Sorry if this has been asked before, I searched but didn't find an answer though I simply could have missed it.

The Skilled First Officer (SFO) lets you discard the top Command Dial, however I realized you only assign the # of command dials up to the ships command rating once at the beginning of the game, adding only one command dial every turn after that. So in effect, does this mean using SFO basically reduces the Command stack by 1 for the rest of the game? So using a SFO on the first turn means a Command 3 ship now only has a stack of 2 Command Dials. That seams pretty powerful for a 1 point card...

No. Page 3 of the Rules Reference, under the Command Phase section says that "A ship must be assigned dials until it has a number of command dials equal to its command value." So if you discarded a dial in turn one you would need to assign an extra one in the next command phase.

Okay thanks, I was looking at page 7 of the Learn to Play rules.

Yep, you always add dials up to your command value.

Personally, I see a lot of people who, through shortcutting the game, were the sort who set their dials, and then, on the larger command ships, didn't bother setting dials for Turn 5 and turn 6, just crusing through their stack.

Which, is actually fundamentally incorrect with the rules - but its become a sticking point now because we have these things that effect Command Dials and Dial Order...

Previously (ie, Wave 1 and Game Start) - the only thing that made you discard a command dial was a Critical Hit, that was like, 2/52 in the deck, and rarely seen...

But we're getting more and more.

So everyone needs to keep in mind that every turn , you set up to your full amount of dials. You never know when you might need them.

There's a notable exception to this rule and that's the Relentless title for Imperial Star Destroyers. The Relentless always sets one fewer dial than its command value. So in a normal game, you only set two dials per turn. If you use Skilled first officer on a ship with only 2 command dials, you discard one dial, reveal the next, then set both dials on the next turn.

Just to mention it - there's a secondary effect of Skilled First Officer that's often overlooked for Command 2 ships.

The main effect is that you can discard your top dial and take the next one.

On a Command 2 ship, if you use Skilled First Officer you have to set two command dials in the next turn to have a full command stack (as noted above).

However, it does effectively turn your Command 2 ship into a Command 1 ship for the following turn as you're resetting the full stack, so you get to be doubly reactive.

Make sense?

Yep. This one floats around a little. Skilled First Officer really was made for the command 2 ship.

That's why it's such a great officer for one point.