Hello commanders!
Just a little follow up here....
But we have to accept that even with the most basic option (shooting turrets), a player who wants to misbehave still can. They could open fire at an invalid target, potentially inviting ship destruction. It has similarities to being attacked out of the blue by wingmen.
Hello again, Sandro,
On this point, simply allowing the Helm CMDR to toggle a Multi-crew fire restriction setting called "Hostiles Only" would eliminate 100% of this issue. With this setting toggled ON, the multi-crew weapons would simply NOT fire or lock if aimed at a non-hostile ship. Same as other games where the weapon will not fire (or even lowers away) when pointed at a friendly unit. Now, the Multi-crew players have full play ability to open fire on hostile ships, but cannot cause any abuses. They can fire on the Helm's target hostile ships in a RES scenario, and all enemy side ships in a CZ. When the gunsight is over a non-hostile... the
trigger just doesn't function, same as a weapon being out of range. This setting has exactly the same effect on the SLF weapons, too, allowing them to only fire on a targeted hostile unit.
If a Helm CMDR turns this setting OFF, well the Multi-crew can play exactly as they do today. Choosing their own targets.
At the core, this is a problem of developing trust between the players. When playing with strangers, I need to *first* have an opportunity to develop some trust in them. Playing some, observing their skill, their focus, their actions, how well they communicate. When I find some other player who shows traits I like, I put them on the friend list. I give them some more control of the ship. A relationship develops, proven in play by both sides. I do this in other games, it works fine.
But starting cold turkey with letting every random player able to get me into trouble for laughs and then vanish, and my best choice in defense is to limit my Multi-crew to inviting trusted players already on my friends list... Well, my friend list will never grow that way.
My own preference as a Helm CMDR, would be to have limits in place (meaning I retain all defensive module control, and choose to block gunners/SLF from non-hostile fire). With such basic protections in place, then the hooligans have no game, no chance, to reason to bother. Meaningful play is all that is possible on that initial layer of player interaction, and from within that constructive frame of reference, the chance to meet other like-minded CMDRs and add to the friend list.
Thanks again!