There are, of course, many young officers waiting for their opportunity to serve on your starship, and they are strewn throughout the Alliance at space stations as well as planetary outposts. You may, when you are interfaced with an Alliance base, exchange one of your current crew members for one located at the base. How this is done will be explained later; the reason for doing so shall be explained presently.
The Alliance ranks officers in the following order: Ensign, Leiutenant, Lt. Commander, and Commander. The ranks are related to the number of duties the officer is trained to perform (Weapons, Helm, Engineer, and/or Doctor). Thus, an Ensign can perform only one duty, while a Lt. Cmdr. can perform three. The ability of an officer to perform the duties of Weapons officer or Helmsman is indicated simply by a Yes or No. In addition, the duties of Engineer and Doctor have ratings according to the officer’s ability: Poor (essentially equivalent to ‘unable to perform’), Fair, Good, and Best, relating to the amount of time it would take to perform their functions. It is of great importance, therefore, to surround oneself with the most capable crew, and thus the reason for exchanging crew members at Alliance bases. Space stations carry a maximum of eight officers, while planetary bases hold at most three.
The currently selected crew member is shown on the screen with a yellow rectangle around their Crew Window, while their commands are shown in the Commands Window at the bottom. To select a different crew member, use the mouse or press the TAB key until the rectangle highlights the desired crew member. Their commands will then appear in the Commands Window. To select a command from the list, use the mouse or type the number preceding the command. In some cases, command number 1 (“1. [More]” as shown in the Game Screen picture) will display more commands from which to choose. To return to the first set of commands, choose command 1 again, press RETURN, or click the mouse on the crew member’s name in the Commands Window.
Three crew commands which every crew member has shall be explained presently. The first is “Personal Profile”. This command displays in the Commands Window the crew member’s abilities at each of the four positions. The second is “Reassign Crewman”. This command allows you to switch duties between two crew members. In the Commands Window, just choose the position to which you would like the crew member to switch, and the two will exchange positions. This is helpful if crew members are injured, or if one crew member is strong at more than one position. Finally, there is “Report”. If a crew member has some information to give to you, they will indicate so with a light in the Report Windows along the right side of the screen. If the window shows red (as in the picture above), the information is critical; if it shows yellow, it is less critical. Each crew member is capable of remembering up to three messages at a time, so if you ignore them long enough, they won't retain the most recent information (which is not good). To view the message, select the “Report” command (with the mouse or keyboard) and the message will appear in the Commands Window.
