*edited: The request for ship NPC crews are something which have cropped up multiple times in the past and initially FD themselves were speculating a ‘proposal’ along the lines of dedicated NPC crews and functions not just Pilots ‘in seats’ but actual gameplay; alongside ship interiors.
The evidence is held within the archived design discussion thread; as well as with in initial kickstarter stretch goals and various development comments (see below).
These were ‘proposals’ circa 2013, so it’s likely (due to the existence of Odyssey) that the feedback FD had back then was either negative, inconclusive, or too timely as Dev’s had mentioned the creation of NPC crews / contacts etc were not necessarily (historically) a technical issue but one of sufficient time to code.
*edit: FD stated at Lavecon 2016 in a QA that AI Crew we’re not in the pipeline.
FD are not beholden to us, they’re a business so such concepts require comparative value to warrant proper investment.
David Braben described Odyssey as ‘a new era’. So it’s possible such historical concepts are just that, archived ideas which are not set in stone nor locked into some supposed development direction.
Personally I love the idea of an NPC crew generally, but certainly as FD initially outlined them as an involved game mechanism. I own only 1 Cmdr skin, out of preference, but this (and anything like interiors) would certainly go towards encouraging me to buy additional skins for crew.
There are a lot of Cmdrs with multiple accounts and fleets of ships, we already buy skins for 1 character, how much revenue would visible NPC crews generate if we had x3 crew or more, all with purchasable skins!
Crew management would add additional content, validating interiors whilst encouraging game sales generally, as would ship to ship boarding and exploration, and of course it would keep Cmdrs playing more often, which is FD’s ultimate goal because the more Cmdrs play, the more likely they are to be influenced to buy skins/ARX.
But all of this is reliant upon actual in-depth gameplay across the board. Odyssey shows us how unfocused FD can be, as it is primarily a FPS, capitalising on a certain demographic, not a great deal of attention was given to other game styles.
‘Elite feet’ was dreamt of being that catch-all.
Some (but not all), hoped this is what Odyssey would contain, not because it was ‘promised’ (because it never was) but because it was a logical progression upon existing concepts which could support / give credence to additional content.
The FD statements against ‘interiors’ is commendable at least because FD are providing some clarification at long last, that interiors etc are not something they’ve actively progressed.
It is however a real missed opportunity, and I would suspect an indication of how such concepts aren’t actively being developed.
I only hope the significant dent Odyssey has had gives FD the incentive to revisit these development concepts and utilities them.
They put Carrier interiors in-game, they can pop an NPC in a chair.
“You're gonna come out rich. We're gonna come out dead.” Ship Crews - Elite Dangerous.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-the-commanders-2-3-beta.325278/post-5187243
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...en-ai-crew-are-introduced.296237/post-4615002
The Future? “It’s on the list….”
UPDATED: 21st October 2018 To view the most recent updates to this page visit the Blog Update page. As with all game development plans, schedules and features can and do change, so this list is by …
elitedangerous2016.wordpress.com
Beyond: Beta – Q&A
Sandro Sammarco answered a long list of questions regarding both the upcoming Beyond series of updates and the general future of the game. You can see some selected ones below. Note: There has been…
elitedangerous2016.wordpress.com
*time stamp 5:52 ‘Would it be possible to have hired NPC wing mates and crew? “Something we want to do’ ‘we don’t know when it will be”.”something I think is really good, especially if you’re playing single player”.
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