If I've understood correctly... You can't use NPCs as crew. My first thought after realizing that was "So, PvPers are going to buy multiple accounts to get more pips".
The game can be bought for pretty low price on sales and 2 pips is A LOT.
So, question to people with multiple accounts: Is it possible to run 2 clients at once?
Perhaps in the case of the gunner pips.
It should be (or might already be), you only receive +1 pip if :
- The ship has at least one turret, after all gunner can't do nowt if no turrets, and it would literally a free pip for nothing
- Turrets stay under manual control
Although yes, the above would still be "exploitable" by just adding a single small turret on a useless hardpoint, and PvPers being PvPers, could still risk becoming a meta.
Lol with this though, you know this is one of those things no PvPer will talk about, because they will just have a spare account and assume no-one else will do this, don't want to "spread the word" as it were.
Like the premium ammo bug where PvPers weren't reporting it because they felt it gave them a "hidden" advantage so not in their interest to discuss/report it.
Or maybe I am just a cynic.