True multi-crew ships (concept idea)

[RotciVictoR]

Since multi-crew came out I think many of us tried it out but never really bothered to us it to make money with fighting, mining, trading or exploring.
From my point of few the mistake was the concept of the ships combined with multicrew. A squadron of ships will alway outperform a current ship with multicrew because, well it's just a single ship (of current design).
So what is my Idea? Frontier needs to create new ships. Bigger ones than even the current big three. Those ships are only piloteable by multiple crew members. A single pilot will not be able to use it. A ship like this one should be equivalent to a squadron. Also each ship could fulfill a distinct/niche roll.

Here some Ideas, feel free to expand/complete:

Gun Boat (Combat):

• one pilot
• Multiple turret groups that cover only certain angles
• each group is manned by a crew member
• angels could overlap at certain areas to maximize firepower
• optimal for conflict zones, more or less a small battleship

Small short range spacecraft carrier (Combat):

• one pilot who also manages a limited number of turrets
• multiple wing leader
• each wingleader can launch in a small spacecraft (e.g. condor)
• in addition each wingleader can command one or more npc small spacecrafts (again e.g. condors)
• npc crew can be hired as normal
• optimal for conflict zones or pirate hunting in asteroid belts

Mining Ship:

• one pilot who additionally manages primary scanning
• one or two crew members who can use multiple turreted mining tools
• launchable support mining shortrange ship that supports ming ship with additional probes, scans mining tools etc.
  • able to launch own prospector limpets
  • should return to “mothership” to deliver raw resources
• very large refinery to handle additional resource input
• larger cargo space

Exploration Ship:

• one pilot
• navigator role (in addition to other roles)
  • can plot route for ship
  • can request docking permission etc.
• other crew members have additional long range scanner etc.
  • mechanics of those scanners should enable the ship to scan a complete system in detail way faster than a normal ship

What do you guys think?
I hope this is not a double post.
Fly save CMDR’s

 

[Sylow]

Gun Boat (Combat):

I see no big point in this. It's kind of the current problem of multi-crew, just on a larger scale. The big issue is that it would still feel like everybody would just have a part of a ship available. For the very reason that this is just what is happening.

Sure, using such a ship with three players on board will be stronger than such a ship with only one player on board. But hey, credits are cheap. So why not bring three of these ships instead? Put gimballed weapons on those hardpoints which can aim forward and automatic turrets on the rest.

Then everybody would have a full sized ship and all of its firepower under his control. And even if the single ship would have a bit less firepower than if it would be fully crewed by players, the combined firepower of several of these ships would be much better. That's already vastly superior before considering that incoming fire would not be focused on one ship any more, but would be spread over three shields and hulls. (Or, when fully using wings, even four of them. )

Small short range spacecraft carrier (Combat):

Sounds better than the gun boat, as long as the individual firepower of the ship is fairly balanced. If the firepower is too low, being the pilot would feel like being merely the bus driver of the rest. Being too strong is less likely. There are already other ships out there which are more powerful than even a pair of fighters.

Yet when the ship would be flown alone, due to current game mechanics, it could still only deploy one fighter. This means it doesn't suffer the scaling problems as badly as the gun boat.

All on all a wing of players in their own ships (if necessary all with SLFs) can project more firepower (and defense) than this ship. Yet when all parts are well built, it can be fun to use and for plenty of players the disadvantages might be offset by the advantage of easier logistics. (Telepresence, instead of having to travel to one place. )

It could work.

Mining Ship:

This one actually sounds fine to me, i only see one big problem: who is making the big profit, how is the rest getting their pay? We don't have the ability to transfer credits between players.

Exploration Ship:

It's a start, but it's not enough. To make exploration really work we'd need more exploration mechanics. But yet it would be a step in the right direction.

Despite all of this, while most of these ships would be nice to have, none would address the core problems of Multi-Crew. My list for MC would be completely different:

• Eliminate punishing the crew for the pilot having a high combat rank. (I mean, no matter how good or bad the players do, if the pilot is of elite rank and they are not, their payout is reduced. )
• Upgrade mechanics to better reward cooperation. (E.g. allow us to directly share wing missions with crew members, without having to wing up in between. )
• Align multi-crew and wings, so you can use both together, instead of having to decide between one or another.

 

[Drelthar]

This is just how the big ships should have always been. Shouldn't have been able to fly them without a crew.