[JimSB]

In the early levels, I have found the most useful skills to be field medic and damage control (its a game and my captain often goes out with the away team early). FM allows your away team to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous combat much more often, and DC heals the hull. After you get going, an engineer or engineers with the combination of "Build it Better 3" and "Efficient Construction 3" along with lots of crafting parts will give you the ability not to get some kick-butt weapons (one of my favorite away team sidearms is a plasma mini-gun, range 10, adjacent 7+, damage 200+ - it can clear the eyeballs and bashers), empty your cargo hold of all but the most essential equipment and build what you need "on the fly", and also get tons of cash when you need it (crafting good reactors gets about 500K credits in the pawn shops). Most of the other skills are duplicated by a device, but the crafting skills are not.