Value of Traits on Voyage Crew
Veterinary Phlox
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in Ready Room
When it come to a character's voyage potential, how should traits be valued? It's easy to rate characters by their raw skill numbers, but the potential for extra dilithium adds value as well. How much consideration should they get?
Two examples:
Suspiria and Garth of Izar have the same skills, same order, and extremely close numbers . . . but Garth has 6 traits per a skill that can grab extra dilithium, compared to Suspiria's 4. So Garth is clearly the better voyager.
But what if we compare the Xindi Insectoid Councilor and Suus Mahna Sarek? They have the same skills, albeit in different orders. But the Councilor has far better stats, and Sarek has far more voyagable traits. Which one is the better voyager?
Ultimately there's a ton of little factors that prevent an easy calculation. The EMA has half the voyagable traits as Determined Janeway (13 to 25), but he has 2/3 of the available traits for MED, and there aren't many characters other than the Doc's variants who have "hologram" in the MED category. EMA also has a rare skill set, which is another feather in his cap.
Even if I don't want to try and quantify all of these details, I was curious what general value folks would give traits?
Two examples:
Suspiria and Garth of Izar have the same skills, same order, and extremely close numbers . . . but Garth has 6 traits per a skill that can grab extra dilithium, compared to Suspiria's 4. So Garth is clearly the better voyager.
But what if we compare the Xindi Insectoid Councilor and Suus Mahna Sarek? They have the same skills, albeit in different orders. But the Councilor has far better stats, and Sarek has far more voyagable traits. Which one is the better voyager?
Ultimately there's a ton of little factors that prevent an easy calculation. The EMA has half the voyagable traits as Determined Janeway (13 to 25), but he has 2/3 of the available traits for MED, and there aren't many characters other than the Doc's variants who have "hologram" in the MED category. EMA also has a rare skill set, which is another feather in his cap.
Even if I don't want to try and quantify all of these details, I was curious what general value folks would give traits?
Six degrees in Inter-species Veterinary Medicine. Treating all manner of critters, from Tribbles to Humans.
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I ran the numbers a long time ago and figured that a trait match is worth 85-95 crew stats. That doesn't really take skill balancing into account, though. If you wanted to replace a crew with a lower power option who matches a trait, they would ideally need to contribute the same amount of featured skills without compromising an ancillary skill too much. Or you could do a more extensive reshuffling of crew to meet your aims for each skill, but at that point you're taking longer to figure out your lineup than you would save by just sending the voyage 5 minutes ago.
And supposing a trait match is worth 90 stats in terms of voyage duration, you'd want a crew closer than that to make an appreciable difference. Say we use a 50 score gap as the benchmark for a notable improvement when matching a trait. The number of crew between 4,000 voyage score and 3,950 voyage score is 33. You would need to have another gold within those 33 names who is of equal fusion level and whose skill set approximates what the non-matching crew brings to the table. And that would be for a ~30 second improvement to voyage time.
That also pretty much excludes crew from either end of the voyage score bell curve. You're not going to find a replacement crew for Captain Braxton (if his skills are what your voyage needs) because his score lead is too great over the next option(s).
I don't personally bother with agonizing over traits for voyages. For one, it doesn't matter for the vast majority of players, because they don't have the breadth of equally fused crew needed for it to make a difference in most cases. And unless you've pretty much memorized the crew whose scores are within that XXX score threshold of the crew you're trying to swap out on your voyage who also meet the skill requirements, you're just going spend more time fiddling with crew than you would gain by finding the perfect lineup. Imo trait matching is for either trying to reach a personal best or for voyages you're planning to revive.
tl;dr Don't worry about trait matching. Maximize your voyage up-time and recall right after a dilemma unless you're sure you will make the next one.
I think he meant antimatter? If I am reading it right.
Ov (Overall) | Vo (Voyage) | Fa (Faction) | Ga (Gauntlet)
Sb (Ship Battle) | Bt (Boss Battle Traits) | Co (Collection) | (Cd (Cadet)
I did have a rather revelatory voyage a few months ago, when I intended to go on a 10 second voyage to roll the dice on a better setup, and forgot about it. At a time I was just starting to routinely hit 8 hour voyages, this random assortment on a crummy ship (admittedly staffed with top crew) went nearly 7 hours. It did put things into perspective.
This is true, and my citation short list is mostly characters I enjoy, nudged a bit be usefulness. If I didn't have the EMA, I might be looking for a solid MED voyager with Starfleet & Federation, but I'm lucky enough to have the good bad Doctor.
Thanks for the detailed response!
Woops, yeah. One fuel or the other. Nothing like spending a bunch of time trying to carefully sort data only to make a dumb mistake like this!
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SM Sarek - SEC/DIP/SCI --- only Mirror Shukar has the skills in the same order (don't get fooled by Locutus! he's DIP/SEC/SCI)
Xindi - DIP/SCI/SEC --- see e.g. Evolved Janeway, Klingon Bride Jadzia are good for comparison.
Both it and Janeway are good ... three of Xindi's traits match up really, really well for voyages ... Xindi brings 100 points more to a voyage (with my bonuses) than Janeway and 310 more than KB Jadzia, all three I have immortal.
--> Xindi is almost always on a relevant voyage, Janeway sometimes and Jadzia hardly ever ... funny enough I've got a DIP/SCI voyage out now, without the Xindi because I wasn't sure if it was needed for the current event and Jadzia took its place (with an AM bonus for Gambler, hehe).
2. I do like traits ... but go for voyage total first. I have a lot of crew so I can mix and match fairly easily so if I can hit a trait bonus without the voyage totals taking too much of a hit I'll take it. A 2800-2850 starting AM with good distribution of stats will get you 10 hrs each time.
But, personally, I'd take an immortal Xindi Insectoid every day over a Klingon Bride Jadzia. I even use the Xindi on voyages without its skills to boost the totals a bit sometimes.
ps - Xindi has great base stats too ... so that helps out a lot, if not on a voyage it is on a shuttle.