I had a thought and suggestion for Bridge Officers.

Let us have the ability to jump from our main character to gain direct control of a Boff both on bridge and on an away team.

For having them on an away team, the advantage here is that it would lend itself to newer forms of mission dynamics, where the away team splits up and the player has to control the Boff directly accomplish a goal.

As an example, picture going on a mission that requires the player to hit a collection of switches to solve a puzzle. The problem is that these switches are all in different locations. The player jumps to a Boff to send them on alone to get to the switch and hold it, then goes to the next Boff, then the next, etc.

I'm sure there are other ideas to capitalize on this, so I'd love to hear them.

For Boffs on the bridge, this would really mostly serve an RP function, with a character jumping from the main character to a Boff in order to interact with guests on the bridge.

I. Love. It.

The idea kinda reminds me of the recent Lego Star Wars, Lego Harry Potter, and similar games. They all have 2-player coop with the ability to change between characters at will (the earlier variants needed you to be very close to target, but LSW3, for example, lets you swap from any distance whatsoever) and singleplayer mode.