Buyback NPC Crew

[Xavi Mendoza]

I have many ships, many credits and Miranda, my elite npc crew. I wanna take some action with my vette, cutter or even krait in open. I don't care about losing my ship or credits but Miranda...

I hired her when she was harmless and raised her patiently until she is elite. Not to mention I took at least 80 candidates out of the job interview until I found her.

Why can't I buy it back with my ship when my ship destroyed? Do I have to fly with an expert crew or no-slf ships in open? Why ?..

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

Because reasons. NPC of any sort aren't gratified by FD with an escape pod of any sort. We get to live, they must die.

That makes me question: who is actually in all those occupied escape pods?

 

[Nasc]

All things must die OP. Especially one's hopes and dreams.

 

[Trellek]

Well, we were theorising in another thread earlier this morning that the difference between the Npc crew and the pc pilot is that the mysterious benefactor didn’t see enough in them to justify giving them immortality.

Well, we didn’t say that exactly, but that was an unstated implication. The discussion was about the relative value of ED wealth to that of today A’s standards.

 

[zimms]

All things must die OP. Especially one's hopes and dreams.

I just keep telling death "Not today". Perfect loophole.

 

[Ezren]

This has been an ask for a long time. Some of us invested in our NPC crew and consider them very important to the ship.

After restarted on PC I'm a bit hesitant to even recruit another, since I left Luis Hines back on Xbox.

 

[Morbad]

Why can't I buy it back with my ship when my ship destroyed?

Game has to have consequences somewhere and this is one of the few remaining ways loss can actually be felt.

Do I have to fly with an expert crew or no-slf ships in open?

I rarely enter any other mode, and my CMDR fights plenty of other CMDRs while he has active Elite crew (or did, before they introduced a bug that causes SLFs to eventually break instances). Very rarely they die, but with three slots, it's almost always possible to field a high rank one.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Game has to have consequences somewhere and this is one of the few remaining ways loss can actually be felt.



I rarely enter any other mode, and my CMDR fights plenty of other CMDRs while he has active Elite crew (or did, before they introduced a bug that causes SLFs to eventually break instances). Very rarely they die, but with three slots, it's almost always possible to field a high rank one.

IMHO credits should be a couple of orders of magnitude harder to obtain, making ship repairs and rebuys meaningful again by virtue of the fact they will have made a serious impact into the players credit reserves. NPC pilots are in my opinion not the ideal target for bringing consequences to the game. Mission rewards & credit earnings need heavily cut, repair/refuel/rearm and rebuy costs need hiked. I remember back in 2.0 I lost a couple of clipper rebuys doing powerplay in open and pvping at an expansion system, one nights losses took around a week to recoup. I'd ran out of rebuy credits, so then took on some ground assault missions in an i-Eagle, after that I went in an Asp-X to Robigo, deliver some slaves, then I could afford to fly my FDL and go to a haz res to bountyhunt some more rebuys,

Also, if you look at the amount of work that goes in to coaching one NPC pilot to Elite, and the amount of credits that NPC will absorb during their progression to elite status, their death is a real kick in the crotch. In terms of effort I'd say losing an Elite NPC pilot would be comparable to losing your top three naval ranks. I'm not looking for the NPC to be a without consequence part of the rebuy screen, I'd like there to be at the very least heavy costs to get them back, better yet, gameplay to recover them. Such as:

• Pirate that destroyed you captured your SLF pilots escape pod, track them down and hatchbreak the SLF pilots escape pod out of their ship. But be careful destroying that escape pod will kill them permanently.
• Authorities took your NPC to a hospital, but the docs say the pilot is critical and to guarantee their survival they will need X Y & Z rare goods / materials to complete their treatment.
• The organisation you were fighting against is holding the NPC hostage, you have to perform sufficient reparations as to become allied with them before they will release the NPC. Failure to become allied with that faction in a week will result in the NPC being executed.
• The NPC is being held as a POW, whereabouts unknown as of yet. If however, you go to this system and rendezvous with a specified NPC, they will give you a mission, complete that mission for them, and they will give you instructions to help find release your Pilot. These might be a simple single mission for that NPC, or could form a series of linked missions:
  • perform specified mission (fetch / deliver / scan datapoint / assassinate) and go back to the mission giver NPC
  • follow on mission generated - scan this datapoint for more info on pilots location, completion of the scan generates another mission
  • third mission on this quest planetary search / megaship raid / assassination / etc may lead to Pilot in escape pod, or may lead to one more misison before you get to recover the pilot.
  • When you get back to your NPC, they want compensation before they'll rejoin your ship, the longer they were "missing" the more honerous their demands for money and materials will be.
• Becuase your ship and thus its crew was wanted, they are in a prison ship, mount a raid on the megaship to hatchbreak their cell out if you want your NPC back.

Done with game play rather than rebuy screen, it could be immersive and fair. NPC pilots could be recovered after working hard to "find" them, and they would simply be a special named escape pod found from hatchbreaking a megaship / planetary settlement / sitting guarded in a cache of canisters on a planets surface / in a signal source like a cargo salvage mission / as mission reward via station menu / released to crew lounge replacing the generic RNG so called "EXPERT" pilot with your old pilot, with a hefty sign on fee.

 

[Stealthie]

Game has to have consequences somewhere and this is one of the few remaining ways loss can actually be felt.

Then I'd suggest consistency should be considered.

Either remove the few remaining ways that loss can actually be felt OR implement more ways that loss can be felt - rather than just allowing some people to suffer no consequences while others have to endure serious ones.
Personally, for example, I'd make rebuys unavailable to outlaws when their ships get destroyed.


On topic, I don't think "rebuying" an NPC would be a good idea simply because credits are inconsequential.
I'd rather FDev took the opportunity to create a bit of extra gameplay instead.

Set it up so that, after your ship's been destroyed, you immediately get an inbox-mission requiring you to go and collect the escape-pod of your NPC.
If you aren't interested, you can just reject the mission.
If you accept it, you have to go back to where your ship was destroyed and scoop the escape-pod.
You might find there's a ship there instead and they'll ask you to do something (probably illegal) in order to have your NPC returned to you.
Alternatively, you might have to explode several hostile ships and then scoop your NPC's escape-pod from the debris.
When you get your NPC back, they'll have down-ranked by a level (or maybe two) as a result of the trauma they've endured.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Another option, fighter pilot escape pods. Since they seemingly CBA to add real consequence to the game as evidenced by the ridiculous credit streams available now, perhaps the fighter pilot escape pods could be brought in as a big old heavy power hungry module. Or give me the option of having a class 6 or higher fighter hangar, with only one fighter slot in it, the additional slot would be occupied with the escape pod launcher.

Consequences need to be part of the game, probably Credits need brought back in control nowadays, but SLF pilots oughtn't be sacrificed to emulate consequences.

 

[Ezren]

Then I'd suggest consistency should be considered.

Either remove the few remaining ways that loss can actually be felt OR implement more ways that loss can be felt - rather than just allowing some people to suffer no consequences while others have to endure serious ones.
Personally, for example, I'd make rebuys unavailable to outlaws when their ships get destroyed.


On topic, I don't think "rebuying" an NPC would be a good idea simply because credits are inconsequential.
I'd rather FDev took the opportunity to create a bit of extra gameplay instead.

Set it up so that, after your ship's been destroyed, you immediately get an inbox-mission requiring you to go and collect the escape-pod of your NPC.
If you aren't interested, you can just reject the mission.
If you accept it, you have to go back to where your ship was destroyed and scoop the escape-pod.
You might find there's a ship there instead and they'll ask you to do something (probably illegal) in order to have your NPC returned to you.
Alternatively, you might have to explode several hostile ships and then scoop your NPC's escape-pod from the debris.
When you get your NPC back, they'll have down-ranked by a level (or maybe two) as a result of the trauma they've endured.

Not being able to rebuy is a bit of a nonstarter, because of Engineering. But a sharply increased rebuy cost for "high-risk" pilots wouldn't go amiss.

I feel like repairs and maintenance for a Corvette should be in the millions per outing.

 

[Morbad]

Gameplay is always good, as long as it's not trivial to the point of simply being a shortcut, or something that's easy to abuse.

IMHO credits should be a couple of orders of magnitude harder to obtain, making ship repairs and rebuys meaningful again by virtue of the fact they will have made a serious impact into the players credit reserves. NPC pilots are in my opinion not the ideal target for bringing consequences to the game.

I agree, but I'm not in favor of reducing the magnitude of this particular consequence until some others are (re)introduced.

Also, if you look at the amount of work that goes in to coaching one NPC pilot to Elite, and the amount of credits that NPC will absorb during their progression to elite status, their death is a real kick in the crotch. In terms of effort I'd say losing an Elite NPC pilot would be comparable to losing your top three naval ranks.

It's not quite so harsh. My CMDR has three Elites now and has had a couple of very high rank ones die, all trained up from Harmless. They aren't that difficult to replace.

Then I'd suggest consistency should be considered.

Either remove the few remaining ways that loss can actually be felt OR implement more ways that loss can be felt - rather than just allowing some people to suffer no consequences while others have to endure serious ones.

I'd prefer consistency, but only in the more consequence direction.

 

[Sterling MH]

The NPC is now able to sell their labour to someone else at a higher pay scale than you pay as someone who trained them up. So they don't want to work with you. And, if they are high enough rank because of you, then they can become members of the PF. So go and train up another newbie.

 

[photomankc]

I feel like repairs and maintenance for a Corvette should be in the millions per outing.

They absolutely should. The big three should be credit draining monsters to keep running. Repairing a shot-up Anaconda or Cutter ought to freaking hurt. I'd be happy if after some high percentage of damage the cost of re-buy and repair converged.

 

[Requiem Mortis]

I'd like a gameplay mechanism for retrieving my NPC, there's an inordinate amount of work going in to ranking them up and my own progression is slowed whilst doing it too. The loss is currently disproportionate in my opinion, particularly once they reach dangerous or above.

 

[Stealthie]

Not being able to rebuy is a bit of a nonstarter, because of Engineering. But a sharply increased rebuy cost for "high-risk" pilots wouldn't go amiss.

I feel like repairs and maintenance for a Corvette should be in the millions per outing.

Nope.

Ship destroyed when you're an outlaw: gone for good, engineering and all.

That'd, hopefully, encourage outlaws to use un-engineered ships, which'd help even the odds against engineered ships flown by lawful players.
If you're lawful you can build an engineered tank, safe in the knowledge that it'll be replaced when/if it gets exploded.
If you're an outlaw you can either gamble on always winning your fights or you can choose to fly a ship you won't miss when it's gone.

Consequences.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Nope.

Ship destroyed when you're an outlaw: gone for good, engineering and all.

That'd, hopefully, encourage outlaws to use un-engineered ships, which'd help even the odds against engineered ships flown by lawful players.
If you're lawful you can build an engineered tank, safe in the knowledge that it'll be replaced when/if it gets exploded.
If you're an outlaw you can either gamble on always winning your fights or you can choose to fly a ship you won't miss when it's gone.

Consequences.

Since credits are inconsequential, as you mentioned, I'd point out that materials aren't really far behind. Yes, it might slow someone down by 30 minutes or so if they have to re-engineer a set of modules, but modern engineering is not like it was back when (legacy modules are still around). I would call this more of a minor inconvenience than a consequence.

 

[Stealthie]

Since credits are inconsequential, as you mentioned, I'd point out that materials aren't really far behind. Yes, it might slow someone down by 30 minutes or so if they have to re-engineer a set of modules, but modern engineering is not like it was back when (legacy modules are still around). I would call this more of a minor inconvenience than a consequence.

Nah, completely disagree.

Tell me I've got to spend a billion credits to rebuy my Corvette and I'll happily pay it.
Tell me I've got to re-engineer every module and weapon to G5, and do the Powerplay required to re-acquire some of the weapons/modules, and I'll be salty about it for weeks.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Set it up so that, after your ship's been destroyed, you immediately get an inbox-mission requiring you to go and collect the escape-pod of your NPC.
If you aren't interested, you can just reject the mission.
If you accept it, you have to go back to where your ship was destroyed and scoop the escape-pod.
You might find there's a ship there instead and they'll ask you to do something (probably illegal) in order to have your NPC returned to you.
Alternatively, you might have to explode several hostile ships and then scoop your NPC's escape-pod from the debris.
When you get your NPC back, they'll have down-ranked by a level (or maybe two) as a result of the trauma they've endured.

Mechanisms similar to this have been suggested since SLFs first dropped, but there's no indication that FD have considered them even though the individual mechanics (pods, scooping, missions) are already in the game and would in theory "only" require a relatively "small" amount of code to tie them together, compared with building everything from scratch. Of course such talk is dangerous because it invites the old escalating arguments, beginning with the observation that coding is not as easy as it might seem and often culminating in the frankly mad idea that nobody should be entitled to an opinion on the programming of a space game unless we've programmed a space game.

(Life would be interesting if everything worked that way. "Those plumbers you recommended did an OK job fitting my bathroom suite, but the toilet's got a leak." "It's not as easy as it looks, you know. Let's see a bathroom you installed." "Mate, if I could install a bathroom myself I wouldn't have needed the plumbers...")​

Anyway, I can only speculate as to why this has never been officially considered for inclusion. The most obvious is that already mentioned; that FD want the player to feel an occasional sense of loss and that this is one of the ways and they're sticking with it. It's a fair observation, but something of a blunt tool. Another possibility is that it is on a list of potential features somewhere, but so far down that it might as well not be. Finally, there's always the chance that it has been considered but that the game's current code is so spaghettified as to make implementation far more difficult than it might be, and the risk of breaking something else too great.

If the latter is the case, then maybe it'll get a reconsideration next year once the core game has been restructured and the extant bugs removed or minimised. I'd love to see this implemented, but it needs to be a risky proposition in and of itself rather than a mere formality for getting the crewmember back. At the very least there should be no respawning of the mission POI if you do what I often do with salvage missions and accidentally ram the canister to destruction. Ramming your beloved NPC to death should be one of the facepalm highlights of the game IMO.

 

[Stealthie]

....often culminating in the frankly mad idea that nobody should be entitled to an opinion on the programming of a space game unless we've programmed a space game.

This fallacy is one of my pet-hates.
A person doesn't need to be able to do a thing in order to recognise when it's poor, or could be improved.


I recall, from one of the live-streams, that Sandro specifically said that SLF jockeys weren't recoverable because they wanted to create a sense of loss.
That's fair enough, I guess, but in the grand scheme of things it's a bit... singular.

I mean, let's say I'm flying along in my Cutter, minding my own business, loaded up with cargo, running a few missions and I have an SLF aboard.
I get attacked by another CMDR, for the lulz.
If I win, my attacker finds themselves back at a station, facing a rebuy.
If my attacker wins, I get a rebuy, I lose the value of all my cargo, I fail all the missions I'm doing (which may lead to criminal status and further sanctions), I lose any exploration data I might have accrued and I lose my SLF jockey.

I'm all for consequences but, in order to work to moderate people's actions, they need to apply equally to everybody involved.