But this is what literally happens (happened) in real life. Most ship owners throughout the ages started out as crewmates on someone else's ship, until they had saved enough to buy their own vessel. Out of all the various handwavium elements of multicrew, that is the only halfway realistic one.
I can imagine there being many "mentor" cmdrs who get recommended to noobs as someone trustworthy who will teach them the ropes and earn them their first few million, and generations of pilots saying "yeah I first flew under so and so, taught me everything I know"
Yes, but that is just his point. The crewmember is not really there.... The Multicrew module should have come after the ability to walk around on stations. Something akin to Star Citizen. You walk around on the station, join the ship and do the mission together. Or was David Braben's vision of the Elite universe anno 3303, ditched in favor of sales figures for the consoles?
At this moment your avatar is your ship. You are bound to it and you cannot dock, get out of your ship, walk up to a new ship which advertises the need for crew and get in. The problem is here that this telepresence, and the general way multicrew now works only has negative perks for the person who owns the ship and the 'virtual crewmember' just hops out and finds better 'work' elsewhere whithout risking ship nor rep.
Multicrew works best with fighters, and the host commander manning the ship and the turret guns. I don't really care for the gunner role since it hasn't been implemented according to the lore (1st person view). Also whenever people join my ship, I brief them that I want to keep control over the guns. They can use the fighters as they wish. If they don't comply, I eject them. Simple. Most of the time the gunner is idle leaving me a defenseless sitting duck, as long as the crew is not paying for my repairs, the guns will remain under my control.
IMHO Telepresence and multicrew the way it's been implemented currently belongs in CQC, where the distance you are from each other does not matter and will not cause any game breaking brainfarts.
In-game multicrew should be without perks (no extra pips) and your ship should physically be where your host's ship is landed. Meaning no joining ships while they are not docked at the same station. The BBS could (just like it does at the moment with NPC crew and with Passenger Missions) list a number of commanders which could join your ship in that station and in neighboring systems. Then if the host ship gets destroyed with crew on board an (invisible) escape pod will bring you back to the station you started from. Identical mechanic for disconnects. You can then get into your ship that you left behind or join another ship as a crewmember. Should your host not land at the departing station. No biggie, via a sort of PIP boy or a BBS on the station, you could recall your ship, or buy a sidewinder and hop back from where you came, or get into another ship as a passenger, or hire a ship as a passenger with the hard earned cash you made. Or board a mega ship, and get transfered instantaneousy to your destination. It's your choice to play then. Now a lot is been pushed down our throats without even considering the lore.
Maybe this doesn't float too well with people who can only afford to play ED for half an hour a day and need the quick adrenaline rush and join a massive cutter for the sake of manning its fighter for fifteen minutes without waiting for it to arrive at the station they are docked at. CQC definitely needs some love and more environments and mission types, it doesn't need transposing into the main game.
However for us who play the game 'as intended' I would prefer to be able to turn telepresence off and wait for a correct implementation of multicrew somewhere down the line, where commanders find you and enter through the access door of your ship instead of this 'star trek' mumbo jumbo teleport mechanic.
5 Questions:
1) Is there going to be any multicrew implementation for multiple onboard SRV's ? 2) And if not... why not ?
3) Will we get the ability as captain of the ship to set up fire groups for the gunner. Meaning I would like have the possibility in the 'fire group' screen to set the following options (or something along those lines).
e.g.
(1) primary fire
(2) secondary fire
(G) Gunner control
4) Will I be able to hire NPC wingmen or has this option been vertically classified?
5) Will you make a 'Baby Groot' bobblehead when Guardians of the galaxy 2 comes out in the summer ?