Ok crazy idea but what about a rare artifact; even a special weekly mission that rewards us with an artifact, that will retrain crewmembers. I have over 500 engineers and it would be nice to well, retrain half of them lol. And some of my scientists as well lol they need to grow a back bone and learn to fight lol.

Bad idea imo, reasoning is as follows.

Artifacts that add crewmembers as they are right now were designed with balance in mind. If another artifact (unless either extremely rare OR only good for 5 crewmembers or so at a time), was able to change them... well... then those artifacts would need to be revisited also.

Though it seems like a good idea at first, the more I think about it, the more it would drastically alter the way the game was intended to be balanced.

Another reason why this is not in the game. All artifacts EVER USED ON YOUR SHIP to increase crew will be lost. Ask Dan to know why.

I don't think it was intended to reset crew points, I think it was intended to switch crew from 1 type to another. and if the artifact was limited to shifting 20, I think that would be balanced (and restricted to minimal crew of a type)

well the game does keep track of how many of each crew member you have, so in theory such an artifact would be possible (since it simply subtracts crew of one type and adds an equal amount to the other). Although, I think scientists would have to be excluded from the artifact's effect since you get more scientists/rank and would thus make the artifact abusable.

What this idea needs is a name for the artifact. I propose the name "Head Cubicle", because when I think restructuring, I think Dilbert.

Yes was intending for it to move one crew to another job.... and I would not use scientists personally... but to counter the scientist’s issue, just take 3 to make 2 same ratio, and vise versa if you take 2 helmsman they could become 2 tactical officers or 3 scientists. Just having the ability to retrain small groups would be nice.

You could call it a reassignment artifact. Or slave trader artifact. Basically you trade your men for different crew members that way you can keep the ratio the way it was designated. But explain the fact why in some cases your getting 3 for 2 and 2 become 3. Scientist are just not as valuable lol, in the eyes of the slave traders they want real crew members.