Vision for the future: Space Legs and Ship Roles

[VR CMDR Novindus]

I've seen it suggested a few times that Space Legs or EVA might be implemented in phases, with ship exploration most likely being the first phase.
At the same time, some people complain that while it would be nice, it wouldn't really add much to the game to just be able to walk around your ship.

The discussion then is around what kind of interactions we could have in different areas of our ships that would make this first phase interesting, and that leads me to think about ship roles other than what falls under the category of Bridge Crew.

So, this thread isn't really about making fleshed out suggestions for features (though anyone is welcome to), but rather an imagining of what could be possible, what we'd like to see, and what additional mechanics may be needed.

Personally I envision something in the spirit of the Psi-5 Trading Company game, but with the general vibe of the Firefly TV series.

But before getting to specific interactions, I think a game mechanic would be needed that allows the space for ship crew activities and interaction.

Currently the only time the ship can go without explicit instructions from the pilot for a while, without being stationary, is during a supercruise journey to a distant planet within a system, and even then not for very long.
I've previously suggested a slow travel alternative to sequential hyperspace jumps, where you plot a course as usual through the galaxy map, but then hop into a "slipstream" in which the ship holds course without stopping until the route termination point, however many system hops away. Obviously, there would be some concerns with this, and I've addressed some of those in that thread.

However it's accomplished, the point is that there needs to be game-driven opportunities for all crew members to interact with each other as well as with the ship while some in-game progress is being made, and very importantly, at least one of these opportunities has to allow the pilot to leave the bridge at times for a while.

Once that time for interaction is available, a lot of role playing options become possible, and ways for the ship crew to cooperate in completing missions or goals, and for social interactions.
The kind of roles I envision are, for example:

-Captain: Issues general directives to any or all crew members, including the pilot. Selects missions and sets goals. Can hire and dismiss crew. Makes PA announcements. Usually owns the ship.
-Engineer/Technician/Mechanic: Can improve effectiveness of repairs as well as certain modules, i.e. thrusters.
-Cargo crew: Can use ship launched cargo vessels to transfer cargo from ships too large to dock, or conceal illicit cargo for smuggling.
-Fighters/defenders: For boarding or defending the ship and other crew if your ship is boarded.
-Medics: First aid or surgery for injured crew members.
-Ambassador: A player whose reputation with in-game factions is leveraged for better missions, and whose system permits are applied to the ship, and whose Powerplay rank can be used to purchase perks for the ship from the Power they're pledged to. Ambassador gets a bigger cut of the rewards.

One crew member other than Captain can have the dual role of First Mate, which is acting Captain if the Captain is logged out.
Some other dual roles may be possible, like Fighter and Cargo Crew, or Medic and Ambassador for example.

When Space Legs is extended to planet surfaces, other roles may become possible, as well as further activities for existing roles, and the Captain can select from the crew for any planet-side expeditions or missions.

These are very basic outlines with nothing really fleshed out, and obviously systems and mechanics would need to be implemented to keep every role engaging, and to create skill requirements for each activity.
Mini-games and onboard single and multi player activities would also help with that.

This would be taking Elite in a new direction, which some players would love while others would no doubt be very against. Of course, the option to go solo or only have bridge crew would still be there, though in my experience, keeping all existing play styles viable doesn't tend to placate those strongly opposed to a new play style.

Who would like to see something along these lines in Elite's future, and what kind of roles, activities, and game mechanics do you have in mind?

 

[dunno]

Space legs, I don't get it, what would walking around provide, what I imagine space legs would bring is the ability to walk around, 'simple' ye. Imagine I can land on a planet, I spend hours walking around looking at what, sand, it would take forever to get from a-to-b, heck if folks think the grind fest is ridiculous now imagine what fun the dev's would have forcing one to WALK around on a planet to discover POI's, what type of realism or technical accuracy should one attach to space legs, fall and puncture your suit, DIE, Need O2 walk to ship for replenishment, how about replenishing one's health and nourishment, a bed to sleep in perhaps, inspect a crash site, how long would that take, oh and find a canister how does one carry that back to the ship, ooh the fantastic possibilities for a grind fest...
At a station, walk around, why ?, to interact with what exactly, the bland face's that give missions, even if F-Dev implemented the ability for all open Cmdr's to congregate in a bar, how quaint, a bunch of avatars having a conversation which they can already do, Cmdr's can already interact with each other in open why add enormous complexity for little gain.
The ability to walk around one's ship when outfitting, whoopie doo, that would get stale very quickly.

I would much rather see F-Dev develop a decent story line which one could follow, I'm sure the developers have read most of the "good" science fiction available, Asimov's Foundation Series which I think inspired Elite; P. K. ; Arnold Castle; C. C. McApp; Boyd Ellanby; A. Clark; JG Ballard, etc. yet they cannot incorporate a good mystery/story to role play in this game, astounding. I'd pay for a DLC which added a decent plot to the game. There comes a time when Mathematicians should step aside and let "writers" weave their magic on the great base the Mathematicians have created.

I think the direction F-DEV should go is to continuously update and improve the current game for 2D AND 3D, then incorporate DLC's which add story to the game. No need for sequels, just keep a good game going with good content, every year a $60 DLC, I'd pay for that.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

Space legs, I don't get it, what would walking around provide, what I imagine space legs would bring is the ability to walk around, 'simple' ye. Imagine I can land on a planet, I spend hours walking around looking at what, sand, it would take forever to get from a-to-b, heck if folks think the grind fest is ridiculous now imagine what fun the dev's would have forcing one to WALK around on a planet to discover POI's, what type of realism or technical accuracy should one attach to space legs, fall and puncture your suit, DIE, Need O2 walk to ship for replenishment, how about replenishing one's health and nourishment, a bed to sleep in perhaps, inspect a crash site, how long would that take, oh and find a canister how does one carry that back to the ship, ooh the fantastic possibilities for a grind fest...
At a station, walk around, why ?, to interact with what exactly, the bland face's that give missions, even if F-Dev implemented the ability for all open Cmdr's to congregate in a bar, how quaint, a bunch of avatars having a conversation which they can already do, Cmdr's can already interact with each other in open why add enormous complexity for little gain.
The ability to walk around one's ship when outfitting, whoopie doo, that would get stale very quickly.

I would much rather see F-Dev develop a decent story line which one could follow, I'm sure the developers have read most of the "good" science fiction available, Asimov's Foundation Series which I think inspired Elite; P. K. ; Arnold Castle; C. C. McApp; Boyd Ellanby; A. Clark; etc. yet they cannot incorporate a good mystery/story to role play in this game, astounding. I'd pay for a DLC which added a decent plot to the game. There comes a time when Mathematicians should step aside and let "writers" weave their magic on the great base the Mathematicians have created.

I think the direction F-DEV should go is to continuously update and improve the current game for 2D AND 3D, then incorporate DLC's which add story to the game. No need for sequels, just keep a good game going with good content, every year a $60 DLC, I'd pay for that.

Well, as Braben has stated, Space Legs has always been part of the long term plans for Elite, and like most things, it can be done poorly, or done well. So if anyone has any notions of a decent implementation it would be good to share, and hopefully the game designers take note.

It’s good to be able to identify potential problems and obstacles with a proposed feature, but far more useful to be able to think around them and present possible solutions.

I agree about the story campaign though, as I’ve suggested before that Frontier create DLC campaigns that don’t introduce new features or usable ships, but a story that puts the player at the center of the narrative, with rewards and rank that carry over to the sandbox. I’d pay for that, and I also think that Space Legs done well could make a campaign even more engaging - something along the lines of Mass Effect.

So what kind of roles and interactions would you want to see in a Space Legs implementation, given that it appears to be an eventuality?

 

[Scubadog]

Well, as Braben has stated, Space Legs has always been part of the long term plans for Elite, and like most things, it can be done poorly, or done well. So if anyone has any notions of a decent implementation it would be good to share, and hopefully the game designers take note.

It’s good to be able to identify potential problems and obstacles with a proposed feature, but far more useful to be able to think around them and present possible solutions.

I agree about the story campaign though, as I’ve suggested before that Frontier create DLC campaigns that don’t introduce new features or usable ships, but a story that puts the player at the center of the narrative, with rewards and rank that carry over to the sandbox. I’d pay for that, and I also think that Space Legs done well could make a campaign even more engaging - something along the lines of Mass Effect.

So what kind of roles and interactions would you want to see in a Space Legs implementation, given that it appears to be an eventuality?

I don't play this game to walk around and interact in a room or hallway or bar with other players. I don't play this game to tell other people to do my exploring for me. I have yet to read anything that anyone has written on this subject that introduces an innovative perspective on why space legs has any value in this game. And if Mass Effect is your example, then I'd say go play that game, because that isn't what this game is about. Oh, and introducing "slow travel"? Are you nuts? It's already slow enough jumping star-to-star, but that's more a factor of the game needing to load the data for the new system than anything else, so I just accept that as a necessary evil.

 

[Scubadog]

Space legs, I don't get it, what would walking around provide, what I imagine space legs would bring is the ability to walk around, 'simple' ye. Imagine I can land on a planet, I spend hours walking around looking at what, sand, it would take forever to get from a-to-b, heck if folks think the grind fest is ridiculous now imagine what fun the dev's would have forcing one to WALK around on a planet to discover POI's, what type of realism or technical accuracy should one attach to space legs, fall and puncture your suit, DIE, Need O2 walk to ship for replenishment, how about replenishing one's health and nourishment, a bed to sleep in perhaps, inspect a crash site, how long would that take, oh and find a canister how does one carry that back to the ship, ooh the fantastic possibilities for a grind fest...
At a station, walk around, why ?, to interact with what exactly, the bland face's that give missions, even if F-Dev implemented the ability for all open Cmdr's to congregate in a bar, how quaint, a bunch of avatars having a conversation which they can already do, Cmdr's can already interact with each other in open why add enormous complexity for little gain.
The ability to walk around one's ship when outfitting, whoopie doo, that would get stale very quickly.

I would much rather see F-Dev develop a decent story line which one could follow, I'm sure the developers have read most of the "good" science fiction available, Asimov's Foundation Series which I think inspired Elite; P. K. ; Arnold Castle; C. C. McApp; Boyd Ellanby; A. Clark; JG Ballard, etc. yet they cannot incorporate a good mystery/story to role play in this game, astounding. I'd pay for a DLC which added a decent plot to the game. There comes a time when Mathematicians should step aside and let "writers" weave their magic on the great base the Mathematicians have created.

I think the direction F-DEV should go is to continuously update and improve the current game for 2D AND 3D, then incorporate DLC's which add story to the game. No need for sequels, just keep a good game going with good content, every year a $60 DLC, I'd pay for that.

The first part, I totally agree with. But on the whole "story" aspect, I just don't get this mentality. Does your real life have a "story" or "plot"? No. Your life does not consist of you playing a role in a movie about you. It's simply YOU making choices and doing things that have positive or negative outcomes, consequences. Sure, you plan certain things, but ultimately "life happens". And that is what I like most about Elite Dangerous: it's like a virtual future life. Oh, certainly, the background narrative is happening--which isn't all that different from observing world affairs in real life--and we have the Thargoids. But that's about as much "story" as I'd want to see. I don't see this as being like any other game, because it is open and open-ended.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

If you cannot see the benefits of space legs, its because you are not thinking outside the cockpit. Spacelegs removes the pilot for the captains chair, and they are no longer tethered to that specific ship. Think in terms of a mechanic that adds new possibilities, not a camera suite do do things that we already can.

CMDRs would be free to leave there ship, and more importantly move onto other ships and stations. This adds potential for ship delivery missions, where you captain a ship that is not yours, and bring it to a new location (much like current yacht/ship delivery services do today). You could also do station/installation assaults, where the pilot flies a group to a location, then the group runs an attack/heist and the pilot picks them up on the other side. It could also allow you to travel the galaxy. Imagine chartering a cabin in a Beluga that will take you to Colonia. Maybe the trip will take three weeks, during which time you can do different activities on board, such as go to the arcade and play CQC.

It may open the door to ship boarding (maybe limited to capital or generation ships). It may even be a necessary part of fleet carriers, where players would need to hop out of the ship after docking to man certain stations or something (carriers are still a massive x-factor, as no one knows what they are/will bring). Regardless, with the player able to leave the seat, there are a vast number of options. It would be a huge feature.

 

[Skizomeuh]

As CMDR Big Mike says, spacelegs make sense for wandering where - and doing things - ships or SRV can't go - and cant' do. Scavenge derelicts, explore ships, ruins or bases, man fleet carriers, etc...

 

[Sylow]

The problem with all of these ideas of several roles of the crew are: it'll be awesome for the pilot, to know you're now in control of a whole crew of people. It'll still be oki for the gunner if things are actually well made. But not like in ED, where already the gunnery role is perceived as no fun by many people. And that's before seeing that setting up your ship to have a gunner takes away from the options you have as pilot.

Now imagine the gameplay of the tech crew. You can sit there. You wait till something happens. If the pilot and gunners do their job, you can organize a tic tac toe tournament. Only if things go wrong, you get something to do.

I can just say "been there, done that". It was all possible in Jump To Lightspeed from SWG. We had ships set up that way. But even the defensive systems operator mostly was bored and chatting with the repair crew. While the repair people only started working when things went wrong and the pilot prepared just initiated the jump away.

The whole "crew in a spaceship" thing is awesome for some TV series. It's great for books. It also works very well in roleplaying games. But in a game like ED, when you can decide between everybody using how own fully operational spaceship, or using one spaceship and parts of the crew only get things to do when bad things already happened, people very quickly decide for the first option. It's simply more fun to fly in a wing than to sit in the back of a ship and wait till you can click the repair button.

Mind you, i see a lot of potential in space legs. It adds a lot to the style and atmosphere to the game if you don't pick up your missions at a hud screen, but rather go to a bar and speak with some contact there. It adds a social environment where you can meet other players. It very much adds to the experience there. But ships and roles on ships won't help us a lot.

It's better to accept that our ships are highly automated and need very few humans to run, than to press people into roles which won't be popular. The main space flight game is quite good. It would require miracles to make people prefer sitting in the back and waiting for the pilot to mess up instead of flying ships of their own.

 

[iiMStevo]

Isn't this (space legs) just Star Citizen?

 

[Skizomeuh]

Yep, I think the same, multicrew doesn't need spacelegs, and vice-versa, and actually we didn't really need multicrew to begin with

 

[Strangepork]

I've seen it suggested a few times that Space Legs or EVA might be implemented in phases, with ship exploration most likely being the first phase.
At the same time, some people complain that while it would be nice, it wouldn't really add much to the game to just be able to walk around your ship.

The discussion then is around what kind of interactions we could have in different areas of our ships that would make this first phase interesting, and that leads me to think about ship roles other than what falls under the category of Bridge Crew.

So, this thread isn't really about making fleshed out suggestions for features (though anyone is welcome to), but rather an imagining of what could be possible, what we'd like to see, and what additional mechanics may be needed.

Personally I envision something in the spirit of the Psi-5 Trading Company game, but with the general vibe of the Firefly TV series.

But before getting to specific interactions, I think a game mechanic would be needed that allows the space for ship crew activities and interaction.

Currently the only time the ship can go without explicit instructions from the pilot for a while, without being stationary, is during a supercruise journey to a distant planet within a system, and even then not for very long.
I've previously suggested a slow travel alternative to sequential hyperspace jumps, where you plot a course as usual through the galaxy map, but then hop into a "slipstream" in which the ship holds course without stopping until the route termination point, however many system hops away. Obviously, there would be some concerns with this, and I've addressed some of those in that thread.

However it's accomplished, the point is that there needs to be game-driven opportunities for all crew members to interact with each other as well as with the ship while some in-game progress is being made, and very importantly, at least one of these opportunities has to allow the pilot to leave the bridge at times for a while.

Once that time for interaction is available, a lot of role playing options become possible, and ways for the ship crew to cooperate in completing missions or goals, and for social interactions.
The kind of roles I envision are, for example:

-Captain: Issues general directives to any or all crew members, including the pilot. Selects missions and sets goals. Can hire and dismiss crew. Makes PA announcements. Usually owns the ship.
-Engineer/Technician/Mechanic: Can improve effectiveness of repairs as well as certain modules, i.e. thrusters.
-Cargo crew: Can use ship launched cargo vessels to transfer cargo from ships too large to dock, or conceal illicit cargo for smuggling.
-Fighters/defenders: For boarding or defending the ship and other crew if your ship is boarded.
-Medics: First aid or surgery for injured crew members.
-Ambassador: A player whose reputation with in-game factions is leveraged for better missions, and whose system permits are applied to the ship, and whose Powerplay rank can be used to purchase perks for the ship from the Power they're pledged to. Ambassador gets a bigger cut of the rewards.

One crew member other than Captain can have the dual role of First Mate, which is acting Captain if the Captain is logged out.
Some other dual roles may be possible, like Fighter and Cargo Crew, or Medic and Ambassador for example.

When Space Legs is extended to planet surfaces, other roles may become possible, as well as further activities for existing roles, and the Captain can select from the crew for any planet-side expeditions or missions.

These are very basic outlines with nothing really fleshed out, and obviously systems and mechanics would need to be implemented to keep every role engaging, and to create skill requirements for each activity.
Mini-games and onboard single and multi player activities would also help with that.

This would be taking Elite in a new direction, which some players would love while others would no doubt be very against. Of course, the option to go solo or only have bridge crew would still be there, though in my experience, keeping all existing play styles viable doesn't tend to placate those strongly opposed to a new play style.

Who would like to see something along these lines in Elite's future, and what kind of roles, activities, and game mechanics do you have in mind?

How about keeping the ships clean, with timed mopping and dusting tasks, we could have league tables!

 

[Skizomeuh]

Isn't this (space legs) just Star Citizen?

SC is spacelegs focused, and that sucks. I do hope ED will find a way to make something enjoyable and not that much disruptive and sidetracking.

How about keeping the ships clean, with timed mopping and dusting tasks, we could have league tables!

See, That's somehow something planned for SC :facepalm:

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

I don't play this game to walk around and interact in a room or hallway or bar with other players. I don't play this game to tell other people to do my exploring for me. I have yet to read anything that anyone has written on this subject that introduces an innovative perspective on why space legs has any value in this game. And if Mass Effect is your example, then I'd say go play that game, because that isn't what this game is about. Oh, and introducing "slow travel"? Are you nuts? It's already slow enough jumping star-to-star, but that's more a factor of the game needing to load the data for the new system than anything else, so I just accept that as a necessary evil.

Given that Frontier has stated that space legs is a planned feature, and many players do want it, then if it's going to happen anyway, what suggestions would you have for making it engaging and interesting?

As for wanting a Mass Effect like campaign, Elite is about whatever players make it about for themselves. In any case, the suggestion for a story campaign as DLC would be optional for those who like to be at the center of the narrative, and would not change the sandbox game for everyone else who doesn't. It would however create a new revenue stream for Frontier, which they could put towards continued development of the game for everyone.

As for my suggestion of slow travel, it has its own advantages as I've detailed in the linked thread where I suggested it, among them being that it creates an opportunity for ship crew interaction when space legs is implemented.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

The problem with all of these ideas of several roles of the crew are: it'll be awesome for the pilot, to know you're now in control of a whole crew of people. It'll still be oki for the gunner if things are actually well made. But not like in ED, where already the gunnery role is perceived as no fun by many people. And that's before seeing that setting up your ship to have a gunner takes away from the options you have as pilot.

Now imagine the gameplay of the tech crew. You can sit there. You wait till something happens. If the pilot and gunners do their job, you can organize a tic tac toe tournament. Only if things go wrong, you get something to do.

I can just say "been there, done that". It was all possible in Jump To Lightspeed from SWG. We had ships set up that way. But even the defensive systems operator mostly was bored and chatting with the repair crew. While the repair people only started working when things went wrong and the pilot prepared just initiated the jump away.

The whole "crew in a spaceship" thing is awesome for some TV series. It's great for books. It also works very well in roleplaying games. But in a game like ED, when you can decide between everybody using how own fully operational spaceship, or using one spaceship and parts of the crew only get things to do when bad things already happened, people very quickly decide for the first option. It's simply more fun to fly in a wing than to sit in the back of a ship and wait till you can click the repair button.

Mind you, i see a lot of potential in space legs. It adds a lot to the style and atmosphere to the game if you don't pick up your missions at a hud screen, but rather go to a bar and speak with some contact there. It adds a social environment where you can meet other players. It very much adds to the experience there. But ships and roles on ships won't help us a lot.

It's better to accept that our ships are highly automated and need very few humans to run, than to press people into roles which won't be popular. The main space flight game is quite good. It would require miracles to make people prefer sitting in the back and waiting for the pilot to mess up instead of flying ships of their own.

That's a good point about ship crew roles. I did consider it, but I haven't thought of anything that would make each role more engaging and more frequently active. Was hoping for suggestions on that front.
I know a lot of people do like to role play, and will be happy to just be roaming around the ship and interacting with it and other crew members, but when such players aren't available to a captain, what do you think of having NPC crew fill some of these roles? (Psi-5 Trading Company again comes to mind). You'd be able to select from a variety of different characters with varying personalities and skill sets, each with advantages and disadvantages, and at different pay rates.

The other thought I had was to gear crew mechanics on a mission basis, so that rather than having a long term crew, you can line up a job, and then select crew members that are actually needed for that job and would have active roles, as a temporary engagement, though long term would still be an option for those who want it.

 

[dunno]

That's a good point about ship crew roles. I did consider it, but I haven't thought of anything that would make each role more engaging and more frequently active. Was hoping for suggestions on that front.

being the captain is fun cause its the command role, as in real life, but who wants to be the crew for ever ?.

I worked in a crew of 9 and whilst waiting for work assignments and instructions from the dear leader I learnt to play a multitude of card games, became proficient at chess and if it was night shift (no work because long range birds fly at night ) we got hammered as a means of passing the time and easing the boredom. that was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

being the captain is fun cause its the command role, as in real life, but who wants to be the crew for ever ?.

I worked in a crew of 9 and whilst waiting for work assignments and instructions from the dear leader I learnt to play a multitude of card games, became proficient at chess and if it was night shift (no work because long range birds fly at night ) we got hammered as a means of passing the time and easing the boredom. that was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

Well yes, exactly. If the gameplay element is not well fleshed out for each role, and if it doesn't provide the opportunity for continued activity within each role, few people are going to want to be anything other than the Captain, Pilot, Gunner (maybe), and sometimes the Soldiers/Fighters, depending on the mission. That's why I was thinking of NPC crew options, so that whichever role you couldn't find a willing participant in, you could select from a pool of NPC characters with varying personalities and skill sets/levels. Have you ever played or seen Psi-5 Trading Company? If not, I recommend a look to see what roles are possible for NPC and sometimes actual players.

Otherwise, I'm sure someone out there is imaginative enough to make these roles worth playing, and hopefully it's someone who works for Frontier.

 

[dunno]

Otherwise, I'm sure someone

Mr. Someone is one helluva busy dude...

 

[Sylow]

That's a good point about ship crew roles. I did consider it, but I haven't thought of anything that would make each role more engaging and more frequently active. Was hoping for suggestions on that front.

The problem is that many threads here and several other games already tried to come up with something to make being crew interesting. They all failed. It's in the nature of "ship repair crew" to be not interesting. As long as shields are up, you are fine. When shields go down, you have plenty to do, but it's again not enjoyable.

The purely theoretical idea would be to make ships take some damage even when shields are up, to give the repair crew permanently something to do. But would that really be better? It would be playing whack-a-mole for hours straight, with no victory condition on your side. At the same time, i can already hear the communities uprising, if shields would be changed from "prevents damage" to "reduces damage". No go.

This is just one example of many. There's been some ideas around how to "make sure that the crew has to do something". But none of these ever came close to the fun of flying a ship of your own. And in the end, that's what it boils down to: This is a game, it's supposed to be fun.

I know a lot of people do like to role play, and will be happy to just be roaming around the ship and interacting with it and other crew members, but when such players aren't available to a captain, what do you think of having NPC crew fill some of these roles? (Psi-5 Trading Company again comes to mind). You'd be able to select from a variety of different characters with varying personalities and skill sets, each with advantages and disadvantages, and at different pay rates.

First on roleplaying: i think that roleplayers are a minority in this game. I mean hey, I've been deep into online RP during my university time. It's great when you have the time and everything. My wife still invests a lot of time into it now. But the game needs to be made for it. ED in my eyes is not. It's all about sitting in the cockpit and flying. It'd be nice to get out of the cockpit and have more social aspects. It would also provide the possibility for RP and i am all for that.

But while the possibility is good, more mechanics moving that way in my eyes miss the target here. While we sure have roleplayers in the community, they are a small minority.

Also, on the idea if hiring NPCs: that's a very thin line. If done right, it puts some NPCs on your ship, which have no meaning and no influence. And that's unfortunately the best option in this community.

If NPCs will give an advantage, they will be seen as stat boosters and nothing else. And if they do give an advantage, than bet on it, FD will have them have stats and some crew-NPC-metagame will evolve. Including massive complaints on the forum and indeed yet another way of power creep. It's just how the game and community work.

If in contrast NPCs are too weak, you can savely bet several months pay that the community will burst out in tears and demand them to be improved. And your money would still be save if you would bet that FD will cave and do exactly that.

So all in all, for the RP, don't think so much in the direction of Psi-5, Firefly, The Expanse or The Milennium Falcon. Those are ideas which work great in solo play, books and movies, but repeatedly failed in multiplayer. Rather thing in the direction of Rogue Squadron or the likes. One pilot, one ship.

That all being said, i do see plenty of RP potential in space legs. Among them:
- Having places to go to pick up your missions, do your ships outfitting, etc. You meet other players there.
- Having something like a squadron bar. Possibly with the feature of furnishing it. So one squadrons bar might look like a top gun trophy room, while another squadrons bar could look like the last hideout of the Onionhead quality control board.
- Squadron outfits but also personal outfits. The ability to earn and display medals, etc.
- Squadrons perhaps being able to assign missions to members to quality for those medals.

I could go on for a while here. It's just the first bunch of ideas coming to my mind.

A bit more to the sideline: a player run dance club and the likes. My wife is part of a RP group who operate something like that in another MMO, but the game itself is in steep decline recently. They currently discuss moving to another game. Would ED have space legs and some kind of bar already, it would absolutely be on their list. Of course, it's impossible for ED to have that in time for them now, but they can't be the only group out there like that. Also, i think the current Radio Sidewinder and other games radio stations could appreciate a more direct social environment than through your ships windscreen.

 

[Mo Ronik]

We sort of have space legs now. When you get in your SRV you can't see it but in order to get in you have to get up from your pilot's chair and climb in the SRV and vice versa when getting back into the ship. Again, just can't see it actually happening.

As far as interaction with other players, well we are all spread out across the galaxy and what are the chances of seeing folks and meeting up at a bar in person. My suggestion is a holo-suite of some sorts where you can get up from your chair and walk thru that door at the back of the cockpit. On the other side of the door could be a small room you can go in and you would be in a holo-representation of some sort of meeting place that everyone shares. You are there physically but everyone else that shows up in your room is a holo-image of them projected from their ship. When you are done there you leave the room and are still on your ship and can go about your regular shippy tasks. As this "technology" becomes more advanced then more interactive scenery can be generated from your holo-suite. Just a suggestion.

 

[Skizomeuh]

A harmful way to implement spacelegs would be to use them "between" what we're doing now: at least bad going from cockpit to SRV, at worse forcing to leave ship, run through station corridors, reach a room to pick mission/trade goods...

Spacelegs shouldn't make any mundane "few clicks away in cockpit" task a chore, or make piloting a secondary activity. Star Ctizen is the perfect example of how damageable it can be, for me: any simple action is crippled by many boring back & forth activities, ships are becoming more and more a secondary diversion between two fps occupations (apart from the funding point of view...). Quite off-topic for a space-sim, don't you think?

Oh of course, give players the choice to do it why not (for roleplay, immersion, breaking the everyday click-click routine). But it won't be enough as new extension.

It should first and foremost be used to do new things / go where we're not able to in ships or SRV. Complementary peripheral new gameplay loops, not time-waster dilution of the current gameplay loops.