I thought Engineering was supposed to improve survivability — not make ships useless without a full crew. Right now it feels more like a mandatory chore than a feature. It’s already tough to get people to jump into "fun" crew roles (e.g., turret gunners) instead of flying their own ships. Expecting players to sit around tapping an in-game iPad is an even harder sell. The fix is simple: Engineering shouldn’t require a staffed role. We need the ability to hire AI assistants—not full NPCs walking around, just a Halo “Cortana"-style system that auto-handles basics like: Auto-venting fires Boosting shields in damaged areas Prioritizing power to manned turrets You could even have cheap, mid, and high-tier AIs with different response speeds - perhaps their power even improved/reduced by allocating power to them. Human engineers should enhance performance when present—not be required just to stop the ship from functioning. If we're being honest, this is a useless tedium that has no real justification/meaningful value until Base Building is implemented. — EDIT The most common argument here is “cry because you can’t solo a mid-to-large ship”. The VAST majority of these are industrial / non-combat peaceful players. You expect your friends to enjoy monitoring an iPad while you do cargo runs? Additionally, encountering other players is rare as is and griefing is virtually non-existent so why is there so much anger? There’s no pay-to-win because there’s nothing TO win.