Frontier, Please Don't Kill Our Crew! Part Deux

Looks like absolutely nothing has changed, nor seems planned on changing with the upcoming patch, so it looks like it's time to resurrect this issue.

The previous thread can be found here, locked after 43 pages worth of comments: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/288943-Frontier-Please-Don-t-Kill-Our-Crew!/

Frontier, listen ... we've been patient. Back in January or February, Sandy advised us that he's aware of this issue and the need to change the NPC crew mechanic to be less punitive and undesirable. We've heard nothing since then. Here are the problems associated with the current NPC crew mechanic that REALLY NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED ALREADY:

1) NPC Crew Permadeath. What the hell, Frontier? No other mechanic in the game has permanent loss like this. If your ship blows up, you still get to keep all your custom made engineered modules. If your ship blows up, you keep all your materials. If your ship blows up, you keep all your ranks. If your ship blows up with your highly trained NPC crewman on board, he or she is lost permanently. This basically means that weeks or months worth of grind to get your NPC crew to a high rank is essentially pointless. You can't bring that crewman to actually dangerous fights, especially PVP, as the risk to that NPC is simply far far too high. And given their role is, currently, exclusively tied to combat, you've created a mechanic that drives away players rather than attracting them. I'm sure you can see where the problem lies here.

2) NPC crew costs a high amount of XP *even while inactive*. This is just silly. Not only can the crew rank progress be hit in the face by permadeath, but it costs us quite a lot of credits to keep him or her in our roster even when we're not using them. In fact, it costs the same to us whether we use them or not. How does this make sense?

So what ends up happening is that nearly no one ever keeps NPC crew. They hire them to go bounty hunting and then just fire them before cashing in the credit rewards. Those that do keep and level up NPC crew quickly learn their lesson when said crew dies and they realize they've lost a ton of progress and several millions of credits for nothing. There's absolutely no reason to ever keep crew. So in the end, the whole NPC leveling process is completely pointless and I have a hard time believing that this was Frontier's goal the whole time.

Are there solutions coming down the line? Repeating ourselves is getting a bit old.
 
My $0.02.

Crew should potentially be rescue-able after death. Either from signal sources, surface POIs, or station contacts.
Total loss should occur if you ignored or failed the method of rescue you were given.
For example, if you're blown up by a pirate, there's a chance you either a) simply go collect their pod, with a time limit. b) go rescue them from said pirate (NPC only).
If you're blown up by security, you need to bail them out of jail.
If you blow up on a surface, you need to go find their escape pod in your SRV. Or go find a medical centre and pay their bills.
If you ignore it too long, they do eventually die/go missing/go to jail forever.

For pay, they should only get 1-5% pay when inactive. If that.
And shouldn't "steal" experience, but simply earn their own. And never while inactive.
 
Part Deux? More like part 14.

This has come up since the first NPC was lost.

I’ve pichted and pitched ideas how to pull this off, and will once more - this would make for a GREAT Personal Narrative Scenerio (using the new Scenerios in beta).

Fly out to the system where you went boom, find your wreckage, retrieve the escape pod with your NPC inside. Take it to an S&R contact, regain your pilot. Dink them some XP, and call it done.

Of course, this could ALSO be used as a means of finding new NPC’s as well. Like most things Elite, tremendous potential yet to be tapped.
 
Can we add the mysterious case of the vanishing Bounties to the list too?

I get that my SLF jockey gets a slice of my income but that comes out of what I've been paid.
If a job's worth a million credits, somebody pays me a million credits, I pocket Cr880,000 and my SLF pilot takes Cr120,000.

So, why do CGs calculate results based solely on what I pocket rather than what Team Stealthie gets paid in total?

I dunno if this has just been overlooked or whether it's a deliberate choice but it makes no sense either way.
If Team Stealthie earns Cr10m in bounties (or whatever) in a CG then Team Stealthie's results should be based on that and not the 88% of that which goes into my pocket.
 
Have all my upvote the current system is designed in such a weird backward way its almost like it's intentionally punishing.
My only explanation for it is once again that they want to artificially keep us from earning too much money too fast and they try every g trick in the book. The whole game seems to be designed around that.
I hope they eventually get rid of that philosophy a d just design the game with fun in mind and not how to keep us busy.
 
Signed (again).

And before the usual argument is made that "ship destruction should have serious consequences"...

If you aren't flying a ship with an SLF, it DOESN'T.

Or if you hire disposable pre-trained "experts" (who don't even take a cut of your profits, because you can fire them before cashing in the mission) it DOESN'T.

This is a problem that unfairly penalises a subset of players who are trying to play "properly", but who are effectively being prevented from using their NPC copilots in dangerous situations.

And it makes zero sense, because everyone else can eject... even our passengers!
 
My $0.02.

Crew should potentially be rescue-able after death. Either from signal sources, surface POIs, or station contacts.
Total loss should occur if you ignored or failed the method of rescue you were given.
For example, if you're blown up by a pirate, there's a chance you either a) simply go collect their pod, with a time limit. b) go rescue them from said pirate (NPC only).
If you're blown up by security, you need to bail them out of jail.
If you blow up on a surface, you need to go find their escape pod in your SRV. Or go find a medical centre and pay their bills.
If you ignore it too long, they do eventually die/go missing/go to jail forever.

For pay, they should only get 1-5% pay when inactive. If that.
And shouldn't "steal" experience, but simply earn their own. And never while inactive.

But according lo lore fighters are operated remotely. I'm not even sure they're in the mothership with you. I assume not and on "death" their link to you is severed.
 
My Elite pilot is my drinking buddy, we regularly get squiffy trying the various delectable alcoholic beverages to be found around the galaxy, and laughing ourselves silly watching ancient comic telecasts like Red Dwarf. I'm beginning to be pretty sure it's how she keeps my mind off how much I'm paying her, lol. I love her to bits though, would be sorely grieved to lose her. I'd sleep easier knowing the ship is packing an escape pod for her as well as me.

Elite-Dangerous-20180627145647.jpg
 
My $0.02.

Crew should potentially be rescue-able after death. Either from signal sources, surface POIs, or station contacts.
Total loss should occur if you ignored or failed the method of rescue you were given.
For example, if you're blown up by a pirate, there's a chance you either a) simply go collect their pod, with a time limit. b) go rescue them from said pirate (NPC only).
If you're blown up by security, you need to bail them out of jail.
If you blow up on a surface, you need to go find their escape pod in your SRV. Or go find a medical centre and pay their bills.
If you ignore it too long, they do eventually die/go missing/go to jail forever.

For pay, they should only get 1-5% pay when inactive. If that.
And shouldn't "steal" experience, but simply earn their own. And never while inactive.

This
 
Looks like absolutely nothing has changed, nor seems planned on changing with the upcoming patch, so it looks like it's time to resurrect this issue.

The previous thread can be found here, locked after 43 pages worth of comments: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/288943-Frontier-Please-Don-t-Kill-Our-Crew!/

Frontier, listen ... we've been patient. Back in January or February, Sandy advised us that he's aware of this issue and the need to change the NPC crew mechanic to be less punitive and undesirable. We've heard nothing since then. Here are the problems associated with the current NPC crew mechanic that REALLY NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED ALREADY:

1) NPC Crew Permadeath. What the hell, Frontier? No other mechanic in the game has permanent loss like this. If your ship blows up, you still get to keep all your custom made engineered modules. If your ship blows up, you keep all your materials. If your ship blows up, you keep all your ranks. If your ship blows up with your highly trained NPC crewman on board, he or she is lost permanently. This basically means that weeks or months worth of grind to get your NPC crew to a high rank is essentially pointless. You can't bring that crewman to actually dangerous fights, especially PVP, as the risk to that NPC is simply far far too high. And given their role is, currently, exclusively tied to combat, you've created a mechanic that drives away players rather than attracting them. I'm sure you can see where the problem lies here.

2) NPC crew costs a high amount of XP *even while inactive*. This is just silly. Not only can the crew rank progress be hit in the face by permadeath, but it costs us quite a lot of credits to keep him or her in our roster even when we're not using them. In fact, it costs the same to us whether we use them or not. How does this make sense?

So what ends up happening is that nearly no one ever keeps NPC crew. They hire them to go bounty hunting and then just fire them before cashing in the credit rewards. Those that do keep and level up NPC crew quickly learn their lesson when said crew dies and they realize they've lost a ton of progress and several millions of credits for nothing. There's absolutely no reason to ever keep crew. So in the end, the whole NPC leveling process is completely pointless and I have a hard time believing that this was Frontier's goal the whole time.

Are there solutions coming down the line? Repeating ourselves is getting a bit old.

I write this every time but hey.

Undocking isnt a challenge.
Docking is not a challenge
Escaping interdiction isnt a challenge
Running from a fight you aint winning isnt a challenge
Logging off in 15 seconds from the point of seeing a hollow square isnt a challenge
Anarchy systems are not a challenge
Landing on planets is not a challenge

The pattern is, nothing in this game is hard, nothing in this game isnt easily avoidable and nothing in this game gives you any sense of loss.

Losing crew give you the adrenaline to not die, it gives you something to lose for once, the game needs MORE LOSS not LESS.

FD, please keep perma death for crew in the game, and add MORE consequence for losing/sloppy flying.
 
I write this every time but hey.

Undocking isnt a challenge.
Docking is not a challenge
Escaping interdiction isnt a challenge
Running from a fight you aint winning isnt a challenge
Logging off in 15 seconds from the point of seeing a hollow square isnt a challenge
Anarchy systems are not a challenge
Landing on planets is not a challenge

The pattern is, nothing in this game is hard, nothing in this game isnt easily avoidable and nothing in this game gives you any sense of loss.

Losing crew give you the adrenaline to not die, it gives you something to lose for once, the game needs MORE LOSS not LESS.

FD, please keep perma death for crew in the game, and add MORE consequence for losing/sloppy flying.

Would you be OK with ships losing all engineering upgrades after a rebuy?
 
I never elbaroate further but this ugly thread just keeps appearing so i'll just go for it.

Add more throat cutting to this "cut throat" galaxy! Everyone just wants to have their cake and eat it! You die, you lose nothing, a slight dent in money that's easily made and a quick teleport is the only indication that you even died in the first place! Suddenly you lose something and everyone's up in arms because the bubble wrap you like to be covered in has a slight tear in it. You get to keep EVERYTHING! Mats/mods/engineering/your ship/dont even have the paint the thing again!

You enter PVP, similar ship similar build similar engineering....One of you pops a SLF, the other does not. The guy who does deserves to have an advantage because they are willing to risk more. Its called risk vs reward and its the staple of almost every game of the type. You take away the death, suddenly SLFs become staple, the meta, the norm, the default...Going out without one is like going out with an empty hardpoint...Pointless, nothing to lose.

IMHO just be thankful we ONLY lose crew.

Would you be OK with ships losing all engineering upgrades after a rebuy?

Yes i would.
 
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You enter PVP, similar ship similar build similar engineering....One of you pops a SLF, the other does not. The guy who does deserves to have an advantage because they are willing to risk more. Its called risk vs reward and its the staple of almost every game of the type. You take away the death, suddenly SLFs become staple, the meta, the norm, the default...Going out without one is like going out with an empty hardpoint...Pointless, nothing to lose.

You haven't addressed the point that Expert copilots can be "hired and fired". So nobody has to take the risk of losing a trained-up copilot in order to use an SLF.

NPC permadeath doesn't punish the use of an SLF, it specifically punishes the decision to train up a copilot from Harmless.

Nobody will ever take such a copilot into PvP (unless they are very reckless).
 
You haven't addressed the point that Expert copilots can be "hired and fired". So nobody has to take the risk of losing a trained-up copilot in order to use an SLF.

NPC permadeath doesn't punish the use of an SLF, it specifically punishes the decision to train up a copilot from Harmless.

Nobody will ever take such a copilot into PvP (unless they are very reckless).

I'm not trying to address the logistics of the system. I sort of have, however addressed it. Someone who's afraid to lose their crew whip out a novice SLF whilst the person willing to take the risk whips out his fully elite one, again they have the advantage for having more to lose.

When i first got my crew member it never even finished saying "Fighter deployed" or whatever the line is before it was a bug on the enemies windscreen, they are not exactly competitive.
 
Signed.

Skylar is my crew long time ago. She saved my many times when I was greenhorn, and I hope she don't starving with that 400 million creds what she earned as my crew. I don't risk her 'life', only bring her on board when I'm in my tank Corvette, because I just can't loose her. If any option to change this crew permadeath system, please do. We need to be able to save/rebuy them.
 
I'm not trying to address the logistics of the system. I sort of have, however addressed it. Someone who's afraid to lose their crew whip out a novice SLF whilst the person willing to take the risk whips out his fully elite one, again they have the advantage for having more to lose.

When i first got my crew member it never even finished saying "Fighter deployed" or whatever the line is before it was a bug on the enemies windscreen, they are not exactly competitive.

They are actually pretty strong when trained up quite a ways. But you're right in that fighters don't have super staying power. That's why my Corvette carries 30 of them. As for your other other comments, we understand that there is a small subset of players that prefer things as hardcore as possible, including permanent loss of gear and pilots. But most players don't want this. While you yourself can give yourself a self imposed ironman by refusing to rebuy your ship, or by selling off all engineered components if you do rebuy, not allowing other players the option to play the game their way is a bit cruel.

But mostly, the argument to save NPC crew (and not have them charge us a fortune when inactive) is simply to keep that mechanic in line with the rest of the game. Passengers don't die. Engineered modules aren't permanently lost. Materials are forever. Basically, by the game's internal logic, there is absolutely no reason why NPC crew should have permadeath as realistically, everyone on the ship should have access to escape pods. Cause it makes zero sense that random economy class passengers should survive, but the people operating the ship should die, right?
 
I wouldn't have a problem with the copilot "losing a level" (down to whatever level they were hired at). It could be explained as PTSD from the near-death experience.
 
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