Playing as empire (although I don't think it mattes either way)...am I better off to use two or three characters on single ship research mission? Or amI better sending all 3 independantly?

 

THanks

I've never directly compared rates of research between the two conditions, but doing independent missions gives you the option of doing research on different planets. If your yards get bombarded, captured or sabbed or your agent gets killed or abducted, this means that you'll still have research going on somewhere else.

played with each...my impression was singles might be better...nothing definative though.

tested many times against ai seperate missions are always better at both research and diplomacy

 

it may help at the start of the game when characters research ratings are realtively low (which you can't see) but still i think seperate is better

Divided is quicker, more is more likely to succeed. The more researchers/diplomats you have working together the slower they will report back to you- but the more likely they are to report success. The likelihood of the success as well as the time before they report increases with each new character.

If you have two or more people on the same mission, do they still get skill increases with each success? I didn't think so, but I forgot.

Only one of them get a skill increase... This works for every mission of the game. 1 success 1 skill increase.

 

Also if a character assigned to a mission (not as a decoy) with spec forces he/she always get the skill increase unless there are other characters attached to the mission. So its a good thing to attach spec forces with your characters. Especially espionage will make great if you manage to blockade an enemy planet.You will notice that your 80 espionage rating character gets up to 120 in no time with only 2 espionage droid/bothans attached as a booster.