The whole crew / people management needs a rework

[Squashie]

On a negative (venting point) I have never been so frustrated with UI in a game. Things are in the wrong place, everything looks the same, there is no clear rhyme or reason, Everything requires insane amount of click for no apparent reason.

Back to crew management. Given how difficult and time consuming leveling is, along with hard requirements for basic traders to be 3+lvl meaning you need them to mine first before they get to become a trader. Problems:
1.
Issue: in a large fleet it is impossible to find the right level guy that you can see with a appropriate level in your people menu. For no apparent reason, you can't sort by captains and you can't comm directly from there.
Solution:
a. Give me more details about their ship (Unique ID)
b. Let me comm them from that list

2.
Issue:
Transferring crew is just incredibly un-intuitive and cumbersome
Solution:
a. Let me transfer crew the same way I can transfer cargo
b. Assign orders to 2 ships to "transfer" Select cargo or crew and select a station. They meet up automatically and transfer crew. Then go back to their default behavior.

3.
Issue:
Leveling takes too long and seminars clear functions nor are they easily applied nor does it make sense what they do, how much they level and where to get the one you want.
Solution:
a. Pilot Schools. Make a new module (or use existing military modules). You can either buy crew there or drop off existing crew. You leave them there to level up. The longer they stay the higher the level. (Could balance to cap at lvl 3 or 4)
b. Seminars could be applied with out needing to comm the individual. Right click, choose seminar bam. Better yet, if you have multiple seminars that are applicable, continue clicking to continue lvling up.

These are just the main QOL improvements to crew management that are literally going to make all the difference.
I remember quitting X3 because management of fleets was just cluncky and broken, I feel the same way in X4 with all things. For example, why can't I just tell 10 miners, in one go, to auto mine in a specific sector. Especially since there already is a right click -> mine ware functionality. Why am I forced to click 4 times to just get to the place where I can click some more to set the behavior. Also, why did you click "Select Ware" in the bottom left of the UI and the actual selection is in the top right? It's as if EGO specifically wanted to make it more difficult.

[Squashie]

Originally posted by gamyng:

I admire these guys, Egomorons, how they managed to sell this epic crap as full game.

It's a great game, in concept, it just boggles my mind why some of the decisions are made.

[Wraith]

There are definitely massive QOL that can be done.

[Axeface]

Im not sure if egosoft even has a UX designer, they are a small team. Yes there are tonnes of QOL and design issues with the game, if these things were sorted out it would be so amazing. It is amazing at times, when things work.

[srmacpherson]

yes! yes! and more Yes!
The UI is the WORST.

The flight sim part you can't control your own squad and have to pause to issue simple orders. The combat sim part you have to pause because it takes so many steps to issue basic orders and precious seconds count.

[Defektiv]

You can right click transfer crew in batches or all at once, both ships just have to be docked at the same place. It's kind of annoying with boarding ships because you have to wait for the capped ship to get mobile and dock somewhere before you can pull all the marines back on board, but it works. I don't think all our employees get space suits like we do.

[Xenomorph]

I still don't know why crew takes so long to level up, it's all busy micromanaging work. Traders shouldn't need 3* to do auto trades. They would just be crappy at it, and make little to no money and even sometimes a bit of a loss, i'd be fine with it, but they would be getting experience, that is what would matter.
I think a good mechanic would be a dedicated training ship. Fill it up with random dudes, set it lose on a sector - with a new "training" task - , and it'd go about doing it's thing.

[Defektiv]

Not trying to dismiss any issues that exist, but having them level up by assigning them to a station manager for a while is a lot easier than for them to level up through sector trading. With sector trading they seem to end up idling a lot waiting for trade updates. But a manager will keep the pilot moving around and active.

I ended up capping so many Minotaur Raiders from SCA pirates that I started using their 16 crew capacities to store crews of pilots in for a while. But I don't get too attached to pilots so I haven't really used them since building a shipyards. You get better results moving captains around and promoting crew.

[Malkuth]

I have played since day 1. My first game I played up to 1.2 or so.

2nd play was from 1.2 to 3.0 beta.

And now I started fresh on 3.0.

I can tell you that the crew experience is the worse I have ever seen it. Not that they don’t train fast, they never have!!! But they made it so much harder to get level 3.0 crew!! And it’s totally uncalled for. This artificial barrier they put up to slow the player snowballing is not a good decision.

Because, you could basically just spends days hunting crystal and skip the whole trader-miner part and go right to factories. So it means nothing.

[Defektiv]

But its one right click, one left click and a slider bar. How is that worse than when we had to comm each person individually?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2068721801
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2068722534

[Drunio]

Originally posted by Squashie:

Originally posted by gamyng:

I admire these guys, Egomorons, how they managed to sell this epic crap as full game.

It's a great game, in concept, it just boggles my mind why some of the decisions are made.

Its a great game until these really tedious mechanics wear you down. And thats for the few people that stuck with the game long enough to learn how to play it.

The entire crew and station walking system integration into the game seems cool at first giving ships some soul besides their name and walking on stations to see these giant ships coming and going is fantastic.

But its like putting some ugly tasteless icing on a cake that was already delicious. Both systems just seem to hurt the game more than they help it. If more time was spent fixing up character models/animations and then putting in better crew mechanics (such as an academy to train) it would have worked great, but as it is I get more worn down every time I play the game which is a shame because I love the concept, but its so poorly realized.

[Squashie]

Originally posted by Axeface:

Im not sure if egosoft even has a UX designer, they are a small team. Yes there are tonnes of QOL and design issues with the game, if these things were sorted out it would be so amazing. It is amazing at times, when things work.

And I couldn't agree more. IMO UX is a huge factor of what makes a game great, especially one as complex as X series. I wish they would focus on improving existing game VS building mode DLC. Hell, I would even take X4.5 and pay a full price for the same game that is UX centric and polished, just to support the dev.

[Squashie]

Originally posted by Defektiv:

You can right click transfer crew in batches or all at once, both ships just have to be docked at the same place. It's kind of annoying with boarding ships because you have to wait for the capped ship to get mobile and dock somewhere before you can pull all the marines back on board, but it works. I don't think all our employees get space suits like we do.

I must have missed it. Do you select multiple crew and then transfer?
ALSO!!! just realised, that I have a bunch of crew that leveled up to 3 but APPARENTLY they lvl'd in moral and can't be promoted to Captain. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I spent 20 min docking ships and transferring crew to realize that 3 stars on the crew list DOES NOT mean 3 stars needed to become a captain for an autotrader.

[Squashie]

Originally posted by Defektiv:

Not trying to dismiss any issues that exist, but having them level up by assigning them to a station manager for a while is a lot easier than for them to level up through sector trading. With sector trading they seem to end up idling a lot waiting for trade updates. But a manager will keep the pilot moving around and active.

I ended up capping so many Minotaur Raiders from SCA pirates that I started using their 16 crew capacities to store crews of pilots in for a while. But I don't get too attached to pilots so I haven't really used them since building a shipyards. You get better results moving captains around and promoting crew.

I will try this! But don't they gain lvl in management and not piloting that is required for autotraders?

[Squashie]

Originally posted by Defektiv:

But its one right click, one left click and a slider bar. How is that worse than when we had to comm each person individually?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2068721801
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2068722534

I am a little confused. I have a mixed bag, some lvl 1, 2 and 3. How do I choose just 3. And then again, turns out my crew have lvl's in Moral and not piloting so even if I make them captain they don't become an autotrader. I may be missing something.

[Squashie]

Originally posted by Rivon:

Originally posted by Squashie:

It's a great game, in concept, it just boggles my mind why some of the decisions are made.

Its a great game until these really tedious mechanics wear you down. And thats for the few people that stuck with the game long enough to learn how to play it.

The entire crew and station walking system integration into the game seems cool at first giving ships some soul besides their name and walking on stations to see these giant ships coming and going is fantastic.

But its like putting some ugly tasteless icing on a cake that was already delicious. Both systems just seem to hurt the game more than they help it. If more time was spent fixing up character models/animations and then putting in better crew mechanics (such as an academy to train) it would have worked great, but as it is I get more worn down every time I play the game which is a shame because I love the concept, but its so poorly realized.

That is literally how I feel and I fear I will burn out before I get to enjoy it. I literally waited from 1.2 to now specifically not playing Beta in hopes that it gets good. Feel suuuper deflated seeing how they chose to focus on content vs basic QOL / Polishing.
This is why I always cringe when people ask for planets and landing. Don't add content for the sake of content if it's worthless. Since XR, where they implemented station sniffing, I felt like they were trying to add filler that is unnecessary and "mini gamey". X series is about the mechanics of the game, no need to give me filler.