Crew

[Will Valent]

Alot of the capital ships I've been seeing have crew quarters and that got me thinking, what if there was a way for your ships to have a true crew. Not like the 2 or 3 AI people that follow you around, like a full on crew of 20 or 30 people if not more.

First there would be the issue of what this crew would do. You could have things such as engineers that repair your ship during combat. You could get bonuses from specialized crew members, like increased maneuverability (turning speed) or top speed, or other things like shield strength or weapon power, or maybe even things like increased power output, or decreased power requirements on certain things.

How to make crew quarters is another issue. There could be set rooms that could be made up like the circle helper tool, you have a clear outline and can fill it in with blocks of your choice, or have a specific set of block that you can use in the room. Or you could have certain blocks that when put in certain arrangements make the area count as a crew quarter. My personal favorite idea would be to have items like bed or other things you might find in a crew quarter and you can chose the items you want.

Depending on the size, shape and what is in you crew's quarters could improve or decrease your crew's morale or rating, which in turn increase the crew's buffs.

There could be other rooms that work along the same lines that also could increase your crew abilities.

You could have captions that follow your orders command crews and fly ships. why would you want this over AI, well captions could do certain tasks like exploring, or mining, plus captions could have their own bonuses just like the other crew members.

Of course the down side of all of this would be the large amount of space that the crew quarters takes up, but it would still be worth it on very large ships where the bonuses would be of more benefit compared to the space they take up.

 

[ne3zy]

I agree but this should not be added right now.

 

[Will Valent]

sorry the article was no finished when I uploaded it by accident, I agree though it shouldn't be added until after shipyards, at the very earliest, but if something this be is to be added into the game it needs to be recognized early to avoid massive changes in game play later on, or to be added into the game at all, as this would be a major game play feature I thought the idea should be posted early on to increase likeliness that it could be added later

 

[Snk]

+1. This is an idea that I have held onto for years. Glad someone else thinks like me.

 

[Mariux]

I like the idea of crew, but I don't think they should add up on stats like shielding, firepower and so on, because that would make zero sense. I think they should man turrets or do in-flight repairs. Or even increase radar range.

 

[Winterhome]

I can get behind this, though I feel that crew would do well if we added mid-combat debuffs (like reduced power generation, thrusters disabled, shield recharge stopped, etc.) that crew could protect against and repair, along with allowing crew to man turrets for considerably better effectiveness than Bobby AI.

Should under no circumstances be a mandatory thing, of course. A single-crew ship should by all means be able to fight and be a threat - crew just lets it be more efficient.


Whenever a survival element of gameplay is added, crews could require more necessities, like food and water production, storage, and preparation facilities, etc.

To make crews work truly well, though, we need Crew Path Node blocks that we can place in a ship, and possibly basic "instructions" settings for when they are attempting to pathfind - such as "press this button and wait for connected logic state to be true before moving to next node", with node paths being determined by our linking system, and "destinations" being blocks that AI can use or needs to use, like turret chairs, food dispensers, etc.. AI crew should ideally have customizable schedules, so you don't have to worry about your entire 50 man crew going to bed at the same time.

 

[iceman6491]

I quite like the requirement for physical space/resources to support crew. You then get a trade off between increasing efficiency with crew at the cost of having to sacrifice space you could use for systems on bed spaces and corridors etc . Good lead to interesting variation in ship design as making the ship live-able has a pay off

 

[inifire201]

i like the idea, becouse the current crew you can buy at shops don’t do anything. these are good ideas for what they can do. i hope the dev also like this.

 

[Visitor]

We had ideas like that. I would like for crew to require some quarters/bunks, space and terminals so they can actually work, and - should we ever have such implemented - for them to put additional strain on life support.

I am not sure they should add any real bonuses, however. I'd rather see them as actually vital for some more complex systems and big installations to actually work reasonably well at all. Other than that, there should be professionals who'd repair damaged blocks of the interior, plug hull breach points, heal other crew members and support boarding parties or defend ships/stations against them.

 

[color98dove]

Crew is a wonderful idea, however i have a different version, what if instead of the AI block you, get a crew member inside the turret, say like sitting on a wedge or something that shows a crew member is occupying this turret, then when your in battle, you issue the command to the Gunners to fire on the target/missile/whatever, and if the crew member dies the turret no longer functions, and if no crew member is present the same thing happens, a the turret is offline, and would need to be crewed to be active.

just a thought

 

[Snk]

I like the idea of crew, but I don't think they should add up on stats like shielding, firepower and so on, because that would make zero sense. I think they should man turrets or do in-flight repairs. Or even increase radar range.

It makes total sense. Certain people would have the mechanical skills to make things run a little better.

 

[mrsinister]

Alot of the capital ships I've been seeing have crew quarters and that got me thinking, what if there was a way for your ships to have a true crew. Not like the 2 or 3 AI people that follow you around, like a full on crew of 20 or 30 people if not more.

First there would be the issue of what this crew would do. You could have things such as engineers that repair your ship during combat. You could get bonuses from specialized crew members, like increased maneuverability (turning speed) or top speed, or other things like shield strength or weapon power, or maybe even things like increased power output, or decreased power requirements on certain things.

How to make crew quarters is another issue. There could be set rooms that could be made up like the circle helper tool, you have a clear outline and can fill it in with blocks of your choice, or have a specific set of block that you can use in the room. Or you could have certain blocks that when put in certain arrangements make the area count as a crew quarter. My personal favorite idea would be to have items like bed or other things you might find in a crew quarter and you can chose the items you want.

Depending on the size, shape and what is in you crew's quarters could improve or decrease your crew's morale or rating, which in turn increase the crew's buffs.

There could be other rooms that work along the same lines that also could increase your crew abilities.

You could have captions that follow your orders command crews and fly ships. why would you want this over AI, well captions could do certain tasks like exploring, or mining, plus captions could have their own bonuses just like the other crew members.

Of course the down side of all of this would be the large amount of space that the crew quarters takes up, but it would still be worth it on very large ships where the bonuses would be of more benefit compared to the space they take up.

Actually I built a few ships with this in mind using logic and other things, I have an engineering section, weapons station(s), repair station, maned turrets, shuttle craft for away ventures, etc. So if a bunch want to fly around, we just decide who is going to pilot and use main weapons then others just pick or whoever is party leader decides. It's quite fun actually.

note: that is of course if everyone is on, and well, if we are short then maybe somenoe could do xtra duty till one of the other stations is needed.

 

[Mariux]

It makes total sense. Certain people would have the mechanical skills to make things run a little better.

Nah, I think that added accuracy is good enough.

 

[Knack]

My vision of a crew system is the oposite of buffs.

I would say a ship as you build it is 100% efficient.
Depending on it's size, a ship needs crew and if there is to less crew, the ship doesn't work properly.
So if your ship needs 4 crew and you have only 3, your ship would work at 75% efficiency or something like that. (The pilot should also count as crew)

Also to support crew, you would need some minimum space and blocks. This would force a minimum of interior.
If you have more than the needed crew, it doesn't matter if one of them dies

 

[iceman6491]

My vision of a crew system is the oposite of buffs.

I would say a ship as you build it is 100% efficient.
Depending on it's size, a ship needs crew and if there is to less crew, the ship doesn't work properly.
So if your ship needs 4 crew and you have only 3, your ship would work at 75% efficiency or something like that. (The pilot should also count as crew)

I'd steer away from forcing people into having crew, some people may not want that within their ship's concept - i.e. look at keptick's Charon. The lore behind that suggests the ship itself is an AI, no real crew needed. Thus having a bunch of daves running around may decrease from the designers intended feel.... if that makes sense. Unless you make the deficiency from not having the crew not sufficient enough to cause major problems

 

[Visitor]

I'd actually rather support Knack's idea, since I actually wrote that it's not different much from mine in the past. I understand that people may not want crew, but it would serve as nice balancing aspect and in very competitive setting I'll take it over the fluff made to contest it because 'I'd like my ship to be like this'.

some people may not want that within their ship's concept - i.e. look at keptick's Charon. The lore behind that suggests the ship itself is an AI, no real crew needed.

Creativity is of importance but neither it nor fluff should be a reason to negate balance and actual fair gameplay. Otherwise one can take that even further and argue that their ship should be indestructible, huge but maneuverable like a fighter and current caps on shields and whatnot is unfairly restrictive, since the fluff is that this ship is an aspect of God himself and thus eternal, the best, material incarnation of divine will, with its pilot being merely divine servant.

 

[Knack]

look at keptick's Charon. The lore behind that suggests the ship itself is an AI, no real crew needed. Thus having a bunch of daves running around may decrease from the designers intended feel....

Haven't thought of this, i agree that could break it's lore. But to be honest, who or what would be capable to destroy this ship?
I mean which PC could even handle a combat between two of such supertitans?
I think even if the efficiency of such ships is at 25% for roleplay purposes, it would not matter.
And if you realy want to bring it into fight, just hide the NPCs somewhere while in fight and remove them afterwards, that should be possible.
Or as I alway say: Make it configureable in the settings, if you don't like it (or it destroys your lore), just switch it off.

 

[Visitor]

In all honesty, I don't see why keptick would be seriously bothered by necessity of crew even given his lore, anyway. NPCs after all are pretty much artifical crewmen - a maintenance droids, combat bots, synthetic antibodies of the ship's body - you need only to think a tiny bit and actually show some creativity the whole lore is based on to incorporate them well.

And that, again, if it'd matter. While I don't mind keptick's idea and I think it's actually nice he makes new stuff and shares it with community, I don't think someone's lore for a single ship should matter when it comes to mechanics that would potentially improve and balance gameplay in general.

 

[iceman6491]

I'm simply posing counter arguments Visitor, do not get me wrong, I love the idea of crew, but i think playing devils advocate helps to expand great ideas and iron out potential issues early. I also think having options is also nice. Ofc, if we could reskin Dave and save the skin with ships then if fits really easy into anything you need and would be sweet (i.e. other clients could see your crew skin without downloading things or changing the look of all Dave's) - but that is another suggestion for another time

 

[Snk]

Actually I built a few ships with this in mind using logic and other things, I have an engineering section, weapons station(s), repair station, maned turrets, shuttle craft for away ventures, etc. So if a bunch want to fly around, we just decide who is going to pilot and use main weapons then others just pick or whoever is party leader decides. It's quite fun actually.

note: that is of course if everyone is on, and well, if we are short then maybe somenoe could do xtra duty till one of the other stations is needed.

Nah, I think that added accuracy is good enough.

If the player has enough skill to do it, why not?