A seaman provides 3 things... repair, restore, and a boost to most other sailors
abilities. A BVE high level seaman provides a substantial bonus. It's been my experience
that 4 Engineers + 1 Seaman is just as good as 5 Engineers for overheat speed and time but
also gives you significant increase to Repair, Aircraft Skill, and Gunnery (assuming
you're not capped, which you likely are by then).

Don't expect much out of a seaman before level 80, as the percentage increase is really
too small to measure before then. And seamen don't stack like Repairers do, so having
more than one is less efficient for a number of reasons. (The fact that they improve
everyone else means you want as many "everyone elses" as you can get.)

It also doesn't seem like Seaman have a cap on their ability. A level 120 seaman with 300
vets can enable level 70 fighters to perform as though they were MUCH higher level, for
example, though hard numbers are difficult to get.

Just based on the logical explanation of a Seaman (it boosts the ability of other
sailors), Seaman alone without supports probably isn't the best method for testing. Now
I'm pretty sure Phat has tried multiple test with various numbers (thats just the way you
are lol). But anyways if a Seaman only boosts the ability of the supports, then an extra
sailor logically would provide better benefits (assuming the boost from a seaman is not
astronomical percent).

I am wonder what is a diffrence betwen crew:

1. bo + 2 gunners + 2 aagunners + 4 reps + 4 engs
against
2. bo + 2 gunners + 2 aagunners + 3 reps + 4 engs + 1 seaman

or similar case.

I think 8 seamans do nothing but only reprate and SD. But mayby 3 reps + 3 engs + 2
seaman. Just wondering.

Good topic, it's one of those parts of the game I've pretty much ignored.

I know some people were saying they were good for pilots. This was before the recent
patched that changed the way planes work, when fighter durability was heavily influenced
by bomber stat. A seaman could decide who had air superiority if both CVs had high level
pilots (I'm not a CV driver so I don't know for sure, that's just what I heard).

But with a BB I can't see how a percent increase could be better than having an extra engi
or repairer.

I myself had 8 seaman on BB on the test server, my friend tested 6 or 7 seaman.
All of them were 120.

Results? They are s**t useless. The difference could be comparable if you were to lvl
2 or 3 extras more lvl, or give them few more vets.