Retainer Fees for Inactive NPC Crew

[Brian of Ardagh]

I was watching Will during a livestream turn in his exploration data after reaching Sag A and saw how unhappy he was to pay his NPC crew for just being there. He went so far as to see if he could fire them before turning the data in, but alas, there was no crew lounge.

I also saw this bug report thread where a CMDR didn't realize how much of a cut his 3 NPC crew were taking. As QA-Jack put it "[...] they've got a pretty good life sitting in the station day in, day out knocking back the Lavian Brandy getting a cut of your earnings whilst doing so"

It's probably been suggested elsewhere but I would like to suggest that crew that are not actively on your ship should only earn a retainer fee, not a cut of your profits. The issue here is how would FD calculate the fee? Perhaps it should be based on hours played while the inactive NPC sits idle, then when you return to a crew lounge to bring that NPC crewperson onboard, payment would be required.

The hourly retainer fee would be based on NPC skill level but I would leave the actual hourly rate tables to FD, although anyone is free to speculate and suggest.

All of this would be offset by not having to pay a percentage of your profits to an NPC when they are not on-board.

 

[Hole in Head]

I have an NPC I've trained from Harmless since close to the release of the feature. It's a bit much how much they take when they didn't do squat.

Would be nice if they just took the % from bounty/bonds at the time they were received, and only while they're an active crew, since their only function is combat related anyways.

 

[Cugastratos]

I have an NPC I've trained from Harmless since close to the release of the feature. It's a bit much how much they take when they didn't do squat.

Would be nice if they just took the % from bounty/bonds at the time they were received, and only while they're an active crew, since their only function is combat related anyways.

Definitely. This needs to be addressed.

 

[LetItBleed1980]

I'd like to see this too. I've had a few crew members I was kind of attached to but after a while I got tired of paying them a huge chunk out of my exploration/trading profits for trips they weren't even active for. It pained me but I made the business decision and sent them packing. Now I just hire/fire a new crew member every few days and don't even bother reading their back story or anything. They've gone from being a fun part of my roleplay to just a game feature that I use only when necessary.

 

[Exeider]

Add this as Issue #962 in terms of what's broken about this game. This is why I like that frontier are taking this year 'off' from major content production. To fix stuff like this, or rather we should INSIST they take this year to fix stuff like this.

 

[Speedcuffs]

Yes please.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

+1

It's been suggested many many times.

My crew (2 deadly, 1 dangerous) take 30~% of my income!

Even if they're not present, or an absolute liability!
*Cough*AX CZ*cough*.

I would just suggest a nice low "inactive pay", which is 1-3% of your income.
I'm quite happily pay them 9% of my income just to hold on to them, then full pay during potentially dangerous service.

 

[metatheurgist]

My crew (2 deadly, 1 dangerous) take 30~% of my income!

You're getting ripped man. My Elite, Elite, Dangerous guys only take 28%.

 

[O'Roarke]

You should be able to send a crew member on paid shore leave, during which they won't get paid their cut.
This will force the crew member to be gone for a week; leaving you in a bind if you need them.

You get an additional thing to juggle, a thing to get good at, while having the benefit of not paying someone that lives in a Station's cafeteria doing noting.

 

[Iskariot]

I was watching Will during a livestream turn in his exploration data after reaching Sag A and saw how unhappy he was to pay his NPC crew for just being there. He went so far as to see if he could fire them before turning the data in, but alas, there was no crew lounge.

I also saw this bug report thread where a CMDR didn't realize how much of a cut his 3 NPC crew were taking. As QA-Jack put it "[...] they've got a pretty good life sitting in the station day in, day out knocking back the Lavian Brandy getting a cut of your earnings whilst doing so"

It's probably been suggested elsewhere but I would like to suggest that crew that are not actively on your ship should only earn a retainer fee, not a cut of your profits. The issue here is how would FD calculate the fee? Perhaps it should be based on hours played while the inactive NPC sits idle, then when you return to a crew lounge to bring that NPC crewperson onboard, payment would be required.

The hourly retainer fee would be based on NPC skill level but I would leave the actual hourly rate tables to FD, although anyone is free to speculate and suggest.

All of this would be offset by not having to pay a percentage of your profits to an NPC when they are not on-board.

I agree.

Because of the current NPC crew mechanic I have stopped getting attached to my crew and I just hire, fire and forget. I don't train my pilots anymore.
For a very long time now, because of the total lack of attachment, I have even forgotten to hire crew, even when I am in a ship with an SLF on board.
Because of the fact that the lacking implementation of the crew mechanic caused me to view crew as an annoyance I am now considering removing the last SLF bay I have, on my Federal Corvette.

I have proposed something similar to you many times in the hope that eventually FDev would realize something has to change.

As it is a game the solution does not have to be that realistic or convoluted.
When you do not use your crew and do not have them on board, you should simply not have to pay them. Perhaps sending them on leave might cost you some token amount of credits, lets say 100.000 and when you re-activate them you simple pay some kind of activation fee, another 100.000 (just a random sum).

I hope that FDev is working on a solid and more interesting NPC crew mechanic with more functions than just a pilot.

I have made proposals for that too. They could keep it simple, but make it much more interesting than it is now.

 

[Berpol]

I see several ways to improve crew handling:
1. Inactive crew gets reduced wages, somewhere between 1% and half the normal part.
2. Crew gets no or reduced money for actions they are not participating in (like trade).
3. Crew gets more useful, like driving your second Scarab (or a new fighter drone)
4. You can use more crew in your shio, either by (wo-)manning more fighters or having additional positions on your crew like
- Gunner (turrets have improved hit chance)
- Engineer (improved energy output or shield recharge)
- Navigator (jumps need less fuel)
- Trader (buy lower, sell higher)
- Explorer (faster scanning)
5. Make them more unique so you don't want to lose them, perhaps by increasing their abilities when they reach Elite.
6. Allow to "rebuy" them after your ship gets destroyed. After all if you survive why not them too, they just need a financial thinking aid to reenlist.