1. Admiral – Main problem with admiral is only you have to give up your Nav
2. Smuggler –
3. Engineer – Can be countered by enemy just ignoring your attack and going a round your attacking force so I would say its not really that good. More situational and sometimes more defensive.
4. Queen –
5. Navigator –
6. Helmsman – I would say you just need it because later on speed is important so you just need some type of speed though Liet may be sufficient.
7. Thief – A thief is a poor man's king without the draw back. Its useful but I would say its limited in that you have to carry it with you.
8. Intelligence Officer – Information is good although sometimes you can get information if you just look into the past or keep pestering the enemy at random outpost to take it briefly.
9. Foreman – I mostly just like foreman as a movable factory to where you need it. Also annoying if you move it to time it with production and then get to another factory before its production.
10. Tycoon –
11. King – Engineer requires you to win. Kings effect is always there. Guaranteed 33% more effectiveness or on win 25% recovery. King does have draw back like losing shields or making it easier for enemy to poke you.
12. Tinkerer – I rarely hire tinks but then I rarely hire tycoons.
13. Sentry – Can be somewhat defeated just be enemy sending preemptive drills or speed. They are more an annoyance.
14. Princess – Its sometimes better to have the princess go full attack for the extra vision and randomly flopping it but I rarely did that.
15. Minister of Energy –
16. Pirate – I always need a pirate just because the counter to some things require you to have a pirate.
17. Inspector – The main benefit of the inspector is if enemy times their attacks poorly and you just smuggler your queen inspector around.
18. Double Agent – You can if you just put a smuggler navigator and da on the same boat. Somewhat defensive but you can do some crazy stuff.
19. Assassin – Assassins counter assassins and you get 2. I play general often so they are useful.
20. Security Chief – I don't the extra 10 shield is going to really matter late game unless you massively stack. Sure its annoying but a sentry destroys more than 10 and late game your production might be so massive that you want to lose drillers.
21. Hypnotist – I usually capture a lot of specs per game.
22. General – Generals combos really well with a lot of things and their power keeps increasing as the game goes on.
23. Saboteur – Is pretty good if they aren't so glitchy. Highly underrated spec. It effective doubles your defense at a border especially if you have a way to recover it and a means to move it around.
24. War Hero –
25. Revered Elder – Its pretty undervalued but always good to be able to hire one late game.
26. Lieutenant – Speed is always good and you haven't seen the general attack or defense maybe
.
27. Martyr – Can be good but the game is glitchy so may be not so good. If you want to do an all or nothing or if you want to return your enemies spec with a marytr or blow up something.
28. Diplomat – Navigator pirate general.
29. Infiltrator – Its sometimes pretty funny when you just go around and deactive all the enemies shields even though you can't hold on to the base.