Lore question about ships

[Zynniah]

All the wiki material and information about the ships in ED list very small number of "crew". Like the Anaconda having a crew of just 3 people. Given this ship is just over 30m tall and just under 160m long, that seams to be a very small crew for a ship that size. The only way it makes sense to me is to interpret it as a skeleton crew number or (give we fly them solo in the game), a bridge crew number. Are there any official min/max number of people (excluding the use of internals for passenger cabins)?

The fighter bays also confuse me. It appears that you get 1 or 2 bays with fighter rebuilds. And in terms of games, you can only launch 1 fighter per bay, meaning only 2 fighters. Is that just game mechanics? For a story, it would make more sense to me that you would have a bay with 8 fighters and launch all 8 to fight as a wing to protect your ship in battle. But that would mean having crew quarters for an additional 8 people.

I can accept that, for the Anaconda (which was originally an armed freighter), an actual crew of 3 or 4 might be appropriate as most of the ship is taken up by cargo racks. But in its role as a small combat ship, I would think more people would make sense. And for the Federal Corvette (which is a similar size), a larger total crew would make much more sense to me (along with actually being able to launch a full wing of fighters if it is capable of launching any).

 

[madbilly]

In Frontier: First Encounters ships required much more crew. I think the lore argument in ED is that many systems are automated. AFAIK the in-game numbers are the official numbers, there's nothing else.

I'm not sure what you mean about fighter bays but I think each bay is only physically big enough for 1 fighter.

In the official fiction there's a mix. In Legacy an Anaconda is piloted by 1 person; in AHTW a Lanner (an FFE ship, not in ED) is crewed by 5-6 (I forget exactly).

 

[CMDR Robb Macruz]

probably most ships use automation be it a computer similar to The Millenium Falcon and other vessels in Star Wars with only needing humans for critical tasks like well controlling and monitoring everything, I haven't read any Elite books, so I don't know if robots are commonplace in universe, if they are, then You could have only the pilot with robots handing everything else

 

[damon8r351]

Ships, especially the larger ones, are very obviously meant to be crewed by more than just the player characters. As we all know, there are certain areas of the game that haven't been developed but there are certain provisions in place for when, or more realistically if, they do. One notable example is the additional crew seats that were in place before Multicrew was implemented. If you look toward the rear of the bridge on a Type-7, there are very obviously unmanned crew stations there; likely flight engineer and loadmaster positions, being that it's a cargo vessel. Because Fdev hasn't developed NPC crew members, these crew stations sit empty.

 

[aspiringexpatriate]

Essentially, the lore-bend is that Pilots' Federation upgrades to software allow ships that should require crews of 2-25 can be fully controlled by 1 CMDR. Wanted has an FdL crewed by 1, and a Cutter with a crew of 6. Angel Rose's Cobra Mk III has an engineer onboard, but not in the cockpit. I believe Legacy, which has 1 CMDR fully controlling an missile boat Anaconda, also has a fully crewed Anaconda in the local defence force with a crew of 25.

As for the fighter bays, it is both a gameplay mechanic and a hard physical limit. Anacondas can't support more than two fighters at once, there simply isn't enough room in the hangar bay. The 'builds' are unfinished ship parts that are assembled and activated in a minute after it becomes clear the previous fighter isn't returning to the hangar. When the Wiki lists crew, that means crew chairs onboard the ship, and thus the max PF Commander (human) crew you can have. Multi-crew does allow some benefits from solo piloting, but those are limited to deploying two fighters or having your turrets be manually aimed. There is no navigation, engineering, or SRV access for 'tele-presence' multi-crew members.

Many commanders have a head-canon of a ship full of crew who travel with them, and there's nothing wrong with this. Simply don't ever expect them to be 'enabled' in game. Your NPC fighter pilots disappear if they are active and your ship explodes. FDev has said they die, but my head-canon refuses to believe this. Personally, I believe that these crewmen are hired at Harmless-Expert Combat Rank, and level up while taking 2-14% of your paycheck. When you eventually do explode, they swear off ever flying with you again, and refuse any entreaties. They've got a small fortune, and they don't need to deal with your sorry piloting skills again.