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Each hirable NPC has 7 skills and each skill has 5 levels of competency (the more stars, the better). Numbers of stars are somewhat randomly generated in that I don't think it is possible to get NPCs with really low numbers of stars any more.  <Clarification: this may apply to hired NPCs only; 'free' NPCs given when buying or given plot ships may still have very low skills - Snafu>

Only the skills marked in bold font are relevant to the performance of the NPC in question (their Primary Skills). In most cases, each NPC will have three Primary Skills, but Engineers just and some Specialists only have one. Marine Officers are somewhat unique in that only they have a skill that improves with use, : "Boarding Experience".

In Rebirth 3.00, Virtual Seminars were introduced to the game, which allow us to add a star to a Primary Skill of our hired NPC. They are only currently available via Smalltalk from other NPCs and this feature is described in more detail in the official guide to 3.00 here and on this wiki here <edit: they may be obtainable as mission rewards too; needs checking - Snafu>. Virtual Seminars cannot be used to increase a Marine Officer's Boarding Experience but , but since Virtual Seminars take some effort to acquire, I would suggest that would be a waste anyway.

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