Pitch to FDev : Deeper Crew system

[professorOfLies]

As recommended, I am reposting this from /r/EliteDangerous:

With the rumors / plans for bigger and bigger ships coming to the game, it got me thinking about how lonely it can be in deep space. I enjoy having crew on ships that have a fighter bay (loving my Krait) but I was thinking it would be cool to be able to hire additional crew to help with other things in the ship.

Not everyone would want crew so instead of making it a requirement, give a bonus for those who want a crew. Since crew take a percentage of your earnings (say ~10%) it would be cool if they could be hired to give about a 15% bonus to certain effects. For instance:

Engineering crew: Can auto repair some damage modules, faster power rerouting when you re-assign your pips. Faster recovery from overheating.
Research/scanner crew: Faster, more precise scanning. auto limpet interactions
Gunner: increase accuracy of turret weapons / faster lock on for missiles
Co-pilot: Ship can better handle itself when you are piloting an SRV/Fighter

With more crew, this could also open up another means of mission discovery:

Crew member learns of a deal at a station while docked
Crew member gets ARRESTED while at a station while docked
Crew member trust increases with levels gained while with you, eventually gives you a personal request mission/ recruit for a cause
Crew member doesn't trust you and rats you out to authorities while anonymous at a station you are wanted. REVENGE mission opens up.

This is not in anyway a critique of the game. I love it obviously, and it has inspired some theory crafting.
Thoughts from the community?

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I personally want to see a crew member walking around the cockpit and making himself an espresso in my krait.

 

[Loophole]

I like this idea in general, but maybe not see them walking around the cockpit while you are under thrust or manoeuvring (though if they added ragdoll physics, that could be macabrely amusing!)

I'd just be happy to have them as a virtual presence "elsewhere" on the ship - though occupying the other seats in the cockpit would be nice (they'd have to auto-vacate them if a player joined in multi-crew).

 

[60mm]

This would only serve to tip the balance of power even more steeply towards larger ships. Please no.

As things currently stand NPC crew are at a minimal level of functionality with permadeath, lots of bugginess and no presence in the cockpit. We need fixes before we need more mechanics duct taped on top of the poor foundation we currently have.

 

[RamirezKurita]

To be fair, most of that would work if they simply merged multicrew and NPC crew into the same system, as multicrew already allows for turret gunners (improved accuracy and ignoring of chaff), firing missiles off-bore and scanning targets without looking at them. One of these days I'll have to get around to producing a full draft suggestion for expanding NPC crew as there's so much untapped potential there, enough probably for a full season of content (even though they are technically part of Horizons, I'd be more than happy to ay £30 for a full couple of years of development on them).

 

[60mm]

To be fair, most of that would work if they simply merged multicrew and NPC crew into the same system, as multicrew already allows for turret gunners (improved accuracy and ignoring of chaff), firing missiles off-bore and scanning targets without looking at them. One of these days I'll have to get around to producing a full draft suggestion for expanding NPC crew as there's so much untapped potential there, enough probably for a full season of content (even though they are technically part of Horizons, I'd be more than happy to ay £30 for a full couple of years of development on them).

Key difference here is that Players engaging in Multi-Crew are effectively sacrificing entire ships for the bonuses it provides. Using NPCs to gain Gunner bonuses pays no such price. Allowing such would just mean that extra seats in a ship = bonuses = larger ships are even better than small ships.