This would require no engineering time sink. The only sink will be a credit sink in terms of hire & cut of income similar to how NPC Pilots already work.
NPC Ship Engineer Team - Able to fix your modules to get them back online without a reboot, get malfunctioning guns operable again etc (repairs module at 0.5% of integrity per second per NPC)
NPC Damage Control Team - Deal with on-board fires & wield breaches in the hull closed. (Stops bleed damage from fire & repairs hull at 0.5% per second of HP per NPC)
NPC Medic - Heals wounded crew members overtime. More medics treat wounded crew quicker.
NPC Marines - Used for repelling boarders or boarding target ships via a limpet pod via the hatch that will then attempt to disable systems to immobilize the ship & silence its weapons. Could also be used to man turret weapons to overcome chaffs. Experience level would dictate their chance of success.
NPC Pilot - Used to fly light fighters, could have a secondary role like driving your SRV for you on planets.
Penetration Damage RNG - Weapons with high penetration damage have a chance to wound/kill crew members. Crew members wounded reduces the chance for the ship to repel boarders.
Irreparable Damage - NPC crew can only heal up to the total value of the ships HP once. So if a Sidewinder as 500HP, any damage sustained after 500HP damage that already been inflicted & repaired will become irreparable thereafter.
So not to add anymore extra micro management for console users, they would act autonomously dealing with on-board situations depending on the priority level. for example if you're getting boarded. All crew members will drop what they are doing & prepare to repel hostile boarders. Marines will obviously fight better than other crew members, but every little bit will help. Also a certain victory margin would be needed for a successful boarding, so a Pyrrhic victory would result in both forces withdrawing. The boarders will withdraw back into the limpet & detach recovering any wounded comrades to be treated back at the mother ship.
Atmosphere:
If engaged in a boarding action, have sounds of laz fire & shouts of orders from marines playing through the voice comms to signal that a battle is ongoing
If engaged in Engineering or Damage control have sounds of fire extinguisher & disgruntled engineers reporting back the progress "she good to go cmmdr"
If engaged in healing crew members - have something you'd expect in a A&E ward, of medic shouting, "i need plasma stat" or "patient been stabilized for now"
If engaged marines are in turret have them saying "got erm!" "his in my sights" "target neutralized"
Also have these different comm interrupt each other, but not played simultaneously & not more for a few seconds. Its just to give short feedback that your crew are actively doing something & aren't just another mini maxing buff that is so abstract you wouldn't notice if they were there or not.
During normal travel time, the rare report from one of your crew members that "everything is ship shape cmmdr" just to draw the attention that ship does have a human presence & isn't just a single commander piloting a corvette with no other humans on-board.
Module Requirements:
Passenger Cabin: bigger module size will allow more crew members, as well as more passenger cabins.
Boarding Pod: Similar to the hatchet breaker, but instead stay attached for a duration of time until the boarding action as either been deemed a success or failure.
----
Changing the meta - would give an alternative to the engineering meta of pilots whom rely heavily on buffed equipment, ship maintenance kits, then actual human ingenuity. It also throws a joker into the pack of the meta deck, that even the most Grade 5 buff ship can be brought down if it hasn't allowed some of its slots to be used for passenger cabins to how a crew capable of defending itself from boarding actions.
Hard counter measure could be electronic counter measures that will temporarily disable the incoming limpet. Point defense can destroy it, but it would also be presumed that Boarding Pods will be extra reinforced compared to a normal limpet, so both electronic counter measures & point defence would need to be used together to destroy the incoming pod over time. Already this would change the meta of now designating two utility slots for this to help repel boarders if not wanting to use marines as a hard counter with a passenger cabin. This would reduce folks from stacking shield boosters.
Balance
Could give back some of that viability to play small/medium ships that can require a lighter crew. with the smaller ships requiring no crew & medium ships fairly light on crew. Larger ships would be difficult to balance crew wise, so as not to make them troop carriers, but also need to be a means of bringing the grandeur of having one of the big ships & a required crew to run it & therefore upkeep cost. Basically large ships will probably need to perhaps have an enforced amount of required engineers on board to account for keeping everything running smoothly on such a big ship. This would reduce marine stacking.
---
Someone else alternative idea to NPC crews
Someone mentioned that the dev themselves initially had something plan that allowed having more crew members onboard that offered advantages, but cannot find it for the life of me or the post of the forum user who showed this.
NPC Ship Engineer Team - Able to fix your modules to get them back online without a reboot, get malfunctioning guns operable again etc (repairs module at 0.5% of integrity per second per NPC)
NPC Damage Control Team - Deal with on-board fires & wield breaches in the hull closed. (Stops bleed damage from fire & repairs hull at 0.5% per second of HP per NPC)
NPC Medic - Heals wounded crew members overtime. More medics treat wounded crew quicker.
NPC Marines - Used for repelling boarders or boarding target ships via a limpet pod via the hatch that will then attempt to disable systems to immobilize the ship & silence its weapons. Could also be used to man turret weapons to overcome chaffs. Experience level would dictate their chance of success.
NPC Pilot - Used to fly light fighters, could have a secondary role like driving your SRV for you on planets.
Penetration Damage RNG - Weapons with high penetration damage have a chance to wound/kill crew members. Crew members wounded reduces the chance for the ship to repel boarders.
Irreparable Damage - NPC crew can only heal up to the total value of the ships HP once. So if a Sidewinder as 500HP, any damage sustained after 500HP damage that already been inflicted & repaired will become irreparable thereafter.
So not to add anymore extra micro management for console users, they would act autonomously dealing with on-board situations depending on the priority level. for example if you're getting boarded. All crew members will drop what they are doing & prepare to repel hostile boarders. Marines will obviously fight better than other crew members, but every little bit will help. Also a certain victory margin would be needed for a successful boarding, so a Pyrrhic victory would result in both forces withdrawing. The boarders will withdraw back into the limpet & detach recovering any wounded comrades to be treated back at the mother ship.
Atmosphere:
If engaged in a boarding action, have sounds of laz fire & shouts of orders from marines playing through the voice comms to signal that a battle is ongoing
If engaged in Engineering or Damage control have sounds of fire extinguisher & disgruntled engineers reporting back the progress "she good to go cmmdr"
If engaged in healing crew members - have something you'd expect in a A&E ward, of medic shouting, "i need plasma stat" or "patient been stabilized for now"
If engaged marines are in turret have them saying "got erm!" "his in my sights" "target neutralized"
Also have these different comm interrupt each other, but not played simultaneously & not more for a few seconds. Its just to give short feedback that your crew are actively doing something & aren't just another mini maxing buff that is so abstract you wouldn't notice if they were there or not.
During normal travel time, the rare report from one of your crew members that "everything is ship shape cmmdr" just to draw the attention that ship does have a human presence & isn't just a single commander piloting a corvette with no other humans on-board.
Module Requirements:
Passenger Cabin: bigger module size will allow more crew members, as well as more passenger cabins.
Boarding Pod: Similar to the hatchet breaker, but instead stay attached for a duration of time until the boarding action as either been deemed a success or failure.
----
Changing the meta - would give an alternative to the engineering meta of pilots whom rely heavily on buffed equipment, ship maintenance kits, then actual human ingenuity. It also throws a joker into the pack of the meta deck, that even the most Grade 5 buff ship can be brought down if it hasn't allowed some of its slots to be used for passenger cabins to how a crew capable of defending itself from boarding actions.
Hard counter measure could be electronic counter measures that will temporarily disable the incoming limpet. Point defense can destroy it, but it would also be presumed that Boarding Pods will be extra reinforced compared to a normal limpet, so both electronic counter measures & point defence would need to be used together to destroy the incoming pod over time. Already this would change the meta of now designating two utility slots for this to help repel boarders if not wanting to use marines as a hard counter with a passenger cabin. This would reduce folks from stacking shield boosters.
Balance
Could give back some of that viability to play small/medium ships that can require a lighter crew. with the smaller ships requiring no crew & medium ships fairly light on crew. Larger ships would be difficult to balance crew wise, so as not to make them troop carriers, but also need to be a means of bringing the grandeur of having one of the big ships & a required crew to run it & therefore upkeep cost. Basically large ships will probably need to perhaps have an enforced amount of required engineers on board to account for keeping everything running smoothly on such a big ship. This would reduce marine stacking.
---
Someone else alternative idea to NPC crews
Someone mentioned that the dev themselves initially had something plan that allowed having more crew members onboard that offered advantages, but cannot find it for the life of me or the post of the forum user who showed this.
