Roles

There are five unique roles in a tank that need to be filled by the tank's crew to operate the tank. Each vehicle varies in the number of crew members inside it and the roles that they are assigned. Depending on the tank, a crew member may be assigned to perform multiple roles or multiple crew members may be assigned to perform the same role.

A crew member is originally recruited for a specific role and it cannot be changed later on. For example, a crew member recruited for the position of a Gunner can never be used to fill the position of the Commander in the tank. A crew member always fulfills the role of his primary role in the tank, in addition to any other roles that may be assigned to him.

The proficiency of each crew member assigned to a specific role affects the vehicle's performance with respect to that role. If several crew members are assigned to the same role, their average skill level is used.

Commander

These crewmen are responsible for spotting enemy vehicles. They affect the view range of the vehicle, with more competent commanders able to spot enemies at a greater distance. Commanders also give a bonus to the primary qualifications of the rest of the crew. 10% of the Commander's skill level is added to the skill levels of each crew member.

Driver

These crewmen are responsible for operating the driving controls of the vehicle. They affect the movement dynamics of a vehicle, with more competent drivers able to accelerate faster due to less terrain resistance and thus also turn tighter while losing less speed.

Gunner

These tankers are responsible for aiming and firing the vehicle's gun. They affect the speed at which a gun will be aimed at its target, with more competent gunners able to aim at a faster speed and also aim better. In game this is reflected by the aiming circle starting out smaller, shrinking faster while your gunners are aiming and ultimately ending up smaller when fully aimed the better skilled your gunners are. Gunners also affect Turret Traverse (rotation) speed.

Loader

These crewmen are responsible for loading the next shell to fire. They affect how fast the next shell is loaded. More competent loaders are able to load the next shell faster, resulting in a lower reload time.

Radio Operator

These crewmen are responsible for maintaining contact with allies, so that they appear on the player's minimap. They affect the radio range of the vehicle, with more competent radio operators able to maintain contact with allies at greater ranges.

Major Qualification

The Major Qualification listed in a crew member's Personal File is his primary role, and reflects one of the five roles explained above. In essence, it really should say "Role" here in the Personal File instead.

Commander	Driver	Gunner	Loader	Radioman

Secondary Roles

When a crew member is assigned to multiple roles (depending on the vehicle), the first one listed is the primary, and the others are secondary roles. For example, in an MS-1, the Commander (primary) also fills the roles of Gunner, Radioman, and Loader. These last three are the Commander's secondary roles. This distinction becomes important in 0.7.2 because crew members can only train in skills or perks related to their primary role. To use the MS-1 example again, the Gunner, Radioman, and Loader skills/perks are simply unavailable on that tank. Also, despite competently performing the roles of Gunner, Radioman, and Loader, you still won't be able to assign the Commander to any other primary role than Commander on another vehicle.

Skills and Perks

Skills are additional proficiencies that a crew member can learn in order to improve aspects of a vehicle outside of the crew member's primary qualification. Training for these skills is available when a crewman reaches 100% in his primary qualification. A small plus icon will appear on the crewman's icon to indicate that he is now ready to start training a skill. Click on the icon to see which skills are available and to select one. After selecting a skill, a corresponding icon with the respective skill level is shown below the crew member's name in the garage screen. After reaching 100% skill level, the crew member can start training another skill, and continue the process until training up all three skills. Skills increase in effectiveness as the crew member's proficiency increases. Currently, skills learned can only be deleted, losing all progress in that skill. Version 0.7.2 will introduce the ability to assign the experience gained in one skill to a different one for Gold.

Perks are the same as Skills except for one thing: They don't do anything until they reach 100%. They're either "On" or "Off" with nothing in between.

Currently there are three skills (over 20 more are to be added in v0.7.2):

Repair

This skill improves the crew member's ability to repair a module that has been knocked out, a higher skill level allows faster repairs. The skill bonus starts to take effect as soon as a module is damaged. Repair skills are essential for the vehicles where returning to operational condition as quickly as possible is paramount, such as scouting tanks which rely on their tracks being in good shape.

Camouflage

This skill improves the crewman's ability to hide the vehicle from enemies. A higher level lowers the chances that the vehicle will be spotted by the enemy, requiring enemies to be closer to the player in order to detect him. The camouflage skill is always active and the overall effect depends on the tank's inherent camouflage rating. This skill is particularly useful for Tank Destroyers, lower tier SPGs and scouts.

Firefighting

This skill improves the crew member's ability to put out a fire, should a vehicle ever be unlucky enough to be in such a situation, with a higher skill level resulting in shorter times to extinguish the fire and thus prevent it from spreading to other modules. It is noteworthy however that the amount of damage done by each tik of fire is lowered, with a crew trained to a higher Firefighting skill lowering the damage further than crews without. This does not affect the chances of a vehicle catching on fire in the first place. The skill bonus takes effect as soon as the vehicle catches fire. Firefighting skills are more useful for large vehicles that can stand to take some damage without being utterly destroyed, but using Manual Fire Extinguishers or Automatic Fire Extinguishers consumables is generally more effective.

Training/Retraining

If you do not chose a skill immediately after it becomes available, that crew member will nevertheless continue to gather experience and will apply stored experience to the proper skill once a skill is chosen. This is beneficial when purchasing a new tank with 100% crew, but not knowing what skills would benefit it. You can play some battles with that crew before selecting their skills. It can also be useful during retraining.

Bonuses

The following modifiers increase the base skill level of your crew members. They are cumulative.

• Commander Bonus: The tank's commander provides 10% of their own primary skill level as a bonus primary and secondary qualifications of every crew member under his command, but not to himself (confirmation pending whether commander receives his own bonus or not for secondary skills). So, for example, if all your crew members are at 75% base skill level, the commander will add 7.5 to each of them resulting in an effective skill level of 82.5%.
• Equipment Bonus: The Improved Ventilation equipment permanently increases the effective skill level of each crew member's primary and secondary qualifications by 5.
• Consumable Bonus: The premium consumables Chocolate, Coca-Cola Box, Extra Combat Rations, Improved Combat Rations or Hot Coffee increase each crew member's primary and secondary qualifications by 10 for a single battle.

Penalties

If a crew is not competent to operate the tank it is placed in or if it gets injured during battle it receives a penalty to the base skill level of all their qualifications. Penalties are always applied before Bonuses.

Lack of Competence

A crew member is always trained for a specific vehicle. Should a crewman operate a vehicle that he is not trained for, he may receive a penalty to his skills. This is indicated by the skills being colored red in the garage screen. A penalty received for the following situations:

• If a crew member is in a vehicle of the same class, and the vehicle is not a premium vehicle, he will take a 25% penalty to his current skill level. So, for example, 80% base skill level will be reduced to 60%, or 100% base skill level will be reduced to 75%.
• If a crew member is in a vehicle of a different class, and the vehicle is a premium vehicle, he will also take a 25% penalty to his current skill level.
• If a crew member is in a vehicle of a different class, and the vehicle is not a premium vehicle, he will take a 50% penalty to his current skill level. So, for example, an 80% crew will be reduced to 40% base skill level, while a 100% crew will reduced to 50% base skill level.

Experience gain for each crew member is also reduced under these conditions.

Crew Death

During the course of battle, a crew member can be killed, affecting the vehicle's performance accordingly.

Commander death removes the bonus given to all crew members and reduces view range.

Driver death reduces the top speed, traverse speed, and acceleration of the vehicle.

Loader death decreases reloading speed. If a shell was being loaded at the moment of loader's death, the process might start over.

Gunner death reduces aiming speed and increases dispersion. Turret traverse speed will also decrease. If the gun was in the process of zeroing in on target at the moment of gunner's death, the process might start over.

Radioman death reduces radio range.

Should a crew member have multiple roles, then all the roles associated with the crewman take a penalty. For example, a crew member who was responsible for loading and firing the gun, then both the gunner and loader injury will take effect.

A crew member from any given crew may perform multiple roles, or multiple crewmen may fulfill the same role. In the case of multiple crewmen for the same role, the effective skill between them is the average of the skills across all the tankers. For example the two loaders on a SU-14, one performing at 50% and the other at 100% will average of 75% loader crew skill. Dead crew members will perform at 0% base skill level for the purpose of finding the average calculations, but bonuses still apply. Having multiple members perform the same job is beneficial, because if one becomes dead during the course of battle the job will not be as affected as if one member was performing it.

The Small First Aid Kit and Large First Aid Kit consumables will allow a dead tanker to return to battle without any penalties to their performance or experience gain.

Effective Skill Level

The effective skill level of your crew's primary skills can be found by hovering over a crew member with you mouse in the garage, but note that the display is rounded to the nearest integer. Also, the consuamble bonus is not included because it is only applied once battle starts and the consumable is consumed.

The effective skill level of your crew's secondary skills is not displayed, only the base skill level is shown for those and you need to calculate the effective level.

• Maximum effective skill level for your commander is 115% (100% base skill level + 5% improved ventilation + 10% consumable bonus).
• Maximum effective skill level for every other crew member is 126.5% (115% as above plus 10% commander bonus).
• For tanks that do not have improved ventilation equipment available to them, the maximum effective skill levels are 110% for the commander and 121% for his crew.

If several crew members are assigned to the same role, the average of their effective primary skill levels is used to determine your crew's performance in that role.

Non-role specific secondary qualifications are averaged across all crew members. Crew members that do not have any training in a certain secondary qualification will add 0% to the averaging calculations. Thus, to reach 100% of a non-role specific secondary qualification for a tank with a crew of 4, all 4 crew members must reach 100% on that specific qualification.

Recruiting

When recruiting a new crew, you will be faced with the option to select between three different training levels:

Tank Academy

At the cost of 200 Gold, this option trains a crew member to 100% skill level in their primary qualification, and thus automatically unlocking a secondary skill.

Regimental School

At the cost of 20,000 credits, this option trains a crew member to 75% in their primary qualification.

Rapid Courses

This option is free, and trains a crew member to 50% in their primary qualification, which is the minimum that a crew member can be at.

When acquiring a crew member at the Barracks you will also have to specify a Nation, Vehicle Type/Class, Vehicle Model and Primary Qualification.

Skill Level

Once recruited, further advancement of the level of the skills of your crew depends on the experience they have gained. Experience can be gained through participation in battles. The crew will gain as much experience as the tank did in the battle, divided evenly among the crew members.

Experience needed for the next level can be calculated using the following formula, where skillNo. is 1 for the primary skill, 2 for the first secondary skill, 3 for the second secondary skill, and so on.

To get from 68% to 69% in a primary skill you will need 2^1*25*100^(68/100) = 1146 XP. To go from 50% to 100% primary skill level you need 95484 XP, and from 75% to 100% it takes 72544 XP. The first secondary skill takes 210,064 XP from 0% to 100%. For each subsequent secondary skill that number is doubled. Overall progression can be seen on the graph to the right.

Experience Bonuses and Penalties

The experience earned by the crew during a battle can be influenced by bonuses or penalties:

Bonuses

Daily Double

The first won battle each day is awarded with twice the XP that you would otherwise gain. If a tank still has its daily double available is indicated on the tank icon at the bottom of the garage screen by a little double red star icon in the upper left corner of the tank icon. Despite contrary statements from Overlord it has been confirmed through testing that the crew benefits from this bonus experience.

Accelerate Crew Training

This is an option available only for Elite Tanks, i.e. tanks that have researched all upgrades available to them (including other tanks). Selecting this option means that your tank will not accrue XP anymore except the 5% free XP that you always receive. Instead the XP earned during a battle is given to the member of your crew with the lowest total XP in addition to the regular XP they receive for the battle. If several crew members have equal values, the first one is chosen. Accelerate Crew Training can be toggled on and off at any time by a check box above the crew icons in the garage on the upper-left side of the garage interface, or by a check box in the upper-right corner of the vehicle's research tree menu. When a player turns on Accelerate Crew Training, a dialog box will appear to notify the player that it has now been enabled.

Penalties

Lack of Competence

A tanker crewing a vehicle that he is not trained for may earn less experience:

• In a vehicle the same class, there is no penalty if the vehicle is a premium vehicle, otherwise he earns 50% less.
• In a vehicle of a different class, he earns 50% less if the vehicle is a premium vehicle, otherwise he earns 75% less.

Crew Death

A crew member that was injured at the end of the battle will receive 10% less experience than he would have otherwise received. Since the rate of crew injuries may not be the same across all the crew members, it is possible that one tanker will improve his skills faster than another tanker in the same crew should he be knocked out less than his colleague. If a crew member was injured during the battle but healed using a Small First Aid Kit and Large First Aid Kit they incur no penalty unless they get injured again.

Training/Retraining

If you right click a crew member and select their Personal File, on the Training tab you have the option to improve the training level of your crew member in their primary qualification, or to retrain him for use in a different vehicle that you have already researched of the same nation. Training/retraining, as recruiting, gives you three options to choose from.

Tank Academy

At the cost of 200 Gold, this option trains or retrains a crew member to 100% primary skill level.

Regimental School

At the cost of 20,000 credits, this option trains/retrains a crew member as follows, but never below 75% primary skill level:

• If the crew member is retraining to a vehicle of the same class, then the final primary skill is 90% of the crew member's current primary skill level.
• If the crew member is retraining to a vehicle of a different class, then the final primary skill is 80% of the crew member's current primary skill level.

Rapid Courses

This option is free, and retrains a crew member as follows, but never below 50%:

• If the crew member is retraining to a vehicle of the same class, then the final primary skill is 80% of the crew member's current primary skill level.
• If the crew member is retraining to a vehicle of a different class, then the final primary skill is 60% of the crew member's current primary skill level.

Existing secondary skills are unaffected by training/retraining. However, when using the Regimental School or Rapid Courses options, any experience that a crew member has accrued towards a secondary skill, without actually having selected that skill (i.e. the is showing), will be used first when deducting the penalty. If your crew member has accrued enough unassigned secondary XP, this allows retraining without losing any percentage of your primary skill level. This can be very useful for retraining SPG crews, which are highly dependent on their primary skill level but do not benefit much from secondary qualifications.

When to Retrain

When moving on to a higher tier tank from a tank you do not intend to play again, retraining can be preferable over recruiting a fresh crew in a number of cases:

Primary Skill Level and Regimental School

If your existing crew member has already reached more than 83% primary skill level, retraining him to a vehicle of the same class in the Regimental School will leave him with a primary skill level that is higher than the 75% of a crew member recruited fresh out of Regimental School, thus making it preferable to retrain him rather than recruit him if you were going to use that option. When retraining to a vehicle of a different class your crew member needs to be at least at 94% primary skill level. You should avoid retraining between classes.

Retention of Secondary Qualifications

Fresh crews, regardless of what primary skill level they started with, will not have any secondary qualifications. Since secondary qualifications are retained through retraining, always retrain crews that have already obtained secondary qualifications.

Continuation of the Crew Member's Career

Crew Member Personal Files

Players can look at the Personal File for each of their crew member by right clicking on the crew member's icon in either the Barracks or the Garage.

On the left side of the window is a list of the crew member's basic information, including:

• Rank
• Full Name
• Vehicle they are crewing, if any
• Primary Qualification
• Primary Qualification training/skill level
• Modifiers (this feature is not in game)
• Compentence, i.e. the vehicle they are trained for
• Secondary Skills, either completed or in-progress.

In addition, there are buttons in the bottom-left corner to send the crew member from his vehicle to the barracks, and to dismiss the crew member from service. Dismissing a crew member from service cannot be undone.

On the right side of the menu are four tabs:

Service Record

This tab includes the number of battles fought and awards given to the crew member over the course of his career. Battle awards given to a crew member will stay with him, even if the crew member is retrained and placed in another vehicle. The tab also shows the amount of experienced needed to reach the next skill level, and the amount of battles you will likely need for that based based on your average experience.

Training

See also: Retraining

This tab is where players can raise their crew member's competence or retrain them so that the crew member can operate a different vehicle.

Skills

See also: Secondary Qualifications

This tab is where players can view all the secondary qualifications that are currently available for the crew member to learn. When a crewman is ready to start his training on a secondary qualification, a button will appear which will allow the player to commence the crew member's training.

Personal Data

Players can change the name and avatar of their crew member, where they can select from a list of pre-defined names, and a selection of face icons. Changing a crew member's personal details costs 50 Gold.

Moving Crew Member

Barracks

Here is where players can find all their crew members, whether they are in a tank or in the barracks itself. Players start with sixteen bunks in their barracks, and can increase the number of bunks by 16 for 300 Gold by scrolling down and selecting the Enlarge Barracks button. Only crew members who are not in a tank use a bunk in the barracks. Those who are in tanks are listed in the Barracks window, but they don't take up a bunk. By using the toggles and drop-down menu on the left side, a player can sort his crew members by their nationality, vehicle training, primary qualification, and location (whether assigned to a tank or not). Crewmen that are not currently in a tank can be dismissed from service to free up a bunk in the barracks. Dismissing a crew member is permanent, meaning the crewman is lost forever with any awards and skills he may have acquired.

Garage

In the Garage, players will see icons on the left side that represent the crewmen who are operating the currently active vehicle, with the rank, last name, skills and their levels. Hovering over a crew member will provide additional information, revealing the crew member's full name, total primary skills, bonuses, and vehicle training. Players can left-click on a crew member to bring up a small pop-up menu, which will allow players to view the selected crew member's personal file, recruit a crew member who can fill the selected slot, select a crew member from the barracks who is capable of filling that slot, or send the selected crew member to the barracks. If there is no crew member in a crew slot, then clicking on the crew slot will bring up the crew recruitment menu, with the proper fields filled in for that vehicle.