Up to now, any crew I get has been through artifact pulls (androids for example) and through the Kronyn chain. My rank points have gone solely into decks and I have been installing modules instead of using 5 points for 10 crew, which in the end is a really crappy return.

My raiding seems not to have been affected as I'm approaching my third protean armory fast. I estimate approximately an 85% successful raid rate. So the real question is, when do crew ever become useful? And if it already is, what am I missing?

It becomes useful in avoiding a high damage cap. By the time you're one of the high-ranking players with multiple dozens of AP/h, it's very likely that most of your energy, attack, and defense will come from crew. (Or, at the least, most of either your energy or attack.) Heck, even a good half or more of your research will likely end up coming from scientists.

So, from the perspective of Crew vs. Deck, it's about keeping the damage cap down and thus making your ship require more hits to kill. This helps with NPCs and PvP, and in the long run requires a relatively small sacrifice of ship stats due to module loss due to Tactical Officers, Engineers, and Androids keeping you at or above the rest of those around you despite ship size (depending on AP/h, of course. You could also be below with a bad AP/h).

Edit: You could also end up below if you have a moderately high AP/h, but never get prisoners (like this guy).

It really depends on the build you want to achieve. Id suggest to figure out how many decks you really need (3-4k give or take, maybe more, maybe less, i know i need around 4400 to fit everything i need and get the achievement at the same time). Building your crew isn't really hard if you slow rank in the least bit and if you set yourself goals to achieve.

From 2k decks onwards, go for crew.

At that point, all the extra decks you add should be from artifact drops. Trust me, you will eventually have more ship bots than you know what to do with. Im sitting on something like 3200 of them at the moment...

I stopped pointing points into decks at around 1500. Now I have 1955. All of my crew types are above 1k (except helmsmen, but with the amount I've saved for Veloxes, I'd have 1009). I have yet to find anyone on my BT with stats equal or superior to mine (only ones I know are TB, who's in my legion, and TBP, who isn't in my rank bracket).

Basically, the sooner you can stop, the better. maybe around 5-6k artifact, but I'm not 100% sure.

1142 Decks
6985 Cargo
1002 Engineer
2778 Tactical Officers
1077 Helmsmen
743 Scientists

rank 420 1billion upkeep

Basically once you've installed everything you want to install, decks become finite and you have to start putting points into crew. It actually builds up pretty fast with a high enough artifact output.

MRmiko... your stats seem a bit lacking

rank 592 (so yes a bit ahead of you there)
energy ~6K without relays.
3272 Decks <---- relatively high, but i'm only adding decks as i need them for energy modules and attack modules.. pointless i know because i can just add TO's for free and not raise my damage cap, but I like having all the guns possible.
30000 Cargo
3459 Engineers
5000 Tactical Officers
2422 Helmsmen
4552 Scientists

and i stopped adding decks around 1800 or so i think. let ship bots and lazuli vaults take care of the rest.
just get your AP/hr up, and youll see enormous growth.

The major reason for adding decks is so that you have room for your researched modules.

The major reason for adding crew at low rank is to give you an edge in raiding. If you aren't going to be raiding, the only crew you should consider adding is engineers, and that is because more energy = more you can do = game more fun.

The major reasons for adding crew at higher ranks are that you've run out of modules to install (therefore decks are not useful) or that crew boost your stats without costing extra upkeep. Upkeep can become pretty horrendous, esp. if you don't keep on top of mining planets. And even if you do, the flexibility of being able to run without fat, expensive reactors (for example) can make a big difference: if you want an extra energy boost on rank-up, you can run a cheaper reactor if you have engineers to supplement.

E.g. I have 1200 engineers. I have researched Intra-D IVs but I don't run those because I don't want to pay the upkeep. Instead, if I want a reactor, I use a Dark Energy Core IV or an Intra-D I. Both of those cost little enough upkeep that I don't notice them. And they live in my cargo bay except for when I am getting a full energy refill. (Note: most people around my rank are running Supernovas, so I am actually using reactors 2 tiers below normal.)

1798 Decks

1375 Engineers

3318 Tactical Officers

1402 Helmsmen

2212 Scientists

rank 412

1923 decks

4810 cargo

200 Engineers

541 Tactical officers

262 Helmsmen

1006 scientists


Rank 279

Space: 2241 / 2241
Cargo: 3579 / 8060
252 Engineers
1023 Tactical Officers
145 Helmsmen (can't add any Helms until I get my last Velox -_-)
1435 Scientists

Rank 284

Rank 322
2.3k decks - stopped around 1900.
15085 Cargo
1055 Engineers
1149 Tactical Officers
352 Helmsmen
1783 Scientists

It seems to work fine. Other than TBP, I can think of few ships that out-power me that aren't hideously above me in rank. ICBLF would be another to get an honourable mention.

Rank ups go to engineers now, prisoners go to TOs, changing from a flat 50/50 at 1000 of each. It seems I get considerably more prisoners than rank ups.

I stopped at 3k decks personallly but heres where I'm at

Rank 363
decks 3997
attack : 7969
defense : 13397
cargo : 19430
Engineers : 470
tac officers : 3299
helmsman : 1718
scientists : 3559

Crew> decks.

Finite use for decks. And raises damage cap.

Best gotten from ship bots.

The sooner you stop using rank points for decks, the less you will regret later when you have a bunch of useless bots.

level 583
3128 Decks
35550 Cargo
802 Engineers
6905 Tactical Officers
1786 Helmsmen
4754 Scientists
I stopped using points for decks at around 1500 decks and used
nothing but bots since,sure it took a little longer to fit all the defense
mods but I am happy with the results and i now have a cargo full of useless ship bots

Problem with that is, at 5k AP/hr I'm getting like.. Half a dozen ship bots a week. Might not be ideal when I need to install a new set of modules. Obviously when my AP grows I will be able to keep up with just ship bots but then people with a lower AP than me will struggle even more with ship-bots alone.

Long run every deck you add with rank points takes 2 attack away. May not seem like much but when you are adding thousands of decks...
My question is what modules CANNOT wait? Can't really think of any that you couldn't just reconfigure your ship for.

Yeah.. But up until a certain point where upgrades come by fairly often, presuming each time you go from Mk3 cannons to the next Mk3, that's 32 decks a time. At low ranks it's fairly quick. Your theory might work in the long run, but until you get a good Ship Bot income you are going to be lacking.

Rank 557
3894 Decks
50000 Cargo
1862 Engineers
7171 Tactical Officers
2892 Helmsmen
5577 Scientists

I stopped adding points into decks at about 2k decks, let the ship bots take it from there. All my rank points tend to go into tac officers, with a few into engineers every now and then when i feel i need an energy boost. As most ppl have said, its all about the arti, get that up and your ship stats will soar.