A manifesto on crewability

[Groovrider]

in any case, there would have to be some soft cap on the effects, otherwise established players with 200 NPCs could dominate a ship twice it's size. while everyone has access to NPCs, it would still be stupid to have a 500k mass ship accelerating to 200 M/s in 5 seconds because they have 200 NPCs on engineering. Also, the cap should hit the same limit regardless of size, but it takes more crew members to get the same effect on a larger ship, and actual players should be more effective than NPCs.

Life Support blocks?

The more crew you have the more block you need and the more power it consumes? Loose power to life support and watch those 200 NPCs begin to turn blue.

 

[Snk]

The increase would also degrade exponentially.
The first couple NPCs would increase with like 5%.
But after 20 or so, they would only add 0.5% per NPC.
So a ship with 200 NPCs would be only marginally better than one with 100 NPC, which is only marginally better than one with 50.

I liked every part of your post but this. What's the point?

 

[Honytawk]

So a small 16x16 ship with 500 NPCs wouldn't be able to beat a Titan ship with almost no crew in sheer shield and firepower.
Crew should only be able to make ships more efficient, not overpowered.

 

[Snk]

So a small 16x16 ship with 500 NPCs wouldn't be able to beat a Titan ship with almost no crew in sheer shield and firepower.
Crew should only be able to make ships more efficient, not overpowered.

But a titan with 500 crew members should not loose to a titan with 200, if both have the same stats and the pilots are of the same skill.

 

[NeonSturm]

There should be a limit on NPCs. 500 will probably create lag.

Each chunk should have a limit of NPCs that are able to interact with that chunk (1 chunk = 16x16x16 = 4096 blocks)

• Either directly or by some other mechanism.

Perhaps Crew would be more useful inside fighters or vs many targets or out-of-combat than vs other Titans.

Probably a bigger turret would be the better choice compared to 300 additional Crew.

 

[Honytawk]

But a titan with 500 crew members should not loose to a titan with 200, if both have the same stats and the pilots are of the same skill.

Well yeah that is what I mean.
After so much crew, the increase per crew would drop significantly, to something like 0.01% per NPC.
The 500 crew one would still be better, but only just.

To put it in percentages, the 200 crew titan would have 25% efficiency, while the 500 would only have 30% efficiency.

 

[Snk]

There should be a limit on NPCs. 500 will probably create lag.

Each chunk should have a limit of NPCs that are able to interact with that chunk (1 chunk = 16x16x16 = 4096 blocks)

• Either directly or by some other mechanism.

Perhaps Crew would be more useful inside fighters or vs many targets or out-of-combat than vs other Titans.

Probably a bigger turret would be the better choice compared to 300 additional Crew.

Naaaahh.

Well yeah that is what I mean.
After so much crew, the increase per crew would drop significantly, to something like 0.01% per NPC.
The 500 crew one would still be better, but only just.

To put it in percentages, the 200 crew titan would have 25% efficiency, while the 500 would only have 30% efficiency.

That may be a good idea, but not that much of a drop in bonus. Something like a 500 crew would have 10-15 more efficiency than a 200 crew.

 

[Visitor]

I start to worry about how people started to create 'manifestos' when in reality it's just another suggestion/their take on certain element of game's mechanics (even though often they write something I could agree with to some degree) given 'official' air. So far, nearly everything, including personal opinions written in this thread already got discussed in relevant suggestion threads, for example this one.

Personally, I do agree that crews should have a role, I do agree that the gameplay should underline adventures of player character who pilot ships rather than be about players playing as ships. I disagree with bonuses being provided for multiple character - be it player or NPC - interacting with ship controls. I'd rather have it as nearly a necessity in case of larger vessel/structures if one is to engage any but most basic functions of such, with possible severe decrease of effectiveness of undermanned systems.

I am also unsure about the numbers - I imagine a big ship requiring a few guys to manage communications (to order around all crew members, fighters etc), ship's helm, weapon systems and internal facilities, a few guys of security, a few maintenance technicians, maybe a vendor or a doctor here and there - and that's about it.

I would rather prevent, not encourage dropping too many NPCs, especially if their mere existence would offer any bonuses. Given the size of average space station and ships of comparative dimensions, I don't think it'd be good to drop more than 10 - 15 NPCs per one such place. Horrible lag and bothersome crowding of hallways done by hordes of clones aside, it wouldn't really have any real edge over several decent ones, beyond redundancy and possiblty indulging someone's 'lording over the masses' fantasies - and those reasons are a very shaky and questionable basis for a feature that would vitally change gameplay mechanics for everyone.

But really, I'd rather point people to past discussions about this (generally, quite decent) idea than to repeat one again and again.

 

[Planr]

Loving how that poll in OP has 3 different flavored voting choices of "yes" and only one narrow flavor voting choice of "no". I don't mean to be rude but that seems a little biased. I want to vote "no", but I personally think there are a few ways in which AI could contribute more to the function of a ship.

It seems from your post that you're wanting ships to have buffed stats when multiple people are using the same ship. I can see that has a certain appeal to it, but I also think your overall idea of ship crew members has some vital flaws.

The first and biggest problem is, how would teammates be able to communicate effectively and quickly in such a condition? If you have people working together to run a single ship, you will rely heavily on quick and efficient communication, which is not possible with StarMade's chat system. It would mean players would be required to all have a groupcall on Skype just to effectively use those better combat specs, which naturally means those who don't own microphones or don't want to use teamspeak/skype can't really participate in crewed ships.

Second problem: in what way does having multiple people crew the same ship encourage having more interiors? I highly doubt StarMade will ever have a functional necessity for expanded interiors. Let's run down some possible needs for astronauts that, using the block system in starmade, would require new block systems.

• Some need to help sustain astronauts via a food system? All they'd have to do is slap down a food dispenser block for everyone in a corner.
• What if there was a way to incapacitate astronauts but not kill them? All that'd be needed is a small medical block in another corner. (but in most cases theyd probably die anyway and respawn back at the faction base).
• A need for astronauts to sleep? Just have some bed blocks next to the bridge stations.

As you can see, there is no way to really force people to have interiors for better ship OR player functionality. People who want combat effective ships will always have minimal interiors and no amount of added "needs" for astronauts can change that, unless you literally add thousands of different blocks needed to sustain astronauts, or literally have hundreds of AI crew members needed, and just keeping them in ship gravity without any of them falling out and dying is a whole other story.

Your forth and fifth reasons are merely matters of opinion and personal choice of gameplay style, and do not strengthen your argument in any way. Number 4 basically implies that people being able to fly their ship by themself is unimportant, and number 5 merely attempts to make an appeal to emotion/nostalgia, knowing full well that everyone wants to play differently and some people dont want to have to deal with the frustration of ship interiors for aesthetic reasons, as they subtract from potential ship combat performance (interior space for shields/weapons).

The other big problem with your argument is that it only functions assuming that everyone playing StarMade wants to just be a crew member on a ship rather than piloting and commanding their own ship and running it their way. The reality is that most people who play StarMade enjoy being able to use their own ships, so your system would not work well on the default game, as you'd be restricting people's gameplay.

You could counter-argue that people don't have to be crew members, and that they can still pilot their own ship all they want, but if giving a ship buffed stats by having crew members is to have any advantage over every crew member piloting their own ship instead, it'd have to multiply the stats to make the players all working together on one ship make the ship more powerful than multiple copies of the same ships combined, which can be extremely abusive if they're using a titan, though I suppose you could again counter-argue that the benefits could diminish in returns based on the ship's mass.

All in all your idea has merits, but it isn't practical in the gameplay environment StarMade has. It might work well on some other games like Space Engineers, but not well on here.

 

[Snk]

I start to worry about how people started to create 'manifestos' when in reality it's just another suggestion/their take on certain element of game's mechanics (even though often they write something I could agree with to some degree) given 'official' air. So far, nearly everything, including personal opinions written in this thread already got discussed in relevant suggestion threads, for example this one.

This was posted in November of 2014, when manifestos still had some style. It definitely is my take on current game mechanics. You will take note that the thread you linked was posted nearly 5 months after I posted this.

I kind of agree with the rest of your post, it is pretty solid reasoning. The purpose of this thread is more to discuss the idea and have people share their opinions than simply debate a specific suggestion.

Loving how that poll in OP has 3 different flavored voting choices of "yes" and only one narrow flavor voting choice of "no". I don't mean to be rude but that seems a little biased. I want to vote "no", but I personally think there are a few ways in which AI could contribute more to the function of a ship.

There are two different flavors of "no" in the poll, both of which I picked because I felt they represented various opinions I've heard over the past 1.5 years (1.5 years at the time of posting the OP). I feel it is not biased. You are the only one that has complained about the poll.

It seems from your post that you're wanting ships to have buffed stats when multiple people are using the same ship. I can see that has a certain appeal to it, but I also think your overall idea of ship crew members has some vital flaws.

The first and biggest problem is, how would teammates be able to communicate effectively and quickly in such a condition? If you have people working together to run a single ship, you will rely heavily on quick and efficient communication, which is not possible with StarMade's chat system. It would mean players would be required to all have a groupcall on Skype just to effectively use those better combat specs, which naturally means those who don't own microphones or don't want to use teamspeak/skype can't really participate in crewed ships.

Having crew members buff stats is just the most popular conception of how this would work. It's fine if you don't agree with it, but personally I think it's a fair trade off in exchange for building a larger interior and the risk of having bad players and AI aboard your ship.

As to your second point, you could make that point about other aspects of the game, like fleet combat. I agree that people with no microphones should not be punished-however, they could always type or just not have a crew.

Second problem: in what way does having multiple people crew the same ship encourage having more interiors? I highly doubt StarMade will ever have a functional necessity for expanded interiors. Let's run down some possible needs for astronauts that, using the block system in starmade, would require new block systems.

• Some need to help sustain astronauts via a food system? All they'd have to do is slap down a food dispenser block for everyone in a corner.
• What if there was a way to incapacitate astronauts but not kill them? All that'd be needed is a small medical block in another corner. (but in most cases theyd probably die anyway and respawn back at the faction base).
• A need for astronauts to sleep? Just have some bed blocks next to the bridge stations.

Large interiors would be necessary to utilize a large amount of labor. You can't have 300 crewmen in a 10x3x10 space. They would not be able to access whatever position they are assigned. This is your weakest point, mainly because you list various hypothetical issues that could easily be fixed, while ignoring the fact that crewmen would not just eat, sleep, and poop. (Unless you are unlucky to find yourself with a shipload of kerbals.... *shrudders*). I have no idea what kind of positions these imaginary deckhands would fulfill, but nearly every job would require a room. I can't think of anything that would not require extra space - there would need to be engineering rooms, bridges, hangars, and other things. It depends on what a crewable system would look like.

As you can see, there is no way to really force people to have interiors for better ship OR player functionality. People who want combat effective ships will always have minimal interiors and no amount of added "needs" for astronauts can change that, unless you literally add thousands of different blocks needed to sustain astronauts, or literally have hundreds of AI crew members needed, and just keeping them in ship gravity without any of them falling out and dying is a whole other story.

You should never force people to have interiors. I never said that. I'm all for automated ships. If someone wants a crew for whatever bonus they would provide, they would almost certainly need some sort of room to fulfill it. If they want a 4x2x4 room with a bunch of computers and some beds, that's fine. Whether or not combat capable ships would have crews would depend on the designer. As I said before, this thread isn't about specific ideas, it's about the idea of various entities running around a ship and doing things.

"Literally thousands" is a gross exaggeration. I highly doubt that would be the case.

Your forth and fifth reasons are merely matters of opinion and personal choice of gameplay style, and do not strengthen your argument in any way. Number 4 basically implies that people being able to fly their ship by themself is unimportant, and number 5 merely attempts to make an appeal to emotion/nostalgia, knowing full well that everyone wants to play differently and some people dont want to have to deal with the frustration of ship interiors for aesthetic reasons, as they subtract from potential ship combat performance (interior space for shields/weapons).

I don't recall listing my points. Please be more specific as to what you are referring to.

The other big problem with your argument is that it only functions assuming that everyone playing StarMade wants to just be a crew member on a ship rather than piloting and commanding their own ship and running it their way. The reality is that most people who play StarMade enjoy being able to use their own ships, so your system would not work well on the default game, as you'd be restricting people's gameplay.

That is a hideous straw man argument. In fact, it's a straight up lie. You ignore the fact that I've stated that crewability would not be forced upon anyone, and then use that to crush my argument. Where is your data that supports that idea? Because all of four people have voted in the poll option that states "Good idea, but I doubt anyone would want to crew a ship."

You could counter-argue that people don't have to be crew members, and that they can still pilot their own ship all they want, but if giving a ship buffed stats by having crew members is to have any advantage over every crew member piloting their own ship instead, it'd have to multiply the stats to make the players all working together on one ship make the ship more powerful than multiple copies of the same ships combined, which can be extremely abusive if they're using a titan, though I suppose you could again counter-argue that the benefits could diminish in returns based on the ship's mass.

Again, a straw man argument. I never defined what crewability should do. I said it should be there, and gave a general idea of what it might be able to do. A ship should with a crew should have both advantages and drawbacks, and not force people to use it.


Arguing with you is really annoying. Your post is long, uses flimsy arguments, and numerous logical fallacies. You assume something and then you carry out an argument based on it, and you fail to recognize the most basic of facts about this thread: It's not a suggestion. The purpose is to discuss the idea of various players or AI collaborating on a single vessel. You assume things about a hypothetical system and fail to recognize that most of your points are invalid because no system was suggested. You assume that a food, death, and medical system would be one that would not require more than few blocks, as if there is even an idea in regards to what Schema has in mind for these subjects. You assume that because a group of people does not have the hardware to fully experience a feature, it should not be implemented. You assume a combat capable ship would have no need for a crew, when no one even has the slightest idea if this is true because no one has the slightest idea of how crewability would be implemented. You assume that a current bug will not be fixed in the future. (Entities falling out of ships when they change sectors.) You assume something about a large group of people, but actual data shows otherwise. You assume that this would not be optional, yet debunk your own argument in the next paragraph, then you support it, and then you debunk it again.

Stop using logical fallacies. I apologize if this was a bit harsh, but I am kind of annoyed I had to respond to post filled with obnoxious straw man, stacking the deck, and false dilemma fallacies.

Fun fact: Some of your points were already covered by Cybertao.

 

[Snk]

((On a separate note, why was this moved to suggestions?

 

[Planr]

Snk, you really need to calm down. I get that you're angry, but the way you worded your reply gives me the impression that you think pointing out a logical fallacy is a magic ticket to dismissing what I have to say, instead of taking what I said with the seriousness it deserves (and I believe that also falls under a logical fallacy itself). In my opinion, that is a jackass thing to do. If you're interested in winning some sort of argument, then go ahead, because I don't care about who's right as much as I care about StarMade.

I tried to make my post as objective as possible, which is why I included that last paragraph where you said I "contradicted" myself again and again. I was just examining both sides of the issue. You'll also notice I very carefully worded things with lots of non-assertive phrases such as "doubt", "could", "possibly", "might", and "probably" to avoid coming across as a one-sided internet warrior.

Your thread was moved because I reported it as being posted in the wrong board. This is a suggestion thread by spirit and content, just with the nametag of "suggestion" erased and rewritten with "idea discussion". General discussion is about talking about the game in general. Suggestions board is about posting about future things that could be added to the game. This thread is about discussing something that could be a future addition to the game. Even if you feel it's not technically a suggestion thread by intent, it fits the general theme of suggestion threads better than it does the general theme of GD threads. Now it's where it best belongs.

This is why I feel your poll is biased: Options 1 and 2 are both clear "yes" options, option 3 is a "no", but option 4 is a "good idea (yes), but others might not agree". The way I feel about it does not fit in any of your four poll options. I do not think your idea is good, but I do feel there are other uses for AI/NPCs aboard ships. None of your provided voting choices reflect that viewpoint even remotely. You ought to provide a poll option that reflects that so the results for the poll are a little more objective. Perhaps a poll option like, "I don't like the idea of crews, but I think players/NPCS/AI can play roles for ships in other ways".

I don't recall listing my points. Please be more specific as to what you are referring to.

Sure.

Crewability is important for several reasons. One, it allows several different players to collaborate on a ship, creating a sense of teamwork and comradery. Second, it allows for a player's skill to be more prevalent in a fire fight, as there would be more systems that he and his team can edit in order to gain the upper hand. Third, it gives a point to having interiors and better looking ships.Fourth, when Star Made's population booms (Hopefully, it will) you can't have 200 people all in ships. And lastly, there is a feeling of satisfaction from walking around a ship, managing the systems, working in a team and enjoying the view of space that I think is currently absent from Star Made.

Perhaps I did make assumptions about some things, but that's only because you did so little explaining about how your concept would work, so I naturally had to make assumptions and explore some various hypothetical scenarios, because you didn't bother to finish explaining your idea in the OP.

Besides, are you not guilty of committing some the same logical fallacies in your reply to me? For example, you assume that when i'm talking about bugs related to a crew system, that i'm talking - or at least thinking - in reference to the future, and that I expect the bugs to not be fixed. As my closing statement shows, I am actually talking about the present tense:

All in all your idea has merits, but it isn't practical in the gameplay environment StarMade has. It might work well on some other games like Space Engineers, but not well on here.

I really am not concerned with how the future will be for StarMade when it comes to evaluating your suggestion. The future can take care of itself and is yet to be decided. I look at how StarMade is now, and how your system would potentially play out in it, and see where the gaps are (or, since you didn't give us enough details, i have to explore these gaps myself based on what you've already provided), and I point out those gaps so we can see what changes would have to be made, or where the system could appropriately compromise with the reality of the game's state.

The less you have to change the game to make your idea work, the easier it is for SCHINE to implement it, and the faster you will be able to play the way you want to.

 

[Snk]

I want to apologize for my previous post, it was totally unnecessary and rude. My bad on that - it was not typed at a good time. I am sorry if I caused you any discomfort.

Your thread was moved because I reported it as being posted in the wrong board. This is a suggestion thread by spirit and content, just with the nametag of "suggestion" erased and rewritten with "idea discussion". General discussion is about talking about the game in general. Suggestions board is about posting about future things that could be added to the game. This thread is about discussing something that could be a future addition to the game. Even if you feel it's not technically a suggestion thread by intent, it fits the general theme of suggestion threads better than it does the general theme of GD threads. Now it's where it best belongs.

Sure, that's fair.

This is why I feel your poll is biased: Options 1 and 2 are both clear "yes" options, option 3 is a "no", but option 4 is a "good idea (yes), but others might not agree". The way I feel about it does not fit in any of your four poll options. I do not think your idea is good, but I do feel there are other uses for AI/NPCs aboard ships. None of your provided voting choices reflect that viewpoint even remotely. You ought to provide a poll option that reflects that so the results for the poll are a little more objective. Perhaps a poll option like, "I don't like the idea of crews, but I think players/NPCS/AI can play roles for ships in other ways".

I've added an extra option, hopefully that is satisfying to you.

Perhaps I did make assumptions about some things, but that's only because you did so little explaining about how your concept would work, so I naturally had to make assumptions and explore some various hypothetical scenarios, because you didn't bother to finish explaining your idea in the OP.

I didn't flesh out my idea further in the OP on purpose because I wanted a discussion on the general idea of it as a whole, not one specific suggestion.

I really am not concerned with how the future will be for StarMade when it comes to evaluating your suggestion. The future can take care of itself and is yet to be decided. I look at how StarMade is now, and how your system would potentially play out in it, and see where the gaps are (or, since you didn't give us enough details, i have to explore these gaps myself based on what you've already provided), and I point out those gaps so we can see what changes would have to be made, or where the system could appropriately compromise with the reality of the game's state.

I felt that the inherent idea of a discussion about something that may be implemented in the future, is that it will be implemented in the future.

I really am not concerned with how the future will be for StarMade when it comes to evaluating your suggestion. The future can take care of itself and is yet to be decided.

That's what a large portion of your argument seems to be hinged on. It's an inherent difference between our two points of view. Maybe crewability can't be implemented now, but maybe not. That's a different discussion, and depends on how it is implemented. I will make a specific suggestion in the future.