Fellow CMDRS and Devs (if your reading)
I have a gameplay feature id like to put forward, wether or not it's been mentioned in the past i don't know.
// Bridge-Cockpit crew //
So my idea would be that at stations, you can hire NPC CMDRS to fly with you on your ship, the amount of NPCs you can hire would depend on how many free seats or stations you have in your ships.
These NPCS would come with a set of skills or perks, depending on their role or experience level.
So for example: lets take a cobra III, which has that extra empty seat.
You could go into crew lounge at a station, and hire an NPC whis role is a Co-pilot.
This Co-pilot class would come with certain perks based on his rank: so if he was a raw recruit he might have certain perks like: Auto docking, Supercruise assist (these perks would free up module space) buffs to ship handling etc.
In an anaconda or beluga liner maybe you could hire up to 6 NPC classes such as:
Co-pilots: handling buffs
Systems: power management buffs
Engineers: Sheild/FSD buffs/hull buffs
Combat Specialist: weapon/ammo buffs
Xeno-Specialist: buffs against thargoids
Market analyst: trading buffs
Scientist: exploration perks/scanning perks
NPCs could also be mixed class, combining many traits over all perks, but with less of an effect than a specialist.
Some of these buffs could supplement certain modules as well:
So lets say you have an Engineer on board, his buff slots could look like this
AFMU time +10%
FSD Charge time +5%
Fuel Efficiency +7%
So if you have an AFMU installed on your ship, the engineer would improve its efficiency.
Pirate? Well hire some crew from pirate stations, get buffs related to that objective!
Hatch breaking time +30% less time
Inderdiction speed +20%
And so on.
Of course hiring alot of crew could also be very expensive, a full anaconda crew might take up to 50-70% of any money you make so there would be a nice dynamic thereto balance it all out, or maybe more crew wpuld equal more rebuy cost?
And if you crash and die, they're gone for good.
Of course, in open play this would probably make the power gap between ships larger, but ganking and tanking happens anyway regardless off buffs.
And yea the disadvantage of the starter ships having no crew could be an issue, but then maybe we could balance engineering to be more forgiving to small ships to compensate?
So what do you think?
Thanks for reading!
I have a gameplay feature id like to put forward, wether or not it's been mentioned in the past i don't know.
// Bridge-Cockpit crew //
So my idea would be that at stations, you can hire NPC CMDRS to fly with you on your ship, the amount of NPCs you can hire would depend on how many free seats or stations you have in your ships.
These NPCS would come with a set of skills or perks, depending on their role or experience level.
So for example: lets take a cobra III, which has that extra empty seat.
You could go into crew lounge at a station, and hire an NPC whis role is a Co-pilot.
This Co-pilot class would come with certain perks based on his rank: so if he was a raw recruit he might have certain perks like: Auto docking, Supercruise assist (these perks would free up module space) buffs to ship handling etc.
In an anaconda or beluga liner maybe you could hire up to 6 NPC classes such as:
Co-pilots: handling buffs
Systems: power management buffs
Engineers: Sheild/FSD buffs/hull buffs
Combat Specialist: weapon/ammo buffs
Xeno-Specialist: buffs against thargoids
Market analyst: trading buffs
Scientist: exploration perks/scanning perks
NPCs could also be mixed class, combining many traits over all perks, but with less of an effect than a specialist.
Some of these buffs could supplement certain modules as well:
So lets say you have an Engineer on board, his buff slots could look like this
AFMU time +10%
FSD Charge time +5%
Fuel Efficiency +7%
So if you have an AFMU installed on your ship, the engineer would improve its efficiency.
Pirate? Well hire some crew from pirate stations, get buffs related to that objective!
Hatch breaking time +30% less time
Inderdiction speed +20%
And so on.
Of course hiring alot of crew could also be very expensive, a full anaconda crew might take up to 50-70% of any money you make so there would be a nice dynamic thereto balance it all out, or maybe more crew wpuld equal more rebuy cost?
And if you crash and die, they're gone for good.
Of course, in open play this would probably make the power gap between ships larger, but ganking and tanking happens anyway regardless off buffs.
And yea the disadvantage of the starter ships having no crew could be an issue, but then maybe we could balance engineering to be more forgiving to small ships to compensate?
So what do you think?
Thanks for reading!
Last edited: