Ok, Lets stop the nonsense Fdev - NPC Crew - No Brainer!

Nutter · Oct 24, 2017

Let's stop faffing around the topic. Enough is enough...

I have many ships with many empty seats.. Heck, even if I do employ a crew member they are invisible! SERIOUSLY?

Simple guide to making much profit...

Buy Crew, they sit in seat, they take orders and what do you know... my solo experience gets interactive. I have real crew on my huge ship.

Just.. I dunno - Why do we not have this?

Nutter

o7

Enderby · Oct 24, 2017

Maybe it's just too difficult for 'em.

Nutter · Oct 25, 2017

Enderby said:
Maybe it's just too difficult for 'em.

It can't be more difficult that trying to match make a real human! - In fact I will stake my reputation on it!

Ian Skippy · Oct 25, 2017

Nutter said:
Let's stop faffing around the topic. Enough is enough...

I have many ships with many empty seats.. Heck, even if I do employ a crew member they are invisible! SERIOUSLY?

Simple guide to making much profit...

Buy Crew, they sit in seat, they take orders and what do you know... my solo experience gets interactive. I have real crew on my huge ship.

Just.. I dunno - Why do we not have this?

Nutter

o7

Betty was slammed heavily in X:R for being pointless fluff. What do you propose the NPC member actually does, and what kind of interaction are you talking about? Or do you mean you just want to see them like with MC? If the latter, I agree (heck, its one of the most requested things since MC)! If the former, lets get more specific and turn this into a useful suggestion.

Valethar · Oct 25, 2017

With our luck, they'd make us give them a cut, the same way the inactive SLF pilots are. Then everyone would lose their minds because we're paying pixels to sit in an empty seat, doing nothing.

It really shouldn't be that difficult to do. Add a section to the station services menu, let us pick some pixel people to put in the seats. Hell, it would probably encourage more store sales, since we'd (theoretically) be able to outfit them as well.

Or they could just let us use the Holo-Me section to design our own. Whatever works.

Dbrn47 · Oct 25, 2017

I agree, but I'm not sure what I'd have them do... They don't manage pips well, I don't want my defenses popping off unless I feel the need and manually aimed turrets won't help if I don't equip turrets. As much as I would like to have them, I don't feel there's currently enough there for them to do to justify them. Multiplayer Multicrew though, I can see the appeal even just for the social aspect. Would it offer anything to you other than immersion currently or would they need to give them more purpose? The latter, of course, delays even the thought of it.

RidingTheFlow · Oct 25, 2017

FFE had NPC crew. In fact, you simply couldn't fly multicrew ship without hiring minimal needed crew too.

I don't think it was particularly hard-to-implement feature. They didn't do anything. You just needed to pay them a cut if you wanted to fly bigger ship.

Dbrn47 · Oct 25, 2017

RidingTheFlow said:
They didn't do anything. You just needed to pay them a cut if you wanted to fly bigger ship.

Well, let's not implement it that way... That sounds terrible at this point in the development. That's something that may have made more sense day 1, not so much now... Unless of course they're going to allow us to pilot Battlecruisers or some such.

Ian Skippy · Oct 25, 2017

RidingTheFlow said:
FFE had NPC crew. In fact, you simply couldn't fly multicrew ship without hiring minimal needed crew too.

I don't think it was particularly hard-to-implement feature. They didn't do anything. You just needed to pay them a cut if you wanted to fly bigger ship.

That is something I'd love to see in ED, increase operating costs for large ships as in the previous game. But people here would freak out as it would lower their cr/hr.

Vardaugas · Oct 25, 2017

Crew is easy to implement when you don't mind power creep: You put them into a position and they can give you some bonus to one ship stat or another, if they are in the position for it. Could even make some crew mandatory by linking pips to them, so without crew at the appropriate numbers, you get fewer pips. The bigger the ship, the more crew is mandatory, the more money you lose in wages but the more small crew bonuses you can pile up.

RidingTheFlow · Oct 25, 2017

Dbrn47 said:
Well, let's not implement it that way... That sounds terrible at this point in the development. That's something that may have made more sense day 1, not so much now... Unless of course they're going to allow us to pilot Battlecruisers or some such.

It was not expensive. Certainly less than I now regularly pay for repairing integrity of my large ships. It was basically same "maintenance cost" mechanic, just implemented differently cosmetically.

Dbrn47 · Oct 25, 2017

sleutelbos said:
That is something I'd love to see in ED, increase operating costs for large ships as in the previous game. But people here would freak out as it would lower their cr/hr.

Eh, I just think it's trying to sell me an egg after I bought a chicken.

[VR] Frank_G · Oct 25, 2017

Yes please. NPC crew, even just for filling the seats and create running costs, would be aesome!

Tadeus72 · Oct 25, 2017

Lazy fast solution.

You buy a crewman, he get's a 10% cut, gives you one pip to the system he specializes in (weapons/systems/engines) and sits in the MC seat like a player would.

There. Almost no additional work for Fdev.

Gunnet · Oct 25, 2017

Cosmetic NPC crew which just sit in your seats for immersion without doing anything would be great. Functional NPC crews would be amazing, especially if they were required in order to operate larger ships.

RidingTheFlow · Oct 25, 2017

This should be moved in "Suggestions" BTW.

Nutter · Oct 25, 2017

I won't quote but exactly my point! - Panther clipper had to have 10 crew before getting of the ground!

Why do we have the empty seats? To force us to play multi-pew? Come on! it's not going to fly is it?

Lets us fill our ships with NPC crew we can see and interact with. Even if it's just make the Tea number 1! come on!

RidingTheFlow said:
This should be moved in "Suggestions" BTW.

No it should not! That's my Suggestion!

Wylie28 · Oct 25, 2017

There is nothing for them to do that isn't straight up pointless power creep. AI Crew is a stupid idea. AI Crew IS the nonsense.

Ian Skippy · Oct 25, 2017

Dbrn47 said:
Eh, I just think it's trying to sell me an egg after I bought a chicken.

I dont personally care. It makes the game better. For example, there is currently no reason to not use a corvette for data courier missions between two coriolis stations. Thats absurd. Big ships should be expensive to operate, and missions requiring big ships should have high income. That way different ships truly have different roles. It doesnt even have to be that much, just to provide some in-game justification for the existence of smaller ships beyond stepping stones. Sure, it would have been better to have done it day1, but its better to do it now than never.

Dbrn47 · Oct 25, 2017

Frank_G said:
Yes please. NPC crew, even just for filling the seats and create running costs, would be aesome!

This board freaks me out sometimes with how little effort it takes to make some happy... You really wouldn't want them to at least do something? It's akin to my fiancee being forced to put a grease trap in her restaurant, having to pay for it (and every year after), but it never actually doing anything (completely unused and not needed) and being penalized for not having it. It's just an arbitrary rule to force you to pay the state every year. I'm not a fan of paying for things that do nothing. Then again I probably still underestimate the wonderment and amusement people would get from having living art filling space their ships.