Multicrew mining experience

[Karlos Ploryman]

Hello commanders,

so yesterday I gave a try to multicrew mining... we were in a pristine ring, High RES... as a griefing / joker precaution I disabled SCB and Heatsink modules.

I thought it would go like this:
* a player in a fighter flying around, defending me when necessary, stealing kills from cops in "spare time"
* a player in gunner role
** firing prospectors on nearest rocks, actively helping with "next rock to mine" decision
** firing collectors as needed
** firing mining laser turrets when needed
** occasionally "in spare time" scan attacking NPCs with KillWarrantScanner
* at least some brief communication between players



What really happened:
- no comms from them at all except initial "Hi"

- player in the fighter actually did nothing, except spectating :/

- player in gunner role
-- didnt fire a single prospector, athough I asked him to do so several times in the chat
-- attempted to use mining lasers, but he was shooting at low value rock without prospector attached to it ?:/?

- alltogether they were totally useless

- both left the session without saying goodbye or thank you or friend request or ... anything


... I find mining, defending myself and doing the whole micromanagement stuff much more effective when I do it all by myself



What surprised me:
- for HELM Its impossible to keep firegroups with prospector limpets ... or I do not know how to do it? Its utterly stupid, especially when your crew members do not know what they are doing (or are there only to annoy you)

- for HELM Its impossible to "open only one MC socket" (when I want only one crew member on board) ... or I do not know how to do it?

- refinery management is still solely on HELMs shoulders... due to lack of automatic filtering of unwanted cheap materials/rock chunks as a function of the refinery itself, HELM still has to do it manually and can not authorize crew members

- after the player from the fighter disconnected, I was unable to order the fighter to dock ? The option in orders tab was inactive... I shot it down to "reset" and be able to deploy it later with my NPC crewmember



Do you - more multicrew experienced commanders - have any suggestions for me to enjoy this feature better next time?

Can you answer these questions?

* How to enable only one multicrew slot? How to disable the second multicrew slot?
* when there is a player in the gunner role, how can a HELM keep the control of prospector limpets (have them in a active firegroup)?
* is it possible for the HELM to lock / disable gunner role altogether?
* is there a thread, which would summarize and explain MC features - tutorial for multicrew (the Frontier video really disappointed me, its not detailed enough)? I can not find anything




Thank you in advance, fly safe commanders! Karlos

 

[Aashenfox]

And people continue to complain that 'robots steal our jobs, mkay'. Well, when humans perform like that, it's no surprise!

I'm curious, you distributed almost all duties relating to the actual mining to your crew, what were you doing all this time?

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

I always wondered how MC mining would be, but never found an open ship ingame. Maybe those two were new to multicrew. Befriend me ingame (CMDR same as Forum Name) and maybe we can make a productive MC-mining session sometime

And yes although I'm quite often in multicrew, I have no answer to your questions. I join you on your wait for answers

 

[Dad Rock]

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I have to say that's not what I encountered at all, then again I enabled multi-crew whilst mining in my Type-9. Crew members were usually far chattier when I enabled voice comms and we'd all have a good chat over how spacious the inside of the Type-9 is. Most had never flown in one before, so it was an experience for them.

To answer your questions:

1. I don't think you can enable/disable one multi-crew slot only. At least when you are inviting crew members, rather than adding a friend.
2. As for retaining control, I might be wrong, but I found this to be a bit random as to which role gets which modules to control. Other Commanders might know better.
3. You should be able to disable the modules from the right panel, as it's only the fire groups which are assigned to the other crew member.
4. My suggestion to learn how to multi-crew effectively and learn the ropes is to team up with friends first. We had to mess around with different controls and roles for about an hour before we got the hang of it - voice comms really helped, as having to type everything whilst flying is a pain in the backside

One last bit of advice. If you're going for multi-crew, go for hazardous REZ sights. The more dangerous, the better and more interesting for your crew members. Another top tip is investing in a two-fighter hangar, if your ship supports it. You can then focus on mining operations and your crew members can wrack up kill bounties for Wanted NPCs, and also defend you should one of them attack.

Stick with it, multi-crew mining was a great way for me to meet and engage with other players.

Fly safe, Commander o7

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

And people continue to complain that 'robots steal our jobs, mkay'. Well, when humans perform like that, it's no surprise!

I'm curious, you distributed almost all duties relating to the actual mining to your crew, what were you doing all this time?

Well I was doing the HELMy piloty thingy ;-)

When needed, I defended ourselves (I have only gimballed weapons now, so gunner is useless in this regard), I issued orders to my NPC pilot in the fighter, evaded enemy fire, hid from enemy fire behind rocks, positioned the ship to fire the prospectors and mining lasers at rocks...

...and I was wandering why those guys in the extra chairs are not doing their thing... ;-)


Mining in a RES can be sometimes tricky, one has to be carefull... Once you have the goodies in your hold, the NPC pirates can easily overwhelm you - even with all the cops around...


Karlos

 

[Xious]

Very constructive post OP. Too bad that it didn't go as planned but still... a well done experiment.

Obviously, you're going to need to hand pick your crew next time. That's what I do. If you invite only one crew member, that's all you'll get.

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I have to say that's not what I encountered at all, then again I enabled multi-crew whilst mining in my Type-9. Crew members were usually far chattier when I enabled voice comms and we'd all have a good chat over how spacious the inside of the Type-9 is. Most had never flown in one before, so it was an experience for them.

To answer your questions:

1. I don't think you can enable/disable one multi-crew slot only. At least when you are inviting crew members, rather than adding a friend.
2. As for retaining control, I might be wrong, but I found this to be a bit random as to which role gets which modules to control. Other Commanders might know better.
3. You should be able to disable the modules from the right panel, as it's only the fire groups which are assigned to the other crew member.
4. My suggestion to learn how to multi-crew effectively and learn the ropes is to team up with friends first. We had to mess around with different controls and roles for about an hour before we got the hang of it - voice comms really helped, as having to type everything whilst flying is a pain in the backside

One last bit of advice. If you're going for multi-crew, go for hazardous REZ sights. The more dangerous, the better and more interesting for your crew members. Another top tip is investing in a two-fighter hangar, if your ship supports it. You can then focus on mining operations and your crew members can wrack up kill bounties for Wanted NPCs, and also defend you should one of them attack.

Stick with it, multi-crew mining was a great way for me to meet and engage with other players.

Fly safe, Commander o7

Hi Baba_Ghannoush,

mining in a RES can be tricky, NPC pirates in HazRES might easily become too big a piece for us to chew... maybe later with more efficient and experienced crew...

Voice comms might help, but I had a session, where some player had something fishy with his microphone and it was terrible...

I do allready have a two-fighter hangar fitted. One of my fighters was manned by my NPC crew (I wanted to keep the possibility to issue orders to her)


I will "stick with it", as I am eager to enjoy this multicrew thing a lot...

Cheers, Karlos

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

Very constructive post OP. Too bad that it didn't go as planned but still... a well done experiment.

Obviously, you're going to need to hand pick your crew next time. That's what I do. If you invite only one crew member, that's all you'll get.

Hi Xious, thank you ;-)

Your suggestion means, that I must be a friend with the player beforehand, which was not my case... Will try your way.

Karlos

 

[YinYin]

* How to enable only one multicrew slot? How to disable the second multicrew slot?

You should be able stop searching for multi crew after the first commander has joined (exiting the queue). Alternatively go with a smaller ship.

* when there is a player in the gunner role, how can a HELM keep the control of prospector limpets (have them in a active firegroup)?
* is it possible for the HELM to lock / disable gunner role altogether?

There is a new setting in the right panel for each role during multi crew.
You can restrict the gunner to turrets or disable the fighter.

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

You should be able stop searching for multi crew after the first commander has joined (exiting the queue). Alternatively go with a smaller ship.
There is a new setting in the right panel for each role during multi crew.
You can restrict the gunner to turrets or disable gunner/fighter.

Hello commander YinYin,

thank you for that info, I was searching through the right panel options and could not see anything like that, but it was in the heat of a battle, so I might have missed it...

Will give it a better look tommorow...

Karlos

 

[Xious]

There is an Elite Discord channel. You may be able to find a crew there... in the "Looking-for-Wing" channel.

 

[Kelfaur]

We did try some multicrew mining but honestly we found it a bit boring. We found mining in a wing quite fun and profitable even as 4 players. We had a 2 pythons prospecting and defending against NPCs, a Cutter and a T9 kitted with racks, collectors and a refinery. Makes short work of mining having 1 or 2 ships scouting ahead for good yield asteroids whilst the other ships are mining.

 

[Terry Bruge-Hiplo]

The flip-side is, when you and your crew have a plan and know what you're doing, it's not financially rewarding for the mining crew either.

Cargo gets marked as 'Haulage' and 'Stolen'. Why not 'Refinery' or something, so when it's sold, the crew get a share? Refinery operator would also be a great role!

And people continue to complain that 'robots steal our jobs, mkay'. Well, when humans perform like that, it's no surprise!

I'm curious, you distributed almost all duties relating to the actual mining to your crew, what were you doing all this time?

+1 for having Holmes Data as your avatar while saying that

 

[YinYin]

Cargo gets marked as 'Haulage' and 'Stolen'. Why not 'Refinery' or something, so when it's sold, the crew get a share? Refinery operator would also be a great role!

Crew gets the same 5% trade dividends as wing members on sold goods, regardless of how cargo is marked.

Problem is you cannot retrieve these via interstellar factors. Still have several of those 22k ly away.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Hello commanders,

so yesterday I gave a try to multicrew mining... we were in a pristine ring, High RES... as a griefing / joker precaution I disabled SCB and Heatsink modules.

I thought it would go like this:
* a player in a fighter flying around, defending me when necessary, stealing kills from cops in "spare time"
* a player in gunner role
** firing prospectors on nearest rocks, actively helping with "next rock to mine" decision
** firing collectors as needed
** firing mining laser turrets when needed
** occasionally "in spare time" scan attacking NPCs with KillWarrantScanner
* at least some brief communication between players



What really happened:
- no comms from them at all except initial "Hi"

- player in the fighter actually did nothing, except spectating :/

- player in gunner role
-- didnt fire a single prospector, athough I asked him to do so several times in the chat
-- attempted to use mining lasers, but he was shooting at low value rock without prospector attached to it ?:/?

- alltogether they were totally useless

- both left the session without saying goodbye or thank you or friend request or ... anything


... I find mining, defending myself and doing the whole micromanagement stuff much more effective when I do it all by myself



What surprised me:
- for HELM Its impossible to keep firegroups with prospector limpets ... or I do not know how to do it? Its utterly stupid, especially when your crew members do not know what they are doing (or are there only to annoy you)

- for HELM Its impossible to "open only one MC socket" (when I want only one crew member on board) ... or I do not know how to do it?

- refinery management is still solely on HELMs shoulders... due to lack of automatic filtering of unwanted cheap materials/rock chunks as a function of the refinery itself, HELM still has to do it manually and can not authorize crew members

- after the player from the fighter disconnected, I was unable to order the fighter to dock ? The option in orders tab was inactive... I shot it down to "reset" and be able to deploy it later with my NPC crewmember



Do you - more multicrew experienced commanders - have any suggestions for me to enjoy this feature better next time?

Can you answer these questions?

* How to enable only one multicrew slot? How to disable the second multicrew slot?
* when there is a player in the gunner role, how can a HELM keep the control of prospector limpets (have them in a active firegroup)?
* is it possible for the HELM to lock / disable gunner role altogether?
* is there a thread, which would summarize and explain MC features - tutorial for multicrew (the Frontier video really disappointed me, its not detailed enough)? I can not find anything




Thank you in advance, fly safe commanders! Karlos

Explanations are not the Elite: Way.
We're supposed to struggle and figure things out, watch live streams and play tutorials.

But here's my take on Multi-crew mining:

Much like playing in Open, just don't do it. You'll always have a much better time with people you know, or at least virtually know.
I run MC ships regularly, but I never just throw my doors open and say "come on in". I invite people - people I know, people I trust, or people I am teaching to know their white dwarfs from the black holes.
I never have any major problems - yes, sometimes a new commander learning to shoot may tag the wrong ship, or not let a scan complete first - but I can deal with this and get us out of trouble before things turn ugly.
And in the end, they've all turned out to be pretty competent pilots.

 

[yolomcbobbinz]

I tried multi crew mining with randoms only one joined all he did was put his pip in engines and went afk I'd try it with friends, I had the intentions to only fire prospectors and manage refinery while he did the mining, deploying collectors that went a lot better

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

Hello commanders,

I just wanted to soften my rage towards those poor souls, who have joined my crew on the described occasion in the first post of this thread...


My experience from the "Crew member" position follows:

I was connected to a guy in Anaconda, while he was blasting through a High Intensity Conflict Zone. I jumped into the fighter and got disintegrated in less then 30 seconds with missiles from the numerous hostile NPCs. OK I said to myself, evade more, be more carefull... I wrote "sorry for being so lame" into the chat...

Another fighter, 35 seconds.
Another fighter, WOW over a minute!
Another fighter, 25 seconds.
Another fighter.... you get it, not very long indeed...

When we ran out of fighters, the HELM was low on SCBs and shield strength and he went to restock. I apoligized once more in chat and said that he has a fine ship. Then I disconnected.


I felt terrible, as I didn`t help him much / at all... Maybe I helped a little bit, because I was a target for NPC fire instead of his Conda...

Damn: a CZ in a fighter is really difficult.



Karlos