PSSCrew

This page contains information related to crew member stats and abilities and how these work during combat in the computer game "Pixel Starships".

The terms "crew" and "crew member" are sometimes used interchangeably, although strictly speaking "crew" refers to all crew members of the entire starship.

The Captain

The Captain crew member is slightly different from the other crew members you acquire over time:

• The Captain is generated at the start of the game.
• There is only one Captain, and you can't fire her.
• The Captain is a crew member of rarity Special, but she is customized with the race, gender and name that you specify when you create your account.
• The Captain is the only crew member with an equipment slot to equip a drone.

Crew rarity

Every crew member has a rarity. In-game the rarity is displayed in the crew member screen as a symbol next to the crew member's name. This is a list of all rarities, in order of most-common to most-rare, together with the rarity symbol.

• Common: 1 star.
• Elite: 2 stars.
• Unique: 3 stars.
• Epic: 4 stars.
• Hero: 5 stars.
• Special: 1 shield.
• Legendary: TODO.

Notes:

• In-game stars actually look more like diamonds, but the PSS wiki and just about everybody else is talking about "stars", so who am I to disagree?
• The Captain crew member has rarity Special.
• Generally speaking, the more rare a crew member is the better stats and abilities she has.

Crew acquisition

Summary

When you begin the game you have one crew member: The Captain who is automatically generated for free. Later you acquire crew members from a variety of sources.

To get rid of a crew member, drag her into space. You will get only a small refund, either in minerals for crew members of rarity Unique and below, or Starbux for crew members of rarity Epic and above. The main benefit of ridding yourself of unwanted crew members is that subsequent attempts to hire new crew in the Starbar is substantially cheaper. You cannot get rid of the Captain crew member.

List of sources for crew members

• The Starbar. The Starbar is accessible when you tap the in-game "Shop" button. In the Starbar you can acquire up to a maximum number of crew members per day. Prices in the Starbar increase with the number of crew members you already have, up to a maximum. The Starbar has the following options:
  • Mineral draw. You pay an amount of Minerals to draw a random new crew member from all crew members available in the Mineral draw.
  • Gas draw. You pay an amount of Gas to draw a random new crew member from all crew members available in the Gas draw.
  • Beer draw. You pay an amount of Starbux to draw a random new crew member from all crew members available in the Beer draw. There are two Beer draw variants, a cheaper and a more expensive one. The Beer draw is available only after you research "Beer" in the Lab room - hence the name. The Beer draw provides better crew than the Mineral or Gas draw, but due to the price being in the premium currency Starbux you should almost never make a Beer draw. When you make a Beer draw for the very first time you are guaranteed to get a Hero crew member - this is the only exception where the Beer draw is universally accepted to be worth the price (although you might still get unlucky and draw a Hero with bad stats). Obviously you should make the cheap Beer draw to get your Hero. Every Beer draw you make that does not yield a Hero crew member will increase the chance for a Hero on the next Beer draw by 1% (for the cheap Beer draw) or 3% (for the expensive Beer draw). The current percentage increase is displayed. When you finally get a Hero the percentage increase will drop back to zero.
• Daily sale. Every day there are several crew member sales going on. The crew members on sale change every day. The advantage of the daily sales - as opposed to the random draws in the Starbar - is that you see what you get for the price that you pay. Crew members with higher rarity generally have a higher price. SavySoda has been known to sell special crew for specially cheap prices, but more often than not crew members are ridiculously overpriced.
  • Dropship. Every day the Dropship has two crew members for sale: One that costs Minerals, and one that costs Starbux. Dropship sale prices increase with the number of crew members you already have, up to a maximum.
  • Shop. The in-game Shop sometimes, but not every day, sells a crew member. Usually the price is in Starbux, but on rare occasions the price is in Gas. I don't think I have ever seen a crew member sold for Minerals. Shop sale prices are the same for everyone.
  • Bank: On most days the in-game Bank offers a "free" crew member as a bonus when you purchase certain packages of Starbux.
• [#Prestige|Prestige]. Two level 40 crew members can be combined into a new crew member of higher rarity. Prestige is available only beginning with ship level 10, because only with that ship level it is possible to level up crew members to level 40. Note that there are no prestige paths to/from Special rarity crew.
• Dove Shop. In the Dove Shop you can buy certain special crew members for Doves (the "more-than-premium" currency). Crew members sold in the Dove Shop may also turn up as bonuses in the Bank (e.g. Maizi).
• Bonus packs. On certain occasions, SavySoda offers a bonus pack when you purchase certain packages of Starbux in the in-game Bank. Such a bonus pack usually includes a crew member. The best-known example is the "First Deposit" bonus pack, which is offered to every player on her first purchase of Starbux, and which yields a Roborob hero crew member.
• Crafting. Certain special items can be combined to craft a crew member. The best-known example is the various synth body parts that can be combined to craft the Dolores crew member.
• Missions. Certain special missions can give you a crew member. Example: The Thanksgiving 3000 mission.
• Fashionably Late. The Kickstarter campaign is over, but one can still purchase the "Fashionably Late" supporter pack on SavySoda's website to acquire certain special crew members.

Crew rarity vs. source of acquisition

Generally speaking, the rarity of a crew member determines from which sources you can acquire a crew member. The following table attempts to provide an overview. Note that the table reflects my current experience.

Crew acquisition table

Source	Common (1 star)	Elite (2 stars)	Unique (3 stars)	Epic (4 stars)	Hero (5 stars)	Special (1 shield)	Legendary (?)	Remarks
Mineral draw	x	x	x					Best practice is to fire all crew member except Unique (3 stars) crew members, because only those have a Special Ability, and they also have generally better stats.
Gas draw		x	x					Same best practice as the Mineral. Usually you will be low on Gas, so you rarely will make a Gas draw.
Beer draw (cheap)			x	x	x			When you make a Beer draw for the very first time after you have researched "Beer" in the Lab, you are guaranteed to get a Hero crew member. After that, never ever make another beer draw! Obviously you should make the cheap Beer draw to get your Hero.
Beer draw (expensive)				x	x
Dropship (minerals)	x	x	x
Dropship (Starbux)			x	x
Shop			x	x	x	x		I hope to never see 1-star or 2-star crew sold in the Shop.
Bank				x	x	x		I hope to never see 1-star, 2-star or 3-star crew sold at the Bank for real money.
Prestige]		x	x	x	x		x	AFAIK prestiging is the only way how to acquire Legendary crew members. There are no prestige paths to/from Special rarity crew.
Dove Shop						x
Crafting						x		Dolores
Bonus packs					x			Roborob, Rudolph
Missions						x		Turkey Man
Fashionably Late						x		Doge, Engineer Bob

Crew level and XP

Crew members earn experience points (XP) by taking part in ship battles and ground missions, or when you use certain consumable items (e.g. Beginner's Guide To The Galaxy).

When a crew member has earned enough XP you can level her up to the next crew level. You have to pay an amount of Gas for the level-up. The higher the crew level the more Gas you pay. If you don't level up a crew member although she is ready, any further XP the crew member earns is lost.

When you acquire a crew member she has level 1. The maximum crew level is 40. At the same time, however, the crew level is capped at 10x the current ship level. This means that a crew member can only reach her maximum level 40 when the ship level is 10 or higher.

Crew members of legendary rarity require more XP per level and have higher level-up Gas costs than regular crew.

Crew properties

Crew stats

• HP: Hit or health points. How much damage the character can take in battle before she is killed. The game rounds fractions to the nearest integer at the start of a ship battle (.4 is rounded down, .5 is rounded up). Ground missions start with the actual fractional value.
• Attack: How much damage the character deals in personal combat. Every time the character attacks the amount is deducted from the enemy's health.
• Repair: Every time the character performs a repair, this amount is added back to the room's HP.
• Ability: If the character has a special ability (Unique ranked crew and above) this amount says how good the character is at the ability. The number means different things for different abilities. For instance, if the crew member has Critical Attack the number is a flat value denoting the damage done by the attack, whereas if the crew member has Rush Command the number is a percentage value denoting how much is deducted from the room's reload time when the ability is activated.
• Speed: A crew member has two movement speeds: She can either walk or she can run. The Speed stat is given as two numbers in the format "x:y", the first number meaning how fast she is walking, the second number how fast she is running.
  • So how fast exactly does a crew member move at speed 1? Currently I am not aware of any canonical answer to this question, but after evaluating a recorded battle video with a video editing software (Shotcut), it is likely that the movement speed is 1.6 ship layout grid tiles per second.
• Stamina: Stamina allows the crew member to run. For each point of Stamina, the crew member can run 1 second. Stamina is used up by running and does not replenish during a battle. There is no way to control whether a crew member walks or runs - the crew member automatically runs if she still has some Stamina left, and when she has exhausted her Stamina she falls back to walking speed. Note that Stamina does not affect the crew member's attack speed!

Skills

Crew skills take effect only when the crew member is standing in the appropriate room.

• Pilot: Buffs Hangar room (crafts spawn faster) and Bridge room (increased escape chance).
• Science: Buffs Shield Generator and Shield Battery rooms (increased shield regeneration rate), Teleport room (increased teleportation rate) Cloak Generator room (increased regeneration speed) and Photon Disruptor room (increased firing speed).
• Engineer: Buffs Engine room (increased missile dodge chance) and Android rooms (bots are built faster).
• Weapon: Buffs weapon rooms (increased firing rate).

Special Abilities

Unique crew and above all have a Special Ability. This ability becomes usable when the character reaches level 10. The ability can be used only once during a battle.

Special Abilities list

Special Ability	General description	Meaning of ability stat number	Remarks
Rush Command	Speeds up the loading progress of the current room.	A percentage value denoting how much is deducted from the room's reload time when the ability is activated. Example: Ability 50 means the room's reload time is halved (-50%).
Healing Rain	Heals all friendly crew members in the same room, including the healer herself.	A flat value denoting how many HP are added back to every healed crew members' HP.
First Aid	Heals the crew member herself.	A flat value denoting how many HP are added back to the healer's own HP.
Urgent Repair	Repairs the current room and extinguishes fires.	A flat value denoting how many HP are added back to the repaired room's HP.
System Hack	Disables an enemy room and the modules in it without damaging them.	A flat value denoting how many frames the hacked room and modules remain disabled.	40 ability = 1 second of hack duration. System Hack affects only landmines and sprinklers.
Ultra Dismantle	Damages/destroys an enemy room.	A flat value denoting how much damage is done to (i.e. how many HP are deducted from) the dismantled room's HP.	The damage done is reduced by armor! The damage has to overcome barriers, but excess damage after all barriers are destroyed carries over to the room.
Poison Gas	Damages all enemy crew members in the same room.	A flat value denoting how much damage is done to every poisoned enemy crew members.
Critical Attack	Damages a single enemy crew member in the same room.	A flat value denoting how much damage is done to the critically hit enemy crew member.
Freeze Bomb	Stuns all enemy crew members in the same room.	A flat value denoting how many frames the frozen crew members are stunned.	40 ability = 1 second of stun duration.
Arson	Ignites a fire in the current room.	A flat value denoting how many frames the ignited fire lasts.	40 ability = 1 second of fire duration. The ability triggers when in an enemy room, or when the crew member is attacked by an enemy crew member.
Firewalk	Ignites a fire in every room that the crew member walks through.	A flat value denoting how many frames the ignited fire lasts.	The ability automatically re-triggers every second, i.e. the fire is re-ignited every second.

Perks

Some, but not all, crew members belong to a collection. If you have a minimum number of crew members from the same crew collection on your ship, they gain a so-called "perk": An ability or buff that is beneficial to you, or detrimental to your enemy. The crew collection determines which kind of perk its members gain.

Crew collections and their perks are covered in detail on the PSS wiki.

Equipment

Every crew member has a number of slots that can be used to equip items that improve the crew member's stats. The equipment slots are:

• Head
• Body
• Leg
• Weapon
• Accessory
• Drone (Captain only)

The Captain has 5 of the 6 equipment slots (the head slot is missing), all other crew members have 2 of the 6 equipment slots.

When you tap the "Equip" button in the crew member screen this shows the equipment slots for the current crew member. Also shown are the items the crew member has currently equipped, or that it could equip.

See the PSSItems wiki page for details about equipment.

See this wiki page for a list of my crew and the equipment slots they have.

Crew training

Basics

Crew members can be trained in order to permanently improve their stats (HP, Attack, Repair, Ability, Stamina) and skills (Pilot, Science, Engineer, Weapon). There are two types of training methods:

• Training by absolving a training session in a training room.
• Training by consuming a training item.

The cumulated improvements that result from all past training activities are shown in a crew member's Profile screen, as a yellow number next to the improved stat or skill.

• The improvement to Stamina is a flat value. The improvement value is added to the base Stamina value to get the effective Stamina value.
• The improvement to all other stats and skills is a percentage value. The percentage is applied to the base stat or skill value to get the effective stat or skill value.

Training is measured in so-called training points. Each stat/skill percentage point or Stamina point gained equals 1 training point. Example: Through training a crew member has gained +3% HP, +2% Attack, +7% Ability, +5% Weapon and +4 Stamina. That means the crew member has gained 3 + 2 + 7 + 5 + 4 = 21 training points.

Every crew member has a so-called training capacity which limits how many training points the crew member can gain. The training capacity is shown at the bottom of the crew member's Profile screen, as a training progress bar that includes the training points already gained. Example: A crew member with a training progress bar showing 21/90 has a training capacity of 90, i.e. she can gain a maximum of 90 training points, and she has already gained 21 out of that maximum.

The training capacity is sometimes called the hard cap. This is to distinguish it from the so-called soft cap, which are several diminishing returns mechanisms that conspire to prevent a crew member from gaining more training points when she absolves a training session in a training room. See the next section for details. The soft cap is called "soft" because a crew member can overcome it by consuming training items.

Diminishing returns effects

There are several diminishing returns effects that reduce the improvements gained by training activities. The PSS wiki calls these effects "debuffs".

• Stat/skill specific effect: The more a stat/skill is already improved, the less effect further training will have on that stat.
• Training capacity effect: The more training points a crew member has, i.e. the closer she is to her training capacity cap, the less effect any trainings have for that crew member.
• The PSS wiki lists a third effect, but I don't understand what it means. Paraphrasing from the PSS wiki: "The more buffed a crew member is, the less effective further training will be." In my understanding this is the same as the global effect.

Nothing exact is known about how these diminishing returns effects work. For instance, it is not known whether the effects reduce a training activity's outcome linearly (by subtraction) or progressively (by percentage), or by how much.

What has been observed by the community is that the effects conspire so that at a certain point a crew member who is already highly trained in a given stat/skill cannot gain more training points in that stat/skill when she absolves a training session in a training room, even with the highest-level training sessions. A crew member can overcome this obstacle, which is usually called the soft cap, and gain a few more training points by consuming higher-level training items. Presumably this works because the highest-level training items offer even higher boosts than the highest-level training room sessions.

Note: Very high-level training items can also be used to great effect when used right at the start before a crew member has received any other training. See the Training advice section for details.

Fatigue

A crew member becomes fatigued when she completes a training session in a training room. Fatigue is measured in fatigue points. A crew member can have between 0 and 100 fatigue points. Any improvements gained by a training activity are decreased by 1% per fatigue point (decimals truncated).

The grade of the training session determines the amount of fatigue points the crew member gains. Higher-grade training session types add a higher amount of fatigue points. See the section "Training session types" for an explanation of training session grades.

• Low grade: Adds 1 fatigue point.
• Medium grade: Adds 6 fatigue points.
• High grade: Adds 24 fatigue points.

A crew member can accumulate fatigue points over several consecutive training sessions. It takes one hour to lose one fatigue point. Fatigue starts to decrease as soon as the training session completes (as soon as the training duration is over), i.e. no matter when you collect the training.

The game client does not display an accurate number of the fatigue points that a crew member currently has. When you select a crew the game client shows a "fatigue face" symbol above the crew that allows an estimate of the crew member's current fatigue. There are 11 different faces: One happy face for 0 fatigue, and 10 faces for every 10 fatigue points. The Gym page on the PSS wiki has a list of all fatigue faces in the section "Training debuffs".

Training RNG

Without doubt the most controversial aspect of crew training is that training results are RNG-based. Example: A training session in a training room might have the potential of improving the crew member's Ability value by up to 14%. The actual outcome, however, is RNG-based, so it could be 14% (yay), 7% (meh) or even 0% (argh).

The first and obvious problem with this is that you may spend a lot of resources and time until you get the desired improvement. Examples:

• When you want to train a Rush Command crew member so that she has a total of 100 Ability, there is no way how to predict how many training room sessions you will need to achieve that goal.
• When a crew member consumes a high-level training item, which you acquired with great expense either by buying from the market or by crafting from blended crew, the training item might just "fizzle" and yield only a very low improvement.

The second and maybe less obvious problem is connected to the fact that most, if not all, training methods do not improve only a single stat/skill, instead they improve a primary stat/skill by a potentially large boost, but they also improve one or more secondary or even tertiary stats/skills by smaller boosts. This means that if RNG is not in your favour a training session could result in the crew member gaining several training points in unwanted stats or skill. This is bad in two ways:

• The training points can't be spent on wanted stats or skill. Remember that the training capacity is a hard cap.
• Future training activities are less likely to produce a good result, because of the diminishing returns effect when a crew member gets closer to her training capacity.

Training methods

As already mentioned in the section "Basics" there are two basic methods how to train a crew member:

• You place the crew member into a training room and start a training session. Absolving the training session takes some time during which the crew member cannot be taken out of the training room, except for battles. The training room is also blocked during that time and cannot be removed from the ship, although a room upgrade can be started. When the training session is complete you can "collect" the training result.
• You let the crew member consume a training item. This does not take time and you can immediately see the training result. Training items also do not cause fatigue.

Training sessions

When a crew member is placed in a training room it must absolve a training session to complete a training. Examples for training sessions are Meditation, Yoga, Jogging, Ninja Course, Weapons Simulator, etc..

Selecting a training session determines the following things about the training:

• Which stats/skills can be improved by the training.
• How much the stats/skills can potentially be improved. Higher-level training sessions have a potential better outcome. Important: The actual result is RNG-based!
• The training cost. Trainings always cost Minerals. Higher-level training sessions are more expensive.
• The time it takes to absolve the training session. Higher-level training sessions take longer to complete.
• The amount of fatigue that the crew member gains. Higher-level training sessions have a higher fatigue cost. See the section "Fatigue" for more details.

Training types

There are two types of trainings: Fitness training and Educational training. Each training type improves a different set of crew stats/skills and requires a different type of training room.

Training types table

	Fitness	Educational	Remarks
Crew stats/skills improved	HP Attack Ability Stamina	Engine Pilot Science Weapon Repair
Training rooms	Gym Galaxy Gym	Academy	The Galaxy Gym functions identically to a level 9 Gym except it's able to train 3 crew members instead of 2. It can be purchased in the Dove Store or it may be offered as a daily sale.

Training session types

The nomenclature for training sessions is different for the two training types:

• Fitness training sessions are called "Training Regimens".
• Educational training sessions are called "Courses".

Training sessions can be graded into "low", "medium" and "high". Training session grades are tied to the training room level. Upgrading a training room makes higher-grade training sessions available. Each grade consists of several training sessions. See the PSS wiki for a full list of all training sessions.

The following table lists all training session types that this wiki page is concerned with. See the section "Fatigue" for an explanation what fatigue points are.

Training session types

Session grade	Minimum room level	Fitness session type	Education session type	Fatigue points gained	Remarks
Low grade	1	DIY Training Regimen	Beginner Course	1
Medium grade	2-5	Professional Training Regimen	Intermediate Course	6
High grade	6-9	Military Training Regimen	Advanced Course	24

Laboratory research

In the Laboratory you can research training upgrades to make new improved training session types available in a training room:

• Without research a training room offers a single training session type per room level.
• With research one or more additional training session types become available per room level.

For each of the two training types (Fitness, Educational) there is a separate series of 6 researches. Both series are split into two groups of 3 researches each:

• The 101/102/103 group.
• The 201/202/203 group.

Within each group every research corresponds to one of the training session grades (low/medium/high grade). This means that the training sessions made available by higher-level research can only be used if the training room also has a higher level. Example: The 102 and 202 research both make medium grade training sessions available, which require training room level 2-5.

Researches in the second group improve the corresponding research in the first group. Example: Both the 103 and the 203 researches make high grade training sessions available, but the 203 training sessions have better results than the 103 training sessions.

The following table shows which research adds which training session types. Example: The "Fitness 103" research, which becomes available at ship level 6, adds high grade training sessions of the type "Military Training Regimen". From the table in the previous section we know that high grade training sessions are available only with room levels 6-9.

Laboratory research training upgrades

Research level	Research type		Minimum ship level for research		Research adds sessions of this session grade	Research adds sessions of this session type		Remarks
	Fitness	Education	Fitness	Education		Fitness	Education
1	Fitness 101	Education 101	4	7	Low grade	DIY Training Regimen	Beginner Course
2	Fitness 102	Education 102	5	7	Medium grade	Professional Training Regimen	Intermediate Course
3	Fitness 103	Education 103	6	8	High grade	Military Training Regimen	Advanced Course
4	Fitness 201	Education 201	8	9	Low grade	DIY Training Regimen	Beginner Course
5	Fitness 202	Education 202	9	10	Medium grade	Professional Training Regimen	Intermediate Course
6	Fitness 203	Education 203	10	11	High grade	Military Training Regimen	Advanced Course

Training advice

• Focus a crew member's training on one or two stats/skills. It is much better to have one or two highly trained stats/skills than to have many stats/skills that are only slightly boosted.

• If you don't want to invest time into crafting single-use training items, or buy them outright on the market, then you should follow the advice given by the "Training 2.0" training technique. It's explained in detail in the next section. Here is my advice after going through the schedule once.
  • You will need 8-9 hours at the very beginning of the schedule during which you can start a new training session every 45 minutes. For me this is a weekend day or evening, others might be able to take a short break during work every 45 minutes. The last 5 minutes of each training session can be rushed for free, so effectively you would only need about 7.5 hours.
  • This initial 8-9 hours ramp-up phase is very important, and you should not skip it, because here you accumulate the necessary fatigue points that prevent TP going into Stamina when you switch from the 45-minute S1 training sessions to the 12-hour S3 training sessions.
  • If you have to break off the Training 2.0 schedule for any reason, you can restart it easily by repeating the 8-9 hours ramp-up phase. It may seem like a waste of time and resources because you won't gain any more TP in the desired stat from these S1 trainings, but let me repeat: You do this only to accumulate fatigue points, not to gain stats.

• If you don't mind spending time or starbux for single-use training items, then it's better to consume high-level training items right at the start, before a crew member has received any other training. The reason is that high-level items give their bonus in a single training session. Thus you completely side-step the diminishing return effects that come into play when you repeatedly train in the Gym or Academy. Let's take the best Ability trainings as an example. Let's assume you are aiming for 100 TP in the Ability stat.
  • The best Gym training session for Ability is "Space Marine". It gives up to 14 TP in Ability per training session. To gain the desired 100 TP, in theory you would have to train the crew member at least 8 times, assuming you get the best result every single time. But every training session is affected by diminishing returns - the more TP a crew member already has in a stat (and overall) the less likely it is that the training session will yield more TP in that stat. At some point all further trainings will result in zero TP gained - this is what is commonly called the "soft cap". Let's say the soft cap for the particular crew member you are training is at 50-60 TP in Ability. This means that with the "Space Marine" training session in the Gym you would stop getting results after 4-5 training sessions. It would be impossible to reach the goal of 100 TP in Ability.
  • Now let's look at "Elixir of Brain Juice", the best training item for the Ability stat. It gives up to 128 TP per training session. When the crew member starts out with zero training, there is a very real chance that if you use this item it will yield more than 60 TP in Ability - if you're very lucky it could be even 100 TP or more. The reason is that without prior training there are no diminishing returns effects that negatively affect the training item's single use effect. So with such a high-level training item you can go beyond the soft cap of a crew member.
  • Beware: With prior training, training items are also affected by diminishing returns. If you were to use a high-level training item when the crew member is already at (or beyond) her soft cap, the item might yield only a few TP, or no TP at all.

• When a crew member has a fractional HP value, the game rounds the fractions to the nearest integer at the start of a ship battle. Experiments have confirmed that this is not just a visual effect. Because of this when you train HP on a crew, the most efficient use of TP is when you stop training at the .5 mark.

Crew Training 2.0

A crew training technique titled "Crew Training 2.0" has been posted on Reddit around Christmas time in 2019. The technique quickly became famous because through the judicious use of fatigue it minimizes the amount of unwanted training points gained from unfavourable RNG. Also it requires no consumable training items, so the main cost involved is time.

The guide was posted as a series of images vertically stitched together. I don't like this format, so I'm replicating the content here in textual form. My contribution is the amount of time each step takes, which seemingly makes the sequence more complicated than it is in the original, but then again the table I'm showing here does not hide some necessary rest times between the different training cycles.

Definitions:

TP

Training points.

FP

Fatigue points.

S1

45 minutes training session, +1 FP. Equivalent to what I termed a "low grade" training session.

S2

3 hours training session, +6 FP. Equivalent to what I termed a "medium grade" training session.

S3

12 hours training session, +24 FP. Equivalent to what I termed a "high grade" training session.

Crew Training 2.0 sequence

Step	% TP used		FP		Fatigue face symbol	What to do	How many times	Duration
	At beginning	At end	At beginning	At end
Warm-up
1	0	1+	FP 0	FP 11	Neutral face	Train S1	11x	8.25 hours
Ramp-up for hard training cycle (F10-F100)
2	1+	1+	FP 11	FP 100	Half-black frowning face	Train S3	4x	48 hours
3	1+	1+	FP 100	FP 30	Downturned eyebrows face	Rest	1x	70 hours
Hard training cycle (F30-F100)
4	1+	1+	FP 30	FP 100	Half-black frowning face	Train S3	3x	36 hours
5	1+	1+	FP 100	FP 30	Downturned eyebrows face	Rest	1x	70 hours
6	1+	45	FP 30	FP 30	Downturned eyebrows face	Repeat steps 4 + 5 until 45% of TP have been used	n	n * 106 hours
7	45	45	FP 30	FP 20	Neutral face	Rest	1x	10 hours
Relaxed training cycle (F20-F44)
8	45	45+	FP 20	FP 44	Downturned eyes face	Train S3	1x	12 hours
9	45+	45+	FP 44	FP 20	Neutral face	Rest	1x	24 hours
10	45+	55	FP 20	FP 20	Neutral face	Repeat steps 8 + 9 until 55% of TP have been used	n	n * 36 hours
11	55	55	FP 20	FP 10	Slightly smiling face	Rest	1x	10 hours
Relaxed training cycle (F10-F34)
12	55	55+	FP 10	FP 34	Gulping face	Train S3	1x	12 hours
13	55+	55+	FP 34	FP 10	Slightly smiling face	Rest	1x	24 hours
14	55+	65	FP 10	FP 10	Slightly smiling face	Repeat steps 12 + 13 until 65% of TP have been used	n	n * 36 hours
15	65	65	FP 10	FP 0	Smiling face	Rest	1x	10 hours
Relaxed training cycle (F0-F24)
16	65	65+	FP 0	FP 24	Downturned eyebrows face	Train S3	1x	12 hours
17	65+	65+	FP 24	FP 0	Smiling face	Rest	1x	24 hours
18	65+	100	FP 0	FP 0	Smiling face	Repeat steps 16 + 17 until all TP have been used	n	n * 36 hours

Notes:

• Laboratory research and training rooms should be max-level.
• The cutoff for fatigue and training points can vary slightly, the guide is not hard on that.
• Diminishing returns begins to hit hard with more TP spent. It is common to have multiple consecutive training sessions gain 0 points.
• The technique significantly reduces unwanted side stats, but it can't reduce them to zero. Once 70% TP have been spent, chances for more side stats are very small.

Rush Command training plan

The goal for training a Rush Command crew member is get her Ability stat to 100. This means that the primary stat to train is Ability, which in turn means that training has to be done in the Gym.

Going through the Training 2.0 plan results in the following recommendations:

• S1 training sessions
  • The initial 11 S1 training sessions should be Meditation, because Meditation only trains HP as a side stat, which is never bad.
  • The training sessions Yoga and Steam Yoga train Ability better than the very basic Meditation, but they also introduce Stamina as a clearly unwanted side stat. Since the S1 training sessions are more meant to gather fatigue, it's better to focus on that instead of hoping for a couple of additional TP in Ability.
• S3 training sessions
  • All S3 training sessions that focus on Ability also train "<= 4" Stamina as a side stat. So unlike with the S1 training sessions there's no training session that is a clear winner or loser.
  • In my opinion the S3 training session should be Space Marine, because that offers the best Ability/side stat ratio. Remember that every TP gained reduces the effectiveness of further trainings of every kind. So let's look at two scenarios:
  • The crew member trains Space Marine for the first time and gathers e.g. +12 Ability. In the next Space Marine training session the probability to gain Stamina is reduced by the 12 TP gained in the first session.
  • The crew member trains Military Bootcamp for the first time and gathers e.g. +8 Ability. In the next Space Marine training session the probability to gain Stamina is reduced by the 8 TP gained in the first session.
  • As you can see, the first scenario is clearly better for preventing unwanted Stamina. Of course it's not guaranteed that Space Marine yields more Ability than Military Bootcamp, but at least the chances are better - and that's all you can count on with crew training.
• S2 training sessions
  • Although it's not on the official Training 2.0 plan, you may wish to inject an S2 training session for some reason.
  • The best S2 training session is Scouts Training, because that has the least chance for training Stamina.

Open questions

• Is the fatigue debuff applied before or after the training debuffs?
• What is the difference between the Training Capacity debuff and the General Training debuff? AFAIK, Training Capacity measures how much buffed a crew member is, so I can't see the difference here.

Calculation of effective stats

Formula

For a given stat, the effective value used is a combination of the following:

• The base state at the current crew member's level
• A bonus applied from training
• A bonus applied from equipment items

But how is the effective value calculated from these components? Here are the results of my experiments.

I examined the Ability stat of my Captain, a Qtarian Bobby, whom I had trained a little when I started to play the game and didn't know anything yet.

• Base Ability = 35
• TP in Ability = 5

Without equipment:

• The UI shows this effective Ability value: 36.8%
• This formula is wrong: 35 + 5 = 40
• This is the correct formula: 35 * 1.05 = 36.75
• Conclusion: The TP are not just added to the base value, as one might guess since both are percentages. Instead the TP are applied as a percentage increase to the base value.

I then started to add equipment items and had a look at how the effective Ability value changed:

• Pet Pumpkin: +20% Ability
• Mystic Hatchling: +11% Ability
• Heavy Assault Armor: +20% Ability
• Focus Saber; +19% Ability

With Pet Pumpkin:

• The UI shows this effective Ability value: 44.1%
• This formula is wrong: 35 * 1.25 = 43.75
• This is the correct formula: 35 * 1.05 * 1.2 = 44.1
• Conclusion: The equipment bonus is not just added to the TP bonus. Instead, the equipment bonus is applied as a separate percentage increase, after the base value has already been increased by the TP.

With Pet Pumpkin and Mystic Hatchling:

• The UI shows this effective Ability value: 48.1%
• This formula is wrong: 35 * 1.05 * 1.2 * 1.11 = 48.951
• This is the correct formula: 35 * 1.05 * 1.31 = 48.1425
• Conclusion: The bonus values of the individual equipment items are not added as separate percentage increases. Instead the bonus values of all equipment items are summed up and applied as a single percentage increase.

With Pet Pumpkin, Mystic Hatchling and Heavy Assault Armor:

• The UI shows this effective Ability value: 55.5%
• This formula is wrong: 35 * 1.05 * 1.2 * 1.11 * 1.2 = 58.7412
• This is the correct formula: 35 * 1.05 * 1.51 = 55.4925
• Conclusion: This confirms that bonus values of all equipment items are summed up.

Finally, with Pet Pumpkin, Mystic Hatchling, Heavy Assault Armor and Focus Saber:

• The UI shows this effective Ability value: 62.5%
• This formula is wrong: 35 * 1.05 * 1.2 * 1.11 * 1.2 * 1.19 = 69.902028
• This is the correct formula: 35 * 1.05 * 1.51 = 62.475
• Conclusion: The final confirmation that bonus values of all equipment items are summed up. In addition we see that values are not just truncated but rounded to the nearest decimal digit.

Required Ability TP for 100% Rush Command

For Rush Command crew members the goal is to reach 100 Ability. The abstract formula from the experiments in the previous section is this:

Base Value * ((100 + TP) / 100) * Equip Bonus = 100

As we have seen, though, the game rounds the effective stat value, so to cut some corners we could say that this is OK, too:

Base Value * ((100 + TP) / 100) * Equip Bonus = 99.95

The solution for the unknown variable TP is this:

TP = (10000 / (Basic Value * Equip Bonus)) - 100
-- or if you want to cut corners --
TP = (9995 / (Basic Value * Equip Bonus)) - 100

To be honest, using 99.95 instead of 100 Ability as the target value doesn't make any difference in most examples that I calculated. Much more important is that the result of the calculation should be rounded up to the nearest integer, because TP are integer values. Example: If the result is that you need TP 45.3, you should really plan for gaining TP 46, because you can't train to have 45.3 TP.

Examples

• Xin with an Emoji Helmet (+18% Ability) needs TP 69 in Ability.
• Xin with an Emoji Helmet (+18% Ability) and an Assault Armor (+12% Ability) still needs TP 54 in Ability.
• Xin with an Emoji Helmet (+18% Ability) and a Heavy Assault Armor (+20% Ability) only needs TP 45 in Ability.
• Maya with a Heavy Assault Armor (+20% Ability) needs TP 67 in Ability.

Prestige

Basics

Prestige is a game feature that lets you craft a new higher-rarity crew member from two lower-rarity crew members that you already own.

In order to perform a Prestige, the two crew members to be prestiged must have level 40. Prestige is available only beginning with ship level 10, because only with that ship level it is possible to level up crew members to level 40.

You also need to research Prestige in the laboratory.

Prestige and crew rarity

You can only prestige two crew members of the same rarity. The outcome is a crew member with a rarity one higher than the two prestiged crew members.

Special rarity crew members cannot be prestiged, i.e. you cannot craft a Special rarity crew member from two Hero rarity crew members, nor can you craft a Legendary rarity crew member from two Special rarity crew members.

Consequently, prestiging two Hero crew members skips the Special rarity class and instead results in a Legendary crew member.

Mechanics

You prestige two crew members by placing them inside the same bedroom, then tapping the room and selecting the "Prestige" button.

Prestige recipes

When you prestige two crew members the outcome is pre-determined and always the same, i.e. A + B always results in X regardless of how many times you prestige A and B.

While A + B is always X, there may be several combinations to get X. So for instance you might also be able to get X by combining A + C, B + E and F + H.

The total of all Prestige recipes is sometimes called the Prestige tree, because you "climb" the tree from lower to higher crew rarity. The possible ways along the tree limbs are also known as Prestige paths.

Planning

Believe it or not, but there is currently no way in the game to find out about any of the possible prestige recipes! The game does not even show you what the result will be if you were to combine A + B.

If you want to know beforehand what you will get, or if you want to plan beforehand how to obtain a certain Legendary crew member, then you have to consult an external tool!

• PixyShip and the Dolores 2.0 Discord Bot show you all prestige paths to and from any given crew member. With these tools you have to craft your own Prestige plan.
• Prestige Calculator lets you enter the crew members you already have, and the crew member you hope to obtain. It then shows you several solutions how to achieve your goal. The solutions even span multiple crew rarities.

Recipe changes

Every now and then SavySoda changes the Prestige recipes. They usually announce this in advance on their blog or on their official PSS Discord server. It usually happens every 3 months, at the beginning of the month, after a tournament ends.

SavySoda usually doesn't do a wholesale change in the Prestige recipes. They make adjustments to certain trees to accommodate new crew members released during the previous 3 months. If a tree wasn't impacted by new crew members, few to no changes are made to those recipes.

If you're on the edge and can't wait for the recipe changes to happen, then you should know:

• From people‘s experience, the recipes don't get changed immediately on reset.
• When you use a tool such as the Dolores 2.0 bot to check the prestige recipes, you have to factor in that the tool may cache the recipe data for some time. For Dolores 2.0 the author let us know that the caching time is 30 minutes. For Pixyship and Prestige Calculator the caching scheme is not known, but if you want to be on the safe side I recommend waiting 24 hours.