Death in Elite Dangerous, what's the backstory for this?

[iSteel]

In my ships I have escape pods also for my NPC classified crews. I understand if they do not want to fly with me anymore after ship destruction, as I am so lousy pilot. They prefer to work for someone who does not blow up, as would I if I did not have a ship of my own. Thus I need to hire new crew after rebuy screen.

Try multicrew with someone who lets their ship to be destroyed and cause you lost of hard earned credits. Then you know how NPC's feel.

 

[Iskariot]

So, when your ship explodes in deep space, you come back in a new ship, but your crew is DEAD DEAD. What's the rational for this? Wouldn't it be more consistent if the crew came back just like you do? Sure, maybe they have to be hospitalized for a while, but why are they dealt perma-death and you seemingly resurrect with impunity?

Also, when you have a figher and pilot on your crew, you can magically switch from the ship to the fighter and visa versa with the pilot mentioning something about telepresence.

What's the backsotry for Death and Crew Switching?

There is no good rationale/backstory for death in the Elite universe currently.
Early on (years ago, when ED was not even released yet) I proposed the implementation of a cloning system to explain what is going on.
The author Richard K. Morgan devised a wonderful and intriguing cloning mechanic for his Takeshi Kovacs cyberpunk trilogy (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies). Something like that would have added a very useful and rich background to gameplay in ED and it would have laid the groundwork for future FPS/FPA gameplay.

Currently in ED there is a huge gap where there needs to be a useful game mechanic. This could be ignored more easily when it was just about us players. We could assume that we escaped with escape pods, even though this mechanic is not shown in the game, but now with the addition of crew the lack of a good explanatory mechanic becomes more distressing and this will only increase in the future when we get fps/fpa gameplay.
I think FD should consider this now before it becomes a real problem.

---

Killing of the crew is something many people have protested against.
It needs to be addressed and replaced with a deeper gameplay experience concerning crew management.
After the destruction of your ship crew members who are on board should perhaps have a chance of getting injured and disabled for a limited variable time (perhaps 3 days up to a week). You might be able to pay for medical treatment to speed up the return of your crew member (we need more money sinks anyway).
There might also be a chance (perhaps 10%) of your crew member getting killed when you ship blows up.
I think this would serve for players to feel more personally engaged with their crew. The current system does the opposite.

If FD added to that the option to put crew members on halt without pay this would make them much more usable.
Currently you have to keep paying crew even if you do not use them because you are flying ships without crew, like the Vulture or FDL. This results in many people sacking crew members instead of investing in them and ranking them up. Sadly for many of us crew has become a throwaway gimmick because of this.

So in general: crew management needs to become more sophisticated and engaging.

 

[Stealthie]

I think the lore goes something like only the pilot has an escape pod so when your mothership dies and they are in it then yeah they are toast.

Which kinda makes you wonder how come Jason Ryder carked it while his son went on to survive and avenge his death.

Simple solution (IMO) would to be to create an "escape pod" module which takes up, say, a class 3 slot.
The lore being that every ship is fitted with one escape pod for the pilot but if you want another one for your NPC then you need to sacrifice a class 3 slot to fit it.
Do that and your NPC survives.

 

[smegunit]

You're a cylon. We're all cylons.

 

[CMDR Minion Blob]

I think Frontier did this for "game balancing" reasons. Basically they must not have wanted CMDRs get perma-Elite NPC copilots and take on additional risk without consequences, i.e., knowing that their NPCs will also revive at no additional cost, as an extension of the ship after paying the insurance payment.

This is just my own conjecture, I could be way off.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Ask that Salami chick.. she knows all about death.

 

[insanephoton]

You're a cylon. We're all cylons.

I'm not a cylon , I'm a mysteron

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Guess you can only afford one escape pod... and since you're the captain.
Well, looks like "Captain goes down with his ship" is nothing more than a once-upon-a-time idiom that no longer applies.

 

[Rakaposhi]

So, when your ship explodes in deep space, you come back in a new ship, but your crew is DEAD DEAD.

Are they definitely DEAD?

I've always seen it as the crew refusing to work with you again, as being on combat duty for a ship that's been destroyed is bad for the CV.

 

[Rob At Work]

Back storey goes something like - "We're done for so it's me or you kid,... and as I'm the boss I've decided,,.... it's you, TURRAGH..TALLY HOoooo..."

or "they say the Captain always goes down with his ship, well not this time!... see ya kiddo"

 

[Dan Dare]

Back in Elite on the Acorn Archimedes you had to buy an escape capsule before you could use it. It had several functions:
You were returned to your last station, with credits and minus cargo. You also got your ship back, exactly as it was, thanks to the insurance included in the pod. There was a cool little animation showing the pod escaping the exploding ship you just left. If you were wanted or a fugitive the pod wiped the slate so you were clean again.
I think this worked well as a game element and also as a bit of background fluff.
If they brought back escape pods we could use them instead of combat logging, as you had to time your escape to avoid a full reset (permadeath type thing). Not that I have ever combat logged!
Edit: So you could then buy extra pods for your crew if you thought they were worth it.

 

[DragonIV]

Have the crew eject, and make it such that they perhaps get picked up by rivals who you then have to do some form of multi-stage mission to recover the crew in question--maybe some kind of hostage exchange kind of thing, and perhaps they occasionally go bad.

Oh, wait, that's content. Never mind, we don't do that sort of thing.

 

[Noctover]

Elite is already consequence-heavy in the death department, so I'm not really behind the idea that crew death is a good thing because it amps that up even more. If anything I'd like to see something like a random chance for pickup for crew, but also decrease the penalty for death itself (which is often too high imho).

Have to disagree with this i'm afraid Jen! ED is one of the most consequence free games i've ever played. If you die, you click a few buttons and its like nothing ever happened, you lose a few credits (which are very easy to make in this game anyway) and your back. You dont need to rebuy your ship, re-fit it, buy all the mods again, its very lenient. I think losing your crew in this game is the one risk people actually do encounter in this very safe bubble wrapped galaxy.

In regards to the backstory, lets be honest; there isn't one. Its a game and a game can never be 100% explainable. If i die 20k away from the Bubble in the middle of nowhere; literally no backstory, lore effort or explanation can explain how I've immediately ended back in the bubble in the last station i was in, in my ship entirely as it was 30 seconds ago.