Newcomer / Intro Fighters and NPC Crew

King Drax I

K
Wow. I have just bought my first Fighter Hangar for my Krait MkII and I am well impressed. Very nice.

I have two crew members aboard and I have worked out how to allocate them to the fighter as I launch it. I know about the distance limits, and that they can be restocked as if I am reloading missiles or whatever.

But I still have some questions. Here we go:

If a fighter is destroyed, is the NPC pilot killed?
If so, is he/she also killed when the fighter self-destructs due to the distance limitations (26km I think)?

I'm sure there'll be more but those will do for starters.

Cheers folks :)
 

King Drax I

K
Next questions.

If I remove my fighter bay temporarily, do I lose my fighter pilots?

Do fighter pilots increase in experience? It looks as if they do because in their description it gives their next level.

Is it possible to change my Active NPC pilot anywhere else except in the crew lounge on a station?

What is the 'Fighters Left' counter on my Role panel? I have a two-bay (Class 6A) hangar and it says for each fighter '8/8 as if they are limpets or missile ammo. Does that mean I have eight of each of my two types of fighter?

If I tell my NPC pilot to attack target, and then I switch targets to another ship, does he continue to attack his original target, or does he switch to my new target? I'd like me and him to be able to attack two different targets...
 
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aRJay

aRJay
The fighters are remotely operated drones, like the predator et.al. of ancient history, your pilots just put down their drink in the ships bar and switch their Remlok suit to telepresence mode to link with the fighter and control it, this is why you can swap in and out of the fighter while it is deployed. So destructions of the fighter due to enemy action or you jumping away doesn’t affect its pilot.

However if your ship gets destroyed while you have an active pilot on board that pilot will never be seen again, some say that that is because they die due to a lack of escape pods, others contend that the pilots just change their names and retire on the huge fortune that they have earned of you.

Keep in mind that even if they are not active and on your ship they take their percentage from any money you earn and if active will take approximately half of any combat ranking points you earn as well.
 

aRJay

aRJay
King Drax I said:
Next questions.

If I remove my fighter bay temporarily, do I lose my fighter pilots?

Do fighter pilots increase in experience? It looks as if they do because in their description it gives their next level.

Is it possible to change my Active NPC pilot anywhere else except in the crew lounge on a station?

What is the 'Fighters Left' counter on my Role panel? I have a two-bay (Class 6A) hangar and it says for each fighter '8/8 as if they are limpets or missile ammo. Does that mean I have eight of each of my two types of fighter?
Click to expand...

No if you remove the fighter bay the pilots just sit around while you keep paying them.

Yes they do increase in experience but they do this by taking half the experience points you would have earned from that fight.

No you can only hire and fire pilots or activate them in a crew lounge.

The fighter hanger has parts and materials to fabricate or print a certain number of fighters of the type you chose, each time you lose a fighter a new one needs to be produced which takes time, this is why having a dual bay fighter hanger is good. So yes you have 8 of each type of fighter when you get to a station restocking will top up your hanger to original levels.
 

King Drax I

K
Wow, these are great answers, thanks! Just what I needed to know :)

Given that the pilots do not die, then, when the fighters are destroyed at least, is there any point in having more than one pilot on my ship at any given time? Looks to me as if it's just money down the drain... ;)
 

aRJay

aRJay
King Drax I said:
Wow, these are great answers, thanks! Just what I needed to know :)

Given that the pilots do not die, then, when the fighters are destroyed at least, is there any point in having more than one pilot on my ship at any given time? Looks to me as if it's just money down the drain... ;)
Click to expand...

As you can’t deploy both at the same time not a lot.
 

Berpol

B
Actually you have a maximum of one pilot on board of your ship. All others are lounging around on the stations (and strangely enough already there when you enter).
 

Morbad

Morbad
King Drax I said:
is there any point in having more than one pilot
Click to expand...

Redundancy/turnaround time.

My CMDR has three Elite ranked NPC crew (trained up from harmless, because it's cheaper in the long run) so that if he gets shot down and loses one, he can immediately field another, if the situation calls for it, rather than having to hire an Expert flunky.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
Berpol said:
Actually you have a maximum of one pilot on board of your ship. All others are lounging around on the stations (and strangely enough already there when you enter).
Click to expand...

They follow you around in a rented, heavily cloaked Asp Scout that always stays just outside of scanner range. They don't like flying an Asp Scout any more than you do, which is why they have no qualms about taking your money even when they're not on the active roster.
 

King Drax I

K
I just had a major problem with my fighter crewing. Got into a scrap with a mighty bad guy, launched my fighter but with me in the fighter rather than my crewman. I tried to 'switch' back to the main ship but all the switching controls were redded out; I couldn't switch back. This was a serious pain in the ass; what was I doing wrong? How can I switch back to the main ship when it won't let me? And why wouldn't it let me?

And in all of that, if I had had a hotkey to switch me back to the main ship, that might have been quicker; I serached the controls for a key binding for it but couldn't find one.

Although I suppose if everything else was red then it wouldn't have let me switch like that anyway...

Heeellp!!!
 

aRJay

aRJay
It sounds to me like your fighter pilot was not set to active.

When you first buy hire a fighter pilot you need to set them active in the crew lounge so that they actually come with you to do some work rather than just sit in the bar getting paid to drink.

You also have to set them active again if you swap ships to one without a fighter bay and then swap back to one with one.

Another possibility is if your ship was destroyed while your pilot was active then they will have died with the ship or retired, either way you will need to hire a replacement.
 

King Drax I

K
Thanks for your reply :) He was on board the main ship, he was flying the ship and complaining about getting shot at ;) All I could do was to tell him to evade.

Is there a place where I can define a keyboard shortcut for swapping fighter/mother ship and vice versa? Looked through main keybindings menu and couldn't find one...
 
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