EVE General Discussion

Of course ships have crews, look at your own ships, look at all those windows beaming with light. Imagine how much cap you'd save by turning off all those lights... so they're obviously in use

But seriously, EVE lore has stated crews for a long time and it does make sense. You're a Capsuleer, you can think for the ship to turn or fire your weapons like you would walking and talking, concious actions.
But you're still human, and just like your human body there's a lot of actions that need to be done on a ship that you don't control, you don't even really know about.
We need crews to do the small things, gunnery crews to reload and transport ammo, engineers to maintain everything, from greasing up the joints to figuring out what's wrong with the capacitor only to find a grilled furrier. Of course you also need janitors, and support staff for the crew, a medic, a chef, that kinda thing.

A lot of ships can be flown with no crew however, but only until something breaks down. Not really a concern for suicide gankers, the crew could simply load up the ship and stay in station fiction wise.

Also no, we can't use advanced AI and robotics to do these actions, because that's where rogue drones come from. Besides no robot could match the ingenuity of an experienced engineers (Although on Gallente ships a lot of dumb robots carry out simple tasks, same with slaves high on Vitoc in Amarr ships).

And yes ships do have escape pods as noted in the chornicles/books, but of course we don't see them because EVE is still a game with graphical limitations that CCP haven't go round to revising yet.

As for skills and such relating to gunnery or engineering etc, I've always attributed it to your skill of communicating with your ship and crew through the neural link improving. So for example you're gunnery tracking improves because you're able to digest the sensor information easier and give more accurate commands to the gunnery crew or some crap like that.

Finally, the biggest thing you have to remember is that all Capsuleer ships (Except the Jovian ones) are retrofitted regular ships, designed to be used by regular crews. Your pod pretty much replaces the bridge, and it's hooked up to the various ship computers and such, but some actions still need a crew simply because that's how the ship was designed (Also another reason why Capsuleer ships have escape pods).

TBH heres what happened:

in the beginning, one or more devs had the idea a ship had crew. It was on blueprints from beta.

They never put it in the game.

Then EvE got older, a quarter of a million subs or so, and ppl started asking about the crew that had been alluded to.

Since there was no mention of crew post beta, people argued about it on the forums. I was one of the ones that said there was no crew.

Then the devs read the arguments, and decided that there was crew, as the arguments that were made on the "for crew" side appealed to them. They decided to put it back in the game. They had plans for implementing it as a mechanic, as per the video you mention.

Then they just never put it back in the game, in a true CCP move.

Riddle solved.

My ships do not have crews.

They have slaves that die when the ship goes down.
There are many windows on my ships so they can look out into space to see when death is coming.

Luckily there is only 1 escape pod on the ship that is reserved for me.

All Jovians ships have multiple crew why can't ours? (though I do say most are in pod like interfaces)


And yes crew has been listed as an attribute on the database for years and they are probably just old of a database artifacts as a hellhound (or hellstorm dont remember) I suicide bomb which unrepaired 40k hull and did alot of kinetic damage to nearby people.

Or how the bantam had external missile points once upon a time. (finally removed in the fight against lag!)

To this day crew are still listed as a hidden attribute but they're not accurate to the table at all.

So the question is why have pods?

1 Pods enhance overall ship performance extensivly to the point that your npc ship can sink entire non capsuleer fleets.
2 Reduce crew sizes. Intelligent/competent crew are often the most expensive part of a ship and since your ship is that much more effective you're technically burning though alot less people.
3 Reduce costs

It tells you what bonus you get from your skills but it doesn't explain the technical nature of "5% more".


That 5% could mean you're better at instructing your crews what you need, or getting that information faster to the crew or more efficiency, or it means that you have superior slave whipping technology.


All you know and care about is your ship does X, Y and Z 5% better, you don't really care why.

They are not humans but androids .... R2, I need more power!!!

^ This

Also EON magazine repeatedly states crews

I don't know about your ships, but my ships have crews. Also, in my ships I stand on my bridge and don't float in a goo.

I respect CCP's efforts to tie game mechanics into the background - and a smooth tie in at that.

But I tend to ignore that part of the background.

So give me crew, give me bridges, battle bridges, navigation centers, engineering sections, and escape pods.

What doesnt make sense is you dont account for thier paychecks.

Crew service aboard a capsuleer ship is one of the highest paying labor jobs in the galaxy.

Families can get up to 120,000 isk on term insurance alone which in commoner terms is comfortable retirment house paid for and food to last forever and sending the kids to schools.

Same reason why terrorist organizations can continiously recruit suicide bombers outside of religous duty. enough money to make sure thier family is secure.

Also your agents and stations cover this portion of management up nicely for you. One of the perks of being a pod captain.

And yes crew compositions are different from race to race. Amarrians are mostly slaves while gallente have the lightest of all crews using andriods and drones to replace most of thier work (which also explaisn why they are the only race who had ships infested with droens all the interior drones rebelled)

All my ships have crews and I encourage them to breed like rabbits so I drop segments of them off at habitable planets. Seeing as I am immortal I have all of eternity to slowly sow the seeds of a 5th (6th if you count Jove) empire right under your noses.
Muahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!11!!!one!!1!