Interesting people come to hacker news. (I'd give another upvote for your username if I could.) What is the essential set of skills/foundation knowledge for a nuclear power plant operator of the sort that you get on a submarine?

What do you think of the submarine systems that were designed for you to interact with? Context - I have been thinking recently about submarines and wondering how crew size could be reduced through automation. (I am aware that a lot of work went into this on the Independence class ships, but my working assumption is that this was let down by poor structuring of the design team, rather than that automation is a fundamentally bad idea)

Did you have to manage boredom when you were on-shift but did not have much to do? Or is there plenty to do? Or are you allowed to study when there is not much in the way of active responsibilities?