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.
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.