Insta Join multicrew without lore issues of teleprescenc

[Blaize Meduenin]

The current implementation (for beta) of multicrew is beaming holographic crew instantly any distance, even 10s of thousands of light years to facilitate a join anywhere instantly game play mechanic for multicrew.

This (as had been evident from the forums) is splitting the playerbase into 2 camps, those who dont like the implications of the teleprescene system on consistancy and game world logic and hence dont want the insta teleprescene, and those who want the functionality of multicrew and dont mind teleprescene being how it works.

But what if we could have both, the insta join anywhere functionality of multicrew without the consistant game world logic issues that teleprescence causes?

This is my idea.

1) Allow players to create npc crew members to sit in the empty bridge seats (work for this is essentially done as the tools are there for any player avatar to sit there).
2) Keep all the current multicrew functionality as is, but have it as the player taking on the part of this crew.

This preserves all the mechanics and insta join of multicrew without hurting consistancy and internal gameworld logic in anyway, and also gives players a populated bridge look.
Finally it leaves the door wide open for actual multicrew with space legs in the future without the need to change or retcon anything, just adding in a proper crewing mechanic.

 

[Magic Man]

Has been noted before and still makes 100% more sense than the current implementation. There is simply no need to require telepresence in the game lore in order to explain multi-crew, which is purely a game mechanic, i.e. a human player taking the role of an in game npc.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

so, anyone who wants "telepresence" removed,
wants to either see the "create new character" screen, everytime his ship, SRV or SLF explodes,
or watch his avatar beeing hauled in by rescue ship or slave-trader before getting to the point where he can continue playing the game.

while the pirate/slave trader part may result in a kinda different re-buy screen with an extra premium fee to buy yourself free from slavery,
and the full death is un-avoidable if ship was destroyed by crashing into a star or so

really, if you request realism, you have to be consequent


npc crew has to sit in the ship at some point anyway... we can hire them already at this point.

 

[Ca$hback]

so, anyone who wants "telepresence" removed,
wants to either see the "create new character" screen, everytime his ship, SRV or SLF explodes,
or watch his avatar beeing hauled in by rescue ship or slave-trader before getting to the point where he can continue playing the game.

This exaggeration is tiresome. We were fine with turning a blind eye to the magic of getting home after ship destruction. Since that magic hasn't been resolved, why not use it where it fits, like SLFs and multicrew (skip the design, become random "NPC", unless you want to design it every time). Add an unnecessary mechanic to explain away something that doesn't need to be explained away, then you're stuck with the mechanic you don't want and removing it will leave a big hole.

while the pirate/slave trader part may result in a kinda different re-buy screen with an extra premium fee to buy yourself free from slavery,
and the full death is un-avoidable if ship was destroyed by crashing into a star or so

I would be okay with this but I don't see why it's necessary. We have a mechanic, still in use, called magic, that lands you back at the last station you left. It's not perfect but it works for now. Telepresence is a grasp at straws to explain something we never asked to have explained. We understood some things are placeholders. If I'd known magic was a placeholder for telepresence instead of engaging gameplay I never would have bought the game. I was fine with magic until they could give us something worthwhile. Telepresence opens up the inconsistency to a level that can't withstand scrutiny and makes it much tougher to suspend disbelief. This works but this rudimentary, easy thing based on the same principals doesn't?

really, if you request realism, you have to be consequent

Says who? This obtuse argument falls flat as its not meant to be argued at all. The same could be said for telepresence to the point that the ships fly themselves on autopilot and we don't play anymore, we log in, check our balance and leave. Extremes of either end aren't what we're asking for. We want weaksauce removed. That's all.

 

[CorvenDallas]

The current implementation (for beta) of multicrew is beaming holographic crew instantly any distance, even 10s of thousands of light years to facilitate a join anywhere instantly game play mechanic for multicrew.

This (as had been evident from the forums) is splitting the playerbase into 2 camps, those who dont like the implications of the teleprescene system on consistancy and game world logic and hence dont want the insta teleprescene, and those who want the functionality of multicrew and dont mind teleprescene being how it works.

But what if we could have both, the insta join anywhere functionality of multicrew without the consistant game world logic issues that teleprescence causes?

This is my idea.

1) Allow players to create npc crew members to sit in the empty bridge seats (work for this is essentially done as the tools are there for any player avatar to sit there).
2) Keep all the current multicrew functionality as is, but have it as the player taking on the part of this crew.

This preserves all the mechanics and insta join of multicrew without hurting consistancy and internal gameworld logic in anyway, and also gives players a populated bridge look.
Finally it leaves the door wide open for actual multicrew with space legs in the future without the need to change or retcon anything, just adding in a proper crewing mechanic.

I really like the idea of a player taking on the role of one of the NPC crew, so the owner has to hire NPCs for others players to take into, the level of the NPC would be override with this system, or maybe it could have some effect on how well you do things, like turret moving randomly so you have to correct movement, giving more/less power, some (little buff to damage) etc...

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

What would they call the feature to have the locigal connection to who gets the money/reputation for the kills?
"mind control" instead of "telepresence"?

in the end, its the same thing, the same magic.
someone from the other side of universe is controlling your ships turrets or fighter in realtime.

only difference is - that avatar sitting there in the chair looks like what your friend has designed as his ingame representation, and not a random NPC - unless you want to have the mind controlled NPCs also magically morph into your friends avatar.

 

[CorvenDallas]

What would they call the feature to have the locigal connection to who gets the money/reputation for the kills?
"mind control" instead of "telepresence"?

in the end, its the same thing, the same magic.
someone from the other side of universe is controlling your ships turrets or fighter in realtime.

only difference is - that avatar sitting there in the chair looks like what your friend has designed as his ingame representation, and not a random NPC - unless you want to have the mind controlled NPCs also magically morph into your friends avatar.

Totally right, can't deny you, but maybe I'm and inmersion junkie

In the end we cant satisfy everybody, I'm not against current system, I totally agree that going too much into simulation is bad, sometimes you have to accept the "it just happens" for the sake of gameplay, but it hurts nobody throwing ideas to improve the mechanics.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

the thing i really want to see ASAP... is a physical presence of the crew we can already hire and assign to our ships

after all, even if they fly the fighter - they do that remotely like we do. so logically, they must have a seat somewhere in the ship - and even in that ship that are currently not listed in the patchnotes to have a co-pilot seat for player - the keelback.

i am totally for beeing able to fill my ship with NPCs - yet i want to see where they go when a human player takes over their seat - for the sake of immersion