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

[faiyde]

Perhaps have crew just upgrade the AI, so allow target prioritisation, aiming for power/weapons (when detected by scan) and fleet formations.
Keep Bobby as is or maybe dumbed down a bit, like all offensive turrets can only track the same target. that would mean it isn't necessary to have crew on smaller ships or those with just a few turrets but on a larger scale those that use them get a meaningful advantage.

Something I am concerned about is crew's vulnerability to "core drilling" especially if their entity indicators are still visible. An escort drone could be neutralised by someone blasting a hole to wherever the command chair is. Perhaps co-pilot positions and/or a bobby AI could kick in if the pilot gets killed.

Also crew should be available and maintainable to some degree from shops, allowing people without a base or whom are nomadic to populate their ships, but with either some kind of pop limit or increased upkeep.

 

[Indigo Slimez]

This is a great idea, would make this game a lot better

Or we could make it so you can't blow up planets?

Makes the problem worse, your going to get people going around claiming every single planet they come across.

 

[Asvarduil]

Shaker - You didn't read his post.

What he's actually arguing for (well, partially), is for a 'colonizing' system that produces a special NPC (the pilots). These pilot NPCs must be assigned to ships, in order for them to operate.

Actually this whole setup perpetuates StarMade's status as a quasi-RTS, really, which I'm not against - it's an intriguing idea. I'm not entirely with it, however, as I think that the RTS elements need to be either removed entirely, or seriously downplayed, because it's yet another pointless system in a game that already has serious issues with being fun to play.

 

[Valiant70]

Starmade really is turning into quasi-RTS from the look of things. That does set the game apart from other space sandboxes out there, but I'm not sure if it does so in a good way. Time will tell I guess.

 

[Nickizzy]

What do you guys mean by quasi-RTS? If it can have RTS elements through fleet command and large fleets, it can also have economy elements through mining, manufacturing, and trading. And it will always have sandbox elements through the block based system. Building will be big because everyone wants their own ship and style. Just because a game doesn't focus on one thing doesn't mean each thing is weaker. It could give Schine a lot more "new feature" updates, because they can make the building system really good, and attract builders. Then they could revisit the combat system and fleet micro and attract combat people. After that they finish up trading and advertise as an eco sim. The more play styles you have, the more marketing angles you can poke from and the more people you can get into the game.

 

[DrTarDIS]

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.

Not so sure about food, but pay and crew, yessir.
I think it would be good to be able to "assume control" of your(or your faction's) NPCs rather than just spawning too.
As both a method of empire control, and a psudo fast-travel to anywhere you've sent explorer NPC.

 

[Lecic]

This is a great idea, would make this game a lot better

Makes the problem worse, your going to get people going around claiming every single planet they come across.

So just claim the planet back from them? The entire planet claiming system needs reworked anyway.

Not so sure about food, but pay and crew, yessir.
I think it would be good to be able to "assume control" of your(or your faction's) NPCs rather than just spawning too.
As both a method of empire control, and a psudo fast-travel to anywhere you've sent explorer NPC.

The main goal of food was to prevent hyper speed NPC growth, because food takes time to grow (or would be expensive to constantly import in large quantities), so it'd act on a limiter on how rapidly new NPCs can move in.

 

[Arcaner]

Specifically, I am thinking that home bases will be used as massive NPC storage facilities

Nooooo... don't think of NPCs as not-human. You CANNOT mistreat them by keeping them locked up in stations...think about their psycological state of mind....health concerns...
*shakes head sadly*
VOTE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS OF NPCs.


Okay, enough o that...on a more serious note, the idea of crew required on ships in a fleet is a good one. But it ends there. You CANNOT expect [with the level of complexity there is in your suggestion] Schema to start development on this proposal.

In the system I envision, crew can be bought at shops (like in the current game). This crew has to be stationed on ships if they are to be used in a fleet. If the crew is killed, the ship ceases to be part of the fleet.

Pay? Maybe. Food? That's simply a no-no. [would act as something between an alternate currency and resources..simply increases complexity and adds a whole new variable to the game.]

Simple, elegant, realistic, serves the purpose(to give crew a greater role and limit faction growth rate)

 

[Nickizzy]

Nooooo... don't think of NPCs as not-human. You CANNOT mistreat them.

VOTE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS OF NPCs.

Um, N P C
Non player character
Until someone makes an AI that does keyboard control NPCs are, by name, not human.

 

[Asvarduil]

Um, N P C
Non player character
Until someone makes an AI that does keyboard control NPCs are, by name, not human.

I'm not saying you should, but there's ways to do that.