2.2 NPC Crew death after ship destruction

[Joe Akeem]

Mortal all the way. Makes for nervewrecking battles if you don't wanna lose your ace pilot.

 

[Odan Brota]

My Cutter has several escape pods... but I need one for myself, and the rest for my collection of exotic Urvanian woven clay tapestries. The crew know the risks.

 

[Quill]

Now you are just complaining for the sake of complaining.

NPC drone pilots are probably the deepest mechanic FD thought to implement yet in the game and while it is a combat mechanic, it adds many new options to all players, especially non-combat oriented players. Traders, miners and explorers are the ones to benefit the most from this addition.

It has some strategic aspect to it, since NPCs can rank up so the longer you have them, the more valuable they'll be to you, you can swap the three you have or choose not to take one with you to preserver them etc. There are combat stances you can issue, fire at will, defensive, follow and offensive. You can swap with the NPC pilot on the fly and issue the same commands to your main ship, basically giving you another consideration at any time in combat in terms of tactics and risk vs. reward.

I was genuinely trying to help you overcome your possible misunderstanding but at this point, I'm not convinced we are on the same page here.

No, I don't think I am on the same page as you, but thank you for trying to help me overcone my misunderstandings of the new NPC feature. We will just have to see how it turns out, I think that it will be a shallow pew-pew addon and you seem to believe it will be a zingy non combat friendly strategic masterpiece of game design we will just have to wait and see.

 

[Drezden]

Compromise

I have multiple suggestions, which can be combined:

Make the survival rate of the NPC fairly low 25% (a chance of survival will actually increase the player attachment. "He's not the best pilot, but he is REALLY lucky")

The NPC will be unavailable for a period of time afterwards: 1 to 7 days, random (recovering from near death)

The NPC will charge a fee before rejoining (recovering in style)

To increase the chance of survival, you can upgrade the escape pods. (Can even take up an optional slot)

Add a signifigant rebuy penalty ( search and rescue needs to get paid). If you don't pay this for the surviving NPC, then you stiffed the bill, and the NPC will resign.

 

[=71st=RuSh]

The NPC can be recovered in a escape pod by own ship or the winner of the battle, or land in a planet and wait for a rescue!

Ripley: How long after we're declared overdue can we expect a rescue?
Corporal Hicks: [pause] Seventeen days.
Private Hudson: Seventeen *days*? Hey man, I don't wanna rain on your parade, but we're not gonna last seventeen hours! Those things are gonna come in here just like they did before. And they're gonna come in here...
Ripley: Hudson!
Private Hudson: ...and they're gonna come in here AND THEY'RE GONNA GET US!
Ripley: Hudson! This little girl survived longer than that with no weapons and no training.
[to Newt]
Ripley: Right?
[Newt apes a salute]
Private Hudson: Why don't you put her in charge?

 

[dannysquid]

This seems like a pretty clear cut case of Frontier getting it right to me. If it goes all wishy-washy you'll lose attachment to the people you hire.

 

[Privata]

They need to die.
The game is very soft on the players , and this would be the first time sins 2014 that any sort of consequence is in the game

 

[warbaby2]

This seems like a pretty clear cut case of Frontier getting it right to me. If it goes all wishy-washy you'll lose attachment to the people you hire.

Depends on who you ask... for me, pilots as they are presented right now are just glorified auto pilots.

 

[FutronBob]

I will say that the player captain always surviving, while the crew never survives, seems quite immersion breaking to me.

I'd prefer it if there was a certain chance your crew could make it to their escape pods. Maybe the NPC's rank could play a factor, as well as how quickly your ship was destroyed.

Perhaps you could even set an "ejection threshold," where if your ship's hull% goes below the threshold you set, the crew ejection timer starts. That way we can get our "All hands, abandon ship!" moments.

Seems better than simply having disposable toilet paper crews.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

They need to die.
The game is very soft on the players , and this would be the first time sins 2014 that any sort of consequence is in the game

While I do agree, there should be some chance of crew survival upon ship destruction, as I detailed in my post above.

Everyone is focused on either "all or nothing." IMO there should be a balance between having immortal crew members and having disposable toilet paper.

 

[FutronBob]

Something else I just thought of: this is basically a stepping stone for 2.3's player multicrew, which will also likely involve our NPCs as well.

The same rules that govern players need to govern NPCs, and vice versa. Player crews will obviously survive ship destruction, so why not NPCs?

 

[warbaby2]

Something else I just thought of: this is basically a stepping stone for 2.3's player multicrew, which will also likely involve our NPCs as well.

The same rules that govern players need to govern NPCs, and vice versa. Player crews will obviously survive ship destruction, so why not NPCs?

Which in turn would also mean that player fighters can't do anything else then fighting in multi crew - no landing on planets or in other peoples ship bays, etc. I hope that's wrong...

 

[Arvel Yael]

Great. Next time some dude screams about making players fight in form-fitting flight suits in the name of Realism, we can point out that any ship in which half the crew dies every single time that ship is destroyed would probably get an NCIP/IIHS rating of ZERO, would not sell very well, and would be taken off the market!

 

[wolfstar7]

If your crew dies when you lose the ship, this is a missed opportunity to create something more with these NPCs in the future. They could be, like for example in SWTOR, some kind of companions with real back stories, they could give you missions tied into their back stories, we could have elements of RPGs introduced in the game, customization etc. If you lose your ship or cargo you can easily replace them, but if you lose a named NPC with a his back story you can never replace him. He's lost forever. You can hire a different NPC, but not the same one. I think this is a punishment too great. It doesn't matter how careful you are, you will lose your ship eventually and you will lose your crew. I would prefer to lose the entire ship instead of just the insurance, but to keep my crew alive. I can never be attached to someone who I know will certainly die no matter what I do. Why bother to train him if he will die anyway? I'll just treat them like ammo, I will never even read their back stories. This game will start to feel like Eve Online where I was always afraid to play the game and experience everything it had to offer because the punishment of death was too great.

 

[DOCa Cola]

There were some comparisons to X-com made, that you'd feed a greater attachment if they die each time the ship is being destroyed and you'd be more careful.
I don't think thats the case. These fighter pilots in elite have no real backstory, they aren't unique in their skills. If you replace one, you'll have the exact same ai skillset as before. All that is different now is their name and face. There can't be any kind of attachment if they don't follow you for a very long time. First time you may chose some crew members based on their dim backstory. Next time maybe two. But after that i'd really stop caring for that and just get the one with the best stats.
This besides the point that is not logical that they wouldn't even try and survive but just are sitting there while your ship explodes. There should be at least a chance that they escape. And if they worked for you a long time, why wouldn't they like to come back to you and work with you again?
You can't enforce attachment or an emotional reaction by artificially tying their deaths to ship destruction. You should be able to that decision yourself if you next time choose to rehire these same characters or hire someone new or better after your ship was destroyed.

Many years back i played Diablo 2. In that game (with its expansion) you could hire mercenaries. These mercenaries are very basic characters. There are a few different types, but all look the same, have basically zero backstory and get a random name from a list. Early on i hired some kind of ice mage who could freeze enemies with an ice bolt. That was the very first mercenary i hired. Even after my playstyle changed and i realized i could get another mercenary with another skillset that would match this style better, i still kept him around. I somehow liked that guy, i remembered all the early games i have played with him. Even my friends at some point recognized this guy. I still remember his name to this day.
If that was a different experience and you'd basically get another dude each time you died or each tenth or hundred times you died in Diablo 2, i'd certainly wouldn't have cared much about that character.

 

[deathcoy]

Just give the NPC crew a % survival chance. The better their skill, the higher the chance they'll survive via escape pod when your ship blows up. Stuff can happen when evacuating a ship thats going down, even the most skilled crew can get unlucky and impaled with flying debris and the noobest crew can have beginner's luck and safely jump into the escape pod and live. Realism and balance mechanic all in one.

 

[Cosmo Bozo]

Yeah, give them a chance to survive.

Maybe spending on A rated escape pods gives them a 95% chance to survive, while the cheapskate options give much less, down to about 20% for the basic, came free with the ship models.

If you want to keep them you have to pay for it.....

 

[EdzUp]

If the NPC's improve as we go through the game then we will forge a relationship with them and actually come to care what happens to them yes there will be some pilots who wont give a jot about them but having a 'background' value that will make NPC's less than happy to work for you knowing that the last few have died a grizzly death will take care of that one.

I would love to have extra crew and when I finish this goal and move towards getting a bigger ship then I will hire someone to go with me out into the black

2.2 is making ED shine again for me

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Yeah, give them a chance to survive.

Maybe spending on A rated escape pods gives them a 95% chance to survive, while the cheapskate options give much less, down to about 20% for the basic, came free with the ship models.

If you want to keep them you have to pay for it.....

I really like that idea

 

[Thetele]

Immortal hired npc is just stas or module nothing to relate. But if i can name him, level up him and after all that he can die i will try to protect him/her. I don't want to loose my npc so it means much more than just other replaceable stat or module.

 

[Neutronium]

Well, I don't understand how some people feel the exact opposite of how I feel about this thing...

For me, if the hired pilots were immortal, then I wouldn't care about them in the long run because, hell, I would just hire them again right?

Now, that I can lose them forever, I have an investment in them and a relationship. I'll be genuinely sad if I lost them, both as an asset and a friend.

How can one claim 'mortal' pilots are harder to get attached to than 'immortal' pilots is beyond me.

Exactly! Think of the NPCs as expendable cyborgs or servants. Maybe Frontier could expand on this and create stories out of this. Movies come to my mind such as Alien series, Galactica, and many others too numerous to remember. I would love to have a beautiful female cyborg as an NPC crew member. I would definitely get attached with her [heart] . Now if she dies I would feel the loss a lot and the bond between us would break abruptly. This is not necessarily bad. But she/he/it doesn't have to die everytime my ship explodes. Cyborgs can survive in space conditions and other harsh environments without spacesuits and other special protection. Maybe my beautiful cyborg gets torn apart but still remain partially functional like the Prometheus/ Alien borg.
Someone may collect her and rebuild her and sell her back to me. Her memories partially erased, partially restored struggling to remember - the possibilities are endless

Perhaps instead of just flat out Crew death or immortality... Perhaps a chance of either outcome?

But yea, developing some relationship/attachment would be improved with some chance of survival, keeping them safe.

Yes as I posted above there must be a chance of survival and even a remote chance of reunion of the servant with its master.

 

[Mc80]

You will get bored of NPC deaths pretty quickly after you lose you Xth Highly ranked NPC to a ganker, a bug, or that well equipped NPC ship chasing you all over the galaxy for cargo you may/ may not have. You will die much more often in something like a Keelback than an Anaconda, so this should be adressed, especially for upcomming ships which die rather easily, not to mention the whole escape pod thing doesn´t really check out.