Oh I can make 5 repairs instead of 4

How interesting

Seamen are worthless on BBs, if they're so good do you use them?

I use them. If you think they are worthless on BB's, you are wrong.

Furthermore, you can either have a repair capped crew by using more reps, or give up repair cap and have more OH time. Or you can drop a support and run a second scout.

The current system isn't broken.

Get a load of this guy

Feel free to prove otherwise.

What benefits do they provide? As far as I've seen it gives marginal SD (100-150) and marginal repair skill. We can only speculate as to how it works on other sailors but from what I've seen when I've used it on my BB the seaman is an overglorified repairman with more restore ability (which is useless anyway). Pretty much everything is capped at that point so a sailor who increases the ability of other sailors is completely and utterly useless.

Now if they took up an independent slot then their usefulness would not be in dispute, but the reality is that they do take up a support slot which could be used for another engineer or repair.

You have provided no evidence other than that "my word is law"

Also the idea is to get other unused sailors to be useful, such as the restorer, and there is absolutely NO way you can defend the restorer as useful on a BB, unless you're trolling me.

EDIT: I did some tests concerning the seaman.

4 Engineers + Seaman -> Overheat time: 2 minutes 46 seconds
4 Engineers w/o Seaman -> Overheat time: 2 minutes 41 seconds
Seaman improved overheat time on four engineers by 5 seconds.
Clearly another engineer is a better investment, or a repairman if you don't mind losing those precious 5 seconds.

Seaman -> 202 SD
One of my Repairmen ->152 SD
Seaman + Repairman -> 356 SD
The seaman added 4 SD, an overall improvement of 2.6%

All four of my Repairmen -> 614 SD
All four of my Repairmen + Seaman -> 818 SD
Odd, but the seaman appears to 'help' each additional sailor out even less, giving a measly 2 SD on FOUR engineers.

And before you say I'm invalidating the results by using a terrible seaman, no I am not. He is 120 BVE with 900 experts.

I don't use a Seaman for OH time or SD. Why? SD is capped, and I have more than enough OH time. I hit the repair cap on my L1 crew anyway with my overvetted crew, and from experience I find that my spread consistency is better.with one than without one. And I don't mean I have an overall tighter spread, I mean that I get the better spreads more often; even at weird angles from the ship.

Furthermore, a Seaman actually boosts the ability of crew members, so it can be argued that they see a performance increase on higher ability crews. I do actually have extra reps and engies for each nation at BB6 level anyway so I can tailor my setup to my situation.

I have never claimed that I run seaman due to any hard facts, I have just said I have run them in the countless league games I have won in my L1. Take that how you will.

You are the one that is saying Seaman are useless, thus the burden of proof lies with you. SD and Overheat time boosts are not what they are used for. Crew based boosts are; E.g. Guidelines Boost for a lower weight BO, and better spread consistancy; Which is ideal when you are already at the Repair cap and don't need more OH.(EDIT:- And I forgot to mention the benefits to scouts too...)

If you want to do some further tests regarding seaman, we can do it on the test server at some point if you wish.

The OH and SD tests were just to test something that can be quantified in order to show how little of an affect seamen have.
Guideline boosts for a lower weight BO is a moot point considering that:
Repairman at 120: ~900 sailors
Engineer at 120: ~920 sailors
Seaman at 120: 1010 sailors

So you're putting more sailors on anyway.

Seaman barely has any affect on anything and so there is no point in using it unless you like wasting a support slot.

Scout ability is dubious at best considering that if a fighter or an aa gun even touches a scout below 120 it becomes a flaming mass.

You can increase the abilities of higher level crews to be even higher, but considering you sacrifice a sailor for it the risk vs reward is hardly worth it.

You asked me to prove that seaman is useless and I did: the cons far outweigh the pros, and it boosts abilities of sailors by less than 3%. You could get more from 10 vets.

You're pulling a straw man anyway so whatever.

I'm still waiting for you to prove the spread consistencies and scout improvement which as I said was the reason I used it, as I am rep capped and have enough overheat. Even with my 200+ Vet BO. FYI, A Seaman doesn't have more than 20 tonnes weight either. It is 554 for a seaman vs 539 as a repairer. I do believe (I could be wrong) that I would have to put on more weight on my BO due to it (as the Seaman is boosting my BO). I also get a larger boost from my 209 vet seaman than my 109 vet one.

You are the one making claims. I've invited you to do specific tests with created sailors on the test server. Feel free to take me up on that offer if you want.

I'm going by my experience in playing L1. I feel my spread is slightly less inconsistent without my 209 vet Level 120 Seaman.

I also think there is a big difference in ability with my 109 vet Seaman and my 209 vet one.

tl/dr;

If you have enough in the other state (Rep cap/Enough OH), then why not put one on to improve spread consistency and scout ability?

You are the one making claims, so feel free to prove that these don't exist.

Now, back on topic away from your obsession.

Sure, I would love for Seaman to be more useful. They give a small boost, but to be honest if it gave a bigger boost it could well be a bit imbalanced.

Restorers? While I have a bunch of high level ones for PCA AA Ship BO's and would gain alot out of them, I don't think they are so much needed now. Maybe if it was made harder to reach the SD cap, but it would punish low level players.

At the end of the day, there are only so many stats in this game, and changing the sailors will not lead to more playstyles or a better balance, it will just anger the playerbase and make it harder for new players.

And caps on stats are needed to prevent $$$ becoming an autowin.

And its about as useful as what you suggested.