if planning to use AA(reccomended) 5Engine and 3Repair

If not using AA(why idk?) 6Engine and 4Repair

for main gunners you dont really need elites, as they will hit both caps by BB4 if BVE and decent bases.

For DP gunners +12reload or elite reload, class as armament and dont class again until you get to the yamato and want to use them. You can use them for HH classed as armament only :) so they are not just dead weight.

Elite repair are nice to use as you will be running DP gunners and wont have the addtional rep/engine you would have otherwise.

Elite Engineer's are good engies, but only have +9 repair base. You may be better off buying/rolling +12 engines with +10/+11 repair base.

Elite repair as your BO? Even BVE you may not see your shells land for a long time, and the sightlines may never grow to equal your range. But this I do not know...someone else may chime in here who does know.

Elite repair as a scout classed normally would only provide a very small benefit in your repair rate. I dont think this would offset the dissadvantage of having a +9 scout.

I myself delay classed a 12air/11rep MN scout until he was BB4 level as an experiment, and a good stiff breeze would knock him out of the sky :) BVE with 200 vets and now he does ok at BB5 level and adds a modest amount of repair. I'm not sure if he will ever be immune to the best AAW though, So I cannot reccomend this either.

Others may jump in here with tips as well, but dont forget to Search this IJN section for BB crew advice

Thanks!

Ill change to:

5 elite engineer
3 elite repair
2 elite reload (class as DP level 89) 

I will keep rolling until I get a 12 or 13/11 reload + repair for my main gunners

The scout and Bo are still up in the air - anyone else have advice or experience they would be willing to share/ contribute? 

If you have any special (lvl 90 neuts or heros) use them as Engys first.  Elite Engys are not ideal because of their low Rep base.  I would personally rank Engys like this:  1.  Hero 2.  lvl 90 Special 3.  12eng/11 rep 4.  Elite Eng  5.  12eng/10 rep or worse. 

I have used elite reps as BOs before.  They are a little bit heavier and expensive because they require more experts and vets to see guidelines and you can't remove as many recruits at high levels.  You can see shells land but they will not be at your max guideline length until like lvl 80 even with max vets and full experts.  

I just go with good pilot stats for the scout.  I chose to use my vets/experts elsewhere so a good rep base has almost no impact anyway. 

For gunners, I used elite reps and kept them as ARM sailors until lvl 120.  As a group, they provide as much repair as another lvl 120 rep. 

If you really want to know how each sailor will perform based on the amount of vets and experts you want to use, use one of the base calc tools and crunch the numbers. 

If you make the crew as you just described it, you will be happy.  Those sailors will perform well and we always be able to be sold for a good price. 

If you want the "perfect" crew, that will perform only slightly better, a lot of research is involed. 

I had 10 elite repairs, 1 classed as BO, 1 as scout, and 8 as engineer

engineers classed on time, scout left it unclassed until yamato

pretty happy with this setup 

interesting - I will follow the advice given.

its a fair point that to get optimal/perfect crew requires alot of mathematical crunching and has only a minor/non-noticable improvement 

This is cool - I feel like a whole new world is opening up for me in NF

I never thought before of stacking sailors stats to gain extra repair or engineer the way he did with 10 engys (unless trolling). I like the Idea about using repair as gunners and classing at 120, food for thought.

I see what your saying now about being able to optimise the crew towards your playstyle and preference. I didnt realise that it was so flexible in this regard - very cool.

After thinking about what types of battles I want to play (GB and fleet wars, no HA), my preferred play style (defensive with AA) and taht I still need to improve my dodging skills I have decided to go with:

5 x EBVE engineers
2 x I will roll for 13 reload/12  repair - level 90 turn them to DP gunners - before lvl 70 I will BVE them
2 x I will roll for 13 reload/12  repair - as main gunners - before lvl 70 I will BVE them
3 x I will roll for 13 repair/12  engines - class as repairmen - before lvl 70 BVE them

For BO - I will roll for 12 repair/12 engines

Scout - just Roll dice for a 14 on the "aircraft" stat

How does this sound?