Hard lesson learned - will no longer level up a NPC crew

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Support still has not responded or gotten back to me regarding my ticket. It's been almost 48 hours and no response. I'll give them another 24 hours (72 hours) to respond before I open another ticket.

I've been in contact with Customer Support and they are working to get to your ticket ASAP.
 
It would be nice if NPC crew were ejected to an escape pod, and after the player respawn at the starport, there is a mission in the transactionstab to allow you to rescue your NPC Crewmember, but it only gives you 20 min to do it. Similar mechanic to Black Box retrieval missions.

Just use an existing game mechanic to give players a chance to save their crew...

This will also help in situations where a bug makes the ship explode.

Oh well...
 
Support still has not responded or gotten back to me regarding my ticket. It's been almost 48 hours and no response. I'll give them another 24 hours (72 hours) to respond before I open another ticket. I don't even want to play until they do since I'm still a bit bitter about losing my ship, bounties, exploration data and crew due to a stupid bug that I could not avoid at all. I heard stories of other people whose tickets were responded within a few hours and everything restored. Maybe they are swamped with post 2.3.11 tickets?

My Journal log shows the following:
{ "timestamp":"2017-07-12T03:18:30Z", "event":"SupercruiseExit", "StarSystem":"Coeus", "Body":"Foster Terminal", "BodyType":"Station" }
{ "timestamp":"2017-07-12T03:18:33Z", "event":"Died" }



First I'm happily in supercruise approaching a station in an asteroid belt/ring that I've done a half dozen times previously. I exit supercruise normally and drop into normal space and immediately explode (died). The two lines above show it. No attacks, no warnings, no slow loss of shields, etc. Just exit to supercruise and then boom. :(

They have been swamped with the PS4 launch and a few major bugs like the sky skimmers.

That netlog is pretty clear and they will almost certainly restore your lost credits and NPC.
 
Support still has not responded or gotten back to me regarding my ticket. It's been almost 48 hours and no response. I'll give them another 24 hours (72 hours) to respond before I open another ticket.

I suspect they (support) could be very busy right after a release like the one that just dropped. I submitted a ticket for a name change about 4 days ago, but seeing as it is not a high priority request I may have gotten shoved to the back of the bus. :)

If not, I'll gladly let you jump in front of me.
 
Crikey, that's upsetting. Sorry.
Maybe they can restore your crew mate..

I disagree with comments about not getting attached to your crew, FD should absolutely be creating NPCs we get attached to. There should be much more too them than there is at the moment and its something of a testament to human nature that we can get attached given so little to work with.
Also, yes, escape pods for crew members and some possibility of going back and rescuing them or maybe posting missions to get them back..
Maybe they make it back on their own despite your lack of effort.. Perhaps they aren't happy about that?
If you leave them in a port perhaps they'll just quit?
There's me wishfully adding mechanics again, oops.
 
Levelling NPC pilots is part of the game. If your NPC pilot was a 1-time purchase (because they never died/resigned) then I think it would remove some of the value of training up an elite NPC.

It might help matters if FD officially changed the fluff to state that the pilot has resigned following the recent destruction of your ship. That would at least remove the "I have an escape pod, why not my NPC?" argument, and distil it to one regarding gameplay.
 
It would be nice if NPC crew were ejected to an escape pod, and after the player respawn at the starport, there is a mission in the transactionstab to allow you to rescue your NPC Crewmember, but it only gives you 20 min to do it. Similar mechanic to Black Box retrieval missions.

Just use an existing game mechanic to give players a chance to save their crew...

This will also help in situations where a bug makes the ship explode.

Oh well...

+1, obviously :)
 
It would be an interesting mechanic to have any player ship's destruction in open/group mode cause the server to send out a USS at the position of death to all connected clients that are also in open (or the specific group) and the USS disappears once the first player enters the USS.

You would be able to pick up crew members left in lifepods, cargo that the player had and any data that had been collected. If you're not the player that lost the items, then they would show up as stolen but if you managed to get them to a station that didn't care about the law, you could turn in the exploration data as your own, sell the cargo, and hire the crew members at the rank that they were at.

sounds kinda nifty. So probably wont happen.
 
I'm an experienced combat pilot, complete advocate of retaining survivability at all times, and complete supporter of risk...and from day one didn't bother training an NPC up. It's too money intensive for someone that doesn't work for you often and can just disappear.

Levelling NPC pilots is part of the game. If your NPC pilot was a 1-time purchase (because they never died/resigned) then I think it would remove some of the value of training up an elite NPC.

This is very true in its own right. What's really ridiculous is the amount they can take from your income while you aren't using them. An Elite Pilot from Expert takes I think 15% of your income from that one alone; this means that someone doing a trade run in a cutter, and earning as an example 10 mill/hour, is losing 1.5 mill/hour of that to someone at base with a cuppa in their mitts.

From a "realisuhm" perspective no, a crewmember would not remain at your beck and call without a base fee for their time. But someone not involved with a project also wouldn't pull in money from that specific project, and conversely you can go weeks exploring and not earning money at all, and the crew's perfectly fine with that.

As time-based fees don't really work in ED, ideally there'd simply be a rank-based income cap. "This Elite ranked pilot will take 15% of your earnings, but not exceeding one million credits per day while not active".

That way you aren't worried about losing a crewmate that has consumed your income to get there, whether he did a damn bit of effort or not.
 
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Levelling NPC pilots is part of the game. If your NPC pilot was a 1-time purchase (because they never died/resigned) then I think it would remove some of the value of training up an elite NPC.

It might help matters if FD officially changed the fluff to state that the pilot has resigned following the recent destruction of your ship. That would at least remove the "I have an escape pod, why not my NPC?" argument, and distil it to one regarding gameplay.

Mine dump me because I make too little money, and am old guy. :(
 
Might have already been said, but I really don't like the idea of anyone with crew having permanent Elite crew members, which everyone would have if NPC crew can't die.

but I just thought of something which would keep your NPC after ship destruction, and that would be if your Ship is destroyed your NPC reverts back to the level you hired them at.
 
I wish there was more depth to dealing with NPC crew. Some ideas that might offer interesting play choices:


  1. NPC crew can be hired at two pay rates.
    1. Full-time active. Paid as now, and they travel to follow the CMDR as far as possible (same as now).
    2. Part-time active. Paid only when aboard. They only travel when requested (and have a travel delay (but no cost), same as ships/modules).
  2. NPC crew can survive ship destruction *if* suitable level Life Support is aboard ship.
  3. Life Support Modules rated C or higher will provide for NPC crew survival via Escape Pod.
    1. Ship loss (not fighters) terminates the NPC crew contract, and if an Escape Pod was available, then:
    2. NPC crew *may* demand a bonus fee to re-hire with the CMDR, and *may* request better pay terms.
    3. Rarely, NPC crew *may* decline rehire offers, and thus be "lost".
    4. Higher grade life support modules (providing the NPC crew better conditions of survivability and chance of rescue) reduces the chances of these rehire demands. "A" rated Life Support has zero chance of declined rehire and minimal to zero rehire demands.

A chance to play some risk, some reward, some logistics (when and where to request a part-time NPC crew to travel) and some choices impact ship outfitting.


I really like all of this. Your suggestion contains the options of still possibly losing the pilot, a re-hiring fee, and them having an escape pod based on life support level. Very well done.
 
Might have already been said, but I really don't like the idea of anyone with crew having permanent Elite crew members, which everyone would have if NPC crew can't die.

This is sort of silly. Unless you are fighting directly against other players in PvP who have Elite SLF pilots, why should it matter? Hopefully this isn't another one of those 'I don't like the way you play the game' comments.
 
This is sort of silly. Unless you are fighting directly against other players in PvP who have Elite SLF pilots, why should it matter? Hopefully this isn't another one of those 'I don't like the way you play the game' comments.

Of course it isn't!

My point is that (IMO) if your NPC's can't die and all level up to elite, that's the end of progression for that feature and everyone and their dog will never have to hire a NPC crew mate again. One and done.

there have been some great suggestions in this thread, I just personally don't like the idea of immortal NPC crew mates.

And seeing as we don't have that now, how on earth am I suggesting how someone else plays their game?
 
Of course it isn't!

My point is that (IMO) if your NPC's can't die and all level up to elite, that's the end of progression for that feature and everyone and their dog will never have to hire a NPC crew mate again. One and done.

there have been some great suggestions in this thread, I just personally don't like the idea of immortal NPC crew mates.

And seeing as we don't have that now, how on earth am I suggesting how someone else plays their game?

But, if this doesn't affect you directly, why should it matter to you?

Suggesting that a feature not be added, or even removed from the game just because you don't approve, is to me telling others how you believe they should or should not be playing the game.
 
But, if this doesn't affect you directly, why should it matter to you?

Suggesting that a feature not be added, or even removed from the game just because you don't approve, is to me telling others how you believe they should or should not be playing the game.

Oh come on now, I could be asking to add a myriad of things that other players think is daft, not once would I accuse those people who oppose my underpants in space idea of trying to tell me how to play the game.

It doesn't even come close to that thought if the thing that's being suggested isn't in the game.

That just comes across as childish.
 
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