News 2.3 Dev Update

[heinekev]

In regards of the instant transportation - well, for game play it might be good, but it's killing the immersion. Sure, it is ridiculous to travel thousands of light years for crewing up together, but that's how it works now with wings. I have played with lots of friends in wings, and it have worked fine, even though we might spend some time traveling to each other. If I can get instantly teleported into a ship in the bubble when I am out exploring at the other site of the galaxy, it really kills the immersion, and removes the consequences of the actions you take (which is a nice aspect of Elite).


This was a lot of quotes, but I really feel like Frontier needs to listen to it's players.

I have a job that requires 60 hours a week + family responsibilities and on top of that, my friends all have differing schedules.

If we have to meet up at a station in the same system to multicrew, my entire night will be spent corralling folks.

Immersion won with the timers on transferring ships and modules. My week of gametime typically follows this pattern: plot a course to a system/objective, reach it on night 1 and request transfer of my ships and modules. Night 2 begin to do the things I came for. Night 3 fly out to my next destination and queue up transfers. Repeat.

At this point, I don't have the time (and many are in the same boat) to continue waiting arbitrary periods before being able to play the damned game.

Suffering through the ship transfer/module transfer waiting periods is one thing. But having to coordinate our free nights together, AND coordinate where we need to meet up is too much of a barrier. I might be able to get a single night in a month with my friends where our free time lines up and we have more than 30 minutes to spend together. Shame on anyone who thinks that time should be spent jumping endlessly to get to the same system before we can crew up.

If this breaks immersion for you, then by all means fly yourself out to your friends and crew up in person. Let the telepresence option remain for those of us with limited overlapping playtime. You don't need to punish people like us to continue enjoying the game your way. Please understand that. PLEASE.

 

[PashPliskin]

Joining ship should be possible only from a station where everyone are docked. Nothing more and nothing less.

Oh no...

 

[Nine19CnynCrvr]

I'm really excited about the whole update. As much as I would love the immersion of having to go pick you multicrew up at whatever station they are docked at, I am really glad you gents favored the gameplay route with meeting up. I'm sure you will hammer out the details about the rewards/crime system. I have my own opinion about CMDR on CMDR crimes, but here is not the place for it. Looking forward to more information and the upcoming livestream.

 

[jonesskill]

They have answered it multiple times in streams - and most likely will answer it again.

It is not ruled out, but it is matter of balance. NPC crew can make game very automatic and 'autobot' like, which is anti-thesis of gameplay.

And what is the problem with that? If you spend alot of time to level up you crew to Dangerous/Above what is the problem in set they free to try to stay alone and do some BH for you?

I alredy make one experiment: Set my conda full enguinered in the hands of mine crewmember while i pick the fighter and hide, she died for another conda in wing with 2 eagles...

I will never let my ship on NPC hands again, they are very DUMB, maybe OK to pilot a fighter, but never again in the mothership.

 

[starman]

What will happen if you mess up in multicrew ....

- remove unsuitable video -

 

[Jynessa Loraeyn]

The questions I'd like to see answered!

1. As someone else asked - can crewmembers deploy and control SRVs from landed ships? If a mothership carries a vehicle hangar that has 3 SRVs, can the helm and two crewmembers simultaneously deploy and control an SRV each?

2. I can see that being able to leave a crew and avoid taking rewards/penalties will stop a helm from screwing over crewmembers, by inviting them to join and then committing multiple crimes to cause the crew to all receive bounties. However, it seems that this creates a situation where a crewmember can screw over the helm, by deliberately committing crimes while part of the crew, then simply leaving and choosing to avoid the bounties by foregoing whatever rewards there are... thus leaving the helm with a bounty while they escape without any. There seem to be other issues as well, especially if a crewmember's incentive is not credit gain - the loss of rewards is irrelevant and does not work as a deterrent.

3. Based on the notes, it looks like the helm can fly the main ship (or one of the fighters, and leave the main ship under the control of an NPC pilot), and up to two fighters can be controlled by human crewmembers. This seems to suggest that if a ship had three fighter hangars, it could effectively fight as four vessels - human helm, NPC fighter, 2 human crewmember fighters OR NPC helm, human ship-owner fighter, 2 human crewmember fighters. Is this right?

If so, and assuming the main ships can still wing up, could that potentially mean a wing of 12 human commanders, and 16 separate ships (4 human-helmed normal ships, 4 NPC fighters, 8 human crewmember fighters OR 4 NPC helmed normal ships, 4 ship-owner fighters, 8 human crewmember fighters)? How would comms work in such a set up? Are crewmembers added to the wing voice comms?

Sounds very cool all round... thanks

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Frustration for who? All your scenarios sound pretty awesome to me, and I suspect it's how it's intended to be used, going by Lewis' description.

Now that I've thought about it more, I think you're right. While some strategic planning is foregone, the convenience is worth it.

Plus, it can make wing PvP less swingy. Currently, the wing to lose a player first is immediately at a massive disadvantage and will almost certainly lose. If the dead/routed wingman can join an ally's ship, it helps partially ameliorate this difference and keep the fight interesting

 

[bitstorm]

1. Mercy please! A profits are cloned? Money comes from WORK not from a printer. If there are 3 comanders on ship, then they should earn by a /3 or ship owner should divide it. Its a totally economy/logic/immersive breaking.

I do think this is potentially going to be exploit city.

Some careful beta testing needed here if folk don't want to be posting in a few months complaining about brand new CMDRs become billionaires in 24 hours.

(please stop going on about immursion!)

 

[CMDR IPL Victim]

Regarding Crew, it would be GRAND if the NPC fighter pilots hired and on-board with you were visible in one of the other crew stations. Naturally, if that station was later occupied by a PC, the NPC would be replaced by the PC avatar...

I'm hoping this comes to pass even if we cannot have visible non-combat NPC crew to fill out the empty seats. By non-combat NPC, I mean virtual bodies to fill the seats and give us the illusion that the ships have other occupants aside from the Commander without adding combat abilities (such as the gunner station or a second NPC fighter deployed)

 

[NMS]

Interesting..... but ultimately, about as bad as feared

The pilot retains control of some weapons...but not all.
The turret controller won't have a lot to do.
Interesting that a second SLF will be usable.

The system is overly focussed on combat, and dorsn't really present much for the players to do. And as feared...it goes for the buff option to empower a ship with all its balance and gameplay concerns.

The "forgetacrime" feature has obvious ramifications and problems.

Not a fan of this system and it needs obvious improvements. But maybe it'll work better in practise than I think.

The Commander Creator is still the most interesting feature of 2.3 for many so hopefully it'll be detailed enough. A good character creator can provide hours of gameplay in its own right. Still....I think we'll be getting something more akin to Warcrafts "Choose a face and skin colour" system than something truly detailed or involved.

Still, an improved camera system will be nice.

"Still, an improved camera system will be nice."

amem to that. Not just for multicrew but for external view of your ship(finaly!)

 

[Godsailsaqueen]

Oh, that's a shame. So for non SLF-capable ships there's only helm and gunner.
That's quite underwhelming for a so anticipated feature.
I was expecting at list a shield operator (something like directing a shield focus in a specific direction, but i guess is too similar to what you made for the gunner now.... still would like it though)

Quite so, quite so.

I was hyped about all this. My bad. Never forget that Fdev aims for the minimal, most stripped out, most dumbed down implementation, always.
Implementing bookmarks? one colour only.
Implementing multicrew as a full advertised feature? One gunner only.
The list goes on.

[down]

 

[Adept]

To avoid multi boxing abuse, the crewmembers shouldn't have passively usable pips. (Which they can use with sock-puppet accounts, by logging them on, and assigning them to where-ever they want).

The "pips" should instead be boosts, in the style of shield cell bank or engine boost activation. The crewmember could trigger a boost into SYS / ENG / WEP when their ability isn't on cooldown.

As a bonus, this turns the activity from a passive to an active one, so the player doesn't just sit there, having assigned the pip somewhere and then never needing to think of it again.

 

[DaggerSnake]

LAN support?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

And what is the problem with that? If you spend alot of time to level up you crew to Dangerous/Above what is the problem in set they free to try to stay alone and do some BH for you?

I alredy make one experiment: Set my conda full enguinered in the hands of mine crewmember while i pick the fighter and hide, she died for another conda in wing with 2 eagles...

I will never let my ship on NPC hands again, they are very DUMB, maybe OK to pilot a fighter, but never again in the mothership.

Because game is about you flying ship, not making NPCs to do it for you.

Doesn't mean NPC crew won't be reality one day. It will just take a lot of other things to consider before it will become a thing.

- - - Updated - - -

LAN support?

Instancing already works directly in LAN if game detects you are in same network with friends.

 

[enderwiggins]

...The helm also retains control over distribution of power, navigation, and synthesis.

I understand there are more roles planned for the future... Any chances we're gonna see an engineering (as in repair man) role with control over power, modules, repairs, and other subsystems (like silent running) sooner rather than later?

Thanks!

 

[davedf]

TL/DR

Overall, it seems to be a bare minimum implementation (surprise ! /s) of multicrew that is still sounding like a bit of fun on occasion, with people you know. As usual, roles outside of combat can get stuffed.

The Good:

[up] Dev update = win not matter what

[up] Handwavuim insta join - but please don't use the telepresence justification. Just admit it is a game

[up] Turret gunner role sounds like it might be fun on the larger ships

[up] Option for everyone to get in fighters (I hope that my understanding is correct)


The Bad:

[down] Only the owner can helm the ship. I will be multi crewing with my son and he hates docking/undocking and SC but will want to fly most of the time in combat so switching helmsman would be useful

[down] No navigator/engineer/comms role. It seems that we are getting only a part of what was promised before launch. If I was feeling negative I could have given 3 [down] for this.

[down] Extra pip for crew. Seems like a tacked on thing in the absence of the engineer role

[down] Lose wanted status on leaving the ship. If I understand this correctly someone could join our ship, be a gunner and fire on an authority ship, then leave you as a wanted person while having no penalty themselves? I definitely won't be inviting any strangers on my ship!


Questions:

1. What about SRVs? If you have 4 SRVs, can the crew get in them once the ship has landed? - or are the crew just left sitting there since they don't have helm rights either.

2. What will the helm see when crew join? Will they just instal-appear, or be animated as moving to the seat?

3. Will the crew be animated when they are doing their tasks?

4. Is this just aimed at PVP? PVE is no challenge now and this will just make it less challenging. No other roles are catered for with the features described.

5. Will we get the full implementation (as previously discussed by FD) at some point in the future?

6. Can you please confirm that the helm is still able to fly a fighter in a multi crew ship.

 

[Deathnozzle]

Finally, a feature making the game more accessible to play with friends. I'm so happy that they are allowing friends to be able to warp into their friend's ship from anywhere. This will save a lot of time, and actually allow people to do a lot more together without having to worry about traversing the galaxy to get to where there friend is. It really sucks when I want to do missions somewhere else, or try something like exploring, when I know I can't because it'll take me light years away from my friends and not allow me to get back to them and play with them when they're available. After all, people have real lives too, and this only makes it easier for us to all get to play together in a timely fashion. There's been many times playing with friends where we spent 30 min of a 1.5hr play session just traveling to each other because we had to. It sucks, and I'm all for this "warp into my friend's ship" so that we can spend more time playing and less time trying to reach each other!

 

[Shadowdancer]

Point two (bad point) It can also be taken advantage of by people who just want to inflict damage, either against the NPCs or against other commanders. Some people are bad just for the sake of being bad. So loosing 100% of nothing is not going to be a deterrent.
Point three (bad point) If a unsavoury commander joins your crew and starts shooting police NPCs; they can then leave scott free leaving the helm pilot with the crimes.

I agree with those points, especially the first one (the second one is a case of carefully picking the people to whom you give loaded weapons). Responsibility should stick with all those involved, otherwise it will be exploited.

Maybe limit the buy-out to the services of a shady contact so a player could use the profits made during a session to pay off what can be paid at the same rates when leaving that session. If there was no profit and only crime, sucks to be them. It would encourage law-abiding use of multi-crew and at least keep up a bit of a deterrent for a shared life of crime.

 

[mad_nox]

I don't know why everyone says its either one or the other. To me it doesn't matter whether a guy can be out exploring and TP into the bubble for combat, or if another guy wants to ruin the journey out to Sag A for himself sure. That doesn't affect me.

I just want all the choice. For now, when we don't have space legs, it makes as much sense as any to just tp over. And later when we have space legs, it can still be like that.
A parallel mechanic should be in place for those who want to walk aboard someone's ship once we actually have space legs. from there you are bound to his ship just as the owner is. You can go with him somewhere and buy a ship where you land. You can die and go back to your old ship. Or when both die, it sends you both back.

I don't get why it HAS to be one or the other. Why can't we all just get along lol

Edit: to play devils advocate to myself, the only problems I see with this are when ship owners is not logged in and person tied to ship wants to play, but we're smart people, how do we get around that? Telepresence back to our last station/ship? haha

 

[Jacobus Franconium]

There was talk of it in the dev dairy's that you could detect shield generators after firing on ships and find weaknesses in the shields .