Multi-crew is so broken it's unusable!

[Deleted member 38366]

All of these things were suggested - and most of them ignored as usual.

Just imagine this :

Prior to and at anytime in any MultiCrew capable Ship, the helm could :
- man all MC positions with the NPC Crew flying the Mothership (important for the initial Controls Setup and getting to know i.e. all Targeting and Turret limitations, you know getting the hang of things before joining another live MC Ship)
(no MC bonuses in terms of Pips or Credits, purely intended for MC practice)

- set WCS (Weapon Control State) of SLF
- set WCS (Weapon Control State) of Turrets

- WCS Free : both roles fully enabled. Primary use : Friends and Local Area contacts you know and trust

- WCS Tight : selected Weapon Platforms (Turrets/SLF) enabled but restricted to Assigned ("Tagged") Targets only. You're the Commander at the Helm, you decide which Targets are marked Hostile and are "Cleared to Engage".
(right of self-defense and extended self-defense remains unaffected, if anyone attacks the Mothership or SLF first)

- WCS Hold : all Weapons of your choice (Turrets/SLF) disabled.
-> Recommended Default position (Weapons SAFE) when operating with strangers, can also be used to instantly stop anyone running against your interest right in its tracks before too much harm is done

- Helm-Defined kick thresholds... You get to define how far you'll let other CMDRs make honest mistakes or cause problems before they get kicked straight off your Ship.
-> you operating in some random System? You might permit a few mistakes. You operating in a CG location or inside your Home System? ... probably want to set things up far tighter i.e. prevent any Bounty could ever be gained.

- Helm-Assigned Utilities... If you think the Turret Crew Member is to have control over Heat Sinks or Cell Banks, then assign Control of them to that position. If you choose to retain control, then they'll remain under your sole control.

- Helm retains full control over Hardpoints at anytime (no more Turret Gunner re-deploying Hardpoints intentionally or unintentionally)

- Helm-Assigned slots for others to join.
-> i.e. seek only a single Crew position dedicated for the SLF only and intend to use Turrets yourself as Helm in a 2 MC capable Ship

- Panic button... Single-Click disband Hotkeys for both Turret and SLF. The big red button, insta-kicking any Crew Member. Quickly get rid of "bad apples" or just folks with legit but unfortunately severe connection issues.

-----------------------
How's that?
Only took mere seconds of thinking and a little bit common sense.

 

[CMDRvenerian]

To me there are a few broken things. First, it'a bugged as heck and you get disconnected way too after. Also there are UI problems all of the time where part of the gunner UI will not appear. Finally, WHY IS THERE NO SRV in multicrew ??? That is the ultimate no brainer that should have been included. All in all it's just a copy past of a bunch of already existing features at this point. Hope they fix it.

 

[Red Anders]

My impression of multi-crew is that it's a lot like seeing a bloke drinking vodka out of a bottle in a brown paper bag outside the off licence, chucking him your car keys and asking him to drive you home. One the one hand he's definitely going to make a mess of it and may well kill you both. On the other, as you contemplate life from your new perspective (upside down with a lamp post embedded in your thorax and the distant sound of sirens) you will have a few moments to reflect on the fact that it was your own stupidity that utimately caused the incident.

 

[bigity]

MC also needs to work with wings - up to a total of 4 CMDRs. 2 single CMDR ships and one ship with 2 crew for example.

It is pretty worthless without that, much less the bugs.

 

[Mohrgan]

What OP describes is a problem with players, not the Multi-Crew feature. It's unrealistic to blame crappy behavior on FD.

If you can combine wings and MC there should be no extra pips involved.

 

[Tuub t Tute]

Was the pickup Psycho one of the Corvette's wing mates? Don't suppose you had time to see if his wing count dropped to 3?

It is a new tactic, for bored teasers... Fly round in one ship and then MC into someone that hasn't locked the doors and proceed to pour all the Chateau Lafite down the waste disposal, whilst cackling maniacally :/

 

[Slayer Jesse]

For me ive had no problems with the randos that i multicrew with. Its the fact that the system is so dang unstable that i cant stay paired with any 1 person for more than half an hour, often less. This is one thing that really should be server side hosting.

 

[Hossi]

Triggered by this thread i've just decied to click on this ominous 'multi crew' button and this is my experience:
-I've clicked trough all this roles, most were unsucesfull. The first one to connect was an 'explorer'. We were going somewhere pretty far on the 'right side'. I think I was in this area before. Cmdr didn't respont to communication (neigther voice nor chat), nothing to do, so I left.
-Second one to connect was in a 'tutor' role, apperently we hoped just in a CZ. Tried to operate the turrets... no way. Maybe I'm to dumb, but I wasn't able to do anything. But I managed to get a fighter. That was fun... for a few seconds. Someone destroyd the fighter and while waiting for a rebuild I was hit by a 'unable to connect to whatever server'... back to menu.
-Third I got was 'bounty hunt'. That wasn't half way bad. The turret's were unsucsessfull as before. Voice chat didn't work as before. Managed to get a 'o7' trough the text chat (with a response!). But I finaly got the hang on this fighters. That's kind of fun. Seeing a 'vette from outside. Gunning down the red ones one after another. Running circles around these asteroids. Power managemend is crucial for these small things.
For at least 15 minutes I was enjoing myself. After a while I was finaly shot down, and I was again hit by the 'unable to connect to blabla' thingy.

My conclusion: Could be fun. Why can't I talk to the host? I have a mic, does he? The whole chat thing seems to be a bit clumsy. What's up with the 'gunner' thing, how does this work. And please fix the network issue.

I guess I will try it again

 

[CMDR Ellegon]

And please give us NPC multi-crew!

 

[William J Smith]

Simple and easy solution for the OP

Only allow crew from the people you know and trust

Because I'd never invite some random into my python or anaconda*not knowing if he was
A qualified to do it
B could handle the ship/guns
C A complete <redacted> <redacted> <redacted>

Bill

*I would add corvette here too, but sadly thats parked in Jameson memorial due to me spending all the money on power plants FSDs and the like, and having none left to buy any guns [rolleyes]

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

You can't really blame the devs for all the douches about.

 

[NW3]

This crew clown then jumps straight in a fighter and makes every cop in the area hostile to me by opening fire on them...

EDIT: Or the outcome I have wanted since the first announcement of multi-crew...NPC CREW MEMBERS!!!!

Yeah. Unfortunately, FD doesn't spend enough time considering how new features can be abused, before implementing them.

Agreed. As a Solo player, NPC crew are the only ones I'd consider using.

 

[Punished Mobius]

You can't really blame the devs for all the douches about.

We can blame them for not taking them into account in the first place. And their failure to react on these complaints. But really the problem isn't with "douches" but with well intentioned idiots just trying to help. More than once I have had to kick people in my gunner seat simply because I want to retain control of my own pack hound missiles. People who just don't know better are the issue. And to them all they did was try to help. When the gunner role is the farthest thing from helpful I can imagine. Simply allowing us to lock or disable the gunner role would solve all these problems.

 

[bigity]

What OP describes is a problem with players, not the Multi-Crew feature. It's unrealistic to blame crappy behavior on FD.

If you can combine wings and MC there should be no extra pips involved.

Based on?

 

[jasonbarron]

People use multi crew? I am actually kind of surprised. I thought that was dead on arrival.

 

[Toumal]

Frankly at this point i'd just remove combat MC and instead focus on engineering, science and damage control MC roles instead.

 

[Franc Kaos]

...Someone at Fdev needs to have the courage to stand up and tell the people around them that an idea is stupid. Clearly that did not happen during the design of the gunner position.

I have a feeling Fdev is a top down company, edicts from on high and don't proffer suggestions unless you're in management or fairly high up... I used to work in a company like that, not a fan.

...
A lot of the disappointment comes from Frontier trying to sell it as much more than it was, and people believing them.

To be fair they did sell it as much more than what it turned out to be.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

We can blame them for not taking them into account in the first place. And their failure to react on these complaints. But really the problem isn't with "douches" but with well intentioned idiots just trying to help. More than once I have had to kick people in my gunner seat simply because I want to retain control of my own pack hound missiles. People who just don't know better are the issue. And to them all they did was try to help. When the gunner role is the farthest thing from helpful I can imagine. Simply allowing us to lock or disable the gunner role would solve all these problems.

On those occasions you had to kick well-intending ones: Was there no coordination? I would assume one of the first things to do is to chat and try to organise who is doing what. Doesn't that happen?

 

[Cosmos]

My impression of multi-crew is that it's a lot like seeing a bloke drinking vodka out of a bottle in a brown paper bag outside the off licence, chucking him your car keys and asking him to drive you home. One the one hand he's definitely going to make a mess of it and may well kill you both. On the other, as you contemplate life from your new perspective (upside down with a lamp post embedded in your thorax and the distant sound of sirens) you will have a few moments to reflect on the fact that it was your own stupidity that utimately caused the incident.

lmao [haha]

 

[Jack Schitt]

You can't really blame the devs for all the douches about.

We can blame them for not taking them into account in the first place. And their failure to react on these complaints.

This is it in a nutshell, and it doesn't just apply to multicrew. Every aspect of this game's design that has the potential for douchery, FD implemented anyway with zero controls. Even when they were warned beforehand. It's like they have this collective blind spot when it comes to human behaviour, and especially gamer behaviour, regardless of how many examples they see. It was kind of endearing in the early days, what with ED being their first foray into freeform multiplayer gaming. But after three years of naive feature implementation, followed by desperate application of multiple band-aids or virtual abandonment, it's getting a little stale.