Originally Posted by SomeGuy01
(...) is it worth it for the extra overheat or that small amount of repair skill?
Chief engineer gives eng and sailor growth and takes rep and res growth. Since you have 55 more levels to go, you can see the table below for the pros and cons.
+2 eng growth x 55 = 110 engineer ability
+1 sailor growth x 55 = 55 extra sailors
-4 rep growth x 55 = 220 repair ability
-4 res ability x 55 = 220 res ability
Lets compare final stats at LVL120:
1. Crew size 917 vs 972
2. Engineer ability +/- 110
3. Repair ability +/- 220
4. Restore ability +/- 220
1. Crew size would matter only if you wish to fill with full vets and experts. For example if you will leave it at 150 vets and 700 experts and rest as recruits, the difference will not effect you. But if you are planning to go 300vets with full experts, the difference shall effect you.
2. Engineer ability you would lose by not classing to Chief engineer is only 3% at LVL120. Since you most likely have base 12 or elite engineers with boosts, your crew would reach speed cap anyway and this 3% difference would only effect OH time. Let's assume that at lvl 120 you will have 5 minutes of overheat, 300 secs. Engineers which are kept at 1st class with same number of vets and experts would give you 291 secs. You can easily ignore the difference between 300 and 291.
3. Repair ability you will gain is twice the amount of enginer ability that you will lose. 220 repair ability is not a great number but it can be valuable for KM. KM has a disadvantage of repair ability. So you would like to squeeze as much repair ability from any sailor as possible. For 5 engineers, it would give you a bonus of +1100 repair ability.
4. Restore ability you will gain, while it is also twice the amount of eng ability you will lose, could be ignored. Above all, you will reach SD cap anyway, at the end of 70s or in the beginning of 80s. The difference of +220 restore for all your engineers would only make you reach SD cap a few levels earlier. And this is the case only if you have high number of vets and experts on your sailor.
Summary:
There is not an absolute choice for this situation. If you have base 12 or elite engineers with boosts, then you will have plenty of OH time anyway, so you can choose to go for more repair ability. But if you are using unboosted +11 base engineers, you are not in a position to give away engineer ability. The choice is up to you.
