Empty cockpit seats and Elite "Lore."

[DukeIronHand]

Just full of questions today.
Gadding about this afternoon in my TradaConda trading - of course.
As I look about in this ship (or most ED ships) the empty seats in the cockpit are obvious.
In the game everyone fly and fights and explores and trades just fine on their own.
Is this solo ability to fly these ships well a necessary game invention?
Or in the Elite Lore should I not be able to and would have to have actual crewman onboard?
If we have any Lore masters about.

 

[Gunnet]

In the previous games larger ships (about Asp size and up) required crew.

I'm not sure if there's a lore explanation for us being able to fly them alone in ED, but even if there is I think it's safe to say that it's only there because building a crew management system wasn't in the cards.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Crew is tricky in Elite. The first game AFAIK had crew as a technicality (just a number in the ship description), while in FE2 you actually had to hire people who took wages to work on your ship, sometimes quite a lot, e.g., 8 for the Anaconda. There wasn't any mechanical advantage though, it was just flavour, and in case of FE2 also sometimes annoying when you couldn't crew your ship after buying it, and an uncrewed ship couldn't even take off.

With 2.3, those empty seats will be hooks for other commanders to jump in and take on combat roles, so they will have some use.

From a lore perspective, "something something more automation as the centuries go by".

 

[insanephoton]

I'm sure we'll have some people along soon quoting the crew requirements from FE. Not sure if some of the numbers ever made much sense. Consider a few unrelated things; in Dr Who the TARDIS is meant to have a crew of 6 to fly it and yet the Doctor manages sort of by himself, airliners usually have a crew of 2 or 3 but for the most part a single pilot could fly them, tanks typically have a crew of 4-5 people to be effective and yet with many functions automated a single player can operate a tank effectively in a video game.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I'm sure we'll have some people along soon quoting the crew requirements from FE.

https://www.sharoma.com/frontierverse/ship_specs.htm

You're welcome.

 

[insanephoton]

I was right about them not really making much sense unless it turns out that the Panther Clipper was steam powered and required stokers.

 

[Shadowdancer]

IMAO it was just an upkeep mechanic, an additional running cost attached to your ship. I remember it as just a drag until you found the diamonds-for-slaves route and got so stinking rich that it didn't matter any more.

It makes some sense to have a few hands around the more complex ships to keep things running, and something like an Anaconda or bigger could, if you check out the floor plans in some of the concept art, carry a sizeable infantry detachment without even using cargo space (*cough cough* Missions please?). An explorer could hire a wizard, eh, "scientist", to improve sensor efficiency, engineers could provide constant small repairs to damaged modules, etc.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Yea I always liked the idea of hiring NPC's for in-game bonuses.
Like a well trained engineer adding 5% to your speed kind of thing.
Makes a rough sense to me. Just have to find a Montgomery Scott hanging around in the port bar.

 

[Sapyx]

The main problem with implementing an FE2/FFE-style crew system is, the crew in FE2/FFE didn't actually do anything. Sure, they came with stories about their experience, which you could find out in a "job interview" list of questions you could ask them when you hired them, and they came at different pay rates depending on that quoted experience. But they did not affect the performance of your ship one little bit, except that you couldn't take off if you didn't have the crew quota for your ship type.

I recall many times sitting at a starport, day after day (starports had daily landing fees back then, too), waiting for "job wanted" ads to appear in the bulletin board, and seeing only passenger missions pop up instead. I was like, "Hey, sure, I'll take you and your three friends to Barnard's Star, if you're willing to work your passage as crew". But alas, I was not given that option.

Because time doesn't stop when you're not playing the game, credits-per-day crew salaries (rather than the current wages model) would be impossible to implement in ED, at least not unless we're also given some kind of opportunity to earn credits-per-day while offline too. Imagine a casual player logging in after six months away from the game, only to find their bank balance drained to zero and all their crew deserted after the money ran out.

 

[zorbaq]

Ah, I remember, back in the Elite 2: Frontier days, buying a panther clipper and then spending another 10 months of game time filling crew slots before I could take off...

 

[ethelred]

NPC crew will be in at some point I'm sure, and it would make sense for them to add some sort of bonus to either weps, shields or speed.

I can't wait to hire some drunken engineer, or a runaway who we can train up.

 

[Magic Man]

Because time doesn't stop when you're not playing the game, credits-per-day crew salaries (rather than the current wages model) would be impossible to implement in ED, at least not unless we're also given some kind of opportunity to earn credits-per-day while offline too. Imagine a casual player logging in after six months away from the game, only to find their bank balance drained to zero and all their crew deserted after the money ran out.

They'd have to be paid on %'age of your profits. They don't get paid until you do.

 

[Iskariot]

Just full of questions today.
Gadding about this afternoon in my TradaConda trading - of course.
As I look about in this ship (or most ED ships) the empty seats in the cockpit are obvious.
In the game everyone fly and fights and explores and trades just fine on their own.
Is this solo ability to fly these ships well a necessary game invention?
Or in the Elite Lore should I not be able to and would have to have actual crewman onboard?
If we have any Lore masters about.

In Frontier Elite 2 you couldn't even fly certain ships without enough crew on board.
I wish ED would have the same.
I believe the Python needed seven crew and the Panther Clipper 12 or so.

I really want npc crew members as a requirement.
But FD would have to make them more affordable than the current npc pilot.
Paying 12% of the profits to 12 crew members each would destroy my bank account very quickly.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

Just full of questions today.
Gadding about this afternoon in my TradaConda trading - of course.
As I look about in this ship (or most ED ships) the empty seats in the cockpit are obvious.
In the game everyone fly and fights and explores and trades just fine on their own.
Is this solo ability to fly these ships well a necessary game invention?
Or in the Elite Lore should I not be able to and would have to have actual crewman onboard?
If we have any Lore masters about.

The option of hiring NPC crew would certainly be welcome, but lore-wise, according to Michael Brookes' novel Elite: Legacy, the Anaconda doesn't need it - one of the main characters is a solo Anaconda pilot.

 

[DukeIronHand]

The option of hiring NPC crew would certainly be welcome, but lore-wise, according to Michael Brookes' novel Elite: Legacy, the Anaconda doesn't need it - one of the main characters is a solo Anaconda pilot.

Ah excellent.
With that said I wouldn't mind ripping the seats and their quarters out and adding a few more tons of cargo space.
Empty seats bother me in the cockpit. Like those darn dangling wires all over the cockpit? Can't anyone clean up after maintenance?