When I first heard of multicrew I thought, “that would be awesome!” I thought of something along the lines of Star Trek. The current implementation is progress, but I have some suggestions on ways to expand the roles:
1) allow the ship owner to designate modules / fire groups that the crew member controls.
2) Allow us to have an “engineer / navigator” or allow the gunner to switch dynamically between the roles. This person could dynamically control modules.
Example: crew member could actively repair modules so the pilot doesn’t need to divert his/her attention.
Or imagine making a stealth smuggling run / silent running, where the crew member could be deactivating all modules, enabling thrusters for brief periods to allow manuvering, and generally controlling power management.
This person could also be responsible for navigation. Imagine trading in a multicrew, where the navigator is actively plotting next trade routes, (or just general destination if pirating/bounty/exploring). Say your interdicted, and shields are down—crew member can plot a Expeditious escape, while the pilot is evading / fighting.
Also, allow control of SRVs. Maybe your looking for engineer materials. Both players should be able to jump in a SRV and start collecting.
Per above, the gunner / second mate could share control things like landing gear/scoop/lights / etc.
While I think it would be annoying for them to have exclusive control (what if they don’t know what they are doing) if both players share control, you can start to learn if they are trustworthy, and start to relinquish more and more control of secondary systems.
Basically, I feel that the ship owner should be able to carve out any ship functions / modules / navigation/plotting etc they want, and assign control (Ie “helm/gunner/shared” ), and crew mates can act accordingly. If I have 1 crew member, maybe I want them to be the gunner, but also be able to plot my next course, or sort through ships in a haz-Rez to identify threats and targets, etc.
I feel there is a lot of potential here if frontier just “opens up” control to us. In other words, build the tools that allow US to control and designate any function of the ship (navigation/plotting/utilities/weapons/pip management/module management and repair / etc) to any crew member we want.
Example: you could create a crew designation screen that has a list of all permissions:
Flight controls - helm
Weapons - helm / gunner
Weapon 1 helm
Weapon 2 helm or gunner
Weapon 3 gunner
Utilities helm / gunner
Utility 1 - helm or gunner
Utility 2 - helm or gunner
Utility 3 - helm or gunner
Modules helm or gunner
Thrusters “”
FSD “”
Shields “”
Ship functions helm / gunner
Landing gear - both
Lights - both
Scoop - both
Silent running - helm only
Navigation
Galaxy map / plotting - both
System map / plotting - both
Set destination - both
...
Etc. ideally you could name the crew member role something generic “captain”, “first officer” “second officer” then assign roles. When crew members join, then get a break down of their permissions and responsibilities.
These permissions and responsibilities could be dynamic. So if there was a very capable first officer, the captain may decide to designate more responsibility to him/her on the fly. Likewise, if said player was underwhelmed with his role, or felt he needed further access to help they could say, “could you give permission for pip management to me so I can help you” or the captain might say, “planning a silent run. Going to give you module control. Keep us running as cold as possible”
This would not be complicated to program (simple permission system) and would allow amazing diversity / complexity, and amazingly fun interactions.
Please Frontier!
Erik
1) allow the ship owner to designate modules / fire groups that the crew member controls.
2) Allow us to have an “engineer / navigator” or allow the gunner to switch dynamically between the roles. This person could dynamically control modules.
Example: crew member could actively repair modules so the pilot doesn’t need to divert his/her attention.
Or imagine making a stealth smuggling run / silent running, where the crew member could be deactivating all modules, enabling thrusters for brief periods to allow manuvering, and generally controlling power management.
This person could also be responsible for navigation. Imagine trading in a multicrew, where the navigator is actively plotting next trade routes, (or just general destination if pirating/bounty/exploring). Say your interdicted, and shields are down—crew member can plot a Expeditious escape, while the pilot is evading / fighting.
Also, allow control of SRVs. Maybe your looking for engineer materials. Both players should be able to jump in a SRV and start collecting.
Per above, the gunner / second mate could share control things like landing gear/scoop/lights / etc.
While I think it would be annoying for them to have exclusive control (what if they don’t know what they are doing) if both players share control, you can start to learn if they are trustworthy, and start to relinquish more and more control of secondary systems.
Basically, I feel that the ship owner should be able to carve out any ship functions / modules / navigation/plotting etc they want, and assign control (Ie “helm/gunner/shared” ), and crew mates can act accordingly. If I have 1 crew member, maybe I want them to be the gunner, but also be able to plot my next course, or sort through ships in a haz-Rez to identify threats and targets, etc.
I feel there is a lot of potential here if frontier just “opens up” control to us. In other words, build the tools that allow US to control and designate any function of the ship (navigation/plotting/utilities/weapons/pip management/module management and repair / etc) to any crew member we want.
Example: you could create a crew designation screen that has a list of all permissions:
Flight controls - helm
Weapons - helm / gunner
Weapon 1 helm
Weapon 2 helm or gunner
Weapon 3 gunner
Utilities helm / gunner
Utility 1 - helm or gunner
Utility 2 - helm or gunner
Utility 3 - helm or gunner
Modules helm or gunner
Thrusters “”
FSD “”
Shields “”
Ship functions helm / gunner
Landing gear - both
Lights - both
Scoop - both
Silent running - helm only
Navigation
Galaxy map / plotting - both
System map / plotting - both
Set destination - both
...
Etc. ideally you could name the crew member role something generic “captain”, “first officer” “second officer” then assign roles. When crew members join, then get a break down of their permissions and responsibilities.
These permissions and responsibilities could be dynamic. So if there was a very capable first officer, the captain may decide to designate more responsibility to him/her on the fly. Likewise, if said player was underwhelmed with his role, or felt he needed further access to help they could say, “could you give permission for pip management to me so I can help you” or the captain might say, “planning a silent run. Going to give you module control. Keep us running as cold as possible”
This would not be complicated to program (simple permission system) and would allow amazing diversity / complexity, and amazingly fun interactions.
Please Frontier!
Erik