Make sure your crew has room to grow
Once you get some shore leave in Honolulu, you’re basically going to be awash in recruits for your ship within about an hour. There’s no downside to letting everybody aboard, but when it comes to who you should squad up with, you’re gonna need to plan for the future.
Early on, Jason Rich and Masaru are gonna be permanent fixtures in your crew. You’ll get them the earliest, but their stats stay relatively strong through the entire game. More importantly, though, is that they’re the first characters who can be boosted up to level 40. The problem with a lot of the randos you find out in the world is that even the ones with high stats might cap off at level 20. Those are crewmates who you want in there for a good time, not a long time. Have a backup character you can evolve. If you can be patient, and grind a bit before continuing the main story (the Coliseum in Madlantis is perfect for this) I recommend having a crew of all lvl 40-capables before getting into the weeds of Chapter 3, where the difficulty spikes. Speaking of…
