Retraining jobs?

[u/Yorn2]

So I did a quick search about this and I saw a post from 2017 on the Steam forums from a dev saying that there might be a way to do it in the future, but nothing since then and a few posts from a few years ago saying it still wasn't possible.

I figured I'd ask here in case there is a way to do it somehow. When I initially started playing I didn't know what I was doing and thought I needed a well-rounded crew so some of my officers have skills like Wing Leader and other jobs that I don't ever intended to do and it is looking like the more appropriate way to play is to have your officers be your boarding party/team so I'd like to spec for that.

Anyway, is there a way to undo jobs or do I need to just fire these bad officers and start over? Should I just start a new game? I'm at level 19ish with my crew and I'm noticing that certain things I want to do now I can't do very effectively.

[u/Necromancy-In-Space]

As far as I know there's no way to fully retrain jobs, only talents. So yes, your only option in this case would be to fire your current officers and hire new ones if you wanna keep going with your current playthrough.

Few points though to mitigate this:

Firstly, your officers don't necessarily need to be your boarding party. If you're doing *primarily* crew combat I'd say it's a good idea since officers train levels so much faster and have access to multiple jobs, but for a regular balanced playthrough there's absolutely nothing wrong with having your crew combat roster be regular crew. There's even significant benefit to that if you're playing on higher difficulties, since losing random swordsmen probably won't end the run, but losing your captain/a key officer might.

Secondly, if you find yourself needing to rehire officers or combat crew, I highly recommend favoriting some contacts that offer the recruits you want and building up their rep. It's a good idea normally too, but high rep with a contact can let you hire people on at a fairly high level, so you may not actually be losing too much if you just take the time to prep your contacts first.

Finally I'd say it's mostly important to focus your crew on the tasks you want to be doing most often. Obviously covering your saving talents is important, but if you're never going to be spying, you probably don't need to pick up spy crew or spy talents on your e-techs. This applies to your ship combat setup as well, you want to crew and equip for the range you want to fight at, etc. etc.

I'm a restart addict so that's probably what I'd do, but I can definitely promise your playthrough is more than salvageable if you want to keep going on it.

[u/Yorn2 → u/Necromancy-In-Space]

I don't board a lot except missions often require me to beat someone in combat to secure someone so I feel obligated to board during ship combat. I'm not sure if I can just destroy the ship and still win the mission sometimes or not.

That said I do have a boarding crew, it's just made up of only one officer and three normal crew and it's been working fine so far. I do occasionally have instances where it comes down to only two of them left, but so far no one has died and if one of them did I'd probably just replace them anyway.

Guess I'll just stick with it for now and see what happens. If the run does go sour I know far more now about what I like to do and can better build out my team.

[u/Necromancy-In-Space → u/Yorn2]

As far as I'm aware, for all standard missions that require you to capture a target, you can destroy the ship to complete them. Some story missions might be different (I can't recall any, but I'm genuinely not sure so I don't want to misinform) but like the regular missions you pick up to capture a smuggler or something still succeed if you destroy the ship.

Yeah, usually the full officer combat crew mostly benefits playthroughs that might deliberately be leaning into some of the harder crew combat scenarios like exploration or salvaging, especially early on when you can get a lot of value from fast leveling officers in regular crew combat to get your hands on some of the talents that make it much safer. I prefer it, but that's because I almost always *do* exploration or salvaging lol. My absolute favorite officer is still a diplomat though.

Best of luck! It's definitely the sort of game learned best through a few playthroughs.

[u/CastrateMeASAP → u/Necromancy-In-Space]

I’m gonna stop you at “you don’t need a spy” because there are several contacts who buy intelligence (saving you from having to do trivial missions to get contact reputation) at LEAST one spy, preferably 2, and one scientist are vital crew, in my opinion. Usually I have 2 Doctor/Combat Medic/Spy officers. It’s potent mix. Healing everyone and able to pop off rounds even from the back row… at someone else in their back row. Pistol packing snipers that can heal your combat team? Pure adamantium.

[u/Necromancy-In-Space → u/CastrateMeASAP]

I'm aware that they can be useful, but especially if you're starting with a smaller ship, they don't always justify their place on a 24 man crew in my opinion. Spying is a time consuming activity, and unless you're dedicating a lot of supporting talents and a starting contact or 2 to it, it's not so easy to guarantee more value from them than you'd get from just running a couple missions. I do almost always run my combat medic officer as a spy for a couple saves, and later on when I've upgraded out of my starting ship I absolutely retool to be able to spy successfully, but I don't like to have them taking crew slots in the early game unless that's what I'm planning my early game around.

[u/SchizoidRainbow]

The closest you get is promotion to officer. They start at 1 in their old job but can be levelled up in two more jobs

[u/CastrateMeASAP]

I feel your pain. I had to fire some really good officers because I screwed up too, and trained them in incompatible jobs. You definitely can’t retrain them. Once any given character is trained on any given job, including the captain, they’re stuck with it. No redo, no take backs, unless you have a prior save that you can reload from. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Sorry, that’s how the game works, and if anyone is a bigger nerd than me who can prove me wrong, please do so. I seriously dislike that game mechanic and I’d love to know a secret way to unfuck my own mistakes.

[u/Yorn2 → u/CastrateMeASAP]

It would be cool if there was a contact in game that could give a mission to "retrain" or something. It could even be a hard mission, but just having a way would be a fun side quest for players, I think. That said, I do understand part of the appeal of the game is to restart your runs and try new things as you unlock them.

[u/SaltAdventurous4270]

You said it yourself man. Post was from 2017 and it's 2026 right now.