Assembly Hall

hello,

I play Eve since years now and one of the first questions I did to my self during the first months playing this game was:
How can a ship like a Titan, carrier, Battleship or even a Batlecruiser can have just a pilot?
After years, I keep asking my self: Why after so many expansions, crew hasn't been added?
I have full respect of CCP and the game they did is just awesome ( i came from different MMORPG experience and this is the most
intresting one), so there must be more than one reason but I came to the point that after reading so many post in the Council of
stellar management about small improvements was time to post mine about crew.
Here I will put the concept, point by point, hoping to find more players who will support the idea.

- From the Fitting panel a link to the Crew panel. Similar to the fitting window, it might show a 2d interior ship with free spots in key roles: Propulsion, gunnery, shield, hull,
electronics, ecc..
In every spot you could put just one officer who might give you one special bouns:
Gunnery: tracking speed, damage, reload efficency ecc...
Propulsion: agility, speed ecc...
Armor: Hp, repair amout ecc...
Basically the same bonuses you receive with rigs.

Question would be: why add something which adds almost same bonuses of Rigs?
I think it will enhance the characteristics of the ships and the style of play of each player. In addition you might decide to balance
the bonuses of each ship.

- The crew would have a daily,weekly or monthly cost: You hire, you pay.
The crew can't be killed or dismissed, can only be sold (but while on the market you keep paying for it).

- The crew gets experience for every battle is envolved,
more experience, more bonuses, more costs, more values on the market.

- The first officers you buy from the market start with 0 experience, it is up to you to let them grow.

- The crew can be killed or wonded. During fights, after receiving a perfect hit, you might loose one of them.

I would have more ideas to share, but i want to keep the post simple, basically here you have my crew concept which I hopes
will at least put some ideas in the mind of some CCP programmers.

Thank you

RVNSM

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines

Ships DO have crews. It's just limited to RP fluff due to "balancing issues" (look how much trouble CCP is having with balancing the current system of ships, mods, and weapons).

Also... "no" to anything that introduces XP or any sort of "experience system."

edit: also... run a search. This isn't the first time this idea has been brought up over the years.

Me: Hello. I'm an aspiring mechanic and I'd like to serve aboard your Catalyst ship.
Captain: Welcome aboard.
Me: Thanks. Say, I noticed that the entire crew is new to space travel and the ship is new too.
Captain: Oh pay no heed to that. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Me: Ok I suppose. I also happened to notice that the ship is heavily fitted with damage mods to the exclusion of armor.
Captain: We won't be needing armor where we're going.
Me: And where is that, sir?
Captain: We're going to an ice belt to gan... er... protect those flimsy mining ships. Say, how is your life insurance policy? Total coverage I hope.

RIP Catalyst pilot #157,246,931

Hello! wake up! we are speaking about a GAME. Now, I understand spaceship are a concept too far away, a game in the future let you dream, but in terms of "realistic" way to play and fly a spaceship, has more sense to see a ship with a crew and not a brain connected to something.... I could reply with:
"if you are hit by a torpedo and one of your million links got disconnected you may be disconnected from the main server of your "flying ship supercomputer".... C'MON, have you ever seen star wars or Star Trek?
Even if we are speaking about something in the future, a crew makes more sense (and add definitely mor fun) than your fantasy about a supercomputer linked to your virtual capsule....

I am NOT arguing, It is not a matter of realistic or NON realistic, it is a matter of FUN.
What would be more Fun for you? Having a fantasy about capsule connected to a super computer? (I have never seen a capsule connected to anything honestly during my playing time in eve) OR a crew to customize your ship? Having a bit more feeling to fly something "alive"? and to have more choices about game style?

I really don't understand the utility of certains posts, we should discuss ideas for game improvement, not immaginations about something doesn't exist at all. I can immagine whatever I want about this game, but it is not the point, nor the right forum for that.

What's the point though? If it's just a must have thing, with a set cost and no new gameplay mechanics, there is no point adding it. You might as well say, that crew costs are already included in the hull cost and leave it at that. No wasted dev time, no wasted gameplay potential, same end result.

I think whatever the chosen mechanic is any sort of XP grinds are bad and should be avoided like a plague. The problem with XP gains for crews is, that it just leads to XP grinding by any means necessary. Instead of playing the game normally and doing what they enjoy, people will endure almost anything to grind for XP. Even when they don't like it, they will do it and dislike the game for making them do it.

Getting around this problem is easy though. Don't allow crews to gain XP. Instead have different types of crews with different advantages. For example: Standard crew comes with the hull and provides the normal stats, but alternate crews can be used to alter existing stats in some way. Bonuses to some areas with negatives to others, so even the standard crew sees a lot of use. Just an example for something different without trying to crowbar in an XP grind mechanic to the game.

Its not my fantasty. It's CCPs, and they're not going to change the game lore because one bloke on the forums is having a hissy fit. According to CCP and their officially published fiction, non capsuleer crews are massively inefficient.

Taking this issue away from a lore perspective, adding crews means more things for CCP to balance. Balance is already a bloody nightmare that CCP are now putting a very large amount of time into, so its unlikely they will find this idea even vaguely appealing. If you think dragging the icon of a person into a new fitting slot will be "fun" and then spending extra time in EFT trying to work out what the new optimum fit for all your ships will be, then your too easily please.

Not to mention the fact you will be adding another level of complexity to a game that CCP is already putting effort into making more accessible to newer players. I could rant forever about why this is a bad idea, but I'll stop there.

Your forum-fu is weak. I found these 2 threads right away.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=94953
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1997227


There is BIG difference between adding "depth" and adding needless complexity. The idea for ship crews is the latter as fitting a ship already involves...
- knowing what skills you have
- knowing what tactics you will use
- knowing the inherrent strengths and weaknesses of the ships you have and selecting the right one
- knowing how to balance tank, DPS, utility/point-defense, and speed for optimal effectiveness
- guesstimating what enemies you might or might not face (PvP only)
- how well it will work solo and/or in conjunction with other people

As far as "improvements" are concerned... old timers are clamoring for existing stuff to be revamped and rebalanced so they are all more or less "viable" (especially so for ships/mods/weapons that few use) and there is little "skill up to use this and you've achieved the pinnacle of that class" type talk.

At the same time... CCP is also "streamlining" skill trees to make it easier for newbies to "specialize" and be more "useful."

Adding a new layer of "mods" would NOT help as all it would do is force older players to get more things to "enhance" their performance and make ships generally more expensive for newbies.


Or you could use your imagination (god forbid) and find other activities that actually challenge you as a player. I recommend that you try PvPing (the non-0.0 type).

I like the idea of a crew, but it has to be done right. I like that idea that it is like a rig and the ship does jot need it to fly. That said I troll the forums three to five hours a weekend a lot of what I see is.fellow pilots saying CCP needs to fix some.aspects of the game. I feel that this would instantly be a mechanic thäţ would broken. CCP would have to a lot and a lot of work to make it work.

That said CCP could turn the crew into a a much needed isk sink in the game, and it terms of XP for the crew why not have the crew use your training queue. In order to train a crew then the pilot Has to load a skillbook into the slot. That xp doesn't go to the pilot but that crew member... Now the pilot has a choice "do I train myself or my crew" for younger pilots îm sorry but for.older pilots I hear a lot from my Corp and Alliance that they don't know what to.train. This could give pilots something to improve ships they love to and not feel like they are wasting time...and won could also "sell" the crew like toons. That more training a crew has the more iskies

Sorry about grammar and spelling typed this on my phone

uhmmm...... yes....... your brain is full of s*h*i*t*.

Yor arguments about Rigs are totally broken but I am not going to lose any more time with your stupidity.

I hope to see more posts about how the idea of crew (or ANY) other Idea can be improved in order to make the game funnier without trying to convince people with stupid arguments that You are right and others are wrong.