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[Kpop]

Chicken or egg kind of thing. As I pick up officers I'll throw them into ships that benefit their strengths, wouldn't dream of putting a carrier captain in an Onslaught.

That said, would you start cutting officers if you actually wanted a fitting officer for an Onslaught(or anything really) or would you just field more ships that fit your current officers?

[Thaago]

A bit of both for me!

For 'ships tailored for officers' this is almost entirely dependent on how many reckless officers I manage to find. That kind of officer is going to get shot up a lot (and cause massive amount of mayhem and carnage in the process), so I want to put them either on armored behemoths or SO murderboats. I'll also fit for closer ranged weapons and missiles that emphasize quick kills over sustainability (harpoons instead of reapers in medium mounts, hammer barrages instead of locusts, etc).

For 'officers tailored for ships' it depends if I'm shooting for a particular ship/theme/playstyle. If I want a battleline of Paragons I'm not going to take a missile skill if I can help it, and similarly Gunnery Implants has low value because energy weapons are extremely accurate and have short base range. Conquests  are the exact opposite: I want missile skills and full offense, prioritizing gunnery implants 1 to the point where I'm willing to give up the rank 3 of many other skills in order to get it (probably the only time I'll take incomplete skills).

I've also occasionally built beam PD Eagles with an officer tailored with the missile/fighter damage skill and range boosters, ship with IPDAI, ITU, Optics, turret gyros. Its not exactly an offensive powerhouse and its range can be wasted if the battlespace is too crowded, but the triple ballistics still do work and the ~1440 range ~+125% damage beams stop missile spam cold. Its pretty niche though, not something I regularly do.

[intrinsic_parity]

I personally don't think it's worth having an officer specialized for a specific ship, because I don't want to be locked into having that ship in my fleet for the whole game. I generally have a few archetypical officers I'm aiming for that are good on a broad set of ships I'm planning on using (cautious/steady carrier officers with skills aimed at running away and surviving, aggressive warship captain with armor skills to accommodate for bad decisions (with or without missiles) etc.). That being said, I definitely do cut officers that roll skills I don't want, but more because there are some skills that are just generally less useful IMO, rather than because I want an officer with specific skills.

Also, I disagree that gunnery implants is bad on a paragon. Range is always beneficial barring SO, and the paragon really doesn't want to be outranged by stuff since it is so slow. Personally, I want more range on anything that's not SO, and I think the AI really benefits more from range than the objective value of the skill. Also, heavy needlers really benefit from gunnery implants 1 (I frequently use them on paragons) and any beam heavy paragon build will also love extra range.

[Maeleth]

Just as a previous poster, I prefer to train a general archetype of officer for a certain composition of the fleet (tanks with every possible defensive skill, hybrids with missile+regular guns or fighter+missile, pure support PD/salamander boats, and so on).

The only type of ship I'd be willing to tailor an officer for would be a unique modded uberboat with unusual weapon mounts or active system.

[TaLaR]

I have 3 archetypes: direct combat, carrier and reckless(like direct combat, but with armor skills at max priority). Direct combat and carriers may also have or not have missile spec for 2 more sub-types.

[shoi]

I randomly skill up officers and put them wherever, only distinction is keeping reckless/aggressive off carriers and officers with carrier skills on them. Don't put much thought into them at all, lol

[Thaago]

Aggressive actually works quite well on carriers! It doesn't make them charge into battle: instead it makes them deploy their fighters offensively all the time rather than escorting allied ships, and makes them fire their missiles a little more I think.

[Daynen]

I find the destruction of a ship is far more important than how many ships it kills; it doesn't matter if you plow through four fleets of caps if you lose your best ships.  Thus I tend to have most officers lean heavily on survival skills for damage reduction, more efficient shield use, better fighter counters, etc.  If I'm putting them in carriers then obviously I go for the green skills but otherwise I tend to give them everything I can to keep them alive while I get the job done.

Thing is, your officers can very well outlast your ships because they don't simply die when your ships pop, so perhaps it's better to have officers that are reliable and flexible and find them ships that suit them, rather than the other way around.  You might have to replace a capital ship a dozen times but a perfectly built officer is for life.

[shoi]

Aggressive actually works quite well on carriers! It doesn't make them charge into battle: instead it makes them deploy their fighters offensively all the time rather than escorting allied ships, and makes them fire their missiles a little more I think.

Oh, I didn't know that! Will try it out

[Hiruma Kai]

My officers tend to be 3 generic flavors.  Front line shield, front line armor, and carrier.  The reckless pilot role typically is filled by myself.  Officers are aimed at cruiser/capital tier, but these seem to do fine with smaller ships at the earlier stages of the game.  My typical distribution is 50% carrier, 25% front line shield, 25% front line armor officers, although if I'm doing a themed faction run, it may differ from that.

Every officer has to have Combat Endurance, or else they get cut at level 18, as my late game fights tend to go long.  I see it as 25% more officer time plus 5% offense/defense.

Carrier pilots get the 3 carrier skills, plus some defensive skills.

Front liners grab Ordinance Expertise + Target Analysis, and then fill the rest with appropriate defensive skills. Gunnery implants is fine as well if it shows up.  I tend to skip missile ships, if only because they overlap with carriers in usage.  I also heavily weight Advanced Countermeasures as a positive for all officer types.

[SCC]

My officers get the better of two options they're offered. My ships get whatever loadout (and role) I want from them. I fit them both later on and it works well enough that I don't feel the need to change my ways.