Special abilities question
 

I currently have two Master Engineers and two Theoreticians in my crew. Does anyone know if you get double the benefit, or is it okay to rotate one out of the crew?

If I have 2 of the Engineers, I keep one in the engine room and the other in the control room. I don't know if you get "twice as fast" repair ability with 2....probably not. I suspect its probably subject to the law of diminishing returns, ie. 2 is better than 1, but not twice as good.

Which is the theoretian and what does he do? Dunno if I've seen that one

The Engineer has to be in the engine room, or you don't get any benefit from him.

From the game:

As I understand it, you get the benefit of tour special crewmen only when he is awake and on duty. So it may, I guass, pay off to have redundant special abilities if you place them in different shifts.

HOWEVER..... the most sensible thing to do is to have only one guy, regardless of what his shift is - even because you just spent renown on a redundant special ability when you could have purchased another that you did not have - and simply bring the boat to BATTLESTATIONS whenever you need all your abilities at once.

So you will get your special guy out of bed, but so what? that is why he is there anyway.

I think that in most situations, you will only need special abilities turned all on when in extreme situations - and when it is the case, you are usually in battlestations mode.

Sorry, you must not be playing TMO like me, lol. The Master Engineer will work in both compartments (TMO). And the Theoretitian is " Command Presence" (again, TMO, but HE only works in the control room). STILL, I would rather try for a wider range of abilities, but, sometimes you just get redundant abilities when you promote guys....and some of the same are better than none!!!

I asked Duci once and he said two is the limit per compartment, that both will work. I often take two engine specialist, once activated you can get 3 extra knots if you use both. Most work in more than one compartment.

Suh-WEET- 1.5 knots isn't enuff to really bother, but a 3kt boost is a different story!!!

And completely unrealistic.

I agree, I don't know of a sub that hit 23kts, but maybe it was possible. It is for a time limit, so you can only do it for so many hours and seas must be calm.

I too think that this kind of bonus from special crewman is unrealistic. I think this is another example of Ubisoft creators attempting to make the game more profitable and appealing to people other than reasonable simulaton fans.

I mean, where does this concept come from? "have this item and get a bonus"? From card games, from D&D and such. If this is where they were aiming at, I think it is regretable.

That's what I needed to know. Thanks.

Jumping in with a related question here - in my TMO games, there's a crewman you can 'buy' who converts two of the ballast tanks to fuel tanks to improve surface range, but whenever I've 'bought' him and taken him out, it says 'skill disabled'. Come to think of it, it even says 'skill disabled' before you 'buy' him from the crew screen. He's in the right compartment, though I forget which one.

Anyone seen this, any ideas?:D

Was that even possible? Converting ballast tanks into fuel tanks?

Yep.

Some skills you have to activate as they have time limits. Click on the Special Abilty tab to bring up men with time limits then activate them.