Has MultiCrew gone the way of the Dodo too?

I've used it a couple times with a companion and, the main problem is that the feature is heavily limited and bugged.

Dropping in from supercruise usually screws it up for us. Last time we dropped in an Engineers base and, I got stuck and I didn't even see my friend's ship going down, for me it was standing still. We mostly get disconnected though.
And when we are not getting disconnected, there's little to do to earn money. Bounty hunting in res zones or conflict zones, and that's pretty much it. He's a trader and I'm an explorer so, it's not something we usually do. Mission rewards should be somewhat shared with multicrew, with limits like having to be present from start to finish (I wouldn't mind a 50% for each player, you are the one who opens your ship to multicrew after all).

Options are limited as it is now. You can't deploy your friend in a scarab and remain on your ship or deploy your own scarab, a shame since that feature would be great. Gunners in supercruise are hopeless. They could be usefull scanning ships and planets in 360 degrees, having their own waypoint to guide the pilot, helping with interdictions, checking the galaxy map to buy the commodities you need... Right now they just sit arround and wait. Multicrew can grow and be a great thing but, it isn't right now.

My ship was already ok for Multicrew when the feature arrived because most of my fire power can be controlled by a gunner without rendering the pilot entirely harmless by himself, but most people ship's aren't. Turret weapons are the most expensive type, so poor commanders can't really afford multicrew in their ships; most people don't want turrets anyway.
They should allow gimballed to be shared between Pilot and gimballed (of course, with less freedom to aim than turrets), like, if the pilot is not using a firegroup with them, the Gunner could do it.
What I don't really understand is why this feature has matchmaking. It needs a particular set up to work and some coordination. Right now a gunner joins and he either has nothing to do or does not know what he's supposed to do.

Wow you just summed up all the problems with MC... very well put ! Hey Fdev, you want to have success with he players base? Work on this !
 
Sorry, just recapping.. Multicrew; is that the teleportation across the other side of the galaxy and extra magical pip thing? Hmm, never tried it myself, never really been a fan of ghostly images..

:eek:
 
When the devs announced 6 months before 2.3 dropped that multi crew would have 3-4 roles including navigation and engineering i think most people understandably expected that to happen...

The very last thing many of us expected was a stripped down gunnar role with a 3rd person targeting system, especially when Fdev have always stated we could not have any form of 3rd person gameplay since the early kickstarter days :(
Agreed, it was shocking and should have never been this way.
 
MC was introduced because we're in a time of MOBA's, Co-op and group games being all the rage. It seems to me that Frontier's management simply wanted a way to cash in on this craze of more people = more fun. Unfortunately, due to the way Elite was initially designed, it was never going to work.

You don't fly the typical Starship, with a Captain and his crew following orders. You pilot a small ship, with some allowing for a couple of other seats. There is no 'captain', there isn't anyone giving orders. On a starship, the ship belongs to the captain yes, but the crew of that ship are all an integral part OF that ship. In a small ship, the pilot is not the captain. It is THEIR ship, and noone elses. Therefore, allowing other people to do 'things' on THEIR ship is pretty much against the nature of the game and the way it's played.

If Frontier want to bring in proper MC, they need to allow TEAMS/CREWS of players to earn the right to fly a Capital ship of some sort - or even a smaller version, like a frigate or a destroyer style. It doesn't need to be massive like the current cap ships, but it needs to be much, much bigger, more powerful and absolutely REQUIRES teamwork and a command hierarchy. Which needs discipline. And I don't think many players have the discipline needed to succeed with a ship like that.

And anyway, what use would a frigate/destroyer class ship be in Elite? Apart from being required in large battles - perhaps the impending alien threat - I can't see it being suited for much. It would be like sending the Gnosis out on a Biscuit Trade Run.

(no... it can't. It doesn't fit in the letterbox...)
 
Looks like it. Instead of working to improve existing things FD gave us what no one asked for. Again.


So true if only Frontier would support FULLSCREEN mode then you could interact with menus in VR and all those Third party apps, would also have to work in fullscreen mode too :eek:
 
I used it today with my VPN goodness instancing with a buddy from the USA. Held the first ever solid connection in Multi-crew ever. He made a nice 500,000cr. Considering I only make 990,000cr it wasn't too bad.
 
Looks like it. Instead of working to improve existing things FD gave us what no one asked for. Again.

Sorry, but in the early days people were badgering to have the ability to be starship commander to a crew of humans. The problem is what has been implemented is not what everyone has imagined it would be. Frontier designed what they thought would be the most fun to play (drop in/drop out combat) in the initial iteration. Will it be fleshed out? Possibly but I am no Mystic Meg.
 
Yesterday I joined random MC as gunner in Imperial Cutter and I must say how ugly this ship was inside. On the sides was strange blue circles which looks like added randomly. The smooth edges was glitchy. Really bad experience, much worse than MC in Fed Corvette.

Whats more, I spend 20 minutes in traveling via FSD. This was extremely boring. Frontier should add more activities to MC, and Space Legs module which will allow to walking around during long boring hauls. It is sad that MC is based around telepresence rather than fully physical sharing of ship with your friends.
 
This weekend, while working for one of the bounty huning CGs, i opened my ship for MC. Flying in Möbius i didn't worry so much about who would join, as people in Möbius generally have good manners and don't cause trouble.
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After a while somebody joined so both my fighters were out there to help. Flying with two fighters, one of them NPC controled and the other one by another player, was fun. (Would the FGS have more seats, i'd even like to have both fighters flown by other players. )
Mind you, i don't bring turrets on any my ships. I tried the gunnery role for a while with a friend, but no matter which ship and who took helm and gunner role, it always was disappointing. Each of us very much felt that he just had half a ship available, without gaining something. But ship launched fighters give everybody a ship, and the small fighters are great fun to use. So they are the one redeeming feature of multicrew.
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That being said, the MC session this weekend showed one other big letdown: once again the new content was created without already taking existing content into account. While my crew member got the money from the bounties, he got it right away after leaving the multicrew session and didn't get any vouchers. So he got zero contribution to the community goal.
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I am aware that the "cash right now" can be preferable in many situations. It savey you from having to travel for ages to turn in bounty vouchers, as the ship you joined was on the other end of the galaxy. (Sure you could go to the next anarchy system to turn them in, but that comes with a loss again... ) So wouldn't there be CGs, the implementation would be fine, but if you want to participate in CGs, it's very much "bring your own ship", with multicrew being no alternative.
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It would be much better if somebody joining MC would also get the vouchers. As a bonus when leaving MC there could be a screen which allows him to sell them right away if he chooses to do so. This change would turn MC into a tool to be used at CGs, making it much more attractive and hopefully resulting it in being used more. After all, i am not surprised that people currently don't use it much if some mechanics in game work against it.
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