Brainstorm This Crew: Stations, bonuses, specialties, experience & expense.

[Andem]

I think that bigger ships would need more crew, not just the compliment you want, otherwise your bonuses go away. maybe something like, 1 Crewman for every 500 Blocks.

More specific kinds of crew members, like doctor's can become psychologists who bring up morale or surgeons who can heal more and faster, and so on and so forth.
[DOUBLEPOST=1449717312,1449717059][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, in combat, if a hole is torn into your ship, the crew will be removed from gravity, and whenever air is implemented they would get sucked into space as well.

 

[GRHayes]

As has been generally suggested elsewhere: I'd like to see crew on my ships manning functional systems consoles, providing in-play bonuses. I'm starting a new thread to present some specific ideas that lead in that direction.


Specialties:

• Cadet: No bonuses
• Engineer: Energy efficiency or output bonuses
• Pilot: Improved maneuverability
• Tactical: Improved weapon cool-down and damage
• Science: Improved Scanner efficiency
• Miner: Improved mining /refining yields
• Medical: Healing and recovery of crew
• Command: Improved crew morale. Improved crew bonuses.

Experience and consoles:
In a way, you are crafting your crew just like everything else. You start out with an untrained cadet who gives no bonuses and has no experience in any of the specialties.

• Crews gain experience while attached to a console depending on the type of console they are attached to.
• Weapons control consoles give tactical experience. Engineering consoles give engineering experience, etc.
• Experience accrues for time at the console, depending on how hostile the sector is. No experience for peaceful. Rapid advancement for time in a hostile sector with active enemy AIs. Experience bonuses to all specialty scores for the whole crew on entering a previously unexplored sector.
• Crews gain command rank by advancing beyond a threshold score in at least 3 other disciplines.

Additional consoles and effects: (When occupied by a crew-member):

• Command station: Acts as a BobbyAI. Ship will maneuver and fire in the presence of enemies. Bonus modifiers to crew bonuses.
• Damage control (engineering): Allows the ship to recover HP, rate based on experience
• Jump drive: Reduced recharge time, and increased jump range, both based on experience.
• Helm: Increased ship turning rates. (required for Command station to control the ship)
• Science station: Auto runs a dialog on sector change informing of sector status, enemies and anomalies in neighboring sectors. Reports on ore and resources in sector bodies.
• Medical station: Damaged crew heal of damage over time. Crew killed in combat have a percentage chance to respawn.
• Drive station (engineering): bonuses to speed and acceleration.
• Weapons station (tactical): Required for command station to control the ships weapons Bonuses to damage and cooldown.
• Security station: (tactical): Crew guards position, then engages any enemy AIs or players with hand weapons.
• Remote control (tactical/pilot): Allows a player or crew member to take control of a turret or small craft attached to a slaved mount point. (drones!)
• Unified operations (tactical/pilot/command): combined command/helm/weapons all in one. Only uses the experience of a single Crewman. Loses functions if another station of that type exists. For instance it can't be used to steer the craft if a helm station exists, or fire the main weapons if a weapons station exists. Great for small craft where space is at a premium. Great for large craft as an emergency station should one of the other 3 be destroyed. expensive.

Other thoughts:

• A life support block that allows crews to be helmetless within x radius. Crew bonuses are nerfed while they wear a helmet.
• Space plague: Picked up by going helmetless on some planets. Communicable on board ships. Easily curable if you have a doctor, otherwise reduces NPC bonus and health until they die.
• Pay: More experienced crew become more expensive, slowly draining your credit balance until they leave you. Happy crew work cheaper. An experienced captain can keep your labor costs down by keeping morale up.
• NPCs could be assigned to their station by the traditional c/v method or by a "t" menu option where crew assignments, including backups could be edited, lust like we currently use the T menu to combine/slave ships subsystems..

You might want to read this post and Bench's reply to it.
http://starmadedock.net/threads/starmade-development-direction.21615/page-11#post-251798

 

[DrTarDIS]

my $1:

Have "chairs" connect to systems the exact same way that the core does now.
Each chair can be linked to systems exactly as the core can, but has a unique hotbar. Systems unavailable from core.
Each chair can be linked to cameras (c->v), also unavailable from core.
Each crew (npc or player) can access that hotbar&cameras from that chair.


Crew members will need at least the same level of "programming" as Bobby does. Would be nice to see:
----------> "racial bonuses" RPG style.
----------> Equipment slots letting you "specialise" the NPC (hand laser, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, etc)
---------->Items NPC carries should affect other stats (accuracy, speed)
---------->packmule

Spoiler

packmule

Crew members can be dispatched on "away missions" with or without the player!(see star trek online's crew missions system for examples).
EG1 ->"send exploration ship to x sector"

Spoiler

--------->Requires ship with # of consoles, insert subsystem relevant to mission type(medical/astrotech/passive/transporters/storage), and [recommended point values] for the ship's blueprint(weaponry/defensive/mobility).
--------->Requires enough crew to fill the min number of consoles
---------->load NPCS into ship's consoles/chairs
---------->Activate the mission from your fleet tab, selecting the ship and crew
----------->ship goes on a flight, time passes, RNG, mission pass/fail/special

---->Pass
---------->Crew members gain xp, you get blocks/money/reputation reward
---->Fail
---------->crew members gain xp, lessened/no reward, ship structure/armor hp reduced Q-Y%
---------->crew member dies
---------->crew member looses XP/stats
---------->ship destroyed, but crew hitchiked home
---------->"they're hot on our tails!" Waves of pirates follow them home.
---------->etc
---->special
---------->What can the engine do? crew members sizes change? base stats? Specialty gun?

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Guys, you're turning this into a "Crew simulator 2016" instead of a simple, understandable, manageable, easy-to-learn Starmade feature. You're overdoing it. It' supposed to be a feature in a game like many others, not its own game.

 

[GaeasSon]

Guys, you're turning this into a "Crew simulator 2016" instead of a simple, understandable, manageable, easy-to-learn Starmade feature. You're overdoing it. It' supposed to be a feature in a game like many others, not its own game.

It's a sandbox. The point of a sandbox is to provide simple elements that can be creatively combined through gameplay to become whatever the player wishes. This is the part of the process where we brainstorm the elements. The Devs will add their brainstorming to ours and then sort the ideas into four types. First they will give us the essential, then the versatile, then the cool. Everything else gets cut.

Think of it as game-ore. Don't stop mining just because you don't plan to put ore blocks on your ship.

 

[nightrune]

my $1:

Have "chairs" connect to systems the exact same way that the core does now.
Each chair can be linked to systems exactly as the core can, but has a unique hotbar. Systems unavailable from core.
Each chair can be linked to cameras (c->v), also unavailable from core.
Each crew (npc or player) can access that hotbar&cameras from that chair.


Crew members will need at least the same level of "programming" as Bobby does. Would be nice to see:
----------> "racial bonuses" RPG style.
----------> Equipment slots letting you "specialise" the NPC (hand laser, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, etc)
---------->Items NPC carries should affect other stats (accuracy, speed)
---------->packmule

Spoiler

packmule

Crew members can be dispatched on "away missions" with or without the player!(see star trek online's crew missions system for examples).
EG1 ->"send exploration ship to x sector"

Spoiler

--------->Requires ship with # of consoles, insert subsystem relevant to mission type(medical/astrotech/passive/transporters/storage), and [recommended point values] for the ship's blueprint(weaponry/defensive/mobility).
--------->Requires enough crew to fill the min number of consoles
---------->load NPCS into ship's consoles/chairs
---------->Activate the mission from your fleet tab, selecting the ship and crew
----------->ship goes on a flight, time passes, RNG, mission pass/fail/special

---->Pass
---------->Crew members gain xp, you get blocks/money/reputation reward
---->Fail
---------->crew members gain xp, lessened/no reward, ship structure/armor hp reduced Q-Y%
---------->crew member dies
---------->crew member looses XP/stats
---------->ship destroyed, but crew hitchiked home
---------->"they're hot on our tails!" Waves of pirates follow them home.
---------->etc
---->special
---------->What can the engine do? crew members sizes change? base stats? Specialty gun?

Most of this is here:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/starmade-development-direction.21615/

Have you read the development direction yet?

 

[Rixxan]

It's a sandbox. The point of a sandbox is to provide simple elements that can be creatively combined through gameplay to become whatever the player wishes. This is the part of the process where we brainstorm the elements. The Devs will add their brainstorming to ours and then sort the ideas into four types. First they will give us the essential, then the versatile, then the cool. Everything else gets cut.

Think of it as game-ore. Don't stop mining just because you don't plan to put ore blocks on your ship.

And what gets cut can be made into mods when the API comes out *hint hint nudge nudge MODS*

 

[Lukwan]

Necro no more!

Experience should not be affected by sector hostility. This would unbalance experience gains, imo. Miners, for example, will never get XP unless you are mining under fire, which is rarely a good idea.
Unexplored sector bonus should only go to science crew. Why would medical even care?

Agreed on point one; every kind of game-play activity needs to be rewarded in a balanced way, but...

...medical doctor gets stoked by opportunity to examine new life-forms and diseases. The whole crew will have rewarding life-experiences from traveling to new sectors.

cloaking should be added as an engineering duty.

Technically everything could fall on the Engineer but their duties should be limited to Power & Damage-Control. Give cloaking & shields, scanners & defensive FX, ECM, ECCM to the Tactical/Science Officer.

I guess it could depend on crew moral...
Crew Moral being a function of: pay, RP space, player reputation?

My short list for morale (in order of importance):
1) Leadership/Command. [Reputation]
2) Pay in credits.
3) Success ratio in battles. [Reputation]
4) Food & Medical.
5) Dedicated RP space. (Quarters & public Recreation area)

could you imagine a mutiny... being kicked off your own ship? that would be worse than losing an experienced crewman.

In SM mutinies should be limited to a % of your crew leaving the ship in a huff with a minor loss of credits to represent petty thievery.

CALLING ALL UNITS! WE NEED MORE CRAZY!!

I'll get a man right on it. :D

Could also make an academy of sorts so increase skills of crewmen and then sell them like slaves?

We, here in HR prefer the term temps.

I too would like to see my crew walking about. It would give life to an otherwise rather lifeless universe. That said, I would be perfectly content to have functional crew in the game without them walking about as a first incarnation of the system. Have walking about come later. It is of course desirable to discus before hand just how such walking about could be done.

It's a lonely ship with people wandering the corridors. Right now though, Dave is having trouble walking without falling down a Jeffries tube or getting his foot caught in an ill-placed floor-fan.

Personally, how I'd like crew is that nearly every system in the game can be manned. Individual weapons, shields (capacity AND recharge), power, thrust, defensive effects, jump drives and jump inhibitors, scanners, etc. For every X of a module type for groupless modules/number of modules in a system (a cannon/cannon weapon would count as a single weapon instead of 2 separate weapons), you'd need a crew member to man it, or you'd start losing efficiency per block with that system. NPCs increase their abilities with a system the more it is used. If a system is used in combat, it gives significantly higher EXP (where-as certain things like weapons and shields give no EXP out of combat). A team of NPCs with, say, a high level of missile/beam experience might provide slightly lower energy costs, or faster travel speed, or slightly higher damage.

A nice, tight mechanic. Agreed with one addition: Any station that can have an NPC at the controls should also allow a human crew to operate. Human crews should get a slightly better bonus than NPCs.

And how exactly is he supposed to "repair and maintain the hull?" He's at a computer in the middle of the ship, not space walking around the outside of the ship with a blowtorch and some metal plates.

Actually that is exactly what Imagined Dave would be doing; replacing missing blocks from a virtual BP schematic. Problem is that's not in the game yet and may never be so here is what could be part of damage-control:
-Reduce/eliminate cascade failure of damaged Aux power system.
-Speed up the cool-down waiting for shields to come 'back on line'.
-Repair miscellaneous critical effects & nerfs that result from combat/damage.
_____________________________________________________________

Finally, this thread Addressing FPS issues with giganticism and fleet spam by using maintenance cost got me thinking about how useful crew could be as a means of controlling gigantism in Titan and Fleets.

 

[Levarith]

Ok. I will admit I skipped around in this thread so if my ideas have been said already I apologize in advance.

With regards to the paying your crew thing. I think a faction bank should be implemented that can be used to pay crew. This gives reason for factions to trade. (Reference freelancer where we use to do trade runs as a faction using some freighters and mostly warship escorts) so if a player can't be online every day then their crew will pull from the faction bank assuming the payer has the rank to access the bank. Could be a faction option whether crews pull from players account first or from faction account.

The hostile fire training bonus would be great. This would give factions a reason to have "war games" where they go out and train against one another. You aren't actually trying to destroy your opponent but would still get useful experience from the training.

As for the miners it would give a reason to try to mine in hostile territory and to assign security to those fleets.

 

[Spoolooni]

The option to link elements in rp spaces to a location block, like a 1/4 slab to a bed entity or some upside down computers to a kitchen entity would allow people to make use of the materials we already have without forcing people into a particular aesthetic meta.

 

[NeonSturm]

Has anyone considered crew boxes? (as in: "you need 20x10x200 in total to support your current systems at their current size" …)

 

[Panpiper]

Has anyone considered crew boxes? (as in: "you need 20x10x200 in total to support your current systems at their current size" …)

I'm not quite sure what you mean. I am sure there will be a formula people can follow to calculate how many crew space blocks they need to optimize their crew bonus, and someone certainly could eschew building any detailed interior in favor of simply putting in a big block of appropriate crew space blocks, perhaps a 20x10x200. They likely would have to add several other sets of blocks to compliment, such as likely a pillow block or some other 'computer' controller interface for the particular crew NPCs. Likely a good number of crew would also have to be specifically allocated to various system control block/computers, though there may be an auto-assign function. I expect there will be some pathing blocks to permit crew to easily navigate from their pillow block to their assigned station, and perhaps a leisure station or whatever.

No one would be forced to build intricate interiors, and could likely abstract any blocks into big chunks and be done with it. I expect most however will at the least create a small semblance of actual space. If there are pathing blocks, it will actually be conceptually easier to set things up consistant with how they 'should' be, with perhaps a plain but functional crew bunk area containing a central corridor leading to the bridge with crew stations, etc..

 

[NeonSturm]

With "crew boxes" I address the issue of "submarine style interior", Crewman need space for morale.
Perhaps a training hall, a garden or a bigger place to work and move freely (stretching arms/legs or simply be able to work on a second task without having to put the first task during that time into a storage).

 

[whooplaah]

As has been generally suggested elsewhere: I'd like to see crew on my ships manning functional systems consoles, providing in-play bonuses. I'm starting a new thread to present some specific ideas that lead in that direction.


Specialties:

• Cadet: No bonuses
• Engineer: Energy efficiency or output bonuses
• Pilot: Improved maneuverability
• Tactical: Improved weapon cool-down and damage
• Science: Improved Scanner efficiency
• Miner: Improved mining /refining yields
• Medical: Healing and recovery of crew
• Command: Improved crew morale. Improved crew bonuses.

Experience and consoles:
In a way, you are crafting your crew just like everything else. You start out with an untrained cadet who gives no bonuses and has no experience in any of the specialties.

• Crews gain experience while attached to a console depending on the type of console they are attached to.
• Weapons control consoles give tactical experience. Engineering consoles give engineering experience, etc.
• Experience accrues for time at the console, depending on how hostile the sector is. No experience for peaceful. Rapid advancement for time in a hostile sector with active enemy AIs. Experience bonuses to all specialty scores for the whole crew on entering a previously unexplored sector.
• Crews gain command rank by advancing beyond a threshold score in at least 3 other disciplines.

Additional consoles and effects: (When occupied by a crew-member):

• Command station: Acts as a BobbyAI. Ship will maneuver and fire in the presence of enemies. Bonus modifiers to crew bonuses.
• Damage control (engineering): Allows the ship to recover HP, rate based on experience
• Jump drive: Reduced recharge time, and increased jump range, both based on experience.
• Helm: Increased ship turning rates. (required for Command station to control the ship)
• Science station: Auto runs a dialog on sector change informing of sector status, enemies and anomalies in neighboring sectors. Reports on ore and resources in sector bodies.
• Medical station: Damaged crew heal of damage over time. Crew killed in combat have a percentage chance to respawn.
• Drive station (engineering): bonuses to speed and acceleration.
• Weapons station (tactical): Required for command station to control the ships weapons Bonuses to damage and cooldown.
• Security station: (tactical): Crew guards position, then engages any enemy AIs or players with hand weapons.
• Remote control (tactical/pilot): Allows a player or crew member to take control of a turret or small craft attached to a slaved mount point. (drones!)
• Unified operations (tactical/pilot/command): combined command/helm/weapons all in one. Only uses the experience of a single Crewman. Loses functions if another station of that type exists. For instance it can't be used to steer the craft if a helm station exists, or fire the main weapons if a weapons station exists. Great for small craft where space is at a premium. Great for large craft as an emergency station should one of the other 3 be destroyed. expensive.

Other thoughts:

• A life support block that allows crews to be helmetless within x radius. Crew bonuses are nerfed while they wear a helmet.
• Space plague: Picked up by going helmetless on some planets. Communicable on board ships. Easily curable if you have a doctor, otherwise reduces NPC bonus and health until they die.
• Pay: More experienced crew become more expensive, slowly draining your credit balance until they leave you. Happy crew work cheaper. An experienced captain can keep your labor costs down by keeping morale up.
• NPCs could be assigned to their station by the traditional c/v method or by a "t" menu option where crew assignments, including backups could be edited, lust like we currently use the T menu to combine/slave ships subsystems..

I didn't read the entire thread, so forgive me if these questions have been asked:

1) Are crew bonuses a +X% of ship capacity, or a static +X regardless of ship modules? Here are some scenarios:
Small Ship, 1 wepon computer and 1 weapon module, deals 10 dps
Large ship, 1 weapon computer and 1,000 weapon modules, deals 750 dps


2) If I have a ship with a weapon computer but no weapon modules, does the member gain experience? What if that same computer had 10 modules, would they gain XP faster? What if that same computer had 1,000 modules?

3) If I unassign a crew member from their station, do I still have to pay them?

4) Is there a cap on how high a level the crew member can be, or how much of a bonus they will give? Do they age/die/retire after a time, or would it be possible to have a 5,000 star commander?

5) Should there be a limit on how many crew members can be on a ship at one time? If my ship is 1,000 blocks mass but has 300 computers, is that legitimate? How would we control that other than pay?

6) Do crew members gain the same XP if I am fighting a ship vs just being in a hostile sector? Couldn't I just cloak, park, step away from my computer, and rack up XP? Or form an 'alliance' with a fake enemy to use each other's 'hostile sectors' to gain XP for our crews?

7) How do I hire crew? How do I fire them? Can I trade/sell them to another pilot/player?

 

[NeonSturm]

7) How do I hire crew? How do I fire them? Can I trade/sell them to another pilot/player?

Slavery? You will be on my KOS "kill on sight list"

I can imagine the TG members not wanting to hire on your ship when you handle them like slaves.

 

[Panpiper]

I didn't read the entire thread, so forgive me if these questions have been asked:

The quick answer is we do not 'know' any of the answers. The people who have contributed to this thread are not the people who are doing the final design. It is a virtual certainty that much of what has been discussed in this thread will find it's way into the game, but exactly what, and what the particulars will be is right now a complete unknown. However as someone who contributed much to this thread and has followed it obsessively, I can give you my best guess as to the answers.

1) Are crew bonuses a +X% of ship capacity, or a static +X regardless of ship modules? Here are some scenarios:
Small Ship, 1 wepon computer and 1 weapon module, deals 10 dps
Large ship, 1 weapon computer and 1,000 weapon modules, deals 750 dps

They will almost certainly be a bonus to the ship capacity, but the quantity of bonus will be dependant upon the quantity of crew. A large weapon will require more crew to get the full bonus. A ship with a tiny weapon may get a 100% effectiveness bonus to it's damage rating (or whatever), but that bonus would be on the small weapon, doubling it's effect. If the weapon were ten times bigger but had the same number of crew, it would only get a 10% bonus for the crew. The idea is to make having crew and very specifically the mass/space devoted to supporting the crew, slightly more effective than devoting everything to nothing but systems.

2) If I have a ship with a weapon computer but no weapon modules, does the member gain experience? What if that same computer had 10 modules, would they gain XP faster? What if that same computer had 1,000 modules?

Total unknown at this point. I expect the weapon computer would have to be serviceable, actually attached to some sort of weapon. Whatever is decided upon when it first goes live will almost certainly get tweaked as we see how people game the system. If it were me I would tie the XP gain to weapon size but cap it at something like 1000 modules for a weapon. I suspect that would reduce the abusability the best.

3) If I unassign a crew member from their station, do I still have to pay them?

We have no indication as to the support costs or what they would be paid from. I have campaigned for paying them out of faction points. If they are unassigned, they would still be a faction point drain, but you would retain any XP growth they had gained up to that point. If you dismiss them so as to save faction points, you would loose any XP gain, they would not be rehireable.

4) Is there a cap on how high a level the crew member can be, or how much of a bonus they will give? Do they age/die/retire after a time, or would it be possible to have a 5,000 star commander?

I expect there will be a cap, as that is typically how XP systems get implemented. If I were programming it myself however, I would have a logarithmically increasing cost for the next bonus level and no cap. It would as a result however become progressively harder and harder for them to improve. I expect they will be immortal unless killed in combat, if for no other reason than to reduce micromanagement.

5) Should there be a limit on how many crew members can be on a ship at one time? If my ship is 1,000 blocks mass but has 300 computers, is that legitimate? How would we control that other than pay?

The practical limit will be that each crew member will require a certain amount of crew space, likely their own controller block, and probably a few other blocks including their work station. If you want to add 300 computers attached to 300 single weapon blocks and try to fly that around with the quite large crew space that would entail in tow, I see no game reason why you couldn't. Better hope the pirates on your server are pushovers though. Plus, they wouldn't gain much XP controlling such a small system.

6) Do crew members gain the same XP if I am fighting a ship vs just being in a hostile sector? Couldn't I just cloak, park, step away from my computer, and rack up XP? Or form an 'alliance' with a fake enemy to use each other's 'hostile sectors' to gain XP for our crews?

Combat would return the most XP by far. Simply flying about might gain something, but it would be a relative trickle, and only then if in hostile space. NPC factions would probably have to be programmed to set off their scanners every once in a while to keep such training ships honest.

7) How do I hire crew? How do I fire them? Can I trade/sell them to another pilot/player?

We have no indication yet how this will be handled. It will probably be a simple menu at a trade station and a crew person will poof into existence for you. Firing them would also likely just be a menu option in a relevant screen. Trading/selling them is an interesting option. I have no idea if that will be a feature when first released. Probably not, but it might be added later.

 

[NeonSturm]

6) Do crew members gain the same XP if I am fighting a ship vs just being in a hostile sector? Couldn't I just cloak, park, step away from my computer, and rack up XP? Or form an 'alliance' with a fake enemy to use each other's 'hostile sectors' to gain XP for our crews?

They could shoot at asteroids for training, but it shouldn't depend so much on weapon size if they are doing that.

There could be multiple branches in which they progress:

1. Aiming generally : hitting the point they intend to hit.
   1. Aiming at fast : improves turret turn efficiency
   2. Aiming at evasive : using prediction algorithms over "change over time" and "direction of change".
   3. Aiming at systems : Knowing where a system is inside a ship, influences the spot they try to hit.

I would make "Aiming at fast" a curve which approaches but never reaches 100% skill level.
But aiming at evasive could be leveled "Level1, Level2, …"
Aiming at systems may move the predicted point before "aiming generally" dependent on the target hit-box position/size.
​

However, I won't speculate on likeliness or complexity of that until we get more information from Shine.​

 

[cdl3050]

There are many ways to implement or utilize crew.



My favorite is the Dwarf Fortress style:

Give each crew member a role and a shift rotation then let the Crew-AI take care of the rest. As the crew member does his/her assigned task, he/she gains experience and does a better job. The exact details of this probably won't matter until after the system is put to the test.



Each crew member will have to be paid, but what does a crew member need credits for?

Food, Entertainment, Family, Retirement, Luxury Goods, etc.

Spoiler

It should be possible for the player to set up a system which provides for the crew such that the crew is paid in food, entertainment and luxury goods automatically. Therefore, even if the players runs out of credits the crew may be unhappy, but they won't run away. Of course, if the player failed to set up or maintain the required provisions, then maybe the unpaid or roughly treated crew member will desert the player's ship.

Before we try to implement crew, I think we should lay the ground work for the crew.



I think we should set up Agriculture 1st, as this will contribute to the “Living Economy.”

Spoiler

We would then have the option of farming food(s) (and maybe later ranching livestock) for sale or trade. This could easily be expanded later with a “stove” or “kitchen” block which would allow “cooking” by combining various ingredients. We might even want to add in a “Refrigerator &/or a “Freezer” to simulate how food must be treated differently than machines and ore. Also, as Crew would still be far off we would have time to design and build Agriculture ships & stations in preparation for the crew update to come.

The second thing that we should implement is some type of “Entertainment simulator.”

Spoiler

We can't give live tv or internet access to Ai-Crew (though we might be able to connect or integrate these things for Players). Nor can we provided real entertainment to Ai-Crew, however, we can either create a new block or reuse a preexisting block to facilitate defining an area as a “store” or “bar & grill” or “dance club” or whatever. Even if we don't have Crew yet, we would still want to have the ability to officially define an area in that manner. Again, this would give us time to design and build these areas into our ships and stations.

I think the 3rd thing we should implement is “luxury goods.”

Spoiler

We will want to have a design contest for the purpose of brainstorming what these “luxury goods” might be. Whatever “luxury goods” are implemented will be as useful or desirable for a player as they are for Ai-Crew. In this manner we would further expand the trade network (maybe with a new set of rare and very region specific resources used as a basis for the manufacture of these “luxury goods”). Just like the above, as the crew update is still not ready we would have some time to work out how these “luxury goods” can be put to use.

I believe that if the above 3 expansions of the game are reasonably well handled first, that implementing a crew expansion thereafter will be much much easier.



In my opinion, a “low-leveled” crew-based ship should have the same or similar abilities as if that ship were not crewed. As the crew “levels up” the “bonuses” provided by the crew should very slowly increase. As the crew become “high-leveled” the crew-based ship should start to equal a similar systems-based ship.

I think that only a “superior-leveled” crew should be able to make their crew-based ship greater than a similar systems based ship.

 

[NeonSturm]

Pirate-Crew could be paid with a share of loot / gain from it.
Space-Junkies-League peoples could be paid with Heroine or LSD
…
If crew gets paid whenever the captain gets paid, it solves some problems. Some species might do that (gain share) instead of a fixed demand (at least after living is ensured).


Crew should work 16 hours for living, 16 for community, 16 for themselves and rest the 7th work day.

 

[Panpiper]

In my opinion, a “low-leveled” crew-based ship should have the same or similar abilities as if that ship were not crewed. As the crew “levels up” the “bonuses” provided by the crew should very slowly increase. As the crew become “high-leveled” the crew-based ship should start to equal a similar systems-based ship.

I think that only a “superior-leveled” crew should be able to make their crew-based ship greater than a similar systems based ship.

I could not possibly disagree more. Half the point of crew and quarters is to encourage people to use crew and quarters, to bring PvP ships more in line with RP ships, without taking away any of the optimization strategy that goes into making a good PvP ship. If only a 'superior leveled' crew were superior to an all systems ship, there will frankly be little incentive to spend the extra effort, as most ships simply do not get flown enough for them to ever get enough experience to make it to "superior leveled".

A ship with crew has to be marginally better than a ship without, right out of the shipyard, even though they are completely green. From there, as they gain experience, a crewed ship should grow significantly more powerful than a 100% systems ship of equal material cost, on the order of 25% more powerful. Going for a crewed ship should be a no brainer.

The other half of the point of crew and quarters is to give a reason to players to do something other than mine and build new ships. With crews able to gain experience, and player will want to do those things that would get them experience, which might even include starting wars they might not otherwise start. The idea is to create an incentive for more dynamism. If the spread in capacity between a green crew and a superior crew is marginal at best, there will be little incentive to put ships at risk.

So to encourage people to build ships with crews, such ships need to start slightly better than ships without. To encourage people to get out and fly their ships, fight their ships, the gain from progress has to be significant.