NPC Crew members can be hired to serve the player's Railjack if they do not have a full player squad. They are unlocked at Command Intrinsic Rank 1.
The host's crew is used in missions. If players queue into the squad, they will replace the NPC crew, starting with the one in slot C, then B, then A.
How To Hire[]
There are two ways of obtaining crew members:
- Hiring Syndicate Operatives from Ticker in Fortuna on Venus using credits or Railjack resources. Prices vary by up to a factor of two in either direction based on the player's standing (allied or opposed for a discount or price gouge respectively) with the NPC's Syndicate.
- Converted Kuva Liches and Sisters of Parvos can be used as crew members at Command Rank 8.
Players start with 3 crew member slots and additional slots can be purchased with
20 up to a maximum of 33 crew member slots. Alternatively, players can end their contracts with their crew to free up slots, which will prompt the player to type RELEASE to confirm.
Interface[]

Players can access their Railjack crew via the Dry Dock in Tier 2 or 3 Relays or the Clan Dojo, or while browsing Ticker's wares and selecting "Contracts". Here they can switch out and dismiss crew members, assign competency points, change appearances, swap weapons, and view contract duration (counts up from hire date).
Mechanics[]
Roles[]
Up to three crew members can join a Railjack squad and can be assigned roles which affects their behavior priorities:
- Defender: Defends the Railjack against enemy raiders
- Pilot: Takes control of the Railjack
- Gunner: Operates a Swivel Turret against enemy attackers
- Engineer: Repairs the Railjack
Roles can be changed mid-mission via the Tactical Menu, but will revert to their original role once the mission is completed.
Converted Kuva Liches and Sisters of Parvos are restricted to the Defender role.
Competency Points[]
There are five competencies which affect the performance of each crew member, each of which has five ranks. Crew members initially have 8, 10 or 12 points randomly distributed between these competencies, depending on if they were hired with credits (8 points), Railjack resources (10 points), or if they are an Elite Crewmate (12 points).
- Piloting: Determines maximum Railjack speed when crewmate is piloting. +0 / 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25% Speed.
- Gunnery: Determines accuracy and heat accretion when crewmate mans the Railjack swivel turrets. -0 / 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50% Heat Accretion and +15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75% Accuracy. Does not apply to on-board combat.
- Repair: Determines crewmate's Railjack repair and self-healing times. +0 / 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50% Repair Efficiency and +0 / 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10% Heal Rate.
- Combat: Determines crewmate's combat damage against enemy raiders (no effect on enemy ships). +0 / 40 / 80 / 120 / 160 / 200% Damage. Damage is additive with other damage mods.
- Endurance: Determines crewmate's Health and Shield ratings. +0 / 300 / 600 / 900 / 1200 / 1500 Health and +0 / 100 / 200 / 300 / 400 / 500 Shields.
As players increase their Command Instrinsics rank, they can earn up to three additional competency points per crew member which can be applied by clicking the TRAIN button.
Intrinsics Command[]
Higher ranks of the Intrinsics Command allow for additional bonuses:
- Rank 2/4/6: Gain 1 Competency Point to assign to crew's stats.
- Rank 3/5: Unlocks 2nd and 3rd Crew slots.
- Rank 7: Allows reassigning distributed Competency Points.
- Rank 8: Allows converted Kuva Liches and Sisters of Parvos to be crew members. They cannot be given another weapon, cannot operate Railjack systems, do not have Competency Points, and can only be given the Defender role, but have significantly higher health and shields than maxed Endurance crew members.
- Rank 9: Allows assigning On Call status for one crew member and grants the player the On Call Crew Gear item to summon the assigned crew member temporarily in non-Railjack missions for 3 minutes. The gear item has infinite uses with a 10 minute cooldown.
- Rank 10: Elite crew members become available for recruitment from Ticker. They have the highest amount of initial Competency Points, at 12, and a random trait.
Plexus[]
Each crew member will use a copy of the player's Plexus Integrated loadout, including the Plexus Aura mod. However, crew will not use Battle or Tactical abilities.
Randomized Stats[]
Health and shield stats of crew members are randomized within a set range. Higher ranks of Kuva Liches and Sisters of Parvos will have higher health and shield stats.
Currently, all Syndicates seem to have a set health range of 2000-3000, and a set shield range of 200-700. These values are not taking the Endurance stat into account.
Elite Crew Trait[]
Elite Crewmates have a random trait based on which of their Competencies have the most points.
| Competency | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Piloting | +25% speed for Vidar/Lavan/Zetki engines |
| Gunnery | +50% damage for Vidar/Lavan/Zetki turrets |
| Repair | Gain 50% Movement Speed for 10 seconds after repairing |
| Repair | Heal all teammates for 1000 Health when this crew member drops below 30% Health (Cooldown: 5 min) |
| Combat | Increase Critical Damage by 300% while Health is below 50% |
| Combat | +150% Critical Chance bonus with Rifles/Pistols (stacks additively with mods like |
| Endurance | Activates a protective shield when taking near lethal damage (60 second cooldown) |
| Endurance | Killing an enemy heals all nearby allies by 500 over 10 seconds |
Customization[]
Syndicate crew members can be given one copy of the player's owned rifle, shotgun, or secondary weapon (but not spearguns, bows, thrown, or arm-cannons) which uses the weapon's current mod configuration. You cannot give the same weapon to two crew members. Mods with conditional player-exclusive actions (e.g. aiming with
Argon Scope or casting abilities) will have no effect. Riven Mods will take effect during Empyrean missions, but are not applied when summoned using the On Call Crew gear item.
Players can also change the crew's suit color, attach armor cosmetics and Syandanas, and the appearance of their equipped weapon.
Types[]
Flavor Text[]
The flavor text for crew members is created using a combination of three different sentences to form the full flavor text. Below are multiple examples of some possible outcomes.
- Steel Meridian
- Arbiters of Hexis
- Cephalon Suda
- The Perrin Sequence
- Red Veil
- New Loka
Randomized Names[]
Crew members names are randomly generated based on pre-defined prefixes and syntactic rules.
| Syndicate | Possible Prefixes |
|---|---|
| Steel Meridian | |
| Arbiters of Hexis | Strategist, Probate, Scholar, Vigilant, Centurion, Venator, Adept, Arbiter, Armsman, Seneschal |
| Cephalon Suda | Arch-Mem, Disp-Arch, Surv-Tel, Expi-Dyna, Log-Rec, Seek-Loc, Res-Arc, Cura-Phano, Pion-Rec, Inves-Resp, Ult-Pho |
| Red Veil | |
| The Perrin Sequence | |
| New Loka |
| Syndicate | Sample Names |
|---|---|
| Steel Meridian | Burr Gahgijo, Pen'ki Hahkk, Xixogg Krzz, Lolix Roo, Zaa Hikk |
| Arbiters of Hexis | Vigilant Akec, Centurion Facie |
| Cephalon Suda | Disp-Arch Fau, Arch-Mem Raelekh, Arch-Mem Kuvak, Surv-Tel Lorithekh |
| Red Veil | Sevaraveri, Set, Kai |
| The Perrin Sequence | Erro Frenka, Magg Udo, Galla Feto |
| New Loka | Duirynells, Bhepp, Ellavanar, Brightsong |
Notes[]
- Crews from Steel Meridian, the Perrin Sequence and New Loka may or may not have masks covering their mouths, altering their voices in the process. Cephalon Suda crews never wear masks, and Arbiters of Hexis and Red Veil crews will always wear masks.
- Syndicate Crews can experience bleedout. However, Converted Liches and Sisters do not, making them unrevivable in missions.
- Syndicate Crews can revive players or other crew from bleedout.
- Syndicate Crews have innate health regeneration. Converted Liches and Sisters however, do not.
- Syndicate Crews and Converted Liches/Sisters cannot be healed with
Squad Renew and
Form Up. - When crew members are replaced by joining players, if a player leaves mid-mission or the host experiences internet connection loss, the replaced crew will reappear in the mission.
- Engineers, while effective in automatically repairing hazards, notably take longer to do so than players.
- Pilots will hold position if a player charges the Forward Artillery or enters the Archwing Slingshot.
- Pilots will maneuver and destroy objectives that require outside assistance, such as Grineer point of interest external radiators.
- While non-Defenders may combat boarding parties, they will always prioritize their primary directives before defending themselves: Pilots will never leave the pilot seat (unless a Player takes over), Gunners will only exit the turrets when not attacking enemy fighters, and Engineers will only engage in combat after fixing all hazards.
Tips[]
- Crew members are replaced in the following order when other players join your mission: Slot 3, Slot 2, Slot 1. As such, when playing with others having crew with a relatively even spread between Gunnery, Repair, and/or Endurance can allow mid-mission reassigning easier. You may wish to use the first crew slot for a high priority role, such as your Engineer.
- Gunners and Engineers with a high Combat and/or Endurance stat can replace a dedicated Defender.
- Converted Sisters will revive downed crew members and players, while Converted Liches can only revive players. While not their first priority they will detect downed crew and attempt to reach them eventually, and instantly revive them when they get near. Sisters with
Renewal have no effect currently however, as the ability does not heal at all due to it being bugged.
Trivia[]
- Crewmember's idle animation changes depending on their highest stat.
- New Loka crew members make idle chatter that is frequently religious in nature, such as prayers for good food free of rot and good health, and a notable disdain for Cephalon Cy.
- Perrin Sequence crew members make idle chatter related to money, exploration, and they usually seem to be a bit more cheerful yet nervous.
- Steel Meridian crew members make idle chatter about admitting to eating other clones as a necessity, making threats by the Worm about turning members into "Slurry" likely fact rather than a scare tactic, making cannibalism possibly common among Grineer.
- Similarly, Red Veil crewmembers will mention cannibalism as a form of punishment for others, and brag about being carnivorous.
- Syndicate crew members share the same gender with their Syndicate leaders.







115 comments
Do multiple Gunnery/Piloting elite crew trait stack?
Do Rivens still not apply on On-Call-Crew? And what about Galv mods?
I have a question about the elite crew traits.
Are they additive? Two times +25% Lavan Engine speed means +50% Lavan Engine speed etc.? Also, when are they applied?
Just don't use a pilot they don't work, use 2x gunners and a engineer. the npc's wont do anything when you are x miles away anyway making a pilot unuseable for it's purpose to begin with.
Only use pilots when going to objectives as part of Away Crew: AI pilots can AND will kill radiators etc.
Pilots will hold position if a player charges the Forward Artillery or enters the Archwing Slingshot. Ever since I started playing the game, this hasn't been true. The moment the pilot gets back into the pilot seat it starts driving despite me charging the torpedos. They seem to no longer be able to take care of radiators. Probably got broken at some point.
Had this same problem. I had to force the pilot into a different role so that I could actually complete the mission objectives. Really salts me towards using the npcs
What you described doesn't invalidate the statement. It said if you start charging the artillery when there is already a pilot seated, not if the pilot entered his seat after you started charging the shot.
Broken at some point?
This is DE quality: never worked as intended haha
I don't know if it mention anywhere...
Is Combat's damage stat apply thought oncall summon?
None of what you said was his question nooxx take your complaining somewhere else. WOW the AI in a MMO PVE GAME ISNT AS GOOD AS PLAYERS?! shocker... Literally the best specters in game though. Unlimited uses and insane damage potential.
^ lol, I didn't answer anyone question. its my post, I just put all mine into one. and the AI mentioned is the one in railjack mission not the summon gear.
They doesn't help that why I complain, but I just put it here to left some discussion so it up to you to care or not. English is not my main language btw.
Ah yes they dont help.... Except when they aim bot hundreds of enemy fighters in seconds.
And when you put them on call and wipe enemies in the hundreds of levels high in seconds.
And when they give you quality of life with repairs.
But no no they dont help at alllll.
No bugs section?
: sometimes when summoned on-call crewmate while player is invincible, they will stand still and not attack, not even defend themself and die.
Pilot crewmates seem to still be bugged, about 50-60% of the time they'll never hit the radiators, or shoot slightly offset of its actual position, or seemingly shoot into empty space (presumably taking aim at the far, out of reach play area of whatever you boarded).
So, which config does the crew use? say i have 3 config on my zarr, do they always use config A? or is there a specific rule for that?
You can choose which config they use. You can even change mods in their menu without having to go change mods on the weapon and then re-equip the weapon on them or whatever. It's "Upgrade Weapon", right below "Equip Weapon"
So after clearing out all the RJ missions solo i can confidently say that this setup is the most comfortable:
2 Elite Dedicated Gunners with the Vidar Turret Perk and Vidar Talyn turrets (fire rate works best)
1 Elite Combat Engineer with the CC 150% perk for rifles, Equip them with something like Rubico Prime
This crewmate can also be your on call crew for missions
New loka can have male voice, which is weird
Going out on a limb with my following assumption against your assessment here in saying that amongst my Suda ladies, I have one whose voice is pitched significantly lower than usual - and my conclusion on that basis is that the same probably happens with female crewmates from the other syndicates.
What the hell DE? I've been collecting min/maxed crew members just for the fun of it for a little while now and just checked on them and all their skill points have been shuffled!
Invest yourself a special guardian. I once ran out of ammo soloing primary only, sortie AladV assasination. Called in a rank 5 combat crew, she killed both Zanuka and Alad V in one 44 ammo magazine.. the same gun I ran out of ammo only halved Zanuka health at best.. Time to buy an elite crew with 150% crit bonus, rank 5 combat and endurance for emergency use.
I wish I could name mine Amos Burton, they just delete boarding parties when there aren't any stupid fires that the Zetki Mk-III Reactor doesn't put out thanks to RNG
"You're not that guy. I'm THAT guy."
"Pilots will hold position if a player charges the Forward Artillery or enters the Archwing Slingshot"
LIES
"Pilots will maneuver and destroy objectives that require outside assistance, such as Grineer point of interest external radiators."
MORE LIES
That's... actually an amazing way to get radiators
It's almost like in STAR TREK!
"FIRE PHOTON TORPEDO, FULL SPREAD!"
The AI share the same brain from the player
My AI never work properly too
A far better way 17/03/2023 is actually just... having a Pilot and gunner flying around the objective and they will destroy it. Or, use a fluctus. Simply jump outside the objective and use the Fluctus' infinite punch through to hit the radiator, then go back in. Going back to the railjack, slingshotting, and then taking out the radiator is very slow
My dude saying parking kilometers away from the objective is "better" than parking right next to it and completely removing the need to slingshot OK...
Would like a fix.
When I have team mates, I dont get the list of crew in tachtical.
Shrink the pictures abit and I could get everyone listed. Or there is a button for my crew and one for the People that are with me.
Makes it fun, when My crew is out of the Turrets, and everyone Leaves ship, and me with 1/2 my weapons not working.
If I fill my turrets with crew, the people get upset, cause they want to use those guns. As there is a strange reasoning here, noted in the wiki, that Arch guns Loose 90% damage in space.(look it up) and Railjacks get Full damage.
im having a stroke reading this
Hmm, both the 150 CC and the 500 heal seem good. Guess I will try to hire one of each, for potential on-call duty.
(Also, looks like piloting will be the dump stat.)
WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR COMMENT EDITING YOU SHIT WIKI GODDAMN
Anyway yeah not even a SINGLE point in piloting, complete wasted stat, poo poo caw caw
I'll make this piss easy for you: godrolls are 0/0/5/5/5 for engineer (with +150% CC for Rifles and maxed Kuva Zarr) and 0/5/0/5/5 for gunners (+50% damage with Zetki turrets, give them both Epitaphs built as status primers)
Thank me later or don't, it doesn't matter, but screeching back that "PiLoTiNg iS aCtUaLLy GoOd" only makes you look dumb
And actually fuck it I'll share their crew weapon builds too:
Kuva Zarr (60% Toxin progenitor bonus) will have: Primed Firestorm, Primed Cryo Rounds, Hunter Munitions, Point Strike, Vital Sense, Serration, Vile Acceleration, Split Chamber, Primary Merciless arcane and Terminal Velocity exilus
Epitaph will have: Lethal Momentum exilus, Secondary Encumber arcane, Primed Fulmination, Gunslinger, Anemic Agility, Lethal Torrent, Barrel Diffusion, Augur Seeker, Perpetual Agony, and finally a Riven (yes, RIVEN, since they are NOT going to be your on-call crew; the engineer will be that instead) with + Multishot, + Status Duration, + Fire Rate, and any curse that doesn't mess with the above
Who the hell levels ENGINEERING?
Railjacks are immortal once you have even half decent gear.
As for crew builds 5-5 endurance combat with ether 150 crit chance or healing and a trumna.
Also Mr "Where edit button reee" noob.... its right there on the side. Maybe if you logged in you'd see it and get called out when you're being a smooth brain.
Leveling the repair is good tho, gives him more healing
I always have a guy in engineering because it's convenient, a guy as a pilot because the ship should stay mobile when I'm not around and he will defend the ship while I'm piloting, and a guy on the turrets because the best grinner is a dead grineer.
Or you can: clear all fighters and crewships first, then park 5500 meters away from objectives and use slingshot, omni back and shatter burst when radiators are exposed, then repeat with another slingshot until objective cleared and never have to worry about ramsleds / shipkiller / missiles / etc. from the POIs
To 17/03/2023, that is such a slow and bad way of doing RJ missions. Having a Pilot, gunner and engineer means you can leave the RJ, do the away crew stuff, and they will automatically do everything else for you other than destroying crewships. It's far faster leaving the crewships till last, and you don't need to care about Ramsleds or Shipkillers cause the crew deal with all of that for you as well
I'm with the 17/03/2023 commenter on this one. Pilots are currently a dump stat, and until they learn to target objectives with any level of consistency, they are woefully unreliable. Also, having two gunners operating simultaneously not only significantly reduces any chance of ramsled invasions, but they can singlehandedly take care of skirmish objectives (minus the crewships, naturally) with no player assistance required. On the rare occasion that the enemy manages to board your railjack, your max-level combat Engineer with that 150% crit chance bonus weapon perk should make very short work of them between putting out fires and keeping your ship's hull glued intact - and JUST IN CASE she needs a little more time for her hand-cannon's TTK to really kick in, the Intruder Stasis tactical button exists as a fantastic option for remote assistance. In my experience, slingshotting to objectives is hardly 'slow' (in fact, targeting crewships and some Corpus Proxima megaships immediately grants you entry into the vessel), and keeping your distance from some of the objectives (i.e the Shipkiller Platform, which can obliterate even 10K+ HP RJs) is actually advisable - alternatively though, you could just park the ship underneath that platform, which provides convenient blindspot protection. Lastly, between your railjack's HUD and your Omni, there are plenty of options for teleporting straight back to the ship, as well as towards any specific individual attached to your ship which in my experience is far quicker to use than flying back with the archwing, so I don't see how any of those applications are apparently slow to you.
Dumb fandom users on their way to act like parking kilometers away from an objective is faster than parking next to it...
Not sure if anyone found this line yet for Arbiters crewmates. For one of the second lines, a possible sentence is "Spent a month living beside a waterfall and living off raw Murkray liver, the better to hear the voice of Truth within."
So with the two roles Defender and Engineer...
-Defender: Defends the Railjack against enemy raiders
-Engineer: Repairs the Railjack
Will the Defender help repair the ship after killing all raiders?
Will engineer kill raiders before repairing so they don't get shot in the face while repairing the ship?
"Notes: While non-Defenders may combat boarding parties, they will always prioritize their primary directives before defending themselves: Engineers will only engage in combat after fixing all hazards."
Well that's a no to the engineer question but I feel like the roles should be combined so they are more useful.
Defenders do nothing outside of fighting boarding parties.
Engineer will fight back once all the holes are patched in.
Currently for all intends and purposes you do not want to set anyone as Defender, while you may one one crew member to be assigned as an engineer.
"Killing an enemy heals all nearby allies by 500 over 10 seconds" -> does this also work when a gunner destroys a ship?
It's a bad trait anyway, 50/sec is nothing, why would you take that over the 150 cc???
Well, when you run, for example, a baruuk, with multiple layers of damage reduction, the effective healing is like 10000/sec. Not all traits are ungabunga big crits obvious in purpose, but you could TRY getting a little creative.