different color bridge officers just mean they have access to higher level skills. So instead of all level 1 skills across the board they might have level 2, 3 etc.

This is bad info. See earlier in this post.

[delta]

Oh, speaking of the Superior Romulan Operatives...on the DPS League site, it says that for tactical slots to use male Romulan boffs with the Superior Romulan Operative trait. Is there something better about the male ones?

Also, I think I had one of my non-Romulan characters buy one of these guys, and the option to buy it wasn't greyed out, so does that mean I could have bought another?

[Sirius]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από delta:

Is there something better about the male ones?

No, it's purely about the traits, both genders can have them.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από delta:

Also, I think I had one of my non-Romulan characters buy one of these guys, and the option to buy it wasn't greyed out, so does that mean I could have bought another?

You can buy them on the exchange, but it will tell you something along the lines of "This officer has a different allegiance and refuses to work for you".

The only way for non Romulan-faction captains to straight buy ROM BOFFS is very expensive via the fleet embassy.

Also, it's really just about min maxing - if you are a casual player and want that crit goodness, I HIGHLY advise to just roll a Rom for easy and cheap(ish) access to ROM Boffs.
They are not exactly required unless you feel you need to squeeze out every little % of DPS.
And it's a straight horror show to get a full compliment on non-Rom characters.

Personal opinion though.

[cap-boulanger]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από delta:

Oh, speaking of the Superior Romulan Operatives...on the DPS League site, it says that for tactical slots to use male Romulan boffs with the Superior Romulan Operative trait. Is there something better about the male ones?

Also, I think I had one of my non-Romulan characters buy one of these guys, and the option to buy it wasn't greyed out, so does that mean I could have bought another?

That's outdated information. The Embassy Boff vendor was updated in September 2022.

*before* that, the buyable SROs for non-Romulans only came in one version, the male tactical.

(At that time, the only +crit traited BOFFs available for non-Romulans for science and engineering slots were the Jem'Hadar Vanguard from the Gamma expansion bundle, which have half the stats of SRO, and you can only equip one per class... and there's one bundle exclusive Weyoun clone that is only available to Dominion once per account that has the same trait as JHVs, but I forget when he became available.)

*now* they have male and female in all three classes. (The price was also doubled.)

As for buying multiples, you can only have one copy (of each entry at the vendor) *in your candidate officer storage*. Once you "commission" the officer, which moves them into your roster, then you can purchase another.

Watcher officers came out a couple months later than that, and being lockbox can be bought via the exchange, and have comparable (though not the same) stats to SRO... so depending on your budget those might work better. (If you're someone who already has a lot of excess fleet credits, sure, get Romulans, but if you don't, Watchers are probably more affordable.)