Crew tasks

[Guest 161958]

I could not find anyone suggesting the following using the forum search function, so I will suggest anyway.

A suggestion while FD takes its time to improve npc crew from placeholder.

A probably easy to implement addition which would make the money we give to npc crew not a waste like it is now.

Basically make an npc crew an AFMU. Like Scotty.

Additionally, even though I would like the premium synthesis gone except for jumponium, another thing to consider is to tone down ALOT the premium synthesis and give the possibility to the player to make use of premium function ONLY when you assign an active crew.

Basically we can feel a bit more like being captains of a starship with a crew that actually DOES something.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

I like that. Honestly, with so much functionality built into the ship, in some cases it will make sense to strip parts of that out and only make it possible with crew.

There is a danger though of further reducing the utility of small pilot-only ships.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to list what would be possible and go through the potential issues.

 

[Sylow]

In terms of gameplay i see little profit here. I mean, what do you gain?

• An AFMU which doesn's use an internal slot, but rather is based on crew. Powercreep and nothing else. Not that awesome.
• A small new credit sink. If this scales with the ship, so you need more crew the bigger the ship gets, it could actually be seen as good for the game. But only if you see the game as a snapshot. If you consider that the game is around since years, it could just as easily be seen as punishment for any new player. Not healthy for the game. So again not great.

So what are the drawbacks?

• Yet more power creep. No, thanks.
• Yet more of a push towards big ships with crew, as the crew would be a built in module. No, thanks.
• Loss of flexibility. Different ships would probably have different crew sizes. No more quickly switching from your Cutter to your Courier and back. You'd constantly be hiring and firing crew. We had that in Frontier. It was tedious and didn't add any valuable gameplay. No, thanks.

I know where you are coming from. For your immersion you can also just assume that there's some crew active in your ship and that hiring and firing is done dynamically. So when you switch to a big ship, port authorities directly forward that to the pilots federation and they send some crew to you. (This is paid by the invisible fees which are always subtracted from all transactions before you even see them. That's also how the pilots federation pays all those rebuys, after all. )

I just don't really see much benetfit in terms of gameplay from this, i am sorry. I understand the improvement on immersion, but i think the negatives would be bigger.

 

[Sylow]

However, to counter the power creep from the module slot that becomes free, it could be made mandatory to install at least a small passenger cabin in case you want to hire npc crew, which could be the crew quarters.

Not an option. What would those people say, who don't have an AFMU in their setup yet? Also an aspect to consider: what would people say, who are outside of the bubble since half a year or longer, if they suddenly would be required to have crew on their ship to operate?

Yes, I am going a step further here than the suggestion itself. But why get crew on the ship if you don't need it? It it's just a AFMU, but now called "crew cabin", there's nothing gained, only module inflation was moved another step ahead. So if the crew for big ships would have to have any meaning, it would have to be required. Which unfortunately would force many commanders out there in the black to use the self-destruct-teleport.

Regarding the small ship imbalance, I do not think it is wise to gimp gameplay development on bigger ships because of it. The imbalance should be treated with good ideas that emphasize the small profile strengths.

Hmm, yea. If somebody ever comes up with a real idea here, let me know. The problem is here since a long time, and no viable fix was found. (Many suggestions were around, but no real solution. ) But this is not the actual topic of this thread, so let's leave it at that.

 

[Sylow]

I do not follow you. No modules were added with my solution, passenger cabins are already ingame.

The -necessity- for the module would be added in your suggestion of needing accommodation for the crew. So while the module itself of course would not be new, its formerly optional nature would be gone for big ships.

If a big ship requires a crew and a crew requires passenger cabins (since when are crew passengers?), any big ship will be required to use this module. So it would be a mandatory-optional (mind boggles and hurts module.

Furthermore, you say nothing is gained while in reality we gain a layer of complexity which makes sense in the ship outfitting. Also the crew can still pilot fighters, an afmu cannot.

What's the complexity? If you add the mandatory-optional passenger cabin or if you stay grounded? I see no complexity there, only the elimination of a formerly freely useable internal slot.

This argument was and is one of the biggest cause for the power creep ship anaconda is now.

It hinders correction of bad choices and ED`s improvement in my opinion.

I agree that this is a problem. But while I fully agree that this hinders some improvements, you can't just ignore it. If you implement changes which leave players stranded, it means that you actively dispose of your player base. I dare you to come up with -anything- worse a game developer can do to his game. It's probably the most reliable move to kill your game.

 

[Sylow]

Not gone, it would simply have one more function. They would be mandatory if you want crew, not if you have a big ship.

But if crew is optional, all you are asking for is that the AFMU in a big ship is called "passenger cabin" plus some fluff. That again seems very redundant to me, i am sorry.

The fact that when outfitting the ship you have to think for crew accomodation is something a ship commander should think ahead. It solves the module slot creep issue you rightfully raised previously. Gameplay is also having limitations and work with them.

No. If a ship -needs- crew, then it's the ships designer who should already think that far ahead. If on the other hand it's about the module slot creep and crew is optional, i don't see the gain. As said, it'd just be the same function under a different modules name. Also, when thinking about it, plenty of balancing stuff. How much crew would you need to repair as much and/or as fast as which grade of AFMU? Then it would just be the usual exercise of calculating if you get more performance out of the AFMU, a big passenger cabin or several small passenger cabins.

I think this is a bit doomy gloomy. I do not think such a change would make people so angry to abandon the game. And even then I suppose it is inevitable to improve the game.

Not if crew is optional. But if it's optional there's not much of a point to it, so i assumed that it's all about mandatory crew. (Sorry there for misinterpreting this, though. ) With crew is optional, this scenario indeed won't happen. But if it would be required, what i described is exactly what would happen for most of those people who suddenly, in the middle of nowhere, find that their ship suddenly would be broken due to lack of crew and the only way back home would be the self-destruct, loosing not only the ship but also a lot of exporation data, first discoveries, etc.

But yes, with optional crew this scenario wouldn't happen.