Muticrew to offer more than a battle assistant.

[C2306]

As it stands multicrew is garbage. Literally is a game mode in which I explain to new players "can't do that"..."or that".
So what can we do?
Sit in someone elses ship
Use the awkard turret cam
Use their SLF (this is the only good thing)

What I should have the ability to do.
Place contracts out that players can see via contracts board at stations (Job, prifit share% etc.)
Create ship roles plus privelages (give players access to helm, turret, fighter, navigation)
Deploy SRV!!!!! and if I have more than 1 SRV, allow my crew to use them.
Allow me to use an SLF while I have crew (who would have helm permission...)

Current multicrew awesomeness!!:
Mining: Bring a friend with me, turreted mining equipment and a SLF. He can mine, he can defend from nothing and at the end make a very minor and "not worth it" trade dividend
Score 4/10 (he can do stuff..just nothing worthwhile)
Exploration: He can use the FSS, DSS and SLF.
He should be able to plot routes, join me on the planet in one of my 4 SRV's, take over the helm while I nap. Be jointly named as 1st to discover (I'd accept a 50/50 profit to be honest).
Score 0/10 (nothing in it for a crew)
Trading/Cargo: Best done in wings...no reason to multicrew
score 0/10
Xeno-exploration and research: see exploration
score 0/10
Xenowarfare: Turrets are a lot of hassle, I have no concept of his vision, nor does he have concept of mine...makes us sound like two old ladies fighting over the flavour of jam in our scones.
Bounty hunting/Combat: If you have an SLF multicrew pays off here, good fun and money.
Score 6/10 (lost 4 points due to turrets being not worthwhile)

It needs a change. It could make the game 10x more fun.
(I understand many of you may have an issue with handing over the helm, but this is 1. a permission, 2. a permission based upon your judgment)

 

[heathenlamb]

The Turret Cam is beyond terrible.

 

[Trotsky2112]

Multi-crew seems pointless. It has no function other than using things which are specifically designed to use it, and even those offer no great advantage. If you want an SLF, get a big ship with turrets and leave it pilotless. SLFs are the only reason I can see to use, not only multicrew, but crew members in general.

 

[Kissamies]

I've been doing a bit more multi-crew than usual lately and I've come to conclusion that perhaps the netcode is so bad that it's not really worth it to develop this feature further. There has been a lot of suggestions. In general, I think the modest ideas how to use it outside the pew pews and in supercruise are the best ones. For example:

• FSS scanning. Currently the crew can use FSS but only when the ship is in zero throttle. It seems like the movement is a problem. One suggestion to fix is to take a snapshot when a crewmember enters FSS so he can have a static view to do his scanning.
• Using turret view to scan other ships to see if they are wanted or such. Minor thing, but it'd be one thing to do instead of just sitting there.
• Navigation. Crewmenbers should be able to select navigation targets and forward them to pilot as suggestions. They would show up on top of his nav panel.
• Power management. Turning individual modules on and off, perhaps having an extra option to over- or undecharge them. Of course this would be an advanced privilege job only available when pilot allows it.

 

[sandkid]

Multicrew should probably have first been built out as NPC-only. No, really, think about it.

If we scrapped multi-crew (even the SLF, which largely works thankfully) and instead developed a NPC crew system for those empty seats and roles, we'd perhaps designed a better system from the ground up. Then, with a better understanding of how a Ship's Commander (owner) would utilize the help of crew, building out multi-crew would be much more informed in terms of gameplay design as well as practicality.

Multi-crew is a really neat idea but it generally functions best on much more complex ships than what we fly. Fact is, there aren't enough hardpoints to justify splitting the commander into two roles of pilot and gunner. Elite doesn't have 'dog-fighting a la Star Wars' where a Millenium Falcon needs a pilot to focus on piloting. Maybe with atmosphere and more planet-side battles, but those don't exist currently and won't for some time. Exploration doesn't have a level of complexity to justify splitting the commander into pilot and scanner? Trading also does not need additional functionality - what would the pilot be doing (or gunner or anyone else for that matter) if the 'merchant' role was busy buying/selling goods?

The point being, multi-crew as a feature can't even exist unless the mechanics that justify role splitting exist first. As it stands, there are only two features in the game that justify splitting roles: the SLF (because you can't reasonably fly two ships simultaneously - hence NPC crew! What a concept.) and mining (pilot focuses on mining, gunner could focus on defending in non-SLF ships or alternative role controls limpets and refinery directly to increase overall efficiency).

This is why I advocate for NPC crew expansion: it would flesh out these features to where we better understand how roles can be split and fleshed out. Then, and only then, do you begin to build a multiplayer platform around those roles. Multi-crew literally puts the cart before the horse.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Multicrew should probably have first been built out as NPC-only. No, really, think about it.

That's pretty much what I have been advocating for ever since multicrew was announced - it should have been done as an expansion to existing NPC crew mechanics rather than yet another bolt-on mechanic. Get the content and mechanics into the game, get people using them, then allow players to fill the roles afterwards. It's completely unnecessary to have NPC crew and player crew as entirely independent systems within the game, when they are both attempting to achieve the exact same outcome - multiple people piloting a single ship.

To make matters worse, FD are deliberately releasing content that requires the use of multicrew gunners to be useful, when there's no good reason why the recent batches of turrets can't be controlled by the ship computer or our NPC crew. Let's be honest here, how many people use the turreted mining lasers with their friends?

From an extra content that requires multiple crew perspective, there's already glimpses of more things to do. SLFs are woefully underutilised as they are currently exclusively combat, when realistically they can be retooled for mining and exploration with relatively few additional assets (AI, on the other hand...), on top of current net code limiting us to a single SLF at a time, which together combine to make only a single crew member usable at a time and only in a narrow view of activities. Similarly, SRVs offer a great potential avenue for multiple crew members as some crew would operate the SRVs, while others would remain in the ship and SLFs to provide fire support. Even just in terms of operating secondary vehicles, a large ship could quite feasibly employ 8 people (whether player or NPC crew) during ground operations.