Please can we have NPC crew to replace modules
- Thread starter Ben Ryder
- Start date
so instead of having an ai turret... you want to PAY CREDITS for an NPC to be shown in a seat. YOU WANT TO PAY FOR AN AI TURRET INSTEAD OF USE IT FOR FREE.
well it takes all sorts I guess
well it takes all sorts I guess
Honestly I think it would also be neat if as you got into larger ships, you start having to manage a crew to keep the thing running.
Like sure, a viper is a single seat dogfighter and all the maintenance it'll ever need is handled by the station. It has no crew.
But as you get into bigger ships you start to pick up things like reactor technicians, scanner technicians, an IT department, and before you know it you're in a Corvette playing Sim Spaceship with 80+ crew, a company of Marines, and a chef.
Don't want anything more than the pure dogfighting experience? Then stay in the single-seat dogfighter.
Of course I'm also the kind of person who thinks anything more than 100m long should start feeling more like a capital ship than a dogfighter, which is apparently crazy talk. An Arleigh-Burke class destroyer is a perfectly fine dogfighter in Elite.
Like sure, a viper is a single seat dogfighter and all the maintenance it'll ever need is handled by the station. It has no crew.
But as you get into bigger ships you start to pick up things like reactor technicians, scanner technicians, an IT department, and before you know it you're in a Corvette playing Sim Spaceship with 80+ crew, a company of Marines, and a chef.
Don't want anything more than the pure dogfighting experience? Then stay in the single-seat dogfighter.
Of course I'm also the kind of person who thinks anything more than 100m long should start feeling more like a capital ship than a dogfighter, which is apparently crazy talk. An Arleigh-Burke class destroyer is a perfectly fine dogfighter in Elite.
so instead of having an ai turret... you want to PAY CREDITS for an NPC to be shown in a seat. YOU WANT TO PAY FOR AN AI TURRET INSTEAD OF USE IT FOR FREE.
well it takes all sorts I guess
Yes, It certainly does... people even pay 'Real Money' for a bobblehead to show up on their pretend dashboard.
Yup!
Yeah, I'd go along with this, it can get mighty lonely out there in the black... besides, how are we gonna pretend to be Cpt Malcolm Reynolds if we got no crew?, albeit without walking around on the planet, shooting the bad guys in town and getting punched in a bar room brawl!
Imagine, Jayne in the turret...(Jayne ain't a girl)
Kaylee mendin things we broke, [yesnod]
and Zoe, walkin round sayin "Yes Sir" [haha]
Hey... we could even have Wash park up... and Kaylee fix it again! [yesnod]
Anyway, as far as I see it they should give a marginal performance bonus (I'd not thought of that before when looking across to the clean empty seat) we all pick up iddy biddy bits and pieces and get an Engineer to nail them to our ship for better performance and longer range this that and the other... well where's the difference, except the Engineering was free and you gotta pay for a crew member...
So Yup, I'd pay the monthly wage to ENHANCE MY GAME WITH NPC CREW in that spare seat if I had an option![up]
Yeah, I'd go along with this, it can get mighty lonely out there in the black... besides, how are we gonna pretend to be Cpt Malcolm Reynolds if we got no crew?, albeit without walking around on the planet, shooting the bad guys in town and getting punched in a bar room brawl!
Imagine, Jayne in the turret...(Jayne ain't a girl)
Kaylee mendin things we broke, [yesnod]
and Zoe, walkin round sayin "Yes Sir" [haha]
Hey... we could even have Wash park up... and Kaylee fix it again! [yesnod]
Anyway, as far as I see it they should give a marginal performance bonus (I'd not thought of that before when looking across to the clean empty seat) we all pick up iddy biddy bits and pieces and get an Engineer to nail them to our ship for better performance and longer range this that and the other... well where's the difference, except the Engineering was free and you gotta pay for a crew member...
So Yup, I'd pay the monthly wage to ENHANCE MY GAME WITH NPC CREW in that spare seat if I had an option![up]
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Honestly I think it would also be neat if as you got into larger ships, you start having to manage a crew to keep the thing running.
Like sure, a viper is a single seat dogfighter and all the maintenance it'll ever need is handled by the station. It has no crew.
But as you get into bigger ships you start to pick up things like reactor technicians, scanner technicians, an IT department, and before you know it you're in a Corvette playing Sim Spaceship with 80+ crew, a company of Marines, and a chef.
Don't want anything more than the pure dogfighting experience? Then stay in the single-seat dogfighter.
Of course I'm also the kind of person who thinks anything more than 100m long should start feeling more like a capital ship than a dogfighter, which is apparently crazy talk. An Arleigh-Burke class destroyer is a perfectly fine dogfighter in Elite.
This definitely.
But I wonder if there will be some detractors out there, who would think such a patch would be a nerf to their condas.
so instead of having an ai turret... you want to PAY CREDITS for an NPC to be shown in a seat. YOU WANT TO PAY FOR AN AI TURRET INSTEAD OF USE IT FOR FREE.
well it takes all sorts I guess
If it comes with some kind perk/sidegrade, then I would absolutely go for it.
Right now the automated turrets are like having a mediocre gunner, who can only hit stuff at close range and is blinded by chaff...but at least it's consistent.
Hiring an NPC with 'personality' has a lot of potential for varied turret behaviour...and maybe other things down the line.
- Gunner is slightly more accurate but panics easily, causing him to miss more when taking heavy fire
- Gunner is great at conserving ammo, but has a lower 'rate of fire' because he only fires when he has a clear shot.
- Gunner is good at not draining the wepon capacitor too much, but has terrible situational awareness (reduced firing arc)
etc.
I'll chime in to keep the thread going. I've said it before, I would like to have NPC crew in my ships that have a seat for them. Baby steps are fine by me and think initially it would be great to simply have my crew sit in the empty seats on the bridge and look around, like my Holo-me does. The crew I hire to fly my fighter need something to do when not flying the fighter. Plus, I want to hire other NPC crew to sit in the third seat on my big ships.
Before ED, I played Evochron for a couple of years. That game had the ability to hire crew for the commercial ships (but not the single seat military ships). You could hire up to four (invisible) crew; science officer, weapons specialist, navigator, and engineer. They gave your ship a small performance boost in different ways depending on which one you hired. For the future, I would like to see ED consider this and many of the other excellent suggests above.
GL and HF
Before ED, I played Evochron for a couple of years. That game had the ability to hire crew for the commercial ships (but not the single seat military ships). You could hire up to four (invisible) crew; science officer, weapons specialist, navigator, and engineer. They gave your ship a small performance boost in different ways depending on which one you hired. For the future, I would like to see ED consider this and many of the other excellent suggests above.
GL and HF
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so instead of having an ai turret... you want to PAY CREDITS for an NPC to be shown in a seat. YOU WANT TO PAY FOR AN AI TURRET INSTEAD OF USE IT FOR FREE.
well it takes all sorts I guess
No, I think most of us just want extra holo-mes to sit in the empty chairs in our ships. They shouldn't grant a benefit, so they shouldn't cost money.
I rarely comment on these forums as I am generally a bit of a lurker!!
That said, I totally agree with the OP on this.
I REALLY want to see NPC crew and also Robot crew as mentioned in the DDF.
It was great in FE2 and FFE, you could not get off the ground in the multi-crew ships unless you had crew!!
I also like the idea of being able to switch roles so that a NPC pilot could take over the ship temporarily while I took over a turret.
I loved that about FE2.
As I have no friends in the game, I am unlikely to do multi-crew as it currently stands, but I would love to do the gunner role while an NPC is flying my ship.
As others have said, there are lots of other roles NPC crew could do as well, Engineer, Science Officer, etc.
Come on Frontier!!
I just want a Navigator, and a Science Officer. Setting course, your Navigator confirms it and says typical stuff. Science Officer lets you know about system data, and if any USS appears, and can be set to auto-target them if you wish - and other similar things.
+1 for a crew. And then I want sassy crew members who idly chat and make remarks about your flying skills...
+1 for a crew. And then I want sassy crew members who idly chat and make remarks about your flying skills...
I'd like to see multicrew NPC's just give passive bonuses. IE, a chief engineer that gives a bonus to jump range, a weapons officer that gives a bonus to dmg, a science officer that gives a bonus to planetary scanning (maybe faster or longer range.) A dealer that can negotiate cheaper prices, or more profit, on the commodity market. Instead of them taking a cut of your combat earnings, they just get a flat rate each weekly reset depending on how much of a bonus they give.
Maybe incorporate a salary cap so you couldn't have max crew bonuses across the board. Make us think about what bonuses are more important than others. Think about what direction we want our ship to be.
Maybe incorporate a salary cap so you couldn't have max crew bonuses across the board. Make us think about what bonuses are more important than others. Think about what direction we want our ship to be.
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Don't hold your breath, fdev moves at snails pace when it comes to implementing anything new.
The whole multi-crew and telepresence thing seems very tacked on and out of place to me. For some it might be a nice convenience, but for me it's a complete nonstarter – won't touch it with a ten foot pole. Scrambles the brain, it does.
Fortunately I generally prefer to pilot the small ships, but even many of those have these weird extra unused seats for who knows what reason. I can't even move over and use them if I want a bit of a change of scenery for some reason. For that matter, I seem to be stuck in my seat too, now that I think if it. Very strange, like some sort of surreal dream.
Anyway, maybe hiring a crewman to man one of these extra stations would help fill the void in their inanimate existences and restore some order to the galaxy.
Fortunately I generally prefer to pilot the small ships, but even many of those have these weird extra unused seats for who knows what reason. I can't even move over and use them if I want a bit of a change of scenery for some reason. For that matter, I seem to be stuck in my seat too, now that I think if it. Very strange, like some sort of surreal dream.
Anyway, maybe hiring a crewman to man one of these extra stations would help fill the void in their inanimate existences and restore some order to the galaxy.
Most important request nobody has put out yet: I had better be able to dress my crew mates with store bought assets. After all, no point in me being dressed in boots and a dinner jacket if everyone else is dressed in their jammies. There's a dress code on my bridge.
I also want dummy fillers just to fill the seats.
I also want dummy fillers just to fill the seats.
It should be easy to do this, just about everything needed is already there. We have the holo-me for creating avatars, multi-crew allows avatars to be in the other seats, we have a crew lounge if they want to go the route of hiring crew members, etc. There really isn't much more they need to do to make this happen, it should be easy to implement and it's a change that pretty much everyone would love. They're crazy if they don't do this, and they should be able to do it soon.
I think something like this would be a great idea, even if they offer limited/slower/less capable versions of modules. It would not OP anything, and would add life to your ship, whatever the size.
Just some idea but, simple things like....
Science Officer - Automatically uses a discovery scanner in a system, automatically targets next nearest unknown object if nothing selected/scan already complete.
SLF Operator - Automatically launches a SLF if hostile target detected (Uses most experienced NPC pilot if multiple onboard) using the ships NPC. Automatically recalls them if no hostile detected.
Scan Operator - Automaticlly scan a Signal Source providing it is in range and view, without need to target it.
Supply Officer - Automatically purchase fuel and ammo when landed at a station (Providing they have the service)
Limpet Operator - Automatically launch/handle limpets as required (Maximum 1) (Raising and lowering cargo scoop as required)
Tactical Officer - Automatically targets next nearest hostile.
Flight Officer - Docking Computer replacement, saves the slot, its one of those things that really shouldnt take a slot..... but still have it as an option.
Passenger Liason - Slowly restores happyness of passengers (To say Cordial)
Merchant - When entering a system, informs player via OSD/Message of major imports/exports and prohibited items in system (Saves having to check in the system screen)
None of the above are really game changing, just provide more interaction and feeling of not being alone. In addition as even the biggest ship can only take a few, it adds a degree of choice, if they had voices to, it would add a feeling of a real bridge.
Just some idea but, simple things like....
Science Officer - Automatically uses a discovery scanner in a system, automatically targets next nearest unknown object if nothing selected/scan already complete.
SLF Operator - Automatically launches a SLF if hostile target detected (Uses most experienced NPC pilot if multiple onboard) using the ships NPC. Automatically recalls them if no hostile detected.
Scan Operator - Automaticlly scan a Signal Source providing it is in range and view, without need to target it.
Supply Officer - Automatically purchase fuel and ammo when landed at a station (Providing they have the service)
Limpet Operator - Automatically launch/handle limpets as required (Maximum 1) (Raising and lowering cargo scoop as required)
Tactical Officer - Automatically targets next nearest hostile.
Flight Officer - Docking Computer replacement, saves the slot, its one of those things that really shouldnt take a slot..... but still have it as an option.
Passenger Liason - Slowly restores happyness of passengers (To say Cordial)
Merchant - When entering a system, informs player via OSD/Message of major imports/exports and prohibited items in system (Saves having to check in the system screen)
None of the above are really game changing, just provide more interaction and feeling of not being alone. In addition as even the biggest ship can only take a few, it adds a degree of choice, if they had voices to, it would add a feeling of a real bridge.
I would love to see this. As a minimum, the option to hire/create/buy someone to sit in the empty chairs of the flight deck. Maybe with some random garbled commentary like we have now with the faux ATC (STC?) around stations or actually useful information in replacement of the ship computer ("Friendship Drive activated...")
I wouldn't mind a bit of usefulness for the crew either, but at least, for dog's sake, that empty seat is so...empty.
I wouldn't mind a bit of usefulness for the crew either, but at least, for dog's sake, that empty seat is so...empty.