Why hasn't frontier ever responded to killing our SLF NPC's?

[-VR- Max Factor]

To be honest Sandro, it doesn't really make any sense to me

I'm just not feeling this one.

But then what is the motivation for them to become a crew member, when being a crewmember on a Pilot's Federation ship is the most dangerous job?

The idea of jeopardy is understandable BUT it is inconsistent with the existence of escape pods.
If only the pilot of the ship can get an escape pod, then pirating in a High Intensity Res with a shieldless Hauler is less risky than joining a crew on a fully equipped Federal Corvette.

In a realistic "breathing & living galaxy", NPC crewmembers would work for us for 1 or 2 missions, then say "Well cap'n, shove it, I'm'a purchasing my very own Sidey. Thanks bye"

Completely agree with you guys. It makes no sense. It should be a credit cost just like everything else is, but if you don't have the credits they say goodbye and you never see them again.

If your NPC dies, then maybe our engineered modules should as well on ship destruction (playing devils advocate here), surely they are worth less then a persons life?

I just want to see some logic involved.

 

[Trekari]

Seconded. Add NPC comms, give some relationship management with your crew, and if you ignore them, they will leave you. If you take care of them, they might never die - and if you have put work into it, that might be fully justified.

Ugh, no.

I don't play Elite so that I am forced to have conversations with NPCs and befriend them.

 

[Shadowdancer]

So… anyone up for changing the thread's title? Looks a bit weird to see "never responded" and the Frontier logo next to each other

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Ugh, no.

I don't play Elite so that I am forced to have conversations with NPCs and befriend them.

Too bad. There's certainly plans to do that. Although as everything it will be purlely optional.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Ugh, no.

I don't play Elite so that I am forced to have conversations with NPCs and befriend them.

I don't think anyone will force you, it will be optional. Personally I am looking forward to it, especially on the bigger ships. It will give me a reason to fly one of the big 4/5 as it could be a very different experience, actually feeling like you are the captain of a ship.

 

[Crank Larson]

It's absolutely not that we want to force players to continually cycle through new crew (which is why we'll hopefully get around to making a change here), it's because we want to retain jeopardy. If the only risk was some extra credits cost then we think the risk would be too easy to mitigate.

Part of the concept of attachment with crew is knowing that you have kept them alive during situations where you *might* have lost them.

But the same could be said of yourself (i.e. you the pilot). I've been in many situations where I have actually lost myself, but I respawn ok. I think you are completely misunderstanding the concept of attachment. Sure, make it difficult to rescue a crew member - it should take some effort, and that will only increase attachment. But if you keep situations where the SLF pilot can be lost completely, then all it will do is create a bitter taste in the mouths of those who lose the pilot. It won't increase attachment in any way - in fact, on the few times I've lost my pilot, it's taken me quite a while to get round to getting another one (due to the effort involved in training them up from harmless).

Your argument makes sense. But it is wrong.

 

[AzraelDirge]

Man, there's a lot of people angry over the potential to lose their space waifu after all the effort they put in board flipping to find an attractive female SLF pilot.

 

[Watcher]

But the same could be said of yourself (i.e. you the pilot). I've been in many situations where I have actually lost myself, but I respawn ok. I think you are completely misunderstanding the concept of attachment. Sure, make it difficult to rescue a crew member - it should take some effort, and that will only increase attachment. But if you keep situations where the SLF pilot can be lost completely, then all it will do is create a bitter taste in the mouths of those who lose the pilot. It won't increase attachment in any way - in fact, on the few times I've lost my pilot, it's taken me quite a while to get round to getting another one (due to the effort involved in training them up from harmless).

Your argument makes sense. But it is wrong.

I think part of my feeling here is derived from various SF shows. You don't go around killing off the core crew all the time (unless you are doing something with time travel loops again) and if and when you do kill someone that should feel pretty significant. I'd like to think of my NPC crew as important and wouldn't want them to easily die off all the time.. Perhaps this needs to relate to how much effort you've invested in them so you are much less likely to lose crew if you've stuck with them for a while (and there need to be options here so there is some work involved in doing that beyond building up combat rank/credits) then if you do lose them have that be in some way significant - I'm not quite sure how you would do that but be good if it can be managed... Anyway, over to FD really

 

[raymondo the great]

I think part of my feeling here is derived from various SF shows. You don't go around killing off the core crew all the time (unless you are doing something with time travel loops again) and if and when you do kill someone that should feel pretty significant. I'd like to think of my NPC crew as important and wouldn't want them to easily die off all the time.. Perhaps this needs to relate to how much effort you've invested in them so you are much less likely to lose crew if you've stuck with them for a while (and there need to be options here so there is some work involved in doing that beyond building up combat rank/credits) then if you do lose them have that be in some way significant - I'm not quite sure how you would do that but be good if it can be managed... Anyway, over to FD really

It shouldn't be that hard for your crew to "survive" but say strop off if you haven't had them long with a parting shot along the line of "I thought I was signing up with a skilled commander", but then if you've had them a while you could receive a message "escape pod recovered to x station, I'll stay y hours before leaving" with y increasing in time based on how long you have hired them for so that the longer you've been working together the longer they'll wait for you to come pick them up and continue adventuring.

Heck the devs could even introduce the "industry standard" loyalty missions which once completed then they would stay with you after death and make their way back to where you are after a set number of hours or somthing

 

[Flimsey]

But then what is the motivation for them to become a crew member, when being a crewmember on a Pilot's Federation ship is the most dangerous job?

The idea of jeopardy is understandable BUT it is inconsistent with the existence of escape pods.
If only the pilot of the ship can get an escape pod, then pirating in a High Intensity Res with a shieldless Hauler is less risky than joining a crew on a fully equipped Federal Corvette.

In a realistic "breathing & living galaxy", NPC crewmembers would work for us for 1 or 2 missions, then say "Well cap'n, shove it, I'm'a purchasing my very own Sidey. Thanks bye"

The insane amount of money they get from working for traders

No i do not like the system today, Both that the cost so much even when they ar off duty and you lose them for ever.

One idea is that for a short amount of time you can scoop them in the system you lost them, and after that they will be in a station in the nearby systems. If you not find them fast enough they will take another job, maby give hints where they are. For the jepordy part, if you lose them to often they will cost more or eventually refuse to work for you.

 

[Snowymonk]

Hello Commanders!

Just clarify my statement about not wanting Commanders to only ever train one or two fighter crew.
It's absolutely not that we want to force players to continually cycle through new crew (which is why we'll hopefully get around to making a change here), it's because we want to retain jeopardy. If the only risk was some extra credits cost then we think the risk would be too easy to mitigate.

Part of the concept of attachment with crew is knowing that you have kept them alive during situations where you *might* have lost them.
hope this makes some sense.

Thanks Sandro for engaging us on this one.
For me, I don't understand the link between NPC skill advancement and the risk of NPC loss.

As the current NPC pilot model is configured, I can pay less for a low level NPC, who I then have the option skill up to higher levels through continued use. By investing time in the NPC, I get a better skilled pilot for a lower percentage of my profits. The game in encouraging me to develop a pilot.

If I over-reach myself and get into a situation where I and / or my pilot are killed, I will respawn at my last starport but I will lose my NPC colleague.
The time invested is lost.
Implicitly (or explicitly) the game is actually encouraging me to not use the NPC pilot mechanic.

As eleven pages of discussion thread can attest to, a number of people believe that the way NPC pilots work need changing.

Personally, NPC pilots need to go one of two ways.
either:
- XP advancement stops, i.e. harmless pilots are always harmless (you pay peanuts for monkeys, you pay top dollar for top gun)
or
- NPC deaths stop, possibly under some form of penalty for recovery after ship destruction.

I would also like to see NPC pilot charges split into 'Retainer' and 'Active' as this would better represent the real life of a mercenary pilot who was being paid to sit round to do nothing but would then charge 'danger money' to get off their a*** and provide support.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

Hello Commanders!

Just clarify my statement about not wanting Commanders to only ever train one or two fighter crew.

It's absolutely not that we want to force players to continually cycle through new crew (which is why we'll hopefully get around to making a change here), it's because we want to retain jeopardy. If the only risk was some extra credits cost then we think the risk would be too easy to mitigate.

Part of the concept of attachment with crew is knowing that you have kept them alive during situations where you *might* have lost them.

hope this makes some sense.

do you ever wonder why open is not the prefered game mode for the majority of your playerbase?...

please, as long as the game treats SLF crew (its nothing more then that), deactivate their death.
re-install it once you made NPC crew a fully fledged feature, at least at the level of pokemon.

pet perma death only makes sense in tactical strategy games, like X-com or so. gameplay wise it currently adds nothing but negative gameplay to Elite Dangerous.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Hello Commanders!

Just clarify my statement about not wanting Commanders to only ever train one or two fighter crew.

It's absolutely not that we want to force players to continually cycle through new crew (which is why we'll hopefully get around to making a change here), it's because we want to retain jeopardy. If the only risk was some extra credits cost then we think the risk would be too easy to mitigate.

Part of the concept of attachment with crew is knowing that you have kept them alive during situations where you *might* have lost them.

hope this makes some sense.

Thanks, Sandro... but the whole NPC crew "jeopardy/cost/benefit" thing doesn't gel. It doesn't actually make a lot of sense.


Consider...


- Everywhere you go, your crew are all there. eg. If you fly to Colonia, your crew are in every "Crew Lounge" on the way.

- If your ship gets blown up, the "Active" crewmember dies.

- If your ship gets blown up, the "Inactive" crewmembers live.

- You pay all your crew, all the time.

- You can only change a crewmember between "Inactive" and "Active" while docked in a space station.


Logically, then,

1. Every ship from a Sidewinder to a Type 10 Defender has an on-board CREW LOUNGE, seating three. *

2. A CREW LOUNGE has THREE ESCAPE PODS, to look after 3 inactive crewmembers. **

3. Every ship has a separate SLF CREW STATION, seating one, which is LOCKED... and can only be unlocked by DOCKING BAY STAFF. ***

4. Not even via escape pod. The SLF CREW STATION has NO ESCAPE POD. ****


* because everywhere you fly, all your crew are right there when you dock. Take an Eagle to Colonia, and your crew are with you all the way, and arrive in Colonia with you.
** because, if they are with you all the time but don't die on ship destruction, there must be escape pods for all.
*** because, even though your crew are with you all the time, you can only set active/inactive when in a dock.
**** because the lucky crewmember who is active DIES on ship destruction (unlike you, or your inactive NPC crew entourage).


This, right here, is an utterly bizarre set of observations.


And for what? NPC crew... only one crewmember can be doing something, and that one crewmember can only do one thing.


Worse, if we have three, we pay all three, all the time.

And we pay them all the same, even though only the unlucky "active" member (a) is doing any work, and (b) is in mortal peril every second, in a locked coffin with no escape pod.


I know ED's "rule" set has grown reasonably organically, with old and new stuff overlaid over time, and with new stuff often deliberately kept separate from old stuff for ease of dev/testing/usage... but the NPC crew "rule set" arrived in a single point-release rollout. There's no good reason it has to be this demented.

 

[StefanOS]

As CaptainKremmen did write very well, LOGIC has gone overboard in the current crew implementation.

Get my REP!

 

[SunnyD]

Hello Commanders!

I'm fairly sure that I've mentioned this topic on more than one occasion. Oh well, once more, with feeling!

We have some ideas for preventing fighter crew death whilst retaining some form of jeopardy, but we haven't got round to implementing them.

Clearly we don't want a situation where crew can always be saved, this would mean that everyone would only ever hire one or two fighter crew. However, we accept that the current situation is too harsh in terms of investment versus risk. Look for more information in a future update.

So is it just poor ship design that our crew always dies when the ship goes down and we don't? I could venture a guess that's why inactive crew always get paid... because of the inherent risk. Maybe just have them end up in the emergency ward on a cooldown timer then, and if it happens TOO often they decide to cut bait and find a different, more caring employer.

 

[GaryII]

Like any MMO (that Elite somewhat is..) Elite needs more money sinks, so I think crew insurance is simple solution here...

 

[nrage]

Here's what I'd like to see this system become.

Basics
Crew should be treated (mechanically) in the same way as ships.
Hire as many as you like, assign X to your ship where X is the number of additional seats it has.
If you switch ships, transfer X crew over to the new ship where X is the number of additional seats it has.
Any excess crew are on "shore leave" and remain at the station where you left them.
Transfer crew from station to station (as with ships).
Active crew are paid one rate, inactive crew are paid a much smaller retainer.
If crew stay on shore leave for too long there is a chance they will quit, this chance is based on their rank/ability (higher skilled crew are more likely to seek work elsewhere). They may warn you first, and this ought to give you the chance to transfer them and make them active.

Roles
Crew on a ship can be assigned roles; fighter, turret control (or whatever it's called currently), countermeasures, etc.
Crew member(s) assigned to the fighter role (you can assign 1 crew per fighter bay), will be able to launch in a fighter. This is more or less exactly what we have today.
The crew member assigned to the turret control role gives a boost to turret performance based on their rank/advancement
The crew member assigned to the countermeasures role will control your ECM, point defence, etc (not chaff), and their performance will be based on their rank/advancement.

This roles concept can be expanded upon in future updates, adding new roles, and having the crew member rank/advancement add a bonus to whatever they are assigned. This will further differentiate ships which can have crew from those that cannot (ships will need some re-balancing to account for this) as well as differentiating ships with crew vs those with empty seats.

Risk/Reward
The rewards are clear (above) so what about risk. Losing the crew member is nonsensical (everyone posting so far has given adequate reasoning here) but this is a game so if that was the only complaint we could perhaps live with it, however it's not. The real complaint, IMO, is that the time/CR/etc invested in a crew member are too easily lost and that the penalty is too harsh (perma death tends to be considered harsh, in a game).

So, instead of perma-death, how about if the crew member advancement suffers from ship destruction. In short, all active crew suffer XP loss on "death" (ship destruction). This is a common mechanic in many roleplaying games and it works quite well. A careful pilot's crew will advance slowly, if s/he takes risks they may advance faster, but if the risk proves too much they're destroyed and some advancement is lost.

I think this will provide the right balance of risk/reward, peril, etc.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Completely agree with you guys. It makes no sense. It should be a credit cost just like everything else is, but if you don't have the credits they say goodbye and you never see them again.

If your NPC dies, then maybe our engineered modules should as well on ship destruction (playing devils advocate here), surely they are worth less then a persons life?

I just want to see some logic involved.

I don't care what Mr. Rogers told you, the life of a man is often superseeded by the money of others.

 

[The Lawful]

Hello Commanders!

Just clarify my statement about not wanting Commanders to only ever train one or two fighter crew.

It's absolutely not that we want to force players to continually cycle through new crew (which is why we'll hopefully get around to making a change here), it's because we want to retain jeopardy. If the only risk was some extra credits cost then we think the risk would be too easy to mitigate.

Part of the concept of attachment with crew is knowing that you have kept them alive during situations where you *might* have lost them.

hope this makes some sense.

Well, they could just go to hospital for a week or so, plus having to pay for the medical cost if you like? It's punishment enough not to have the SLF pilot for some time IMHO.

Anything is better than losing an Elite pilot, it takes me months to train another one from Harmless up (lost 2 in total, one of them not in combat). Plus, I always name one of my ships after my deceased hero (Dangerous and above), only 23 left so far

And the attachment part is two-sided: if it leads to Thargoids facing only the quick-hire cannon fodder rookies, because the Elite dude is too valuable, something is wrong.

O7,
[noob]

 

[Oktusha]

Thanks, Sandro... but the whole NPC crew "jeopardy/cost/benefit" thing doesn't gel. It doesn't actually make a lot of sense.


Consider...


- Everywhere you go, your crew are all there. eg. If you fly to Colonia, your crew are in every "Crew Lounge" on the way.

- If your ship gets blown up, the "Active" crewmember dies.

- If your ship gets blown up, the "Inactive" crewmembers live.

- You pay all your crew, all the time.

- You can only change a crewmember between "Inactive" and "Active" while docked in a space station.


Logically, then,

1. Every ship from a Sidewinder to a Type 10 Defender has an on-board CREW LOUNGE, seating three. *

2. A CREW LOUNGE has THREE ESCAPE PODS, to look after 3 inactive crewmembers. **

3. Every ship has a separate SLF CREW STATION, seating one, which is LOCKED... and can only be unlocked by DOCKING BAY STAFF. ***

4. Not even via escape pod. The SLF CREW STATION has NO ESCAPE POD. ****


* because everywhere you fly, all your crew are right there when you dock. Take an Eagle to Colonia, and your crew are with you all the way, and arrive in Colonia with you.
** because, if they are with you all the time but don't die on ship destruction, there must be escape pods for all.
*** because, even though your crew are with you all the time, you can only set active/inactive when in a dock.
**** because the lucky crewmember who is active DIES on ship destruction (unlike you, or your inactive NPC crew entourage).


This, right here, is an utterly bizarre set of observations.


And for what? NPC crew... only one crewmember can be doing something, and that one crewmember can only do one thing.


Worse, if we have three, we pay all three, all the time.

And we pay them all the same, even though only the unlucky "active" member (a) is doing any work, and (b) is in mortal peril every second, in a locked coffin with no escape pod.


I know ED's "rule" set has grown reasonably organically, with old and new stuff overlaid over time, and with new stuff often deliberately kept separate from old stuff for ease of dev/testing/usage... but the NPC crew "rule set" arrived in a single point-release rollout. There's no good reason it has to be this demented.

Well stated!

I want to add one more thing or should I say bribe! Sandro this is for you!... lol... Put my hired crew in a seat where I can see them and I'll send you a brand new real Stetson, in your choice of color direct from Texas! lol...