Merging duplicate crew members (upgrade)

Puck

Newbie question:
Why does the game sometimes suggest merging two identical crew members and sometimes doesn't? I have noticed that there are variants of the same original character but when the drawing and name are identical why don't I always get to merge them by upgrading?

[DB:DB] Deb

Welcome.

Each crew member has a "rarity." That's color/maximum number of stars. Green/2, blue/3, purple/4, gold/5, and gray/1. The number is the maximum number of copies of the crew that can be fused (merged) together. Like a green crew, you can fuse (merge/upgrade) 2 of them. After that you can't. You can see how many have already been done if you look at the stars. (Look, you'll see it.)

Puck

Thanks, Deb. So grey crew members can't be fused at all? The weaker of my Bashirs and Uhuras will have go then...

[ISA] Raven

and even if you have "identical" crew... if one is on a shuttle.. you have to wait for it to come back.

Clanof

Puck wrote: »

Thanks, Deb. So grey crew members can't be fused at all? The weaker of my Bashirs and Uhuras will have go then...

No, grey crew members can never be fused.

Pallidyne

If you are not hurting for slots, they are easy to level up and immortalize and thus get you closer to free dilithium in the achievements. They can then be put in the cryostatsis vault so they don't take up slots.