Is It Worth Giving BO's Power Cells, Hypo's and Shield Cells?
 

I have given my BO's the various hypo's, shield generators and power cells for ground missions. From what I can tell, they use them pretty fast.

I am wondering if they automatically use the appropriate device when their health / shield strength goes below a certain percentage? If so, is it worth trying to keep them stocked up?

Also, if a BO is incapacitated (dies) and you revive them, do they lose any of those items? I wouldn't think they would, since they retain their Personal Shield, Body Armor and Weapon.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

As a side note, on one ground mission I was incapacitated and I got to watch my away team fight a lengthy battle with a bunch of Klingons and win. It was very entertaining.

What's also fun is that you can still activate their abilities while you are incapacitated, so you have some control over the battle even while you're unconscious.

As for the question - Do they use items appropriately?

Shield charges and power boosts: Kinda

Food: God no

I would never buy food, hypos, etc for my bofs, but it never hurts to give them what drops.

For my away team, it seems random. I gave my tactical officer a hypo and she used it right away...when she had full health and we were out of combat. I gave them all tribbles to speed out of combat healing, but they don't always use them.

One ground mission was extremely difficult for my team and upon respawning for the nth time, I decided to load them up with hypos, shield regens and power devices. We managed to live a wee bit longer before the Klingon Swordmaster and Dahiro Master made mashed potatoes out of us. 2200 total hitpoints on one enemy...bah.

When they get knocked out and I revive them, the damn tribbles are still there.

My last rough ground mission I was the first knocked out...this insane Klingon Dahiro Master sliced and diced almost of us into dog food. It ended up one on one and my engineer finally fried him. I kept clicking 'call for help' but was dismayed to see they were stuck on a box and couldn't walk around it.

They'll use 'em faster than you can supply them with things. And with the current state of ground combat, no, there really is no reason to give them the items, unless you're just going to destroy them anyway. Once you get your guys (and yourself) out of the starting gear, ground combat is easy. Maybe you'd want to hand them some if you ever run into a fight that does give you some trouble. But that would be a rarity.

They don't lose items.

That's when you use the go to command on the team UI.

My away team does the exact opposite. I'm forever running around hearing happy petted tribbles squeaking at me. Sure, it's my own fault for giving 3 away team members a tribble, but still, they sure do like 'petting their tribble' (sounds sooo dirty...) !

And yes, they eat the food immediately. But I've found that if you give them 2 bits of food, then they only eat the first and save the second for later.

They use their hypos either in combat, when not attacking or out of combat, when their health-level is below 100%. As a Science captain i use "Triage" after combat before the "red alert"-sign disappears to bring the health of all BOs to 100% and they don't use their hypos in that case.

My fights vs the borg in the 3 newest missions were pretty tough occasionally. I HATE those slow walking zombies. :p
If you don't instant kill them right away their personal shields come up and that's when things get tough. My friend and I developed some controversial tactics to beat them now, but fights definately get harder end-game.

We actually had to use the respawn button about 3 - 4 times before figuring out a better tactic. Usually we just breeze through the combat though, with the only hard thing being an occasional boss.

Try Collateral damage if you want a new challenge. :)

OT: I always keep them well supplied, but I don't really pay attention to when stuff gets used. It does seem to go a lil easier with them fully supplied then without. Apart from food I get the impression they use the items wisely. Food is just instantly used though, doesn't matter if we're out of combat and at full health.

They're just 4 additional storage slots for power cells & hypos.

One other thing that is important: always keep the large ones for yourself. Large hypos, large cells, large shieild charges, etc.

They do make a big difference when used at a critical moment and those would definitely be wasted on your AI team.