Please don't neglect mechanics for everyone by focusing on pure multiplayer content!

[Jason S]

I too, want a Good Looking Female Robot Buddy for a cockpit partner. I don't really care what she does, just as long as she is there for me.

Bell flight fourteen you now can land
Seen you on Aldebaran, safe on the green desert sand
It's so very lonely, you're two thousand light years from home
It's so very lonely, you're two thousand light years from home

Me as well, the seats look so empty at the moment and will stay that way as in real life I have plenty of friends but none that want to play ED. Give us npc crew.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

As for the 'polls' on this subject, well, the MASSIVE one that's been referred to, hmm, not even 1% of the forum users have voted, and the forum users don't even make up 5% of the game's playerbase, so I'm gonna have to say that that poll is about as meaningful to whether or not the playerbase wants multicrew or not as the color of my dog's treats is to whether or not the playerbase wants multicrew or not.

If the poll was in favour of your argument you'd be singing a different tune.

 

[Leo Sagan]

Funny thing, people keep saying that FD is only catering to the multiplayer crowd, but there's been exactly 2 things that were aimed at that crowd added to the game to date, Wings and CQC, that's it.

Yeah sure because the main part of Horizons, landing on planets, offers dogfights vs NPC ships and ground fights vs NPCs SRV as everybody knows
Surface combat is mainly multiplayer oriented, except for the stupid drones who can barely shoot back most of the time.

Another funny thing, Elite Dangerous isn't actually a single player game, did you know that?

Last time I checked, FD did not remove the solo mode : sorry but it seems that the solo part of the game is still there. Better get used to it

Funny thing about online multiplayer games, you've got to actually have, you know, MULTIPLAYER stuff in them

You realize you could have both player and NPC multicrew, right ?

 

[Spudulika]

I do understand what round based games are, and that's exactly my point, NPC teammates in those work because you can jump into them and control them if you want because you have the TIME to do that thanks to the round based nature of the game. Real time games, you don't have that time, while you are trying to control the NPC, your character is left hanging. There have been attempts at having NPC teammates in real time games, they put your character on autopilot when you control the NPCs, and that leads to bad things, it's not effective, it leads to player death, players don't tend to like that for some odd reason.

It's been stated that FD plans on having a ship with multiple players in it being as effective as multiple ships, and most people assume that means some sort of buff, space magic it's been called, so that the ship is now tougher, more agile and hits harder due to the number of real players in the ship.

Thing is, there's no reason to do that, you can achieve the same results without buffing the ship at all, you simply give the players better control over the things they use. Pilot, when not having to also watch the pips, sensors and everything at once, can concentrate more on flying and positioning, which makes the ship more effective without buffing it at all. Weapons Officer, by giving them dedicated weapon controls, they can target better because that's all they do, and turrets wouldn't be under the control of the ship's computer, so chaff wouldn't bother aiming, still mess with sensors, but not aiming. Engineering, better control of the energy flow, able to shut off systems not needed in combat, swap between different systems that are needed in combat but situationally, as well as actively repairing systems that take damage while in combat. Sensors, able to keep track of multiple targets at once(WO only sees what they lock on however) so they can track what's around the ship, also able to track/target Silent Running ships at longer ranges, defeat chaff and ECM, and generally make everything around the ship easier to see.

When these things are all done by individuals instead of a single person, the ship becomes more effective without a single buff being needed. Communication will be the keystone that ties them all together to get that effectiveness, as if you aren't communicating, no one knows what's going on and can't properly do what needs to be done. Pilot needs more speed, says nothing, Engineer doesn't know to put more power to the engines, and so on. These are things that people who've done multicrew in other games are aware of, it's amazing how much more effective a single vehicle becomes when multiple people operate it together as opposed to a single person doing it alone, just having those players communicating allows them to make more use of the vehicle's abilities, simple as that. It's not a new thing for online games, it's been done before and it's always been more effective for a crew to run the multicrew vehicles than a single player, even though a single player can run everything. One player splitting their attention between multiple things at once is less effective than multiple players each concentrating on a single thing while working together.

The AI in Elite Dangerous is not good, they don't do what we do in our ships right now, they don't even get close to it, they do 1 thing at a time and they do that badly in most cases. They suffer no heat issues, they suffer no ammo issues, they don't redirect power or repair their vessels, hell they can't pilot for jack either. You want THAT AI being in charge of systems on your ship that it isn't scripted to deal with at all? 'I need more power to the shields Jerry' "I'm going to boil you up, I'm going to boil you up *spinning in his chair*"...yeah, that'll go over great won't it?

Fact is, most of the people who only want NPCs play solo, they'll get nothing out of an NPC crew, since they won't be effective at what the player can already do solo, they aren't as effective as a player currently, so what exactly will they offer? Conversation? Taking up seats? Giving extra controls to players is one thing, humans can do things no scripting can, but the NPCs won't actually make any use of them, they are after all part of the game code anyway, they don't need extra screens and controls. And we've already seen how good the NPC scripting is for..well..everything and anything, it's not.

ok so what you are actually talking about when you say round based games is what exactly? your actions in those games may be based on a rotation or you may actually play them real time and react to specific events. Your companions can work independently of you and your actions. The only thing that could be conceived as making it round based, is where you override your companions specified behaviour and have to wait for cool downs etc. If you are suggesting that cool downs make the game(s) not real time, you are mistaken.

I'm not going to disagree with you regarding the fact that player companions could add a lot of variation to the game, I agree completely. What I am saying is that NPC's should and could be able to add the same benefits to your ship if used in a certain role (e,g, firing weapons, power management etc), sure they wouldn't be as effective as a good player but then at least their would be an option for all modes of the game.

Personally I would love to have both, be able to team up with friends and be able to use NPC's and don't see any reason why NPC's could not add to the performance of your ship. I would love to be able to look across to the other station seats in any of my multi station seats and see my friends or indeed NPC's sitting there, even just to add to the immersion factor of the game. IMHO the empty seats on my cutter make the ship interior seem sterile and less real.

I'm also not going to disagree with the AI scripts currently, as far as I am aware they do use power management and FA Off etc but yeah, they do behave erratically currently to say the least but let me ask you this, are you happy with the way the AI works, or would you like to see it improved to the point that NPC crew could be implemented? I know I'm not but I also know that from a feasibility point of view NPC crew is feasible.

 

[Leo Sagan]

If the poll was in favour of your argument you'd be singing a different tune.

Yeah, and as usual he has nothing to show us how MASSIVE is the player mutlicrew community. Hell, he's pretty much the only guy advocating it even on this very thread.

 

[Zeta Legion]

I do understand what round based games are, and that's exactly my point, NPC teammates in those work because you can jump into them and control them if you want because you have the TIME to do that thanks to the round based nature of the game. Real time games, you don't have that time, while you are trying to control the NPC, your character is left hanging. There have been attempts at having NPC teammates in real time games, they put your character on autopilot when you control the NPCs, and that leads to bad things, it's not effective, it leads to player death, players don't tend to like that for some odd reason.

It's been stated that FD plans on having a ship with multiple players in it being as effective as multiple ships, and most people assume that means some sort of buff, space magic it's been called, so that the ship is now tougher, more agile and hits harder due to the number of real players in the ship.

Thing is, there's no reason to do that, you can achieve the same results without buffing the ship at all, you simply give the players better control over the things they use. Pilot, when not having to also watch the pips, sensors and everything at once, can concentrate more on flying and positioning, which makes the ship more effective without buffing it at all. Weapons Officer, by giving them dedicated weapon controls, they can target better because that's all they do, and turrets wouldn't be under the control of the ship's computer, so chaff wouldn't bother aiming, still mess with sensors, but not aiming. Engineering, better control of the energy flow, able to shut off systems not needed in combat, swap between different systems that are needed in combat but situationally, as well as actively repairing systems that take damage while in combat. Sensors, able to keep track of multiple targets at once(WO only sees what they lock on however) so they can track what's around the ship, also able to track/target Silent Running ships at longer ranges, defeat chaff and ECM, and generally make everything around the ship easier to see.

When these things are all done by individuals instead of a single person, the ship becomes more effective without a single buff being needed. Communication will be the keystone that ties them all together to get that effectiveness, as if you aren't communicating, no one knows what's going on and can't properly do what needs to be done. Pilot needs more speed, says nothing, Engineer doesn't know to put more power to the engines, and so on. These are things that people who've done multicrew in other games are aware of, it's amazing how much more effective a single vehicle becomes when multiple people operate it together as opposed to a single person doing it alone, just having those players communicating allows them to make more use of the vehicle's abilities, simple as that. It's not a new thing for online games, it's been done before and it's always been more effective for a crew to run the multicrew vehicles than a single player, even though a single player can run everything. One player splitting their attention between multiple things at once is less effective than multiple players each concentrating on a single thing while working together.

The AI in Elite Dangerous is not good, they don't do what we do in our ships right now, they don't even get close to it, they do 1 thing at a time and they do that badly in most cases. They suffer no heat issues, they suffer no ammo issues, they don't redirect power or repair their vessels, hell they can't pilot for jack either. You want THAT AI being in charge of systems on your ship that it isn't scripted to deal with at all? 'I need more power to the shields Jerry' "I'm going to boil you up, I'm going to boil you up *spinning in his chair*"...yeah, that'll go over great won't it?

Fact is, most of the people who only want NPCs play solo, they'll get nothing out of an NPC crew, since they won't be effective at what the player can already do solo, they aren't as effective as a player currently, so what exactly will they offer? Conversation? Taking up seats? Giving extra controls to players is one thing, humans can do things no scripting can, but the NPCs won't actually make any use of them, they are after all part of the game code anyway, they don't need extra screens and controls. And we've already seen how good the NPC scripting is for..well..everything and anything, it's not.

I'm going to disagree with some of your points here. Neither of us know exactly HOW ship crew will be implemented, but it's likely going to be new roles rather than breaking up the current ones. That is, the pilot fires the weapons, flies the ship, chooses the primary target, and manages pips like we do now, while the rest of the crew have totally new roles that focus on, say, modulating the shields from back, to front, to sides, boosting sensor power to cut through chaff temporarily or masking your own IR signature (without silent running) through thermal management, boosting maneuvering thruster power at the cost of forward, etc. Basically stuff you CANNOT do as a solo pilot. I mean really, how interesting could sitting there and exclusively toggling pips possibly be?

Furthermore I really don't think splitting the current pilots' tasks up among four people will lead to an increase in productivity. The speed of thought is quicker than communicating with words. In the time it would take for the pilot to call out four pips to WEP 1 SYS 1 ENG, you could have taken care of that yourself at a keystroke. As the pilot in charge of maneuvering the ship you also have a better idea of when to pull the trigger on your weapons than a 'gunner' could, and can more effectively mesh your flight strategy with your gunnery. Ships in Elite are all set up to be dogfighters, not battlecruisers. Very few ships would benefit from dedicated gunnery positions, and those that would aren't necessarily going to be better off for it because turrets are frankly too weak to make a difference regardless of who is shooting with them.

As for having NPC crew tackle these tasks, I really don't see what your beef is with a command string system here. The strings are set BEFORE entering combat and would simply be another aspect of ship management. Set them up well, and you boost your performance; don't set them at all and you're no worse off than you are now; set them up poorly and congrats, you simulated a crappy crew which is just as likely to happen with players. Obviously a very well managed player crew will exceed the abilities of the NPCs who are just responding to your 'canned orders' because although they may not react as fast to specific events, they are more capable of adjusting strategy on the fly and dealing with unusual circumstances. Allowing the pilot to 'possess' an NPC crewman to perform their task for them in real-time is probably not a good idea to implement due to the limitations of the PILOTING AI, which would obviously take over while you aren't at your station. Crew 'possession' is not something I think would be a good idea to implement. Allowing you to toggle NPC crew strings on/off similarly to how module activation/deactivation though would an important ability to have in case something goes wrong, or you just want to fly 'old school' while keeping your crew hanging out with you on your bridge. You could even allow the pilot to create new strings in combat but that would obviously be very risky.

Basically we are approaching ship crew from two totally different angles; I think crew roles will be entirely new, while you think they will just be tasks the solo pilot already handles on their own.

Also Dragon Age can be beaten without ever using Pause in combat, even on the highest difficulty. It isn't as easy but it is certainly possible.

 

[Kristov]

You are right of course. I wonder what the law says on false advertising? That Horizons trailer showed ship to ship combat and SRV vs SRV combat on planet surfaces.......anyone who watched that, then bought the game on the strength of that, and decides to play in solo...is in for a rude surprise ....space crickets..........said it before and I say it again, Solo/Open is a catch 22 and will be the death of ED........

I don't recall seeing ship vs ship and SRV vs SRV combat, I do see SRVs and ships working TOGETHER to attack surface forces and bases, so...huh?

If the poll was in favour of your argument you'd be singing a different tune.

No, I wouldn't, I would point out that the registered forum users make up less than 5% of the total playerbase going by sales alone, so a few hundred people out of the forums isn't enough to matter. NO forum polls that ask for opinions are worthwhile when it comes to the actual opinions of the playerbase, the forums simply don't make up enough of the playerbase to be used for that purpose.

 

[CMDR Dumbfries]

NPC wingmates and crew needs to happen, even if the AI is dumb. I was just flying around a HIRES site, with a system authority viper, blasting pirates. It was actually fun even though I had to pretend he was my wingmate.
Oops, I said the f-word. Can't have that around here.

 

[Jason S]

They've already talked about the 4 positions within one ship - Helm (piloting), Fire control (turrets/weapons), Countermeasures (shields, tactical), Engineering (sensors, navigation, repairs).

I wonder if some of those is going to be a sort of mini game like evade interdiction is a mini game and if you do well on these mini games then your ship is temporary buffed.

In any event it will give people more reason to avoid open unless they have planned to have three friends with a good connection to them playing at the same time.

 

[Arubeto]

No, I wouldn't, I would point out that the registered forum users make up less than 5% of the total playerbase going by sales alone, so a few hundred people out of the forums isn't enough to matter. NO forum polls that ask for opinions are worthwhile when it comes to the actual opinions of the playerbase, the forums simply don't make up enough of the playerbase to be used for that purpose.

Until you perform a complete poll asking all players about their opinion via launcher or mail, a forum poll is the closest thing you'll get. Sure, it doesn't represent the whole playerbase, but that's never the case in a survey, it's always just a number of samples that tries to cover as many different classes and to be as representative of the whole population as possible.

Edit: statistically speaking, 5% is already pretty significant and would in most cases suffice to qualify a pole as representative of the whole population.

 

[Cmdr Cunomaglus]

First thing, if you can que up actions, it's a round based game, and every single one of those games, which I've played by the way, are round based games. And you CAN jump into your NPCs in those on the fly, sometimes to simply alter their presets, sometimes to actually take over fully, that's all due to the fact that they are round based games.

So what you're saying is, "no, I haven't played those games and I'm talking out of my butt while I try to bluff my way through the convo". No worries, I'll move on. (Hint: they're not turn-based, you can't jump into your NPCs, you can't queue actions, you can't take over fully. You haven't played them. No, you really haven't. You're getting them confused with other games or something, I don't know, but you have. not. played. SWTOR if that's what you think happens. KOTOR perhaps, that's a turn-based Star Wars game with a similar acronym.)

Shall we get into the fact that those NPCs are all also pretty...well...the NPCs in this game are better, and the NPCs in this game are well noted for being bad. No heat, no ammo, they don't change power levels, they don't repair, and they are pretty good at having no clue where anything is around them and ramming them. Yeah, lets get those NPC in charge of YOUR ship, keep those damn things out of mine, thank you very much.

And I'd be willing to wager that an NPC crew member on your ship wouldn't be allowed to dock your ship for you, you'd still need a DC for that, and if that's ALL you want NPC crew for, you literally are better off using a DC, you pay a cheap price 1 time for it, instead of paying it every day/week/month. Seriously, that's why you want NPC crew? That's a joke, right?

Yes, ED's NPCs are pretty bad. The AI inarguably NEEDS a lot of work across the board if we're to have a genuinely immersive galaxy. A few thousand players spread across 3 modes and who knows how many instances will never make a remotely fulfilling simulation of a living, breathing galaxy and constantly putting off this core facet of the game to work on the latest shiny thing to give to players, many of whom don't want it or can't use it in their chosen mode (like it or not, we solo players are here to stay) isn't helping.

And yeah, sure. I'd quite like a docking computer that doesn't take up a module slot even if I do have to pay 'it' a few hundred or thousand credits a week or something. I'm lazy and I like immersion.

Funny thing, people keep saying that FD is only catering to the multiplayer crowd, but there's been exactly 2 things that were aimed at that crowd added to the game to date, Wings and CQC, that's it. Multicrew is definitely aimed at the multiplayer crowd, which would indeed be a bad idea for a single player game, no two ways about it.

Another funny thing, Elite Dangerous isn't actually a single player game, did you know that? The adverts for the game all mention this multiplayer stuff, it's touted as THE online multiplayer experience even, did you know that? Seriously, did you people know this is really a multiplayer game and not a single player game? Did none of you ever realize that? Didn't read the adverts, watch the videos where David says that repeatedly, multiplayer game, online multiplayer game, an MMO, repeatedly, he's said that about this game, you knew this right?

Funny thing about online multiplayer games, you've got to actually have, you know, MULTIPLAYER stuff in them, like, oh, Wings and multicrew and CQC. It's sort of required, legally, that when you say your game is an online multiplayer game that you provide online multiplayer content, funny how that works out isn't it?

Now you're just being silly, but okay, what has been added specifically for solo players? Multiplayer 'only' got 2 (out of 4) major patch updates, which of the other major patches were aimed solely at us? Which mechanics are aimed at us specifically, with absolutely no benefit to Open players? No, the mere existence of Solo mode doesn't count, nor does the fact that usually-in-Open players can grind PP or credits in relative safety or whatever.

 

[Zeta Legion]

I wonder if some of those is going to be a sort of mini game like evade interdiction is a mini game and if you do well on these mini games then your ship is temporary buffed.

In any event it will give people more reason to avoid open unless they have planned to have three friends with a good connection to them playing at the same time.

I doubt enough people will go through the hassle honestly. There will be the odd group of friends here and there, but I really don't see myself or too many others letting random strangers monkey with my ship let alone going out of my way to give them the opportunity.

Also I really do not see the benefit of delegating the tasks that the pilots already handle just fine on their own. None are interesting enough to be compelling individually and taking these responsibilities out of the hands of the pilot hurts more than it helps. For multi-crew to be useful, it makes far more sense to create entirely new roles to complement the pilot (or commander, captain, whatever you want to call them) rather than watering down their role just to give a couple of bridge-monkeys something to do.

 

[Kristov]

Spudulika, round based means that all actions take place in rounds, discrete time segments, and every game you mentioned operates on that system, even the ones that seem to be real time, they aren't real time, they are round based, it's the pretty much the standard in MMO games as it allows the players a little more time to react to events.

I would love to see the NPCs be made better, I've done NPCs myself, it's a total pain to do, and getting them to be good is always the goal, distant, far off, unattainable, but still the goal. I'm impressed with the NPCs in Elite Dangerous because I know what's had to be taken into account to make them operate as badly as they do, and that's quite an accomplishment. Getting them to be better, eh, I'll not make any wagers on that happening, this game is hell of a lot complex than people realize when it comes to getting NPCs to function properly, much less getting them to function well. Too many people without a single clue when it comes to this stuff think it's easy, it ain't, if it was then online multiplayer gaming wouldn't exist, literally. The reason most of us who enjoy online gaming do enjoy is because we can play other humans, they are a challenge, NPCs aren't. Give me NPCs who are as challenging as a human, I'd have little, if any, reason to ever play online again. Thing is, 'good' NPCs tend to be simply cheaters, they never miss, they always know where you are, they take less damage than you do, etc. They actually suck as far as what they can do goes, that gets hidden by making them ubermensch, that's all. I'd love to see it happen, but that really does require actual AI to come about, and that's not exactly in the offing any time soon, and if some people have their way, people whom I happen to agree with, such as Stephen Hawking, we won't see AI any time soon, if ever. You can look up that subject if you aren't aware of it, interesting stuff, and as someone who's created scripting for NPCs, something I'm deeply interested in. Mark Zuckerberg has stated he's going to try and create an AI like Jarvis from the Iron Man comics/movie this year, we'll see how that goes, could be groundbreaking, could be a joke.

Zeta Legion, you are doing the multicrew all kinds of messed up there, in my opinion, as someone who's done lots of multicrew gaming and even coded some of it. You break up the division of labor as I laid it out for very simple reasons, which I laid out as well, it's a tried and true method of doing it, works great, and it's used in the real world all the time as well, from tanks to battleships to aircraft, because it works so well. Funny thing about humans, we can do multiple things at once, but we're best when we focus on 1 thing at a time, and when you have a group of people doing 1 thing at a time as part of a team, they can actually accomplish multiple tasks at once better than any single person could do while multitasking. It's just science man, look it up yourself. Sure, one guy can drive a tank and operate the weapons all by himself, but he's less accurate and slower to react than a tank crew is doing the same thing, and that's real world, not a video game.

 

[Spudulika]

Spudulika, round based means that all actions take place in rounds, discrete time segments, and every game you mentioned operates on that system, even the ones that seem to be real time, they aren't real time, they are round based, it's the pretty much the standard in MMO games as it allows the players a little more time to react to events..

No offence Kristov but that's actually a load of . If your suggesting that modern games work by polling for keyboard presses or device presses , rather than being event driven you are mistaken. You also know that when you do two things in RL on your pc the io buffer of the device you are using will use fifo and process one event at a time?

 

[Jason S]

I have a nagging feeling that FD are looking over their shoulder creating features to compete with Star Citizen rather than just ignoring them and doing right for the game. CQC competes with arena commander, multi crew competes with SC multi crew, the avatar is going to the direction of FPS, planetary landings competes with Star Citizen landing on planets although done very differently it still competes with it.

Basically ED is going down the road of trying to match features with Star Citizen.

 

[X-Terminator]

Those are already in game. Find them yourself!

Meaning radio broadcasts from both NPC and Docks would be nice via audio.

 

[Zeta Legion]

Spudulika, round based means that all actions take place in rounds, discrete time segments, and every game you mentioned operates on that system, even the ones that seem to be real time, they aren't real time, they are round based, it's the pretty much the standard in MMO games as it allows the players a little more time to react to events.

I would love to see the NPCs be made better, I've done NPCs myself, it's a total pain to do, and getting them to be good is always the goal, distant, far off, unattainable, but still the goal. I'm impressed with the NPCs in Elite Dangerous because I know what's had to be taken into account to make them operate as badly as they do, and that's quite an accomplishment. Getting them to be better, eh, I'll not make any wagers on that happening, this game is hell of a lot complex than people realize when it comes to getting NPCs to function properly, much less getting them to function well. Too many people without a single clue when it comes to this stuff think it's easy, it ain't, if it was then online multiplayer gaming wouldn't exist, literally. The reason most of us who enjoy online gaming do enjoy is because we can play other humans, they are a challenge, NPCs aren't. Give me NPCs who are as challenging as a human, I'd have little, if any, reason to ever play online again. Thing is, 'good' NPCs tend to be simply cheaters, they never miss, they always know where you are, they take less damage than you do, etc. They actually suck as far as what they can do goes, that gets hidden by making them ubermensch, that's all. I'd love to see it happen, but that really does require actual AI to come about, and that's not exactly in the offing any time soon, and if some people have their way, people whom I happen to agree with, such as Stephen Hawking, we won't see AI any time soon, if ever. You can look up that subject if you aren't aware of it, interesting stuff, and as someone who's created scripting for NPCs, something I'm deeply interested in. Mark Zuckerberg has stated he's going to try and create an AI like Jarvis from the Iron Man comics/movie this year, we'll see how that goes, could be groundbreaking, could be a joke.

Zeta Legion, you are doing the multicrew all kinds of messed up there, in my opinion, as someone who's done lots of multicrew gaming and even coded some of it. You break up the division of labor as I laid it out for very simple reasons, which I laid out as well, it's a tried and true method of doing it, works great, and it's used in the real world all the time as well, from tanks to battleships to aircraft, because it works so well. Funny thing about humans, we can do multiple things at once, but we're best when we focus on 1 thing at a time, and when you have a group of people doing 1 thing at a time as part of a team, they can actually accomplish multiple tasks at once better than any single person could do while multitasking. It's just science man, look it up yourself. Sure, one guy can drive a tank and operate the weapons all by himself, but he's less accurate and slower to react than a tank crew is doing the same thing, and that's real world, not a video game.

Those tanks, ships, and aircraft in real life and other video games are designed from the ground-up to be crewed by multiple people. Ships in Elite just aren't. The weapons are all designed to fire in a forward arc. Yes you can put turrets on, but there are no hardpoints where you cannot use a gimballed or fixed weapon. Managing power distribution is accomplished with a single button as is targeting. (Combat) Ships in Elite are designed to keep the nose pointed towards the target; they are dog-fighters. These types of aircraft have historically been single-seater, with some (usually modern) aircraft having a co-pilot who manages technical minutia and assists but doesn't necessarily replace the pilot.

By comparison, tanks usually have a crew of three to five, with some combination of driver, loader, engineer, commander, and gunner. Some are designed to operate with less crew than others; compare the Sherman to the T-34 for example. Every tank at least has a driver and gunner because it is very difficult to aim and fire the gun while driving because the gun can be pointed in any direction rather than the direction the tank is headed. That is, the gunner can freely act independently of the driver while doing his job without needing very specific positioning on the drivers' part to function. In video games we can 'cheat' by giving the gunner (because that's the viewpoint you need to, you know, shoot the gun) the drivers' controls as well as control over the turret and gun. You could drive and shoot the gun in a tank 'by wire' in the real world but the two tasks are designed to be taken on separately.

Similarly, warships have many different systems that by their very nature require their own crewman to operate. Again, this is down to physical limitations. One person simply cannot manage communications, countermeasures, weapons, engineering, and the helm simultaneously. Modern combat ships typically have a 'panic' button which relegates ship control to the computer, and it's rather impressive to watch a ship track potentially hundreds of targets while manipulating the countermeasures and weapons to eliminate them all simultaneously. In a video game you could give a lone player control over an entire ship probably by using a third-person view and an interactive GUI and by dumbing down the complexity of the tasks in question.

In other video games like say Star Wars Galaxies large ships were entirely dependent on multicrew to function effectively because the entire premise of those ships was built around the idea of being multiplayer operated ships. The game itself was also much better set up to facilitate this gameplay thanks to guilds, fast travel, and having a smaller and more contained universe making the possibility of random encounters with other players a common occurrence. In Battlefield, all vehicles can be piloted by a single player. Some like the tanks can be operated by multiple crew, and with the (almost) exclusively multiplayer nature of the game player co-operation for victory is strongly encouraged and easily accomplished, even by two total strangers.

Elite by its very nature is simply not set up to facilitate this sort of quick-play co-op. You are putting YOUR ship at risk by allowing random people on it and giving them a chance to get you killed, costing you a re-buy. The distances involved in Elite make travel time-consuming, and because missions cannot be shared and are on a timer, most people aren't gonna stop whatever they are doing and join up with you. Hell most people won't even stop to wing up let alone let alone be willing to jump on board another ship. Basically multi-crew is ONLY going to be practical to do when you have a prearranged agreement with one or more other players to specifically pursue multi-crew content.

I really tried to meet you halfway man. I don't know why you feel the need to be so patronizing.

 

[Kristov]

No offence Kristov but that's actually a load of . If your suggesting that modern games work by polling for keyboard presses or device presses , rather than being event driven you are mistaken. You also know that when you do two things in RL on your pc the io buffer of the device you are using will use fifo and process one event at a time?

It's not a load, it's how they work, all games are actually round based in essence, time is very crucial, some hide very well, some don't bother, and most MMOs emphasis it as it gives the player more time to consider what's happening and their response to what's happening.

Cmdr Cunomaglus, I have played those games, and a lot more besides, and the ones listed are all round based games. DDO would be the only somewhat exception, as it's supposed to be real time action based, but it's actually round based as well, and you can que up actions in it too. You can't jump INTO the NPCs, but you can take them over on the fly and reset their priorities/settings, although a few of them you can actually control the NPC directly and select what it will do next and set up a que of actions for them. Maybe you don't know them as well as you think? SW:TOR, closed alpha to shortly before it went F2P, STO, closed alpha to 18 months after it when Live and still jump in that on occasion. DDO, oh lords, got it the day it released and played it until shortly after they went to level 25, although I do miss playing my WF Monk sometimes..'ask me about the secret Warforged breathing techniques'...my bio, a lot of people asked me...part of why I stopped playing. Warforged are sentient constructs, they don't breath, having people ask me about that was..well..disappointing. Rather like people saying the FDL was designed for bounty hunters in Elite Dangerous. Nothing like playing a video game with people who don't know the first thing about it, ya know? Hmm, maybe you don't...

 

[Spudulika]

It's not a load, it's how they work, all games are actually round based in essence, time is very crucial, some hide very well, some don't bother, and most MMOs emphasis it as it gives the player more time to consider what's happening and their response to what's happening.

Cmdr Cunomaglus, I have played those games, and a lot more besides, and the ones listed are all round based games. DDO would be the only somewhat exception, as it's supposed to be real time action based, but it's actually round based as well, and you can que up actions in it too. You can't jump INTO the NPCs, but you can take them over on the fly and reset their priorities/settings, although a few of them you can actually control the NPC directly and select what it will do next and set up a que of actions for them. Maybe you don't know them as well as you think? SW:TOR, closed alpha to shortly before it went F2P, STO, closed alpha to 18 months after it when Live and still jump in that on occasion. DDO, oh lords, got it the day it released and played it until shortly after they went to level 25, although I do miss playing my WF Monk sometimes..'ask me about the secret Warforged breathing techniques'...my bio, a lot of people asked me...part of why I stopped playing. Warforged are sentient constructs, they don't breath, having people ask me about that was..well..disappointing. Rather like people saying the FDL was designed for bounty hunters in Elite Dangerous. Nothing like playing a video game with people who don't know the first thing about it, ya know? Hmm, maybe you don't...

All multi player games (not just mmos) do buffer up client commands, they need to due to latency issues and being able to detect and counter hacks etc, they All have to decide basically what where and when was a valid command, including Elite dangerous. By your own definition all multi player games are round based games, including Elite Dangerous.

By that same definition, Elite Dangerous is also a round based game so I am somewhat confused as to exactly what your point was?

 

[Kristov]

I have a nagging feeling that FD are looking over their shoulder creating features to compete with Star Citizen rather than just ignoring them and doing right for the game. CQC competes with arena commander, multi crew competes with SC multi crew, the avatar is going to the direction of FPS, planetary landings competes with Star Citizen landing on planets although done very differently it still competes with it.

Basically ED is going down the road of trying to match features with Star Citizen.

If you look back at the KS and the DDF archives, no, they aren't trying to keep up with Star Citizen, this stuff was mentioned back then and planned for all along. Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen are going to be very similar games across almost the entire spectrum, with 1 exception, there was and still isn't a single player campaign for Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen has always had that as a core part of the game.

Zeta Legion, the single player combat ships in Elite, they won't GET multicrew, they are one seaters. The ships with multiple seats, they were always meant to have multicrew, they've always had the extra seats, and not only that, but various devs have stated at various times that the interiors of the ships were included in their creation for the game, they always meant for us to walk around them, have multicrews, all that, this isn't something they are trying to force into the game suddenly, it was always part of the plan. Turrets will be the weapon of choice for multicrew ships, they would be the weapon of choice for all the big ships now except that chaff renders them no more useful than a fixed weapon, still see lots of the bigger ships carrying turrets, they really are quite useful with the game controlling them, imagine how much better they'll be with a human controlling them. So your argument there, while I would normally agree if it your assumptions were correct, aren't valid.