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[Megas]

I am mulling over not using officers at all and use Support Doctrine to uplift every ship in the fleet, aside from flagship.  The idea is I do not want to manage a bunch of officers (pay their upkeep, level them up, and pick their skills) and squeeze more ships within the 160 DP budget.

While officers are good, I find leveling them a pain, and I thought "why not just dump them all?" I suppose I can train eight of them then sideline them in case I reassign skills and need them later without Support Doctrine.

[Kriby]

48 AMB Afflictor (P) later...

[Drazhya]

I've been doing something like that, except I keep my officers on logistics ships and really tiny frigates, so I still have my DP. Seems like the ship AI behaves a lot worse without officers, but 38 DP Radiants (4 d-mods + relevant skill) are nice.

[Megas]

I've been doing something like that, except I keep my officers on logistics ships and really tiny frigates, so I still have my DP. Seems like the ship AI behaves a lot worse without officers, but 35 DP Radiants (5 d-mods + relevant skill) are nice.

What was your fleet doctrine?  Default is 2 or Steady across the board.

If I try Support Doctrine, I would want Hull Restoration too (which I really like), and that is ten points.  I also want Navigation... and Gunnery Implants.  That leaves three points left.  Either I go for Automated Ships or the first three Combat skills.  Piloting big ships without Helmsmanship or small ships without Combat Endurance is a pain, not to mention not having the three skills Support Doctrine provides to my fleet feels wrong, so I probably would give up Automated Ships.

Honestly, I would prefer Best of the Best with +1 s-mod and 200 minimum DP, but... losing all of those s-mods without any bonus xp refund after skill reassignment would really hurt.  I thought about Support Doctrine for less painful skill reassignment.

[Drazhya]

What was your fleet doctrine?  Default is 2 or Steady across the board.

I go with 3. 2 is just a little too gunshy. But my primary problems have been ships dropping their shields at really stupid times and my AI capital ships chasing frigates across the map if I'm not telling them to engage the enemy capital ships (accelerated shields on everything has helped with the first problem). Lack of Helmsmanship does hurt, yeah, though I'm running with a higher level cap so I still have it. Even at level 15, though, I could get 35-36 DP Radiants (the math's been a bit weird, so not sure which) and still have Gunnery Implants and Ordnance Expertise, which is nice. Auxiliary Thrusters can cover most of the loss of Helmsmanship as well.

[Thaago]

I haven't done this on purpose, but I have in the early/mid game essentially done this by accident. It happens if I'm short on officers, or my officers are only still level 2 or so, but I've reached a high enough level to get SD. The DP reduction doesn't usually matter because at that stage of the game I'm not up to 240 DP yet, but going from the usual leadership bonuses at this point to full SD bonus is transformational.

I think the main problem with going to the extreme this way is losing out on the Coordinated Maneuvers bonus, though I suppose nav relay hullmods on ships or capture points could make up the difference and save a skill point.

[Megas]

So far, I have played no Leadership games (because I want Combat 5, Automated Ships, and Hull Restoration).  However, if I play 60+ DP flagship, have Radiant wingman, I do not have enough ships on the field, and most of the ships on the field are not fast enough.  Currently, I have not leveled up my officers because I do not know what ships they will finally end up in to optimize them for.  (Also, I could not decide to use classic Steady or use mostly Aggressive, though I just put Aggressive on most officers.)

So far, I had more success with weaker but more numerous ships (from high-end frigates to lighter cruisers), aside from Radiant wingman and a 40 DP or less flagship.  Now, my fleet is hauling a bunch of big ships (mainly because they have d-mods, and I am waiting for Hull Restoration to fix them before I put them back in storage.)

I am interested in Leadership 5 because 160 DP is not enough ships on the field (if I use conventional fleet).  I do not want to give up other skills, so I do not want to lock myself in BotB and lose too many skill points spent on third s-mods.  Not to mention leveling up officers is something I do not enjoy doing, and I have half a mind to just pick the skills that are default on a Beta AI core for officers, except replace Targeting Analysis with Missile Specialization (never enough missiles) or Ordnance Expert, and maybe Impact Mitigation for Field Modulation.

I like the carrier skills, and if I go for Leadership 5, I would definitely take them.

I think the main problem with going to the extreme this way is losing out on the Coordinated Maneuvers bonus, though I suppose nav relay hullmods on ships or capture points could make up the difference and save a skill point.

The skill I would miss most is Wolfpack Tactics.  I get tired of my non-Remnant frigates running out of PPT before midway through the fight.  Hardened Subsystems alone is not enough.

I have just leveled up my officers and putting Combat Endurance on every last one mainly for more PPT on small ships, though I also like more max CR.

[Vanshilar]

Yup I've thought of doing the same thing. The reason is a bit more subtle though: since the XP bonus also depends on how many officers you have, then the less officers you use, the more XP you get. A level 6 officer costs you roughly as much as a 30-DP ship in terms of your XP bonus, as far as I can tell.

However, the XP bonus does *not* account for Support Doctrine, i.e. even if the ship has fewer deployment points (allowing you to deploy more of them), it still counts the same in terms of calculating the XP bonus.

[FenMuir]

I am mulling over not using officers at all and use Support Doctrine to uplift every ship in the fleet, aside from flagship.  The idea is I do not want to manage a bunch of officers (pay their upkeep, level them up, and pick their skills) and squeeze more ships within the 160 DP budget.

I found this to work amazingly well with Derelict Operations. Just make sure to build in the Reinforced Bulkhead.
Examples:
Hyperions:

Spoiler

[close]

XIV Legions:

Spoiler

[close]

Colossus MK2 Carriers:

Spoiler

[close]

(Publishes Jan 22nd)
Medley Moras:

Spoiler

[close]

(Publishes Jan 23rd)
Eradicators:

Spoiler

[close]

(Publishes Jan 24th)

Enjoy!

[itBeABruhMoment]

It depends on the ship, ask yourself if 20% less dp accounts for missing out on skills and a favourable personality

[Null Ganymede]

I like the XP bonus idea. Early to mid-game your boom is mostly slowed by XP and credit gain.

Does having officers available but not assigned penalize XP gain? Lack of aggressive personalities can be mitigated by liberal use of Full Assault and fighter cover.

[Jaghaimo]

Lack of aggressive personalities can be mitigated by liberal use of Full Assault and fighter cover.

It depends on the ship, ask yourself if 20% less dp accounts for missing out on skills and a favourable personality

Lack of aggressive / favourable personality can be mitigated with doctrine setting. All your unofficered ships behave the same way (default is Steady) so just change the slider towards Aggressive or even Reckless.

[Megas]

The two things that might discourage me from considering Support Doctrine.

* Not using officers with Ordnance Expert.  It is hard to have ships with good loadouts interchangeable with flagship and grunt wingmen because loadouts that have enough dissipation with Ordnance Expert suddenly do not without it.

* Cannot get both Automated Ships and Combat skills (along with Support Doctrine and Hull Restoration).

[Low Settings]

Yup I've thought of doing the same thing. The reason is a bit more subtle though: since the XP bonus also depends on how many officers you have, then the less officers you use, the more XP you get. A level 6 officer costs you roughly as much as a 30-DP ship in terms of your XP bonus, as far as I can tell.

However, the XP bonus does *not* account for Support Doctrine, i.e. even if the ship has fewer deployment points (allowing you to deploy more of them), it still counts the same in terms of calculating the XP bonus.

Do you get double exp? Cause that would make it worth not getting officers until the entire fleet has built ins

[Vanshilar]

Does having officers available but not assigned penalize XP gain?

Yes, it only matters if you have officers and the number of skills they have, period, it doesn't matter which ship they're assigned to or if they're assigned at all. Just the fact that you have them is what matters. Mercenaries also count as officers.

At the expense of a threadjack, here's what I can tell so far about the XP bonus. It's just a simple comparison of your fleet's DP with the enemy fleet's DP, far as I can tell, i.e. if the enemy fleet's DP is 3x your fleet's DP, then you get a +200% XP bonus. But with the following stipulations:

* Officers count as 7.5 DP, plus 3.75 DP for every skill they have (elite or not). So a level 4 officer (gamma) is worth 22.5 DP, a level 6 officer (beta) is worth 30 DP, a level 8 officer (alpha) is worth 37.5 DP. Yes cores use the same formula.
* This only counts the actual number of skills. So an officer that has enough XP to be level 6, but is still a level 1 officer with just 1 skill, still counts as a level 1 officer.
* It doesn't matter which ship the officer is assigned to, nor if the officer is assigned at all, nor if it's a mercenary or regular officer. If it's on your roster, it counts, period.
* You the player character also count as an officer. So far as I can tell, so yes at level 15 you the player contribute 63.75 DP to your fleet's DP amount for the XP formula, regardless of whether or not you use those skills (so might as well as use them). Although thus far in my testing it doesn't always match up, so there may be something more to it, but it seems pretty close.
* A ship with the "CIVILIAN" tag in ship_data.csv always counts as 1/4 of their DP, regardless of their weapons or hullmods (i.e. militarized hull hullmod). Note I said the "CIVILIAN" tag, and not the "civilian-grade hull" hullmod, so ships like the Shepherd or Venture or Atlas 2 do *not* fall into this category.
* Other ships count as 1/4 of their DP if they have no weapons (including no fighters). Hullmods don't matter. But if they have any weapons (including built-in), they'll count for the full DP. This means that Shepherds (which have a built-in fighter) will count as full DP, unless you put converted fighter bay on it, and no weapons, at which point it'll count for 1/4 of its DP.

So if you're looking to maximize the XP bonus, you want to minimize taking on officers, and have high-level officers rather than more lower-level ones (a level 4 officer costs as much as 2 level 1 officers, but you get twice the number of skills). Also you might as well as make the skills elite, since that improves the ship but with no effect on the XP bonus. You might try to make use of civilian ships (again, those with the tag, not the hullmod), since they count as 1/4 the DP, but I haven't bothered with that.

It also means that you should look for enemy fleets with lots of officers. The DP contribution from enemy officers can easily outweigh that of their ships, especially for late-game fleets like the ones of [REDACTED]. So that's where the real bonus comes from.

I'm sure someone can point to where this is calculated in the code, for the full specifics, but this is from testing in-game in 0.95.1a-RC6.

Do you get double exp? Cause that would make it worth not getting officers until the entire fleet has built ins

It depends on your fleet. For example a full combat fleet would be 240 DP, then you have some support ships which may cost say 15 DP, then your own character which costs 63.75 DP. If you have 10 level 6 officers then that's 300 DP, so cutting them out would almost double your XP. And obviously any alpha cores being used on ships (not just sitting in inventory) would cost you 37.5 DP each.

Built-in hullmods do not affect your XP bonus, so you might as well as use them.

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I had a dream of using Support Doctrine for a fleet of a couple of big ships (say, Ziggurat and Radiant) supported by say...25 Monitors. Since no officers would be used, the XP bonus would be up at the max of +500% most of the time. Unfortunately I'm running into a problem where the total fleet points ("fleet pts" in ship_data.csv) are so small that nearby [REDACTED] fleets refuse to assist, making it difficult to do multi-fleet testing for the full +500% XP bonus. Sigh. I know this is purely a fleet point issue since if I change the fleet points of the Monitor from 5 to say 15 and make no other changes, or if I change the fleet points of the Ziggurat from 40 to say 400 and make no other changes, then the other fleet will join just fine. (Doing so does not affect the XP bonus, since this is fleet points, not deployment points i.e. DP.) Not sure how the "nearby fleet assist or not" code works, so I don't know if frigate fleet points is reduced or something making this fleet considered too "small", even though my regular fleet of say Odysseys/Apogees for example can attract multiple fleets just fine.