Job overview

This page is in progress. The goal is to give a simple overview of every type of job on the ship. This page is designed to answer questions such as "What I should do?", "What skills do my team expect me to take?", "How difficult is to learn my job properly?", and "How much time and communication does it take?". The rating in each category is completely subjective, so feel free to discuss in the talk page or at http://twd.io/e/fH1u0w . Edit as needed. )

This page contains short overviews of most duties on the ship. You can see what characters are expected to do different roles, what skills they need for those duties, so you can choose a role for yourself. Pay attention to job difficulty, how much communication with team it requires and how active you should be to be the most effective.

Note: The priorities given on this page assume everything is running fine on your ship. Emergencies and requests for assistance can drastically alter the time, skill, and communication requirements.

Specialist duties

These roles require a specific skill or title to be the most effective (or in some cases, to even have access!). If you take a character with the skill for one of these jobs, you will be expected to focus on it.

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Piloting

Main skill - Pilot

Secondary skills - Shooter Devotion Creative Expert

Pilots have three duties on the ship - they use patrol ships to kill enemy hunters, they use the Pasiphae to collect loot from defeated ships and join the exploration team with the Icarus. Characters without the Pilot skill have major penalties while piloting (default BIOS settings forbid them from even taking off), and turrets are not efficient in defeating enemies. That's why pilots are essential for Daedalus safety. Piloting can be done while dirty, so eating for AP is less of a hassle.

Job Difficulty - Easy

There are only a few things you need to know to do this job. Reading the main article will be enough.

Communication Required - Low

In most situations, you should kill hunters when you see them. Collect loot if all hunters are killed and you have action points. If you are launching the Icarus for an expedition, make sure everyone is ready first; otherwise you could leave critical people or equipment behind. If BIOS Pilot Lock is off, you don't even have to launch it yourself; just being present is enough to ensure a safe landing.

Activity Level - Medium

New Hunters can come at every cycle change, and in some cases it is critical to take them out before they start shooting. At the same time, Piloting is a very demanding job in terms of AP, and once you have spent yours, you can be offline for several cycles while you regain energy. Taking off with less than 8 AP is considered wasteful, as it only allows you a few shots.

Expected Pilots

Jiang Hua - has Pilot at level 1. Her other skills, namely Botanist and Survivalist, make her an ideal choice for an expedition team's pilot.

Roland Zuccali - has Pilot skill at level 2. The addition of the Shooter skill at level 3 gives him more shots per day and increases his accuracy, allowing him to clear the hunters by himself at need.

Additional Pilots

Kim Jin Su - has Pilot skill at level 2, but his role as Commander often requires him to save action points for moving the ship and giving missions. The Leader skill is also important for keeping morale up, especially if Janice is dead.

Terrence Archer - has Pilot skill at level 3, but his level 2 Technician skill is often critical. He often has to use action points or Technician points on emergency repairs, and if nobody else is on moving around the ship can be very AP expensive.

Andie Graham - has Pilot at level 1, but the level 3 Polyvalent is preferred. Andie replaces Finola, the head researcher, and the job requires almost all of his/her AP.

Frieda Bergmann - has Pilot skill at level 2, but her job as a Astrophysicist demands all the action points she can save. On most ships, it is not recommended that she take on Piloting duties, but she can serve as a backup pilot in case of emergency.

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Research

Main skills - Biologist Medic Polyvalent

Secondary skills - IT Expert Devotion

Research is carried out at the console in the laboratory. Each project has different requirements to be available for research, and each offers benefits to the ship - many aid your crew in resisting and finding the Mush, but not all of them. Anyone who is clean can work in the lab, but the listed skills boost your efficiency. Most ships have one or two crew members specializing in research and depend on the rest of the crew for relays - see the Generalist section on research.

Job Difficulty - Medium

Knowing what to research, when, can be critical to the success of your ship. All anti-Mush research is useful and desirable to humans, but your unique situation may make certain projects more or less important. It's better to focus on one or two projects and see them to completion than to work on many projects that will take longer to complete when your AP is so spread out.

Required Communication - Medium

Working alone on research is very inefficient; you will need at least one person to work with you. See Relaying for more details. You also need to be aware of the Mush situation so you can be working on the most useful projects.

Activity Level- Low or Medium

With good communication, you can set a specific time to relay back and forth with another crewmate, then spend the rest of the day regaining all the energy you spent. If you don't have a partner, you will need to rely on the rest of the crew for your relays, so you'll need to check in more often to see if progress has been made.

Expected Researchers

Andie Graham - has Polyvalent skill at level 3. Researcher Andie is highly preferred to Pilot Andie, as he/she "replaces" Finola, the dedicated researcher. Additionally, the Biologist, Botanist, and Diplomat skills are either only available to a few characters or require high experience levels to unlock.

Finola Keegan - has Biologist skill at level 1 and Medic skill at level 2. Taking both skills will give her a double bonus to efficiency, and her Germaphobe trait makes her less than ideal for other tasks around the ship. If you are bronze and can only take one, Medic will also allow you to deal with injuries and to perform surgeries on characters that can't move.

Zhong Chun - While she does not have any skills to boost her efficiency, most of the anti-Mush research requires her to be present. She is also the only one who can sleep safely in an unsecured Medlab, so she is expected to provide most of the relays for those with the proper skills.

Ian Soulton - has Biologist skill at level 2. While Botanist usually takes priority for bronze players, he can and should still relay research when he has AP to spare - especially at the beginning of a ship when most of the plants are young and important anti-Mush research is being pushed.

Additional Researchers

Janice Kent - While not a primary researcher, her flexible IT points are well spent helping out with early research projects and the later, difficult ones. Use of her points doesn't cut into her low action point budget and she occasionally needs to visit the lab for morale-giving bananas anyway.

Eleesha Williams - Most of her duties involve keeping track of suspicious activity, but her travel around the ship gets her near the lab often. Higher level Eleesha players can have IT Expert, and her flexible IT points can easily be spent in the lab while she passes through.

Raluca Tomescu - Raluca usually stays at the back of the ship and most of her tasks can get her dirty. But Genius, her level 4 skill, allows her to instantly finish the next project, research, or repair she tries after activating it. It is not uncommon for this skill to be spent to instantly complete the Retro-Fungal Serum to cure an exposed Mush.

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Astrophysics

Main skills - Astrophysicist

Secondary skills - IT Expert

Your job is to find planets to explore. There are two steps - first you must locate a planet to scan, then you must analyze it. Report on what you've found and decide if it is worth the fuel it costs and the risks it may pose. If your team likes the look of it, you must wait for them to get organized, travel to the planet, explore it, and move away again before you can look for the next; any scanned planet will be lost after the ship moves, no matter which direction or how far you go. If a planet is undesirable, whether because it is too risky or doesn't have enough of the right resources, delete it and start on another. Visiting planets will provide many resources for your crew - oxygen, fuel, food, and alien artifacts - and is important to the survival of a long-lasting ship. Planet scanning is done on the bridge, and requires you to be clean.

Job Difficulty - Medium

Know your zones - what resources can you get from each? Which ones are dangerous enough to immediately scrap the planet? How much risk will an exploration team face, and what items should they bring along to help? You also have to keep an eye on ship resources; know how much longer the oxygen will last before people start dying and when it's time to make a food or fuel run, so you can be looking for the resources your crew needs. Remember that once you are in orbit, people can view the zones for themselves - if you made poor judgements, you might face the consequences.

Required Communication - Medium

You'll be expected to report your progress frequently, and to deliver a full analysis of a planet on demand - how much fuel it takes to get there and what direction to go, what to expect and what you'll get out of it.

Note: If multiple people are scanning planets, a much greater level of communication is required. You cannot see or scan the planets your teammates are working on, so it's important to tell each other what you are finding. Don't waste a bunch of AP when somebody else has found a good planet, because it will be lost when you move.

Activity Level - Low

Fully scanning a planet takes a lot of AP, especially if it has a lot of zones. If the ship has to move for any reason, all planets are lost, as is the progress put into them. The best way to avoid wasted AP is to wait until your bar is full, then spend it all at once to scan a planet or two as completely as possible. You can log in once or twice a day to do this.

Expected Astrophysicists

Frieda Bergmann - has Astrophysicist skill at level 1 and is often the only Astrophysicist on board. Her IT Expert skill, unlocked at level 4, can boost her efficiency by saving her some AP.

Crew members, who can also be astrophysicists

Lai Kuan Ti - has Astrophysicist skill at level 4. His main focus is Neron Projects and Technician work, but if the need is great, those can wait.

Gioele Rinaldo - has Astrophysicist skill at level 4. This matches well with the Caffeine Junkie skill - pull the coffee from the machine for a few cycles and drink it all at once. Remember to use the apron!