Help with Crew Combat composition

[neat pike]

I’m playing STF on my iPad since my PC isn’t available. I’m working on a set of Exploration unlocks in Hard mode.

I’m riffing off of this guide for my start:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3135971608

I’m also using this guide to help evaluate Talents:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2819332809

I’m using a Wolf Interceptor so that I can have 6 officer to more comfortably fit a full Crew Combat team because I’d like to be able to get the Xeno Artifact unlocks as well with this run.

I hit a wall and have to restart because my recruitment planet had civil unrest and I didn’t realize how much that would tank Influence (20s instead of 80s). I have a save from shortly before you can no longer save, so I’ll probably rollback to that rather than starting fresh.

I’m looking for advice (or guides) with current team builds for a Xeno capable Crew Combat team.

More info on what I have available:

I should be around 300 faction rep, so I’ll have plenty of max level recruit capability.

I have 3 Contacts on my recruitment planet offering 4 options:
Exo-Scouts
Scavangers & Explorers
Xeno Hunters

I also have 2 Contacts providing recruits on another world which has about 2 less on most Zone Ratings (generally 8s instead of 10s):
Blade Dancer & Sniper
Blade Dancer & Soldier

I’m playing Javat, so Exos get a few more attribute points, so I’ll probably recruit them for Rifle users.

I’m not sure what to do for a medic, as I forgot to include a Combat Medic Contact (and won’t have Doc or MOff available at reasonable levels). Maybe I’ll use Scavs for Doctor splash?

I’m also not sure if I should just go Shock Trooper builds for ranks 1 & 2 or recruit potentially lower stat melee.

Any help would be appreciated. I’m a bit frustrated with having to start this over again, so I’d like a good shot at getting everything in one go if I can. 🙂

[vivid hound]

There's a lot of flexibility in combat crews depending whether you build for durability or for burst damage - if you build sword users for the frontline they can tank with Strength of Steel while backline does Exo-Scout or Xeno Hunter things with Doctor off-spec while if you build shock troopers for the first 2 slots then you get bigger burst damage with titan shell and some nice utility with Rapid Bandage, Stand Strong, and To the Front

Recruiting directly to officer gives a big stat boost so if you're doing that with a max level recruit the resultant officer should be good enough to be usable pretty much in one go

If you're doing a Rifles oriented build you can run two Titan Shells in the front and a Plasma Burner in the back and slot 3 Exo Scout / Xeno Hunter / Doctor primary can use a Medical Reset or Death Haunt to deal with whatever got thrown your way

Blades oriented can do good vs Terrox and has a little trouble vs Jyeeta in that level 45 Jyeeta can have as many as 50 strong dice + 30 standard dice on melee defense so you would need about 30 Blades skill and a 25% accuracy buff (like Feint or Balanced Blade) and any defense debuffs you can get (like XH Grenade Launch) to actually hit good

[neat pike]

For this run, I’ll probably stop after doing unlocks, so I think I’ll just need to build for Terrox.

For the Doctor you’re talking about, getting both those skills requires 23 levels, so that isn’t a short term build (I’m expecting recruiting around 17).

So, I guess my question is whether I should stay with this save (which I like because it has explorers available) or restart with an eye toward getting CM or Doc recruits at a similar level for a CM/Doc/MO build.

[vivid hound]

Oh yeah if you're targeting level 17 crew you'll be pretty flexible with a Weapons Locker 6 and a set of Ki-Karat Braces across the board - contact weapons are a nice bump and contact heavy armor is a sidegrade (though the contact light armor has nice melee soak), level 15-30 Terrox xeno can be burned down good

Exo Scout 8 / Bounty Hunter 8 / XH 1 for slot 4, use Know Thy Enemy as DPS after buffing with Steady Mobility, Exo Scout 1 / XH 1 / Doctor 15 for slot 3, Exo Scout 1 / Shock Trooper 15 / Soldier 1 for slots 1-2 is plenty doable and gives you lots of buff stripping, damage, and emergency heals

Frontliners would Titan Shell or Roaring Barrels depending on debuff needs

[neat pike]

Yeah, I’m doing an unlock run, so this game will be done by year 10. Not in it for the long term. 🙂

I’ll switch to Normal instead of Hard for a longer run. I like save games rather than permadeath.

[upper zealot]

One thing I don't see mentioned is that (edit: I just have trouble reading) you don't need to stick with your original job as an officer.
Recruit Exo for the Javat bonus.
1 Exo / 15 Combat Medic / 5 Saboteur could be a support medic role.

If you have a lot of personal reputation, then you can plan to recruit several officers to wait for a good set of attributes and a skill boost. Have bonus evade, rifle, doctor, blade, tactics, stealth can all be valuable in combat.

[signal veldt]

I wrote that Millionaire Explorer Guide - I hope you’re enjoying it!

For your combat crew, I recommend recruiting all Exo-Scouts directly into Officer positions. Dismiss the ones with decent stats and keep the ones with great stats. Heres an article that talks about how recruiting directly into Officer slots affects the stats:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarTradersFrontiers/comments/10np7az/how_to_recruit_crew_with_the_best_attributes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Once you have four great combat crew officer I recommend going with:

• Slot 1 / 2 - Exo-Scout / Shocktrooper / Soldier
• Slot 3 - Exo-Scout / Combat Medic / Saboteur
• Slot 4 - Exo-Scout / Bounty Hunter / Xeno Hunter

[neat pike]

@signal veldt Thanks for your guides. They give me ideas for ways to play STF that wouldn’t occur to me. 🙂

To everyone who has helped here, thanks. I’m fairly comfortably fighting Xenos and trivially fighting Pirates in crew combat.

I’ve gotten Expert Prospector, which is the key unlock I wanted.

Adventurer didn’t pop, but I could have gotten it if I’d focused more on getting xenos fights.

Master Explorer, Master Adventurer, Warmaster, and Xeno Slayer are all comfortably in reach. I’m also going to detour for Heir Slayer.

[vivid hound]

Good luck with the detour, that one's a tough fight

[signal veldt]

The unlocks for Xeno Hunter and Xeno Slayer are actually easier if you do a Ship Combat / Crew Combat build. You need a ship with really high Defense to avoid getting killed, but if you can soften up the enemy with Ship Weapons then do consecutive boarding runs you can rack up 5x and 20x combat crew victories really quickly. Explorer Xeno battles are inherently more risky because the enemy always has full healthy and could be really high level.