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

[Liar]

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.

Sorry if I am repeating someone's solution, but how about making NPC crew rescuable? We already have NPC rescue ships in signals. It could add new gameplay experiences.

For example:
After a ship destruction, commander could get a mission of rescuing his crew member, first by searching for special signal source in the system where his ship was destroyed.
If he waited too long, crew member could already been rescued either by "goodguys" or the pirates (with a chance, depending on system type and/or some other variables).
If rescued by "goodguys", pilot receives a message, which says, where he can go and pickup his NPC, after paying a rescue fee.
If commander had a bounty, his NPC is at a detention facility, and commander can get NPC back from the system in which NPC is held, only after paying a bounty.
If rescued by pirates, pilot can either pay ransom, or to do a mission/-s for the pirate faction, with appropriate consequences.

As for the risk of loosing a skilled NPC pilot, he could just "refuse to ever fly with you again!", after 3rd such rescue (maybe depending on how often he ends up "rescued" by pirates), or request higher wages, or some "cooldown period" ("find my after a month - then we will talk")

It is just a rough thoughts, sorry.

 

[Loki The Coyote]

I wouldn't mind the risk losing an NPC if death wasn't certain. If there is was chance to recover them if you act quickly. Consider them ejected like you and are now floating in space. There is a signal source you need to find near the place where you died where you can find their escape pod and get them back. Maybe when you drop into the signal source there will be slavers closing in that you can attack and rescue your copilot.

Or maybe an option to insure their lives or something.

Took me ages to find an NPC i like. Would hate to lose her forever.

I like this idea.

just recently lost my crew mate...

hired her at harmless, trained her to elite.

she was making a 9 figure income and I was okay with that, she deserved it...

then one day, we were in a high res, and a frickin cop flew through my frickin beam laser... we managed to escape the zone but were badly injured, I had like 7% hull left on the mother ship.

go to dock at the station 'cool' for repairs and hop into a suicidey, but got stuck in the damn slot... got scanned, then insta killed right after.

I was crushed... the rebuy cost, I didn't care much about, an A rated corvette... it was the fact I lost a most epic wing mate... she was straight up frickin hardcore, no fear.

it made me sad [sour]

RIP slf pilot... I can't remember your name, but you were awesome... *sigh*

been looking for a new one, but I dunno man, it just doesn't feel right.

 

[Andovar]

Have only skimmed the thread, so apologies if this has already been suggested (or shot down), but what about some sort of missions where you'd have to go recover your crew member?
The level of mission difficulty could be based on the rank of the npc crew that was lost.

It could be as simple as having to go to a station to retrieve them (as if their pod was picked up by the police)
Or if their pod was picked up by a criminal faction, having to interdict and extract the pod cargo from a powerful npc or wing. Or maybe having to infiltrate a secured planetside base to get them back. Or from a megaship...
So many possibilities.

 

[Liar]

Have only skimmed the thread, so apologies if this has already been suggested (or shot down), but what about some sort of missions where you'd have to go recover your crew member?
The level of mission difficulty could be based on the rank of the npc crew that was lost.

It could be as simple as having to go to a station to retrieve them (as if their pod was picked up by the police)
Or if their pod was picked up by a criminal faction, having to interdict and extract the pod cargo from a powerful npc or wing. Or maybe having to infiltrate a secured planetside base to get them back. Or from a megaship...
So many possibilities.

or commander coult pay ransom, or do missions for pirate faction, with appropriate consequences.
also, if commander has a bounty, his npc could respawn at a detention facility.
and all not limited to the system he was shot in. (except for the timed rescue mission, where cmdr searches for specific signal source and just retrieves escape pod with npc)

 

[Demascus]

Your trying to apply logic to devs that thought "telepresence" your mind from across the known galaxy makes sense.

 

[Loki The Coyote]

Have only skimmed the thread, so apologies if this has already been suggested (or shot down), but what about some sort of missions where you'd have to go recover your crew member?
The level of mission difficulty could be based on the rank of the npc crew that was lost.

It could be as simple as having to go to a station to retrieve them (as if their pod was picked up by the police)
Or if their pod was picked up by a criminal faction, having to interdict and extract the pod cargo from a powerful npc or wing. Or maybe having to infiltrate a secured planetside base to get them back. Or from a megaship...
So many possibilities.

very much agreed... I also barely skimmed the thread lol

but yeah, I definitely like this.

 

[Loki The Coyote]

Your trying to apply logic to devs that thought "telepresence" your mind from across the known galaxy makes sense.

okay, well how about rescuing an escape pod near where you got blown up?.... of course the life support in said pod would only last a short time.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Your trying to apply logic to devs that thought "telepresence" your mind from across the known galaxy makes sense.

What I don't understand is why the NPC's don't use telepresence to get to your ship anyway and it being completely risk free.

 

[AzraelDirge]

I like this idea.

just recently lost my crew mate...

hired her at harmless, trained her to elite.

she was making a 9 figure income and I was okay with that, she deserved it...

then one day, we were in a high res, and a frickin cop flew through my frickin beam laser... we managed to escape the zone but were badly injured, I had like 7% hull left on the mother ship.

go to dock at the station 'cool' for repairs and hop into a suicidey, but got stuck in the damn slot... got scanned, then insta killed right after.

I was crushed... the rebuy cost, I didn't care much about, an A rated corvette... it was the fact I lost a most epic wing mate... she was straight up frickin hardcore, no fear.

it made me sad [sour]

RIP slf pilot... I can't remember your name, but you were awesome... *sigh*

been looking for a new one, but I dunno man, it just doesn't feel right.

Sounds like poor trigger discipline and worse flying cost you your pilot.

 

[Andovar]

What I don't understand is why the NPC's don't use telepresence to get to your ship anyway and it being completely risk free.

Because that would remove they risk factor that FD wants to keep in there.
Sure it's a bit of a "lore loophole". But it wouldn't be the first.

 

[Maro-Val]

Your trying to apply logic to devs that thought "telepresence" your mind from across the known galaxy makes sense.

Not only that, but they also find logic when not even the owner of the ship, cannot deploy an srv when he has another cmdr onboard. Makes perfect sense....

 

[Loki The Coyote]

Sounds like poor trigger discipline and worse flying cost you your pilot.

really?

the cop literally flew right into a solid two huge laser beams that were firing for quite awhile.

poor trigger discipline?... haha no, reatarded npc's and far to harsh penalties for ACCIDENTAL friendly fire that barely nicked their sheilds is the cause, not poor trigger skills.

getting stuck in the slot, yeah that was my bad really (though it never woulda happened had the npc cops not been and absolutely insane when it comes to a little nick in the sheilds) ... it happens occasionaly... do you even fly big ships?

 

[CaptainKremmen]

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]

I lost my favourite NPC crewmember because I got the nose of my 'conda stuck fast between some planetary installation buildings. My hull slowly went to zero, and I lost the ship, and the active crewmember.

I fought hopelessly until the end, twisting and turning every which way. Alas, it eventually went boom.


How exciting it was, though, to have my expensive and highly trained NPC pilot in jeopardy, then lost forever.


I've dismissed my NPC crew now. I had two I was training, but it's an exercise in futility. If I want a fighter flown, I'll just hire a random crewmember... then delete it when I'm done with the trip.

 

[SushiCW]

Your odds of dying are low if you go in prepared correctly. Sorry that you're so risk adverse that the one thing you actually risk losing in this game needs to be fixed as well. Literally every decent big ship PvP pilot I know brings their SLF and pilot along for the extra DPS.

You're still misunderstanding me, I'm afraid. I'm a Keelback pilot. An engineered Keelback with a fighter has, for me, just the right level of danger. But PvP is so much more dangerous that it's enormously risky to bring a pilot along. If I go looking for PvP (as opposed to avoiding/fleeing) I will almost certainly explode. Which means I have to choose between several unpalatable options: do I PvP in the ship I like, with the significant risk losing a pilot? Or do I fly a different ship I don't care for, but is capable of PvP? Or do I just avoid PvP entirely, missing out on an entire dimension of the game?

If there's a "go in prepared correctly" that will make my Keelback able to stand against min-maxed FDLs and FAS flown by competent PvP pilots, please do tell.

And what really bugs me isn't the element of risk, but the completely arbitrary nature of it. Why is my pilot at risk, but not my engineered modules? In-lore it makes just as much sense to lose those. Obviously this wouldn't be very fun, though, given how long they take to acquire. So why are NPC pilots considered different?

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

I'm convinced (I'm often wrong) they will change the death / payouts system eventually but it is probably fairly low on their priority list.

Which is a real problem with FD's dev process IMHO :

1) devote dev time to a new feature (here SLF)
2) once it is released, leave it untouched even though there are blatant flaws
3) everybody stops using it after 2 weeks due to said flaws
4) don't fix it because "nobody uses it"
5) Find a new "new feature" and goto 1

This loop works for PP, CQC, Multi Crew, SLF and probably a lot of other things.

*sniff sniff*

well this still smells a bit like Multi crew and some traces of Arena

 

[SushiCW]

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.

I'm afraid I still can't wrap my head around the thinking, especially as it relates to other aspects of the game that are "safe" from death like ship rebuy, engineered modules, micro-materials, etc. But thank you for engaging in the conversation anyway.

For the record, here are my own favorite ideas (from most to least favored) for keeping some sense of cost/risk without entirely losing crew:

* At the rebuy screen, crew demands a salary raise to stay with you. (Up to some sane cap, obviously paying 90% of your income doesn't make much sense).
* After losing a ship, crew is unavailable for a week or two such that you can't set them as "active". They're in some sort of "recovering" state.
* After losing the ship, crew loses some amount of XP / rank.
* After losing the ship, crew demands a bonus on the rebuy screen in order to stay with you, proportionate to their rank.

I'd even settle for an "any or all of the above" approach if for some reason those penalties still don't seem like enough jeopardy.

 

[raymondo the great]

I think it's fairly clear

The devs want them to die for "gameplay" reasons

So trying to apply logic to it isn't going to work...the devs pick and chose what they want to apply logic too and what they want to apply gameplay too based seemingly on what their horoscopes said on a given day or somthing!

In reality if we are going to get anything better than the current system we need somthing that appeals to the devs from a "gamey" perspective. And we need to focus on that, on how much more "fun" the game would be if we had (insert suggestion) etc

 

[Tobasco da Gama]

The real problem is that crew xp only goes up, maybe they could become invincible but on death their xp resets by a number of grades to be determined.
Basically the reason they die is because otherwise everyone ends up with an elite crew risk free with no other factors involved except time. Nobody would ever have any reason to hire a good pilot.

I usually hate "XP loss" mechanics, but for NPC crew I think it's an acceptable compromise.

 

[AzraelDirge]

really?

the cop literally flew right into a solid two huge laser beams that were firing for quite awhile.

poor trigger discipline?... haha no, reatarded npc's and far to harsh penalties for ACCIDENTAL friendly fire that barely nicked their sheilds is the cause, not poor trigger skills.

getting stuck in the slot, yeah that was my bad really (though it never woulda happened had the npc cops not been and absolutely insane when it comes to a little nick in the sheilds) ... it happens occasionaly... do you even fly big ships?

I was a vette pilot pretty much exclusively after unlocking it until I got bored with the spreadsheet combat that is big ship PvP and went back to my FDL. One, I never used two huge beams on the vette, because I don't like draining my dist and cooking myself, and two, I hunted almost exclusively in the HazRez, and I always drew my extended fights out of the ring a bit to make sure I had the room to go to town without someone wandering into my fire. I can count on one hand the number of times I got an accidental bounty, I never stuck around to get kicked around by the cops, and I never try to dock in a system where I'm wanted if there's a viable alternative. Jumping a system over to a location where you are unwanted would have saved your pilot as well.

 

[EvoBeardy]

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.

Hey man, we really genuinely appreciate you taking active interest in this subject.

However, as you've seen from the thread, there's many issues surrounding its implementation, that myself and many others have come up with possible alternatives or workarounds/considerations.

One of the bigger issues with crew hire as it stands, is that they create less attachment due to their standard percentage fee, along with how disposable they are to the money-makers. The hole in their wallet hurts more than the hole of an empty seat.
This itself leads to massive detachment from any hired NPC crew.

Some are happy to keep their crew mate earning tens or hundreds of millions, ranking them up from the ground up and having an in-game "friend" of sorts. This leads to attachment and massive disappointment due to the issues involving their loss.
Then you have those that will hire the highest end crew, not factoring their looks, background or whatever, take them on PVP or NPC assassinations or whatever for some fun, fire their to save their income being taken away and have zero attachment to said NPC.

Now look at the initial hire cost and the percentage fee, this is great because it caters to people of all incomes.
Maybe some sort of "re-hire" fee, "bonus fee", "increased pay" or even initial hiring costs could be gauged on your overall asset value, your notoriety/criminal actions, how many times you've died or all of the above somehow?

The NPC's re-hire/furture hiring needs are how valuable said NPC was to us. Want a 500k re-hire fee 'cos we rarely get into sticky situations and I messed up, sure? Want a 5m re-hire and X% raise 'cos I'm a bit of a git and I gank noobs? Sure!

Maybe the more you die/hostile you are, the more expensive their initial hire will be. The more difficult it'll be to get them back (be that X days hospital recovery plus fees covered, or locating their pod or whatnot), if you die lots and constantly lose NPCs?
I mean you go to a station lounge and you're hiring a new crew mate every day, surely the people there will be like "hey where's Fred? Oh he left with that guy and nobody's seen him since". You'd get a bit of a reputation.
Maybe more seedy and sinister stations will have mercs that are more willing to go with you at certain points, but for a higher fee?

Maybe allow them to be re-hired but based on your stats stated above, they have a chance to turn you down if they feel you're too much of a liability?

Something would be nice though.

As it stands, it's a bit of a bummer having an inactive crew member that's seemingly wherever you go (so in your ship?) but not taking a seat back there, manning a turret in non-SLF capable ships, giving you an extra pip while you fly around. Yet earns a set fee of your income, regardless of being sat on their proverbial virtual or not.