So I had this idea about gameplay surrounding Wear and Tear, specifically the idea that if we had the option to buy pre-owned ships that had locked variants but we'll address that later. Currently, Wear and Tear is kinda a none issue for most of the game, but it could be a door for multicrew and later space legs gameplay. However the one thing that kept killing my ideas was exploration. Long term exploration trips would suffer from the gameplay. But what if we had NPCs similar to our fighter pilots to handle the issue.
You would need to make wear and tear more of a problem, like FSDs and thrusters failing without maintenance. Say, traveling in supercruise to Hutton Orbital as an extreme case, half way there your ship warns you the wear on your FSD is low. You in theory can still push on but the the start randomly dropping from supercruise. You could ignore it and press on or head to a station for repairs. But then you could also have an NPC on board like a Star Trek Scotty type, he maintains a minimum working order so the ship can still run but the wear is still more or less there.
Ideally I would want these NPCs be in the unoccupied seats in our cockpits but for ships like the Sidewinder have them in the compartments in the back of the ship like current pilot NPCs are now. It could also open up for the idea of multicrew mechanics, also add in those NPCs to replace the hordes of limpet controllers. Just tell them what you need at the time and they program the limpets.
In terms of Multicrew the station should (at least until we have space legs) maintain repairs, be in charge of the limpet programing possibly through some style of minigame. Other things that station should do is unrelated to the bulk of this post but should things like gaining addition power for things like weapons or thrusters and possibly allow for things like engineered experimental effects on weapons to be changed to a different temporarily at the cost of severe damage to those weapons so that it can't be exploited in PVP. But again, that's a different thread really to discuss later.
Also it leads to the path of having pre-owned ships with locked wear and tear levels I mentioned earlier. Maybe cheaper ships with variants similar to what CQC does where you just pick one and go. You can't upgrade them but they have engineered gear and certain perks that are hard to get without regular grinding. But at the cost of the ship in constant need of repairs and having things like random thrusters going out or weapons not deploying 100 percent of the time. But for that price, you'd have an B or C grade Cobra, combat fitted that can jump say 40 lys.
Bottom line is I think FDev might be overlooking two elements of the game that somewhat exist already and with the proper time put in, could several elements to the game. It could give meaning to current design elements that's currently underplayed with wear and tear. Gives those of us reason for having NPCs other than just the fact they're there like fighter pilots are now. And provides a solution for the current issue of having to figure out a universal limpet controller while also opening the door for future gameplay with Multicrew, Space legs and the idea of owning a pre-owned ship.
You would need to make wear and tear more of a problem, like FSDs and thrusters failing without maintenance. Say, traveling in supercruise to Hutton Orbital as an extreme case, half way there your ship warns you the wear on your FSD is low. You in theory can still push on but the the start randomly dropping from supercruise. You could ignore it and press on or head to a station for repairs. But then you could also have an NPC on board like a Star Trek Scotty type, he maintains a minimum working order so the ship can still run but the wear is still more or less there.
Ideally I would want these NPCs be in the unoccupied seats in our cockpits but for ships like the Sidewinder have them in the compartments in the back of the ship like current pilot NPCs are now. It could also open up for the idea of multicrew mechanics, also add in those NPCs to replace the hordes of limpet controllers. Just tell them what you need at the time and they program the limpets.
In terms of Multicrew the station should (at least until we have space legs) maintain repairs, be in charge of the limpet programing possibly through some style of minigame. Other things that station should do is unrelated to the bulk of this post but should things like gaining addition power for things like weapons or thrusters and possibly allow for things like engineered experimental effects on weapons to be changed to a different temporarily at the cost of severe damage to those weapons so that it can't be exploited in PVP. But again, that's a different thread really to discuss later.
Also it leads to the path of having pre-owned ships with locked wear and tear levels I mentioned earlier. Maybe cheaper ships with variants similar to what CQC does where you just pick one and go. You can't upgrade them but they have engineered gear and certain perks that are hard to get without regular grinding. But at the cost of the ship in constant need of repairs and having things like random thrusters going out or weapons not deploying 100 percent of the time. But for that price, you'd have an B or C grade Cobra, combat fitted that can jump say 40 lys.
Bottom line is I think FDev might be overlooking two elements of the game that somewhat exist already and with the proper time put in, could several elements to the game. It could give meaning to current design elements that's currently underplayed with wear and tear. Gives those of us reason for having NPCs other than just the fact they're there like fighter pilots are now. And provides a solution for the current issue of having to figure out a universal limpet controller while also opening the door for future gameplay with Multicrew, Space legs and the idea of owning a pre-owned ship.
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