Crew can be hired to join you for a one-off cost and provide different perks based on their role. You can find crew to hire in any system which provides the crew hiring service, mostly this is from systems with the outpost structure. Crew gain level any time they use a room that is designed for their role, this is listed in the room description and rooms can be fitted in any system which also provides the ship trading service. Crew may use fitted rooms at their leisure, so it is always wise to have suitable rooms fitted when possible.
The different roles of crew are listed below, and the perk they provide increases in effectiveness as their level increases. The statistics shown are therefore representative of a level 100 (maximum level) crew member.
Command
Passive Perk: Will increase the level of all other crew.
Active Perk: Increases the level of other crew by 3.1.
Commerce
Passive Perk: Provides commerce support by increasing sell prices and decreasing buy prices.
Active Perk: Increases sell prices and decreases buy prices by 3.1%.
Construction
Passive Perk: Provides construction support by new structures starting closer to completion and repair times decreased.
Active Perk: Increases initial structure starting stats of new structures to 5.56% of full.
Counsel
Passive Perk: Improves the morale of all other crew onboard.
Active Perk: Increase morale generally and decreases the morale loss from activities.
Crusader
Passive Perk: A Family Ath'en crusader will continually seek and destroy ships and structures belonging to any factions you are at war with.
Active Perk: This crew member is always 100% effective.
Engineering
Passive Perk: Provides repair support speeding up ship repair times.
Active Perk: Repairs 12.5 of hull damage and one point of system damage per minute.
Exploration
Passive Perk: Provides exploration support by decreasing charting time and increasing gathering yields.
Active Perk: Decreases charting time by 24 seconds per level and increases gathering chance by 4%.
Fabrication
Passive Perk: Generates equipment parts and weapon parts.
Active Perk: Fabricates 1 part per day with increasing rarity based on level.
Hacker
Passive Perk: Increases the chance and speed of all forms of hacking, and has a chance to disable ships in combat.
Active Perk: This crew member becomes more effective on a non-liner scale.
Handler
Passive Perk: A wildlife handler who can train wildlife in corresponding training grounds onboard a ship.
Active Perk: Trains wildlife more effectively as their level increases.
Herbalist
Passive Perk: Will regularly craft medicines and botanic remedies.
Active Perk: This crew member is always 100% effective.
Hunter
Passive Perk: Will passively hunt and capture wildlife delivering them to your reserves.
Active Perk: This crew member is always 100% effective.
Mechanical Being
Passive Perk: Will regularly craft ports from parts in your hold.
Active Perk: This crew member is always 100% effective.
Medical
Passive Perk: Increases your personal statistics.
Active Perk: Increases personal statistics by 5.56 points. (The minimum increase of all medical crew combined is one point)
Mining
Passive Perk: Provides mining support by increasing mining yields and using any available docked Tugs.
Active Perk: Increases mining yield by 50 Mgs.
Navigation
Passive Perk: Provides navigational support by decreasing fuel usage.
Active Perk: Decreases fuel usage by 5%.
Pilot
Passive Perk: Provides support by using a ship docked in a bay during combat of role attack, defence, operations, recon or support.
Active Perk: Overloads the shields of the mothership when entering combat by 200%.
Salvage
Passive Perk: Provides salvage support by increasing the chance of finding parts.
Active Perk: Increases the chance of finding rarer parts by 6.3%.
Science
Passive Perk: Provides scientific support by decreasing arc, biogenic and nuclear nuclear saturation.
Active Perk: Decreases saturation effects by 21 per minute.
Security
Passive Perk: Provides personal combat support.
Active Perk: As this crew member increases in level their health increases by 1000.
Slave
Passive Perk: A rescued slave will slowly rehabilitate and become a new crew role.
Active Perk: Provides no benefits.
Slaver
Passive Perk: A Family Robar slaver that will find persons in escapes pods and sell them or harvest their organs.
Active Perk: This crew member is always 100% effective.
Soul Harvester
Passive Perk: A Dark Oriam crew member that specialise in soul harvesting.
Active Perk: This crew member is always 100% effective.
Special Operations
Passive Perk: Regularly steals cargo from opposing targets in combat.
Active Perk: Increases stealing chance by 5%.
Tactical
Passive Perk: Provides combat support by increasing critical chance.
Active Perk: Increases critical chance by 12.5%.
Terraformer
Passive Perk: Provides terraforming support by increasing terraforming yields.
Active Perk: Increases terraforming yield by 12.5 Mgs.
Thief
Passive Perk: Will attempt to steal recipes, research points and credits while in systems you have negative karma with.
Active Perk: This crew member is always 100% effective.
Wrecker
Passive Perk: Will regularly report in the faction log sightings of ship wrecks.
Active Perk: This crew member is always 100% effective.