Using Fighter Pilots earnings to enhance gameplay

I was wondering how many of you would like the idea of using a fighter pilots earnings in a positive way.

What i suggest is that a Cmdr could use those earnings to purchase a ship for those pilots and have them run missions from which a Cmdr would receive a cut. Depending on the pilots ability and the mission, he could fail, succeed, lose the ship and even die. As it stands rigjt now its a useless stat seeing how much my pilots earn. Maybe even make it where a pilot could have an enhanced skill...id like to hear some of yalls thoughts on this.
 
These are good ideas. The fighter pilots wages really look like a loss right now.

But they are obviously far too ambitious for ED in its current state.
 
Youre probably right about being too ambitious. NMS and STO do something similar to this now. It does not have to be graphic intensive or even show the ship in actual space (how cool would that be, seeing your pilot actually working a mission).
 
I am not interested in being able to earn credits just sitting in dock while sending NPCs out to work for me, if I wanted to play being a manager I would get a game designed for that.

It is an interesting idea but not one likely to feature in the game.
 
I am not interested in being able to earn credits just sitting in dock while sending NPCs out to work for me, if I wanted to play being a manager I would get a game designed for that.

It is an interesting idea but not one likely to feature in the game.
Of course i wouldnt stop running missions myself. No reason a game couldnt have bothe aspects.
 
Of course i wouldnt stop running missions myself. No reason a game couldnt have bothe aspects.
The paradigm of the game is what you can accomplish yourself as a pilot in a single ship at a time. NPC pilots in Elite are an extension of your single-ship activities. They aren't there to become a source of passive income when you're not even playing. Like has been said, cool feature in of itself (I like this in STO as well) but not for Elite.

I'd much prefer pilots to be fleshed out in other ways, such as more detailed abilities and trainable specializations, as well as being able to buy them an escape pod with my PF street cred. They need to be treated more like an upgradeable ship module because that's their real role; improving your own chances to accomplish Task X by adding them to your ship.
 
I was wondering how many of you would like the idea of using a fighter pilots earnings in a positive way.

What i suggest is that a Cmdr could use those earnings to purchase a ship for those pilots and have them run missions from which a Cmdr would receive a cut. Depending on the pilots ability and the mission, he could fail, succeed, lose the ship and even die. As it stands rigjt now its a useless stat seeing how much my pilots earn. Maybe even make it where a pilot could have an enhanced skill...id like to hear some of yalls thoughts on this.

I like this. That said, this is pretty much like hiring drivers in Euro Truck Simulator. Well, other than the lose the truck and die thing, though that would make ETS2 even more awesome. Actually, putting railguns on my own rig sound pretty good, too.

OK, I'll stop derailing the thread now. :D
 
Haughty one percenters trying to control every facet of their employees' lives.

"All that money I paid you, now you need to invest it in ways to make me more money."

Once you pay them, it's their money, not yours.
 
Haughty one percenters trying to control every facet of their employees' lives.

"All that money I paid you, now you need to invest it in ways to make me more money."

Once you pay them, it's their money, not yours.

😂
I've paid my pilot 30 million credits. I wonder what's the cost of life in elite universe, but looking at the price of 1 ton of raw agricultural products, she could consider retiring !
 
If I use my own wages to buy a new car, I'd be more than a little annoyed if my boss then expected me to take up a part-time job as a courier or taxi driver, and give him a share of my earnings.
 
I was wondering how many of you would like the idea of using a fighter pilots earnings in a positive way.

What i suggest is that a Cmdr could use those earnings to purchase a ship for those pilots and have them run missions from which a Cmdr would receive a cut. Depending on the pilots ability and the mission, he could fail, succeed, lose the ship and even die. As it stands rigjt now its a useless stat seeing how much my pilots earn. Maybe even make it where a pilot could have an enhanced skill...id like to hear some of yalls thoughts on this.

I personally would like such ideas, as it provides some narrative-depth to my RP. However, I can guarantee there will be two Outrages:

1) Passive income.
2) 'RNG' as to the results.

Both are likely to trigger people.
 
A more fleshed out pilot would be nice. Not sure about getting them their own ship though. Mine is now elite after doing a lot of pirate stuff so what would stop him from just stealing the ship?

I would like them to be able to do more like.
-pilot a mining slf that can use abrasion blasters and drill missiles.
-pilot an exploration slf that can enter SC and map planets by probes in the system with you, of course the slf cant high wake though.
-be able to pilot an srv and can scoop cargo or help mine in a geological formation.
-and the all important, been asking forever, have them visible sitting in the extra flight chairs.
- and, if you have an extra pilot have them on deck as well. This way i can rotate them out durring battle or have myself and my pilot both in srv's while my second pilot is flying the ship and can actually provide air support for us. This would be great with the 3 seater ships we have.
 
The paradigm of the game is what you can accomplish yourself as a pilot in a single ship at a time. NPC pilots in Elite are an extension of your single-ship activities. They aren't there to become a source of passive income when you're not even playing. Like has been said, cool feature in of itself (I like this in STO as well) but not for Elite.

I'd much prefer pilots to be fleshed out in other ways, such as more detailed abilities and trainable specializations, as well as being able to buy them an escape pod with my PF street cred. They need to be treated more like an upgradeable ship module because that's their real role; improving your own chances to accomplish Task X by adding them to your ship.
I agree with you. Detailed abilities and reasonable specializations just seems like the natural way to go with them. But I would like to add something to the single pilot in a single ship narrative though. I've been playing for several years now. I have every ship in the game and most every one of them upgraded. I have billions upon billions of credits. It seems natural that my narrative and others in my situation would have evolved into a more corporation like enitity. I used to work for a trucking company as a dispatcher and I see much of my former job in the game. Those truckers who stayed for a long time with us wound up purchasing their own trucks, hauling loads for us that we provided and even started their own trucking companies. The narrative just seems like it could evolve a bit.
 
I agree with you. Detailed abilities and reasonable specializations just seems like the natural way to go with them. But I would like to add something to the single pilot in a single ship narrative though. I've been playing for several years now. I have every ship in the game and most every one of them upgraded. I have billions upon billions of credits. It seems natural that my narrative and others in my situation would have evolved into a more corporation like enitity. I used to work for a trucking company as a dispatcher and I see much of my former job in the game. Those truckers who stayed for a long time with us wound up purchasing their own trucks, hauling loads for us that we provided and even started their own trucking companies. The narrative just seems like it could evolve a bit.

I'd much rather the narrative be expanded and strengthened for the single pilot, than to move into areas already much better represented in games like the X-series or EVE.

I'm not against your ideas in general as I enjoy management-style gaming in other games, but it seems an ill fit for the overall aim of Elite. I'd take an NPC squadron-based approach at most, where your pilots could wing up with you, but even that opens a lot of weird wormcans in terms of the effect on the game. Part of the concern on a coding level is based on FD's execution track record with existing features such as Powerplay.

My concerns are also based ingame on what I perceive as the societal strata of Elite from a worldbuilding perspective. We have dirtsiders, whose planetary/faction currency could likely not even buy 100 Credits without selling their home and the family in it. Then there's the majority of NPC pilots, who aren't much better off than dirtsiders - no escape pods for most of them! Then us in the PF, as glorified mercenaries and political agitators, backed by a powerful shadow consortium as a whole, but with individual pilots not being major players in the direct political and financial landscape no matter how wealthy we become; we're not going to be buying a Coriolis any time soon or hanging out with Princesses and Senators. After that you move to the real monies in the galaxy, the corporations, with the most powerful having their head offices on Mars.

IDK if there's room in the game to allow an expansion out of our "caste", so to speak, without losing focus on the "ima spaceman!" aspect of the game which to me is the most critical. X and EVE don't do pilot-based gameplay even a shadow of what you can get here, so I'd rather see continued focus on that.

All that said (typed really but still), if it were going to be a thing, I'd want SpaceTruckBoss to be almost a separate game from Elite proper to do the idea any kind of gameworthy justice. There's a lot of aspects that could make a good management game if properly fleshed out, but if it's just going to be a simple "Assign Pilot X to Trade Route Y, Collect Z Credits - oops rolled a 1, Pilot X is ded" then I'd rather not have it.
 
Why are you spending your pilots' wages? This is like a manager walking up to a sales clerk and saying 'this year, you aren't receiving any salary. But you get to make sales calls in a Mercedes!'
 
I've long felt that the economics of this galaxy are overlooked and underdeveloped. I've previously asked similar questions "why can't I put NPC's in my other thirty ships and have them make money" as well as "a big galaxy like this, full of corporations, why can't I buy shares in them?" both suggestions, the former of which is my approximation of the OP, would add depth to the economy. With 100,000+ populated systems with economies and political systems, maybe a trillion population in the systems, yet only us mongs can take the helm? Seriously, how many of you have seen or even hired NPC fighter pilots whose bio stated something along the lines of "cut my teeth in a tanky passenger/cargo liner then I got bored and decided to sign on as crew"? Those NPC's piloting skills are underutilzed, allow us to put them in cobras or pythons and let them loose on the galaxy.
 
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