Who bothers using Multicrew or NPCs these days? It seems like most people barely even remember they exist, which is a shame given they could offer a lot of really fun opportunities. I'd love to roleplay as captain of a ship like Star Trek, giving orders and manning the stations
In the ending hours of Cocijo, we really saw some of the great opportunities Multicrew offers; some of the streamers like RainmanGames were actively multicrewing in as many people as possible so they could get the titan rewards, and it was a great time for all!
However, there are some key issues holding Multicrew and NPCs back from their full potential, most notably being Turreted weapons, NPC crewmates, and connection mechanics.
I'd love to see them used more broadly, in ways that benefit both players AND FDev!
1: Change how Turreted weapons function in Fixed vs Turreted mode.
Right now, turreted weapons do about 50% damage compared to fixed weapons. This means that they often fail to reach important damage breakpoints compared to their fixed or even gimballed variants, like being able to overpower Shield Cell Banks. They are only really useful in rare cases, like on an AFK t10. As a consequence, players rarely carry turreted weapons, which means players rarely have any reason to multicrew in a crewmate.
What I'd love to see is the reason WHY turreted weapons do less damage changed. At present, they just do less damage; I would like to see them changed so that they have the same DPS as fixed weapons, but the turreted firing controller only fires about half the time! This makes a smidge more sense, has the same RESULT as presently(50% damage in turreted mode), but allows players to swap to fixed mode to get full fixed weapon damage - with a slightly increased power and credit cost, of course. This makes players way more likely to carry turreted weapons in the first place, so Multicrew becomes something they at least COULD do.
2: Allow NPCs to be assigned to a turreted weapon.
Then, we allow NPCs to enhance the turreted weapon performance slightly, basically just increasing the amount of time the weapons towards its maximum. Not hugely, but maybe something from 10% at novice to 20% at Elite. Basically, it should just basically pay for the price of the NPC, having them around even when not flying a fighter. These NPCs would, of course, physically appear in the multicrew seat when active! Since a given NPC would only be assigned to a single turreted weapon, this would justify having a full complement of three NPCs to boost three turreted weapons at once, if desired.
3: Players can uncap the fire rate fully.
But if a Player takes control, they can use the gunner mode to give full fixed performance even while in turreted mode!
This encourages players to carry turreted weapons, to have NPCs, but without making it 'mandatory'. You could just as easily justify carrying turreted in a Cobra Mk5 as in a Type 10, and make having a multicrewmate join all the more viable!
4: NPC cosmetics.
If NPCs are going to be visible in your cockpit, they really should be able to look nice! Let us assign them cosmetics that we haven't earned personally(like rank cosmetics and so on). However, we should only have one copy of a given cosmetic, so if you want to have three crewmates with matching outfits, you'll need to buy the same outfit three times. This should, however, come with an increasing discount; like 33% the first time, then 50%, then 75%, or something like that. Everyone wins.
5: Multicrew Queue
At the moment, all you can really do is open your ship to multicrew and hope someone checks to see if you're available. It would be really nice to also be able to queue to JOIN another ship, so things work from both ends. You put yourself in queue, and if someone opens themselves up for Multicrew, you get a popup message asking you if you'd like to join.
6: Rejoin Session
At the moment, if a Multicrew connection fails, you have to rejoin entirely manually. If you were physically multicrewed in, you get forcibly ejected to the last safe point, which could be hundreds of lightyears away!
If you lose connection, there should be a 'rejoin' button, which you can press as many times as you want. A player should be able to play the game fully in multicrew, always waiting for the host player to log in, then joining their ship and flying their fighter/running their turrets.
The disconnect button should be renamed 'escape pod', for immersion, and it would eject you back to the nearest safe point.
These changes would go a long ways towards making Multicrew and Crewmates way more enjoyable and appealing across the board!
What do you think? I think the turreted weapon change may be the most controversial, but I don't think many people use turreted weapons at the moment so I don't think it'd be a dealbreaker!
In the ending hours of Cocijo, we really saw some of the great opportunities Multicrew offers; some of the streamers like RainmanGames were actively multicrewing in as many people as possible so they could get the titan rewards, and it was a great time for all!
However, there are some key issues holding Multicrew and NPCs back from their full potential, most notably being Turreted weapons, NPC crewmates, and connection mechanics.
I'd love to see them used more broadly, in ways that benefit both players AND FDev!
1: Change how Turreted weapons function in Fixed vs Turreted mode.
Right now, turreted weapons do about 50% damage compared to fixed weapons. This means that they often fail to reach important damage breakpoints compared to their fixed or even gimballed variants, like being able to overpower Shield Cell Banks. They are only really useful in rare cases, like on an AFK t10. As a consequence, players rarely carry turreted weapons, which means players rarely have any reason to multicrew in a crewmate.
What I'd love to see is the reason WHY turreted weapons do less damage changed. At present, they just do less damage; I would like to see them changed so that they have the same DPS as fixed weapons, but the turreted firing controller only fires about half the time! This makes a smidge more sense, has the same RESULT as presently(50% damage in turreted mode), but allows players to swap to fixed mode to get full fixed weapon damage - with a slightly increased power and credit cost, of course. This makes players way more likely to carry turreted weapons in the first place, so Multicrew becomes something they at least COULD do.
2: Allow NPCs to be assigned to a turreted weapon.
Then, we allow NPCs to enhance the turreted weapon performance slightly, basically just increasing the amount of time the weapons towards its maximum. Not hugely, but maybe something from 10% at novice to 20% at Elite. Basically, it should just basically pay for the price of the NPC, having them around even when not flying a fighter. These NPCs would, of course, physically appear in the multicrew seat when active! Since a given NPC would only be assigned to a single turreted weapon, this would justify having a full complement of three NPCs to boost three turreted weapons at once, if desired.
3: Players can uncap the fire rate fully.
But if a Player takes control, they can use the gunner mode to give full fixed performance even while in turreted mode!
This encourages players to carry turreted weapons, to have NPCs, but without making it 'mandatory'. You could just as easily justify carrying turreted in a Cobra Mk5 as in a Type 10, and make having a multicrewmate join all the more viable!
4: NPC cosmetics.
If NPCs are going to be visible in your cockpit, they really should be able to look nice! Let us assign them cosmetics that we haven't earned personally(like rank cosmetics and so on). However, we should only have one copy of a given cosmetic, so if you want to have three crewmates with matching outfits, you'll need to buy the same outfit three times. This should, however, come with an increasing discount; like 33% the first time, then 50%, then 75%, or something like that. Everyone wins.
5: Multicrew Queue
At the moment, all you can really do is open your ship to multicrew and hope someone checks to see if you're available. It would be really nice to also be able to queue to JOIN another ship, so things work from both ends. You put yourself in queue, and if someone opens themselves up for Multicrew, you get a popup message asking you if you'd like to join.
6: Rejoin Session
At the moment, if a Multicrew connection fails, you have to rejoin entirely manually. If you were physically multicrewed in, you get forcibly ejected to the last safe point, which could be hundreds of lightyears away!
If you lose connection, there should be a 'rejoin' button, which you can press as many times as you want. A player should be able to play the game fully in multicrew, always waiting for the host player to log in, then joining their ship and flying their fighter/running their turrets.
The disconnect button should be renamed 'escape pod', for immersion, and it would eject you back to the nearest safe point.
These changes would go a long ways towards making Multicrew and Crewmates way more enjoyable and appealing across the board!
What do you think? I think the turreted weapon change may be the most controversial, but I don't think many people use turreted weapons at the moment so I don't think it'd be a dealbreaker!
