2.3 The Commanders

[frostypaw]

The thing I wonder is does this mean every time I'm interdicted or I choose to attack someone I will need to check their number of crew first?

Currently a small wing I can deal with - divide and conquer, confuse and disorient and that's fun - each ship is on some kind of recognisable par with mine

If they can have up to 4 crew and as such many times more effective by 'magic' then that's 3/4 ships to avoid with no rational explanation when I'm in a two man ship and don't want to drag another human into my meanderings for the one or two times I get in a fight.

Sure it sounds quite fun in the context of CQC/Arena but in the main game I can't see what they'd do for 90% of the time in anything but a combat situation. This makes it of very narrow benefit, and disproportionately greater benefit to those who only do combat. There's already the issue of combat builds being far more powerful, this would multiply that as it's the only real way you could keep a crew of four busy for any reasonable proportion of time

That sucks. NPC wingmen and crew should be coming at least at the same time so there can be balance - there are people who do not want to drag other humans into their to's-and-fro's even if they want to be social at other points - plus no guarantee such humans are available at all if you're off in some distant corner or playing in solo.

 

[Viajero]

*Mod hat off

I don't understand how allowing solo players access to AI crew would affect this in any way in a PVE situation

I think we are mixing themes here, sorry, I must have misunderstood you!

I was not considering AI crews at all above. Just commenting on the need for balancing the sacrifice of ships with higher crew efficiency, irrespective of a PVP or a PVE environment. That would be the case not only in PVP, but also in Co-op PVE.

AI crews in principle would allegedly represent an increased efficiency for the ship having them. As such it would have to be considered as an improvement to the ship. Something equivalent to better modules or weapons, i.e. it would have to have a cost etc. And also it would probably need to be properly balanced with AI for PVE environment etc so to avoid any nasty surprises in gameplay either way.

I do not think that coding NPC´s behaviours and features plus all the additional balancing with cost/reward and other external AI is trivial. And I suspect that said complexity will probably mean that we will not see it in 2.3. I suspect the devs plate will be plenty full with working to nail and balance the different player crew roles to start with. But who knows!

Now having said that remember that 2.2 is going to bring the possibility for a commander to jump into a fighter and let the main ship be piloted by the AI. That prolly means that 2.3 should be able to allow a solo commander to jump from crew station to station while leaving the AI at least in charge of the helm. So that would be a start.

PS: I think I am done with theorycrafting tonight It is amazing how much we can write with so little info available.

 

[JohnnyCat5]

When a ship can support fighters will a crew person remote control them or get in them and fly out a hanger and back? Will turrets have a greater arc of fire since most turret positions seem limited in firing mostly forward with a small window of space to fire in? hmmm

 

[Flankhard]

(...)
They can add depth and functionality
(...)

Great idea, let's have that for Power Play and Engineers aswell please.
I don't mean that as an insult to FDev. You just have to respect the fact that some things you are good at, and some things you are bad at. And balancing solo/open and vanilla/seasons is not making it any easier for them.

I have absolute faith that FDev will improve the core game over time (they certainly have so far), but I have no faith in new mayor content releases. And multi crew is yet another idea that make me go "Where the heck did that come from?".

FDev is like this realy great lover, but you can't marry them, because you know they will drive you nuts with their crazy antics, and they are going to force you to do all the chores around the house.

 

[JosiahD]

I agree that implementing NPC crew behaviour is probably not trivial. However, this is an iterative development process after all, so why couldn't NPC crew simply start off as a basic buff system and then develop into a more behavioural system over time? That would be better, surely, than the counter-intuitive idea of not having NPC crew at all.

 

[h347h]

Great idea, let's have that for Power Play and Engineers aswell please.

Engineers DID add depth and functionality though.

 

[Sylow]

The whole thing looks very much like what we already had in Jump to Lightspeed in SWG. It was fun in theory only. We used it once to see how it handled, then everybody returned to his own ship.

Unless Frontier manages to do a huge miracle, 2.3 will share the same fate. But hey just one more expansion where players are quite likely be told that it's best to play the base game and not care about it. There's a pattern in here.

 

[Sugarat]

I think multi crew will come into it's own for missions tbh.. using ship launched fighters and srv's in combination with the "mother" ship in planetary base attacks for instance

 

[jasonbarron]

If the multicrew update is sans NPC crewmates, then it's DOA for me I'm afraid. No big deal, just not useful until my kids get a little bigger. If the NPC ships have crewmates that make them even more deadly than they are right now, that'll be a game stopper I think.

I really doubt if the majority of current Elite players are going to make a lot of use of this feature, so I'm guessing that Fdev is banking on this being a big draw for a "new" player.

Someone please tell me ship launched fighters will be able to be controlled by the AI.

 

[Alpha087]

Why would that screw you?

Do you feel screwed over by the use of wings?

As a Solo player I kind of do, yes. Reason being NPCs mostly fly in wings of their own and I don't really get anything to counter multiple enemies vs me other than the extremely unreliable and sometimes non-existent authority ships. And I feel like Multicrew is only going to make it worse until we get the option to put NPCs in our wings.

But Guardians is coming first and maybe the deployable fighters won't be completely useless.

 

[Iskariot]

From the reddit (I really hate reddit please don't let be the main source for information)
I'm really curious how this isn't going to completely screw me as someone who wants to play on my own. Has FDev offered any explanation?

Being a soloist I badly want multicrew with NPC and winging up with NPC.
I believe we will get these features eventually.
It will probably take a lot of patience though.

Larger ships should get minimum crew requirements just like in Frontier Elite 2.
But acquiring crew should not be as difficult .
I still remember that I got stuck for a while after I bought my Panther Clipper, because I could not find sufficient crew via the bulletin board.

Winging up with NPC should also make escort missions possible I believe. It would open up cool new gameplay.

 

[Sylow]

I think multi crew will come into it's own for missions tbh.. using ship launched fighters and srv's in combination with the "mother" ship in planetary base attacks for instance

Ship launched fighters should be 2.2 and that could turn out quite well. We have potent (not smart, but very accurate ship control) AI, if that can be used for small launchable fighters, it would work fine.

Multi crew is the opposite, several players in one ship. The problem there is, only two of the four roles are fun in any way. Piloting is fine, gunning is great. But the systems guy would just do what everybody at the moment does "alongside", but for him it would be the complete game. And the repairs guy will do exactly nothing throughout a fight, if the rest of the crew are doing an acceptable job. It might be just me, but doing nothing but watching the rest of the crew fight doesn't sound that fun and interesting to me.

But yes, what tree am i barking up? Fun is not on the priority list for this games expansions.

 

[frostypaw]

I think multi crew will come into it's own for missions tbh.. using ship launched fighters and srv's in combination with the "mother" ship in planetary base attacks for instance

I can imagine that, but that's what percentage of game time?

And still how is it in any way superior to having your mates in their respective ships in terms of fun you can have? That they get to twiddle their thumbs and chat right up that point is... well non-functional and then what mini-game hell is their time filled with?

I think developing NPC crewing first would make much more sense - it'd be open to everyone and avoid anyone being penalised for not wanting to drag anyone else into their 4 hours of back and forth trade just in case you get interdicted a couple of times.

If one of my friends in another post eg. weapons has his internet drop out what happens?

Nah.... NPC's first all the way - I don't ever want to be be losing control of My Ship.

 

[Bacalao]

Manned turrets, shield directions on top of pip management, individual thruster power control to enhance maneuverability (needs advanced coordination with the pilot), shield mode switching such as thermal or kinetic shields at any given time, advanced maintenance of individual modules, maybe even powerplant probably without taking it offline, crew comanders can opt to launch and pilot fighters, leaving their posts so ship becomes single commander but you have interceptors now...

I can go on, should I?

But how, how will we interface with it? Are we just checking boxes for fore and aft shields? Kinetic vs thermal? That seems a bit dull, is it some kind of little minigame? That sounds tiresome. Are turrets fully manually controlled? What if we want to shoot targets on either side of the ship? What about fixed or gimbaled weapons? The thing I want to know is what the actual interface, the gameplay will be like when you're suddenly not piloting a ship and managing pips and capacitor charges and targets and you're just sitting managing the shields and countermeasures.

 

[Varrag]

Manned turrets, shield directions on top of pip management, individual thruster power control to enhance maneuverability (needs advanced coordination with the pilot), shield mode switching such as thermal or kinetic shields at any given time, advanced maintenance of individual modules, maybe even powerplant probably without taking it offline, crew comanders can opt to launch and pilot fighters, leaving their posts so ship becomes single commander but you have interceptors now...

Sounds nice indeed (I'd love to see something like that), but in the same time complicated for development. Almost like you're building some different game.

My bet goes to simple hard-coded buff to all major characteristics of the multicrew ship: two guys in ship - 2x damage output; 4 guys - 4x damage output, and so on. This is the simplest design and FDEV is usually picking those. We'll see.

 

[Midian27]

Yay for another feature that a huge chunk of the player base will never use.

 

[jasonbarron]

I can imagine that, but that's what percentage of game time?

And still how is it in any way superior to having your mates in their respective ships in terms of fun you can have? That they get to twiddle their thumbs and chat right up that point is... well non-functional and then what mini-game hell is their time filled with?

I think developing NPC crewing first would make much more sense - it'd be open to everyone and avoid anyone being penalised for not wanting to drag anyone else into their 4 hours of back and forth trade just in case you get interdicted a couple of times.

If one of my friends in another post eg. weapons has his internet drop out what happens?

Nah.... NPC's first all the way - I don't ever want to be be losing control of My Ship.

I agree with this. As it stands right now, winging up is basically just a novelty feature for me the way my Real Life works. NPC crewmates would be off the hook; human crewmates not at all.

 

[Noddie]

I don't like this, to be honest. Hopefully I won't end up playing against ridiculously OP multi-crewed ships. But they'll have to do something with it, won't they?

Say you're looking at an Asp. 2 Seats (unless more are inside, away from the Cockpit). So do you have a human player in each seat, or hire NPCs, or what? If you chose to go it alone, is that penalised or is it buffed if you crew-up? How do you deal with the fact that it has only 2 seats, but four roles? Do lone players suddenly become second-class citizens?

What implications does that have for the pilots of Sideys, Couriers, Vultures, Vipers and so on that have only 1 seat? Are they going to be second-class citizens?

I don't see how you make it work without either buffing the ship's abilities to the point of making crewing-up essential or leaving it so inconsequential that what's the point?

Can't see it, myself. Sounds cool, in practice I don't think it will work out well. I hope there is something else in this update beyond this, to be honest.

 

[Flankhard]

Engineers DID add depth and functionality though.

1.6 added depth and functionality, 2.1 The Engineers, is to me, shallow and functionally broken.

 

[Starender]

We have so many problems now with engineer, why try to think about the next ones when they don't even exists yet ?