Crew, Decor and Life Support

[MossyStone48]

The basic idea is ROOM blocks.
(This is a blend of ideas between myself, fire219, Dark-life, Urdnot_Wrex and TestamentSeven7.)

DECOR:
A room block projects a 3x3x3 space like a dock block. The space can be made bigger by using room extenders.
1: Assign an NPC to that space. One per NPC per ROOM bock.
2: Their MORALE goes up while there. Each NPC has a set of things they like.
3: Speedy recovery of the NPC's MORALE can be influance by items they like existing in that space.
4: NPCs interact with the items. EG: Play game on computer console, trim leaves on flowers etc.

The happier NPCs are the better the buff they give your ship. What makes them happy and what buff they provide depends on the character's job and preference.

Let's say you have three medics.
1: one might like computers, place a decorative PC terminal to boost MORALE regen
2: another might like flowers, place a flower to boost MORALE regen
3: and the last might like guns, place a gun locker for MORALE regen

Each Medic has two effects. No matter their MORALE they will heal HP of NPCs and players when directed. When their MORALE is at the highest all characters onboard with affinity to the ship (IE Assigned) get a Boost to their HP bar. In addition high MORALE medics will seek out and heal injured NPCs and player automatically. To get full access to the max boost you only need one Medic but having more stacks the MORALE and allows you to go longer without having it regenerated.

Once their MORALE is full they leave the area and their MORALE will slowly deplete.
1: When the total Medic (or any other buff class) MORALE goes below a certain threshold one (the lowest) will take a break to regen before the buff is lost.
2: It is possible to make public rooms using the same block and assigning it to open then place items there. If moral is low they can take a break, stop at the open area and recharge a bit.
3: If they need a faster boost you can let them go to their room instead.
4: Making private rooms bigger with extenders or some sort of flag you can set on the block would allow more things the NPC likes to be added making the recharge rate even faster.
5: There could be a large area dedicated to a cafe/bar/game room/pool where everyone recharges quickly provided it is decorated correctly for the specific crew.

CREW:
NPC classes and how they might affect ship and crewer buffs
MEDIC: improve healing time and also provide a buff for crew HP.
ENGINEER: increase reactor e/sec and repair damaged tanks and reactors.
TECHNICIAN: increase weapon efficiency and repair damaged weapons.
SOLDIER: decrease the odds of a boarding party successfully getting into a vessel and attack intruders.
PILOT: increase ship's maneuverability and control fighters/support craft during mission.
More NPC types can be added to the list. Gunners, Officers, Civilians, Mechanics and so on could all provide their own buffs. Having more doesn't provide a bigger buff just a longer lasting one.

This would create a need to decorate in order to keep the crew moral high. With low or no moral the buffs are reduced and eventually disappear. If you have no way to recharge your MORALE try docking with a station and allowing the crew off the ship to seek out MORALE boosts from the station's open facilities. The station might charge you fees for docking and using their stuff but if you don't like interior decor you can get the same buffs with just a bit of effort. Then teleport everyone back aboard and go explore.

LIFE SUPPORT:
1: HP might deplete unless in a computer or shipcore.
2: Add room blocks to corridors and work areas to stop the HP loss. No decor needed.
3: Allow the NPC or player to heal themselves over time.

The room boundaries can be next to one another with no partition so converting a large unused bay to make a series of small bunks and treating each area as a room has the same effect. (The bunks aren't even needed.) You can also line bays and corridors with room blocks in case you can't find extenders. This would allow NPCs to stay healed and regen MORALE if their liked items exist in that space and it is set to open. The MORALE regen would be slower though.

 

[WolfChild]

Good idea. I like the whole morale idea, but as it is rooms, maybe "sleep" would be a better option? Either or fits though, really. I have but one suggestion:

Instead of a block and range extenders, instead a "Set Room" tool. Use it by clicking edges of room to set it. A minimum and possibly maximum room size would have to be set for this.

The Pros of this:

• Less blocks in inventory/less clutter
• Better decoration (No need for of of place room block)
• Allows for more stat-affecting blocks on ships

The Cons:

• No cost associated with rooms. More rooms generally means higher price.

Solution to con:

• Make a price based on room dimensions.

That's my opinion on it anyway.

 

[MossyStone48]

I would hope integrating the room block into the room design would be a challenge. It would ne to be on a wall and every room in every scifi anything has some keypad someplace that does something to the room. just make it a video phone looking dealie with a keypad and *boom*. Instant "thing you can't live without".

 

[WolfChild]

WarSong
That works.

 

[MossyStone48]

Keep the suggestions coming. Expand on the idea and what classes could do what buff. I left a lot of open ground here. If you have any idea or someone says they might have one I encourage you guys to post.

 

[WolfChild]

To expand on the pilot, a when a turret is piloted by one an accuracy buff perhaps?

Also, some way to have two-man fighters (yourself + one npc) would be good. I don't know how you would have buffs with that.

 

[Visitor]

Few points regarding mechanics and buffs.

Potential for the buff should depend on vessel's size.

Try as much as you want, I simply don't see how any crewmember of whatever class could be of much help when on board of a single-pilot fighter mid-flight, where there shouldn't be need (or even use) for corridors, rooms etc - just an enclosed cockpit connected with subsystems and electronics allowing fighter's main functions. In case of big ships, there should also be maximum value of buff available, so crew of such should be reasonably large but designs based on the idea of hulls with empty rooms full of people magically generating additional thrust, firepower or healing others won't work.

Speaking of rooms full of people, I think that NPCs should also have a way to interact with whatever they are meant to work with to provide any buff. Doctor NPCs should need to reach injured NPCs to heal them, engineers/technical crewmembers in general should have access to certain consoles each to provide a bonus. Additional pilots shouldn't be able to affect ship's mobility no matter how much they twist, flap their arms and how loud they make 'vroom, vroom' sound if they're locked in their quarters without a proper console, nor should gunners help with weapon fire if all they can do is sit in the corner loudly exclaiming 'pew, pew!'.

Lastly, there should be a way for players to take over and, for example, provide a boost as gunners by using weapon control consoles. That not only would allow but encourage player crews instead of forcing any group of players to rely on NPCs.

The necessity for a buff should also depend on the size.

As mentioned point above, little fighter isn't made for and frankly doesn't need any additional personnel, for big ships several NPCs however should be absolutely necessary as single player pilot shouldn't be able to govern and maintain every system on city-sized vessel. I'd rather have the buff be considered 'normal operations' so at maximum 'buffing' the ship performs simply well for its design and without any crew it's floating piece of junk barely able to move anywhere, encouraging use of smaller transporters till people actually have 'human' resources such as players or NPCs before going straight for space behemoths.

Latter's in regards to now popular opinion that single-player dreadnoughts should be balanced to require an assortment of (rather rare than expensive as money are hardly a problem in this game) NPCs or even better, a few players taking over several consoles, instead of allowing slugfests where everyone got himself a flying base in a fight (with a side bonus of making losing capital ships actually hurt people, instead of just being a hassle of spawning another from the blueprint and overstuffed credit account).

NPC Classes

I'd make engineers responsible mostly for repairs of anything with exception of hull (you really should still have some use for the repair beam) with a tiny buff to reactor output or divide them into engineers responsible for reactor, cloaking/jamming system power use and maintenance technicians responsible for repairs of everything (aside from said hull).

Gunners (called technicians by OP) should just concentrate on dividing boni between rate of fire, recharge, possible damage and energy consumption of weapons.

I don't see how soldiers could affect anything by just being there (both gameplay and mechanics wise) and I'd just make them fighting NPCs that can either follow some player on his boarding attempt or mill in the hallways shooting at whoever's deemed hostile.

I don't think we should have more 'buffing' classes aside from that. Some NPCs of different occupations existing for the flavor and immersion but not being really recruitable for any job in particular (different civilian classes, traders which would have to have some storage unit with content assigned to trade and so on) would be nice, though.

Decor, facilities and NPCs using such.

If we talk about decor, I am not sure we should get yet another block signifying a room, or rather, I'd like to have also an alternative like connecting ownership to particular 'facility' (pod, bed, chair, computer terminal, table, whatever) to create particular NPC's quarters/workplace.

I'd also put certain limitations on packing crewmembers like sardines - this suggestion will be of far less merit if people will be able to simply make enclosed room stuffed floor to roof with bunks or whatever crewmembers would need, with no space for them to actually even get there. It would simply work against the whole point of having such.

Similar problem with using stations to 'recharge' the personnel. The effect has to start wearing off relatively quickly and start to not a long time after the ship with the crew undocks from the station, otherwise there will be no real advantage to sacrificing blocks of additional shields, weaponry and so on for the living quarters. If personnel will start noticing lack of even basic facilities after shorter, rather than longer period of time, it will still allow creation of medium-range patrol cruisers that require regular docking with proper facilities but will put a dent in the idea of using current standard of attacking enemy group's sectors with floating piles of gun and shield blocks.

Life Support

I am all for that, though I'd change and add a few points.
- Make life support actual subsystem composed of blocks, the size of the whole thing should be dependant on size of the ship, not unlike how currently reactor blocks may work (with additional modifiers from number of players and NPC using the atmosphere generated). It doesn't mean that the system should be big, but if during the fight if some life support blocks will get destroyed, I like the idea of what's left not being able to support the crew and cause - properly slowed down by blocks remaining - HP loss. Adding just some empty room so it can generate oxygen would be kinda cheap.

- For crewmember to actually benefit from it, they have to have their helmets off. Otherwise they are assumed to use internal, suit's supply of oxygen (which, I hope at some point will become limited but rechargable if one is in breathable atmosphere). I don't think it would be hard to adjust NPCs so if there would be ones with suits, they'd put on helmets when not in breathable atmosphere, look for one when low on oxygen and take helmets off when reaching it. The ones without suit could simply try to find nearby compartments with atmosphere and lock themselves in. Bonus points come in a form of making airlocks (rooms with two sets of doors) have a point, without being necessary.

- Lack of breathable atmosphere should also affect characters using cores or consoles. In fact, it may be a good occasion to at last change magical body-snatching cubes which simply look and work silly into things people actually have to sit or stand in front of when interacting, another popular opinion voiced quite many times I agree with as it's far better for the immersion and, now, would mesh with the proposal of life support well.

- Empty space next to the space should not benefit from life support - if there's a big hole in the hull, I don't see how folks should walk around without any issues just because they're still on the ship with working life support blocks. Would work well once hulls are balanced allowing defense to rely on them instead of being put completely into shields and be a nice foundation for decompression in the future, but that's a side thing and frankly, not something I'd see as necessary at this point.

 

[ltmauve]

Um, if the room area is like a docking block, how would it interact with other blocks in the area (i.e. decorations) If it allows intersection, then how you prevent intersection from walls from being an exploit? If not, how would you let people put it in rooms with things on the floor? I think the best way to make a "room" would be some sort of non-block mode. Also, not sure that having to customize areas for individual NPCs is the best idea.

EDIT: wow, I made that a bit more complicated then I needed. Okay, so one type of room. You can assign multiple crew to each, or one, or none. The amount of energy that can be recovered is based on the size and how many crew can use the room.

 

[MossyStone48]

ltmauve
If people make a crappy interior just for the buffs they may as well just dock at a station and let their crew recharge morale there. It'd take WAY less time and they wouldn't be seen as lazy, just frugal. Since doing that would be cheaper than building a sh*t room full of baubles. I'd rather see a room either open or private. Shared rooms seems more complex than needed.

WolfChild
Ok, so you jump onto a small ship with some of your crew you get the buffs from their morale but the loss over time will force you to redock with your mother ship (or a station) and let them recharge. Dig? Cool. Now let's say you take off with some crew in a freighter from your carrier and onboard you have a Miner, a Medic and Soldier and a Pilot. They are all set to that ship. If their morale goes too low you'll have to dock with something that has open morale boosting rooms. When you dock the affinity of the NPC is temporarily set to the new entity. Unless otherwise instructed the NPC will disembark and seek their pleasure. Once that's done you undock from the entity and all your crew get teleported back to their work stations/computers/shipcores. Now send the pilot and the miner to a small ore salvager and undock it, they get teleported to their posts on that ship now. With their boosted morale the little ship they operate will salvage faster and fly more smoothly. When the flying starts to get derpy and the mining looks sluggish they might need a recharge. Have them redock with you freighter and take them home to recharge. While you are at your mother ship you can tell them to stay put and pull another miner and pilot (already at full morale) and fly back out. On your trip to the mothership you decide to also add a turret to your freighter but you have no gunners. Just shove anyone in there; medic, soldier, anyone. They'll have roughly the same accuracy and such. If you went to a station and recruited a Gunner he'd come with full morale already and you'd get his (let me just pull some buffs out of thin air) refire rate and improved targeting. The improved targeting would only apply to his turret but the refire rate would affect all the ship's guns. Once your mining trip is done you can redock with your carrier and everyone will go to their rooms or you can reassign them to posts on that ship. If you were to undock the freighter after reassigning everyone no one would get teleported to it. But the gunner you recruited might still be there. Before he drifts out of the sector reassign him to a post or room on the mother ship and have him teleported aboard. Now.. We teleported a whole lot today and it's not fun so anytime you force an NPC to teleport site-to-site their morale takes a small hit and maybe their HP as well. It's best to let the lil buggers path find their way to their assignments. But auto teleporting would be ideal especially when being forced to abandon a ship. Undock the escape pod and those assigned to it are teleported aboard and ejected to make a run for the nearest designated safe zone.

 

[ltmauve]

Having a system where multiple crew can assigned to the same room means that you don't have to build a separate room for each one of your crew member. A military-style vessel doesn't have an individual room for each crew. That's not how it works.

I don't like the idea of auto-teleports, since it could be used to bypass the need for an interior. Maybe NPC teleport upon successful pathfinding to the location?

Also, this bugs me about your suggestion: calling it morale. Better to call it alertness, which it would make sense that it fades that quickly (highway hypnosis, anyone?) and can be quickly recovered by a break.

As for the different types of NPCs, maybe have stats instead? Full level of a stat gives twice the buff that zero level of a stat gives (more like you need twice the crew to achieve the same buff. NPCs level their stats by doing that task. When a station is missing (and the buff for that system is below max) the NPC with the highest stat in whatever system it is will go to the station.

 

[MossyStone48]

ltmauve
Right. And everyone is assigned a bunk in a barracks. So place a single room block along the wall two spaces apart with no partitions for each bunk in the barracks. Done. Privatized area for a foot locker and any needed morale boosting items.

The room boundaries can be next to one another with no partition so converting a large unused bay to make a series of small bunks and treating each area as a room has the same effect. (The bunks aren't even needed.)

Or someone could just dock to a station and let their people get their morale back that way. Bypassing all of this in exchange for a little lost time.

The teleporting can easily go unused. I included it to keep someone from arguing pathfinding takes too long. I also pointed out a possible drawback of teleporting too often.

I'm sticking to morale. Because you can lose it quickly. People get homesick and a bit of shore leave can do wonders. Alertness is something that a good address from the captain could pick right up. That's too easy.

NPC classes let you tell at a glance WHAT that particular block head does for your ship instead of having to leaf thru a dossier. And the buff reaches a critical level your idea does the exact same thing the original idea does. This would only add to the complexity since every NPC already has independent tastes when it comes to items that boost morale.. And has largely no effect except to possibly frustrate the player with stats.

 

[MossyStone48]

Similar ideas have been tossed around in chat recently and I'd typically recommend creating a new thread but so many ideas from so many people went into this single post I decided to give this old thread a bump in hopes of catching some of those new ideas.

There was talk about adding toilets and other crew comforts. What else you got guys?

 

[aceface]

Awesome suggestion ^^

 

[Rixxan]

I agree to this, morale is an important part of a human lifestyle. The crews we hire are HUMANS, not cylons, so it would make sense that this would be a thing.

 

[FatCobra]

What about an option for robotic NPCs they wouldn't gain experience but would be more expensive and better than starting NPCs.

 

[MossyStone48]

That's essentially the job of a Bobby AI. Expensive and more capable.

Tho the idea of different races of NPC and even fauna being recruitable as crew were tossed around once. I know one idea was along the lines of finding a stranded pilot and his pet. He had managed to train an animal to gather items and act like a pack animal. Who knows. Some form of domesticated fish might make a great engineer X3 Give it some water channels between its workstation its quarters and an open area and you have a happy fish-geneer. Could get interesting if you catch an android race stow away on your ship that turns out to be excellent as a Marine or something. Disable a ship without killing the crew and guess who you can conscript into your crew? Or ransom. It gets crazy cool pretty fast.

 

[Rixxan]

A fish marine would be a Marine Marine, I guess. But different species and new AI is a great idea.