Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Crew Have HP, THis reprepesnt the number of them, Crew are damaged based on ship class. Repair to crew require more people.

Thanks.



I was imagining crew being "installed" as stacked items, so I think that's like what you're saying. The crew "HP" would be equal to the number of people in the stack.

Thinking about this more, there could be different crew bonuses for each subsystem category and you could mix them up on the same ship. Probably easier to show an example:

So on one ship you may have 5 defensive crew at level 1 that provide a bonus to shield capacity, and also 5 defensive crew at level 2 that provide a bonus to shield recharge rate.

So total bonuses would be:
shield capacity bonus = 5 * (individual crew bonus) * (level 1)
shield recharge rate bonus = 5 * (individual crew bonus) * (level 2)

With this scheme an individual crew member would represent a pretty small bonus, and maybe this would necessitate having different crew for ship class size. In other words, a frigate crew member could not be used on a battleship and vice versa. Kind of makes sense in a role-play perspective in that someone knowledgeable in working on a frigate would not necessarily have the skills to work on a battleship, or cruiser.

I am just going to repost my previous reply. Hope it helps.

oh, hey, it's THIS idea again.

We need ways to ENCOURAGE PVP, not to discourage it.

I think the idea of crews adds a pleasant additional layer of complexity. I like additional complexity and options. Would agree though that specialized crew or whatever should add only slight (like, 1/10 what a module would... so if a meta IV module gives a 25% bonus to something, a similarly scaled crew would give a 2.5% bonus to something)

I think you could mimic high/mid/low slots for crew types as well

For the low "slot", which would really just be a container of certain capacity (number of crew), I kind of like the idea of a general "crew" contingent of deck hands or whatever. A certain number of these crew would be killed only when the ship is taking hull damage in a randomized but scaled way; a hit at 25% hull would kill fewer more crew than a hit at 99% hull. Loss of crew would result in sluggish ship operation of some type. Replacement of this type of crew could be simply integrated into the "repair" function of stations. If you don't feel like playing with crew, you won't "lose" anything in this way except for noticing an impact when 80% of your hull has been destroyed... which I think, ahem, makes sense

If you WANT to pay attention to your crew though, you could upgrade your standard crew in some way. Beyond the possibility of "Improved" and "Expert" series crew that cost more, there are other possibilities that could be really cool... Make it more difficult to find Expert crew in highsec... have "pirate" crews that you can hire that will be excellent but inspire concord sanctions on your ship if you enter certain spaces... be granted Amarrian zealots when given a certain mission which would improve your energy weapon damage... hire Khanid mercenaries who improve missile function... enslave people you rescue from all those outposts you destroy when missioning and sell them on the market to be used for a purpose... make elite crews racially specific... add separate personnel bays to ships and personnel transports to the game which would create interesting trade opportunities (movement of slaves, conscripts, volunteers, and ahem... service workers...) etc.

If you didn't go beyond that, it could be a really fun mechanic in itself. But you could also think through endless possibilities of specialized crew. I kind of like a pyramid scheme... so following the previous analogy, you have one 'high' slot for a ship's XO or whatever. He could provide very slight boosts to multiple stats, mitigate the negative impacts of boosters because he is able to compensate for you, etc.

There could be different types that you could find in stations or just hire with different bonuses, levels, and costs, or if you wanted to go off the deep end or you could add a skill where we gain the ability to manage a "cadre" of captains, and then have each captain be a sort of sub-character that we manage just like planets or research projects or whatever. We would manage captain skills that compliment our own and all that. Make these relatively cheap and of limited benefit so it doesn't become a requirement or many players will balk at the additional requirement (a-la pos refuelling). Allow the possibility they are be captured, ransomed, converted, or whatever if your ship is destroyed.. Say, up to 6 captains at level V of whatever skill. You could give them their own type of skill point and "captain" skills or some ****, but a maximum pool of maybe 1 week of and you could install all the training you wanted at once, and save the training plan in case you lose the guy

And then in the middle you could have five staff officer slots or something where you could decide where you want to focus your crew. So if you are flying an interceptor you might want two engineering (like, engine room engineering) and two electronics officers, and one weapons officer. A drone boat might want three drone technicians and two defense management types

Saying that something like this discourages PVP is like saying faction modules discourage PVP because they're too expensive and obviously no one would use them or want to lose them. People will find an equilibrium and risk what they can afford to lose, as always. Added complexity is good if it's good and there are many options. Added clickology for the sake of clickology is bad and should be avoided. Basically, there's a good way to add ship crews as a meaningful mechanic that doesn't have to ruin the game.

Whatever. I like the ideas of crews. Probably won't happen. /shru

I dunno though... CCP wants to turn over all aspects of the game to the players and let us run stations and stuff, so making all those "commodity" passengers useful for something in the game mechanics would be a step in that direction.