NPC Crew Cost Overhaul Needed

TGDarius

T
Afternoon team,

As a returning player, I have to stress how desperately we need an overhaul of NPC Crew costs. As it stands, the percentage cut of all revenue can potentially make a single crew member more expensive to maintain than a fleet carrier! In fact, the fleet carrier is a great comparison because it has periodic upkeep costs (NOT a percentage of your total revenue!). This same system should be applied to NPC crew. They will become inactive if their upkeep is not paid, but they will no longer take a percentage of all revenue.

This may seem like a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but I have a number of friends who get into the game and are amazed by the ship launched fighters, only to find out they are prohibitively expensive once they start making some real credits. I've had multiple friends quit as a result, and I myself don't use SLF even on my large ships for this reason.

Fixing this issue would go a long way to making SLFs the asset to large ships that they should be.

Thanks

P.S. Huge congratulations to Frontier for the new direction they're taking with Elite. Everything I've seen in the past few months since returning to the game with my friends has convinced me that Frontier is revitalizing this game. The Arx store and release of pre-made ships is the exact direction the game needs to go to maintain profitability. ED is already the best space game on the market, and it can only get better with this approach.
 

CMDR Nef

CMDR Nef
TGDarius said:
Afternoon team,

As a returning player, I have to stress how desperately we need an overhaul of NPC Crew costs. As it stands, the percentage cut of all revenue can potentially make a single crew member more expensive to maintain than a fleet carrier! In fact, the fleet carrier is a great comparison because it has periodic upkeep costs (NOT a percentage of your total revenue!). This same system should be applied to NPC crew. They will become inactive if their upkeep is not paid, but they will no longer take a percentage of all revenue.

This may seem like a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but I have a number of friends who get into the game and are amazed by the ship launched fighters, only to find out they are prohibitively expensive once they start making some real credits. I've had multiple friends quit as a result, and I myself don't use SLF even on my large ships for this reason.

Fixing this issue would go a long way to making SLFs the asset to large ships that they should be.

Thanks

P.S. Huge congratulations to Frontier for the new direction they're taking with Elite. Everything I've seen in the past few months since returning to the game with my friends has convinced me that Frontier is revitalizing this game. The Arx store and release of pre-made ships is the exact direction the game needs to go to maintain profitability. ED is already the best space game on the market, and it can only get better with this approach.
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Just decided to check my old pilot. I've apparently paid him 1.3 billion over the course of his contract, hahaha. Why hasn't he bought a Cutter and retired yet?
 

Mr Lindsay

M
I really enjoyed gameplay with NPC pilots, and made a lot of my ships choices around them, but when I started coining it in big time from mining then it was a luxury that wasn't worth the expense and I had to let them go... and then of course I couldn't be bothered to train up new ones for doing combat stuff again, because by the time I'd done that I'd just need to fire them again before doing some other task for which they were no help. Codex says I paid them 248,233,998 Credits, which is a big chunk of change when you are still working your way up the ladder to outfit the big ships. (In fairness though the Codex also says that 6 of them died, before the 3 that I fired, so some of them earned their danger pay.)

It's a shame because they're a fun and unique part of the game, and if they only took wages when they were working then I might have kept a few around for a bit of a blast in Has Rez or Combat Zones now and again.
 

CMDR EEYORE_SYNDROME

C
CMDR Nef said:
Just decided to check my old pilot. I've apparently paid him 1.3 billion over the course of his contract, hahaha. Why hasn't he bought a Cutter and retired yet?
Click to expand...
1000000419.png

Mines almost got enough for a FC t.t

Can we get some 👀 on the fact they cannot aim with hitscan-fixed weapons worth a darn anymore?

Or it is even worse. Could be getting worse with Fixed-Hitscan each Rank they get promoted. Lol.

I have to use Gimbaled Beams on mine now.

Elite NPC still functions the same as before U17 in Trident.

Forum link:

My Elite SLF Pilot Seems To Have Lost Her Mojo

I'm guessing what's happened is that each NPC copilot has an invisible rank-count that is being correctly set for new recruits, but got wiped for existing ones (setting them to Harmless, or even lower), while their visible rank hasn't changed (for some odd reason). Ooof, i can imagine that...
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk

Try out fixed beams on your Crew today and see them miss-miss-miss-miss 🤯.

Expired Issue SINCE UPDATE 17:

Issue Tracker

issues.frontierstore.net issues.frontierstore.net
 
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BDelacroix

BDelacroix
Well they only take a small % of your gains. Mine gets 9% and so I get 91%. I'm ok with that. They also don't accrue costs when you are offline or if you aren't making any money at all. If carriers did that, I'd be saving tons of money. So no, they aren't like paying for a carrier.

Honestly, I'd hate to work for some people. They seem to begrudge paying employees.
Using super sloppy math, your guy made 1 billion. that means you made 9 billion.
 

Helmut Grokenberger

Helmut Grokenberger
BDelacroix said:
Honestly, I'd hate to work for some people. They seem to begrudge paying employees.
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yeah, I was going to say something but then deleted it because it felt too political.

It seems different in some parts of the world, but here I get paid my salary even if I don't have to work, or if I am on on-call service. But then again I also don't have to bring my own tools to work, so....
 

Three Stars

T
The real issue with NPC pilots was Update 17 (?) which caused Elite level crew to have a stroke and start aiming and flying like they’re Harmless. I had to fire mine and retrain a new one whose mental facilities are fortunately still intact.
 

TGDarius

T
Helmut Grokenberger said:
yeah, I was going to say something but then deleted it because it felt too political.

It seems different in some parts of the world, but here I get paid my salary even if I don't have to work, or if I am on on-call service. But then again I also don't have to bring my own tools to work, so....
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I have no problem paying my crew! In fact, there really isn't a limit to what I would be willing to pay as long as it's reasonable (i.e. less than FC maintenance). As long as it's not a percentage of my total revenue.

As you can see from the above posts, there are some staggering amounts that a single NPC crew has accumulated. Is it really reasonable to have paid a single crew member the cost of an entire fleet carrier? I don't believe so, and since FDev has been so progressive recently with the engineering update (HALLELUJAH!!), I believe this is also a quality of life fix that is quick and easy to implement.

It should not be a time consuming or huge change. Crews can have upkeep based on their rank. Whatever FDev considers a reasonable upkeep, I am willing to pay. I'm assuming it'll be less than a fleet carrier though!
 

aRJay

aRJay
If people are upset now when these NPCs only take a small cut when you do something in game that earns you money imagine the outrage when you have to pay them every week whether you played or not.
 

metatheurgist

metatheurgist
Weps said:
Normally I'd start by arguing that credits mean nothing in this game, but the fact that the above sentence is true and I had never realised it... it just made me stop.
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I'd use the same argument to say that the upkeep is nothing. 😛 I got nothing against the pay. Their incredible lack of use for that pay though is another thing. They don't even fly SLFs properly anymore. The 30% handicap to combat CGs is totally nonsense too.
 

aardappelianen

aardappelianen
credits dont matter, the slf and their pilots suck, guardian slfs can't fight thargoid because they not fart proof, thats what needs fixing.
 
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