Characters

A character is one of the crew members on your Ship. Characters are all members of the ship's crew, regardless of whether the character is your Captain, an Officer or a Crew Member. Each character is a unique and named individual with their own Attributes, Skills, Jobs and Traits.

Character Creation
At the start of your game, you are asked to make and customise your captain. This is the only character that you get to create. All other characters in-game are pre-made and/or computer generated. See Captain Creation for more information.

Brief Explanation:
 * Attributes determine your character's basic characteristics and cannot be changed throughout the game (except with Trait Mutation). Except in crew combat and for talents that state they rely on attributes, only the captain's attributes are used or tested; not the officer's or crew's.
 * Skills measure how well a character does at a particular job. Unlike attributes, skills increase every time a character increases their job. Also unlike attributes, skill tests are done collectively by the crew. Skill Bonuses (Skills levels in brackets) from officers are also factored in; but not the general crew's unless the skill is a specific Crew Combat skill like Pistol or Evasion. Additionally if a skill is used by a specific non-officer crewmember (such as Engineer Repair or Diplomacy Talents) the bonus in brackets will be used.
 * Jobs are the professions of your character. As a character levels, their job will gradually level with them. Captains and officers can have up to three jobs, whilst normal crew members may only have one.
 * Every character starts with three traits which give unique bonuses or disadvantages to the character.

Character Death
Depending on the Game Difficulty you are playing on, if permadeath is on, your characters may die permanently. Whenever a character's life is threatened, they roll their Death Chance to see if they are able to survive the deadly wound. If permadeath is disabled, characters who would normally die are considered to have narrowly avoided death and are left alive, but in a weakened state.

Character Levelling
All of the characters on board your ship gain experience as they participate in any action, including flying and maintaining the ship, joining in on missions, manning the battle stations, or diving into close quarters combat. As characters gain experience, they will begin to level up their character's level.

At each new character Level, your characters may gain a new job level and/or talent. The current maximum character level within the game is 45, regardless of a character's role on the ship. Your captain will level quickest and learn the most talents, followed by your officers, then your normal crew members.

Characters only level up when they are paid at the Spice Hall. According to the old traditions of the Star Traders, crew members are paid every 30 days at maximum. Even if a character has more experience than required to advance to the next character Level, they will not do so until paid.