Crew as a way to limit turret/drone spam, encourage warfare, and induce maintenance costs

[Lecic]

I have been doing some brainstorming on how crew could halt a growing meta which I believe is harmful for the game, while also encouraging warfare and expansion between factions without allowing factions to grow too rapidly.

This suggestion has three main pillars.

1. Every Ship Needs A Pilot

The first pillar is how we prevent extreme entity spam, of mass drone and turret spam. Every ship needs a pilot to function, no matter how small. Spamming 4 dozen AI microdrones every battle quickly becomes impractical when this means you lose 4 dozen NPC pilots every battle, which take time and resources to replace. Having a huge number of turrets on a disproportionately small ship is impractical because it will make the ship need a huge amount of room dedicated to interior.

Larger ships also need additional crew besides their pilot and turret operators to keep their systems running effectively. This should probably increase linearly.

2. Planets Produce Pilots

The second pillar is how you get pilots.
Terran planets can be cheaply colonized with simple buildings and farms. Farms need NPCs to maintain them, and will constantly produce food. Any surplus is stored, and if there is enough surplus being produced, new NPCs will appear on the planet if there is available housing for them. You can recruit these NPCs to crew your ships and control your turrets, as well as colonize new planets. The limited speed at which new NPCs can be recruited puts a limit on how quickly a faction can expand and control its territory.

Other more hostile or alien planet types can also be farming colonies by setting up more expensive habitation and farm units compared to the simplicity of setting up on a terran world, but perhaps these would be better suited as mining colonies via the often suggested mantle extractors.

3. Pilots Need Room, Pay, And Food

The third pillar is how NPCs effect your ship and your overall faction economy.
NPCs require a place to sleep, a place to eat, and a place to work, at minimum. NPCs need to be payed for their work or they won't do it. And NPCs need food to stay alive, or they'll eventually starve to death. Pay and food should be mainly automated after figuring out initial set up. Colonies automatically produce food which is automatically transferred where it is needed where it is automatically consumed. Credits are automatically given to your crew for payment.
Unless you are running a negative, you can maintain your fleet and the NPCs running it indefinitely.
But it does limit how big your fleet can be based on how much territory you control, which forces you to expand if you want to have a larger fleet, whether that is of traders and manufacturing or for combat.

 

[Captain_Boroski]

Weren't we supposed to have A.I crews last year anyway?

 

[DukeofRealms]

Weren't we supposed to have A.I crews last year anyway?

No, they've never been in short term plans.

 

[Samwiz1]

Absolutely genius, but i couldn't think of something harder to implement. What you're talking about is a COMPLETE overhaul on why there are planets, a MASSIVE change in how fleets work, and a consistent supply of automated resources. This could be difficult to implement as what you suggests that unloaded chunks still be able to distribute food and pay among crew. Also, how would planets have population? How would towns and farms work? And most importantly, how would one prevent the simple annihilation of another faction's ability to produce fleets by destroying every planet in their territory? With the size of most megafactions nowadays, nobody could get started without having a large following and great knowledge in the game. In the ridiculously unlikely event this is considered and/or implemented, it would give Schine a massive workload.

However, despite the negatives, there are Clearly positives. Something like this would add an instant appeal bonus to single player gaming on Starmade because all of a sudden there's AI management that comes with planet settlements. I LOVE the idea of having NPC players settling on planets that you can control and/or colonize, but this would also then need to be considered for AI factions. They would have control over planets in their territory. On top of all that, this would also make Homeworlds set as homebases infinitely more useful.

Summary - I love the idea and think it would be a MASSIVE positive boost to starmade, but simply adding it to the game would likely be too much work to be realistic for Schine to go with. Sorry.

 

[Lecic]

a MASSIVE change in how fleets work

How so? Fleets would still function the same in combat and for most things like unloaded movement. Unless you were dumb and overextended and had a deficit of food or credits, it wouldn't even be something you need to manage very often.

a consistent supply of automated resources

Not a difficult thing to accomplish. Difficulty in making this would not be all that different from how something like faction points work.

This could be difficult to implement as what you suggests that unloaded chunks still be able to distribute food and pay among crew

Well, NPC factions can already move resources around unloaded chunks, and transferring credits would be hilariously simple.

how would planets have population

What do you mean by this?

How would towns and farms work

Planets save the number of houses, number of NPCs, and the number of farms they have for extremely simple calculations on how much food is generated, how much food is consumed, and if there is enough surplus and open housing for an NPC to move in. Housing on planets would be accomplished in the same way that the quarters system the developers have proposed for crew would work, just on a planet.

And most importantly, how would one prevent the simple annihilation of another faction's ability to produce fleets by destroying every planet in their territory?

I think the simplest solution would be to remove the destruction of planets. I think it's a dumb mechanic for exactly the reasons you've stated. This is true of whether planets would be used for colonies, for mantle extractors, for AoE bonuses for your faction if you're near the planet, whatever your preferred method of making planets useful would be. Being able to destroy planets means eventually there won't be any planets left in the universe, meaning servers will eventually be unplayable. Have a lore reason of "the atmosphere makes shipboard weaponry non-functional" or something, and make planets unable to be destroyed or strip mined, because all it does it leave chunks of space barren in the future.

With the size of most megafactions nowadays, nobody could get started without having a large following and great knowledge in the game.

The thing about crew is that it would not immediately be needed, because you can pilot your own ships. It's only when your ships get larger and start having additional systems would you need crew. Additionally, you could make it possible to hire crew from NPC factions or from other factions, meaning you wouldn't need your own colonies for a while. After that, the galaxy is big enough that there will probably always be at least a little open space for any upstart faction who needs it.

 

[Zyrr]

I think the only point I'd seriously dispute here is the requirement for turrets to have crew, because this will just get ridiculous if you intend, for example, to bring a point defense corvette that'll have a crew requirement equal to a much larger and more powerful ship, or many smaller (and then more powerful together) ships. If we look at sci-fi literature and media, not many turrets are manually operated, only the absolute largest - more often you see automation or "battle station turret operators".

A more elegant solution, in my mind, is a designated turret operator and an associated "computer" for NPCs. Because one NPC handling a billion turrets would be silly, you could limit them to a maximum mass/block count, a maximum number of total entities or base entities, OR both. I like both.

Another point I'd like to talk about is the requirement that crew get paid and have food, and how that ties in with planets. This is a brilliant addition to fleets and player ships, something you can see in prominent sci-fi and perhaps the greatest 4x game ever made, Aurora 4x. Crews must return to a friendly planet for R&R (and payment) or they'll shed combat efficiency like a cat in a hurricane/go insane/die. It eliminates the meta of "dude just hide your fleets deep in dead space XD" and adds strategic depth - if you know when an enemy fleet has to go to port, you can easily handle assets while they're at dock. This addition is absolutely critical as a foundation for literally dozens of other features for factions, NPCs, macro and micro economics, and endgame in multiplayer. I could talk about this singular suggestion for at least like, one and a half snoozefest forum posts. It's good, bottom line.

 

[Lecic]

I think the only point I'd seriously dispute here is the requirement for turrets to have crew, because this will just get ridiculous if you intend, for example, to bring a point defense corvette that'll have a crew requirement equal to a much larger and more powerful ship, or many smaller (and then more powerful together) ships. If we look at sci-fi literature and media, not many turrets are manually operated, only the absolute largest - more often you see automation or "battle station turret operators".

A more elegant solution, in my mind, is a designated turret operator and an associated "computer" for NPCs. Because one NPC handling a billion turrets would be silly, you could limit them to a maximum mass/block count, a maximum number of total entities or base entities, OR both. I like both.

It is a problem that one could have troubles providing crew for a small, PD heavy boats. This could be solved by allowing one NPC to control multiple turrets if those turrets are set to target missiles, or perhaps allowing for anti-missile turrets to be automated without NPCs. I would think any offensive turret should require a crew member operating it, though, because one can easily make a small alpha damage turret that takes up the same space as a PD turret, and if it is possible to have offensive turrets that don't need crew operating them, people absolutely will just use those and spam them to the extreme.

 

[Zyrr]

It is a problem that one could have troubles providing crew for a small, PD heavy boats. This could be solved by allowing one NPC to control multiple turrets if those turrets are set to target missiles, or perhaps allowing for anti-missile turrets to be automated without NPCs. I would think any offensive turret should require a crew member operating it, though, because one can easily make a small alpha damage turret that takes up the same space as a PD turret, and if it is possible to have offensive turrets that don't need crew operating them, people absolutely will just use those and spam them to the extreme.

That's a good point, but I'm going to stand by mine until we get updated information on what it costs to hire crew, their salary and their supply. I think it could really eliminate the viability of turret-heavy ships compared to conventional - I'm not entirely opposed to that, but it shuts down play styles so I'd have to disagree on principle.

 

[Shaker]

Every ship needs a pilot? Pretty much destroys any faction smaller than the big factions on your server.

The AI drone/fleets help balance small vs large factions, the current meta just abuses this setup and ruins it for those who dont have the player numbers.

 

[Zyrr]

It was implied that pilots include crew.

 

[jayman38]

Every ship needs a pilot? Pretty much destroys any faction smaller than the big factions on your server.

The AI drone/fleets help balance small vs large factions, the current meta just abuses this setup and ruins it for those who dont have the player numbers.

I agree, and think every player and/or faction should get a few "free" ships. Maybe three, serving as AI "bodyguards" for the core faction members.

My reason is that if absolutely every ship requires NPCs, I can see griefers committing orbital bombardment on all habitable planets, destroying all ability to feed and house NPCs, and to destroy the supply of NPCs themselves.

So, with a few "free" ships, any faction can limp along, even after a grievous NPC genocide.

Additionally, it may be extremely valuable to create housing and farms on space stations, giving stations more value. Maybe less efficient than planets, so that planets are not again rendered unnecessary. Maybe NPCs can only reproduce on planets. Specifically, I am thinking that home bases will be used as massive NPC storage facilities that will protect players from NPC genocide.

NPCs used in this way might also increase the value of astronaut combat, because it would be more economical to have smaller engagements that can wipe out large numbers of low-HP NPCs. (As opposed to a standard combat capital ship, with weapons designed to hit individual targets with single, powerful shots.)

I was thinking of suggesting a significant way to protect NPCs, but standard defenses on planets and space stations should be sufficient protection for the housed NPCs under most circumstances. It would be more important than ever for your stations and planets to have capable turrets, even if the enemy can generally hit you from farther away than your turrets can shoot. After all, NPCs are relatively tiny, so a ship at such a great distance can fire with impunity, but will miss most of the NPCs most of the time. In small numbers, the NPCs would be very hard to hit, and therefore could reproduce faster than they are destroyed by a distant enemy. On the other hand, they can only reproduce so much before presenting more targets to the distant enemy, so once the population reaches a certain density, the deaths will match the reproduction rate, leveling the population curve to a flat plateau.

 

[El_Poulpy]

I really like the idea. The upkeep cost of food an credits could also replace the faction point to prevent over complex mechanic by layering resources.

Like Zyrr suggested the need for fleets to resupply for food could lead to interesting mechanics. fleets could resupply on planets stations or ships if their cargo contains food. To simplify the fleet couldn't need to store food, when resupplying it would consume all the food it needs at once and then would last for days ? a week ? more ?
So you could have logistic infrastructure you could strike to stop an offensive by intercepting food convoy, raiding stations, etc.

The only concern i have is about people who don't want to have crew. Maybe like jayman38 suggested you could have "free" ships and "free" turrets.

for instance :
- each ship controlled by bobby ai can have 1-2 turrets controlled by bobby ai
- each ship controlled by player/npc can have 4-6 turrets controlled by bobby ai
- each fleet needs at least one player/npc ship but can have 6-10 ships controlled by ai

 

[Scypio]

The first pillar is how we prevent extreme entity spam, of mass drone and turret spam. Every ship needs a pilot to function, no matter how small. Spamming 4 dozen AI microdrones every battle quickly becomes impractical when this means you lose 4 dozen NPC pilots every battle, which take time and resources to replace. Having a huge number of turrets on a disproportionately small ship is impractical because it will make the ship need a huge amount of room dedicated to interior.

Larger ships also need additional crew besides their pilot and turret operators to keep their systems running effectively. This should probably increase linearly.

Working around mass enhancers would be better, easier and wiser. You would need two crew to use a rail door otherwise.

 

[taisong]

I do not necessary want having crew in every one of my ships, but I do want somebody inhabiting my station.

In a game called FTL, we can sometimes pick up crew and place them in your ship. I guess it will be a good idea to hire them in a trader station or find them at a crash site.

I do want the old AI to be viable too.
I suppose we can make the AI consume some power, which increases proportionally by ship sizes.

Crew will consume some food and water, and AI consumes power. (A considerable amount for AI. It should be okay for the AI to use small PD turrets, but not large turrets)

 

[Daeridanii]

I agree, and think every player and/or faction should get a few "free" ships.

The only concern i have is about people who don't want to have crew.

I do not necessary want having crew in every one of my ships,

Idea incoming...

Crew to Computerization Ratios
The more crew you have, the less computerization you need on your ship.
Computerization consumes significant amounts of power, especially for larger ships.

Therefore, a small ship with good power systems could get away with having little or no crew; but larger vessels still require large crews, although having more computerization could decrease the amount of crew needed by a small amount, while consuming power.

 

[Lecic]

Every ship needs a pilot? Pretty much destroys any faction smaller than the big factions on your server.

The AI drone/fleets help balance small vs large factions, the current meta just abuses this setup and ruins it for those who dont have the player numbers.

Pilots includes NPC pilots.
Fleets do not fix the balance of large factions versus small factions. The only reason this appears true right now is because most major large factions do not use fleets.

My reason is that if absolutely every ship requires NPCs, I can see griefers committing orbital bombardment on all habitable planets, destroying all ability to feed and house NPCs, and to destroy the supply of NPCs themselves.

I already covered this. Make planetary atmospheres disable weapons. We need this anyway to prevent people from making every planet a floating blockless core.

Working around mass enhancers would be better, easier and wiser. You would need two crew to use a rail door otherwise.

Nope. Mass enhancers does not fix the microdrone spam issue. And no, a rail door would not need crew. Did you read the suggestion? Crew is only needed for things that have systems.

 

[MacThule]

I think this is a pretty streamlined solution. It checks against entity spam and underpins a need for infrastructure in order to field a serious battle force - something that has long been lacking.

The turret issue might require some finesse but is totally doable. I think to protect starting players and small teams entities could have a certain baseline of free turrets and then require crew beyond that. Making fleet ships require crew is perfect.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Nice Lecic!

I see you've pulled together a whole bunch of ideas people have posted here into a nice logical suggestion.
Especially the "Elite" game like limitations on ships where they require a pilot and if larger additional crew.

A more elegant solution, in my mind, is a designated turret operator and an associated "computer" for NPCs. Because one NPC handling a billion turrets would be silly, you could limit them to a maximum mass/block count, a maximum number of total entities or base entities, OR both. I like both.

This would solve the over population of crew. Perhaps make this only possible for turrets with BobbyAI installed. Then apply BobbyAI groups the same way we do with fleets to allow you to have weapons groups.

Perhaps make it so any turrets without BobbyAI would require a crew member to man the weapons computers.
Most logically, this would be the ideal way to use the long awaited command chairs. That way your NPC's know where to go and where to access.
Then this could be the focal point for NPCs jobs.

An alternative to the command chair, would be a command station. That perhaps looks like the existing LoD computer console. This could then accomodate standing NPCs.

 

[Asvarduil]

So, a problem with this suggestion - and the game in general, but one thing at a time - is the new player experience. New players simply won't have resources to do much of any of this stuff.

That's before you get to the fact that due to the advent of the drone-based meta, you're still awkwardly marrying RTS mechanics on a block-buildy game in a painful way. I'd say this is one of the things StarMade is doing majorly wrong. It'd be much better to rethink the Faction system - including the mining bonus - as well as the benefits of territory control, as well as the costs of building certain blocks, as well as what the core mechanics of this game really are, to be able to have a more enjoyable game.

In short, I think the drone/turret meta you're worried about is a symptom of a malformed game design. The game needs to be designed to put players first, instead of automation. The game needs to be more fun, so that we play the game and don't take to the forums to complain.

 

[Bladeriker]

Fun idea, but it does not remove drone warfare at all, if the consensus is to allow one NPC to "Control" several turrets, then it stands by logic that the same NPC could control a flight of drones.

Thus not every ship would need a physical pilot in it, just someone (NPC) controlling it near by.

Not to bad an idea over all.