actually, picking boffs for ground is.... not useful at all.
It does.. nothing. nothing noteworthy.


Id rather have 2 "sets" of space boffs with different ability setups so i can mix and match them as needed.

So is the only real difference between normal and rare bridge officers the skills they start with ? of the 5 purple BOff's i got from 40-45 they had rank 3 abilities in more then one spot (like cannon rapid fire 3 in slot 2 , and dispersal pattern 3 in slot 4 , etc) Are there any skills you can get on them that cant be bought from the power store / trained to them by you from skill's you've trained the rank 1 version of ?

No? Once I made my current away team all Lt Cmndrs (I also liberally split the points between/space ground) I noticed my ground engagements getting really fast. I also took ground powers with a deliberate plan.

But I'm weird, and enjoy ground combat a lot.

Kinda the same thing here. I only have 2 boffs that are both away and bridge. The others are full time bridge or dedicated away team.

Well I wouldnt approach it this way normally but since you made such a blunt statement..

nothing stops you from picking boffs for ground and then putting in some space abilities that you want on reserve. It is noteworthy. It is something to do, it does have benefits, and for those who do enjoy ground missions it is moreso. So many "not noteworthy" things people do to edge in alittle better performance. This is no different. Same merit.

I'd have to disagree with this statement, a good combination of ground traits on a rare BO can really speed up ground missions...

I recently bought a rare alien science officer with Superior TK and Basic Luck from the exchange for 5k, then trained him into some AE ground abilities that benefit from both traits, thought it would be an interesting thing to try out...

It's pretty nice when 2-3 mobs from every group are exposed and rooted close together within the first 2 seconds of every ground pull.

As an added bonus he has Viral Matrix III too...

This is categorically untrue. The ONLY reason to choose a rare BO over a common one is the differences in their traits. Any BO can learn any (obviously, class-specific) skill; so once you have access to that skill, either because you've recruited a rare BO who knows it or because it can be purchased from a trainer, it is totally irrelevant what quality of officer is using it. The only functional difference in bridge officer performance is in the traits they have, which are immutable.

With a bit of an RP element involved, I see the extra BOffs as the backup bridge crew for when my elite team is on away missions. So have outfitted them as such. I have a sneaking suspicion that the devs are not done with BOffs yet, and we may see things like crew duty rotations later, so am planning ahead for it.

Honestly, the game is still in it's infancy, over the course of the next year we should see alot of changes to how BOffs are used and improvements along the way. Having a well equiped and trained up backup team seems like good forethought.

I started replacing crew early with blues bought off the exchange, mostly for better ground traits (superior creative, superior nerve pinch, superior limited telepathy, etc).

My original bridge crew is still around, but backup officers are available with skillsets that I can use to switch out when necessary. A PVP crew loadout might be different than one taken on exploration missions.

my ground team consists of 3 engineers with quantum motar 2 1 science officer with heal, they all got phaser turret 2 and repair shield and phaser turret 1.

Lets just say that after i drop that lot i dont need anything tactical it just all dies