what to expect from the crew management system

[Innominatam]

So what kind of things will this entail?

[Stellar Tactics]

The crew manager will let you add, remove, customize and dismiss mercs. from your team when exploring the universe. You will be able to keep a total of 20 mercs that you can progress and they will travel with you on your ship. Your main character always takes a crew slot - you can add up to 3 additional team members to your active crew and assign them to ship stations. Your assigned crew comes with you on ground based missions and gains experience in space combat at the 4 crew stations available on ships.

I have other long term plans for additional mechanics for this system that I'm not ready to talk about - I'm still working on the design. I'll release more info on that when I'm sure the mechanics work well with the other systems in the game.

[Megan]

Hmm, if stats have an effect on ship skills, and if you can gain XP at ship stations for kills in space, it might be worth having a ship crew that's separate from the primary fireteam. This would make sense, too. Star Trek aside, you probably shouldn't take your ace navigator on every planetside bughunt.

Could be a bit fiddly if you have to switch out characters each time, but that would be a UI thing.

Of course the main character would still have to learn a ship skill unless ship station assignments are divorced somehow from team assignments. Which would mean that she'd never lack slevels for increasing clevel...

[nobrien]

once we have acess to more merc's and space to explore there will be plenty of opertunity to skill up alot of diff personal as we see fit, so seperating the skills for the short term would just be a huge waste of time,

To me anyway as we all start with basicly low lvls in all things on a new game start and theres allready the crew skill boost as we lvl up ect which might need tweeking but not a total overhaul :}

and if i want my ace medic to be my heavy gunner and pilot too why wouldnt i go out and get messy ?

theres going to be alot of things currently not in game that will slow things down like healing after fights repaires injurys and so on so it might be that some times ground team members wont be fit for sercive ect untill seeking treatment for traumer or broken bones, so that would leave room to have backups ect.

EDIT: also boarding will need seperate team from the crew operating the ship while getting the target softened up ect.

[Innominatam]

wouldn't it make more sense to have the normal crew not be your combat party?.

[Legadian]

Originally posted by E.:

wouldn't it make more sense to have the normal crew not be your combat party?.

Just my two cents….
The min/maxer in me sees it going either way, depending on game mechanics:

Incapacitation: If the combat system causes injured characters (in future updates) to need extensive recovery time, then obviously, you wouldn’t want your crack ship gunner to be down for days (or worse, dead) because of an unlucky grenade placement. Bad enough that you’ve hurt your tactical squad’s ability for a few days, why take the hit in ship combat, too?

Unused Char Progression: Also, it will depend on how, or if, the extra (read unused) mercs level when unused and just standing around the ship. If the unused mercs don’t level while standing around, then they are at a severe disadvantage. You’re forced to either (1) choose to spread out the exp amongst other characters in order not to have all your eggs in one basket (by rotating other members in your squad), or (2) pick the same four chars and use them for everything and hope/pray they never die or get incapacitated.

In my opinion, one or the other (or both) mechanic (or something similar) should be instituted in the game to make sure people can/should use more than just their core starter squad.

[nobrien]

TBH i dont know what Don's got in store specificly in the up comming features ect,

that was just a broad exsample of things that might be taken into account { apart from healing/repairs } ect nothing else has been discussed other than broad ideas in various departments, but Don is totally focused on getting what he has to get the merc system and map unlocked.

i would expect however that there will be options for more survival type gamers and also casuals, i get the feeling that there will be consequences for poor descion making that you can ignore if you want while others will live with their actions and be pleased.

i myself very rarely save scum on my first play thru of a new game hence my 3 mercs having 0 usefull ship skills lol all 3 i got salavge first aid and somehting ;}

asfar as boarding is concerned im also in the dark tho i feel Don would like to give as many options as possable }

[Stellar Tactics]

I have been following this thread.

I'm considering allowing your ship crew to be assigned separate from your ground crew. You would need to make manual assignments in the Crew manager to both ground and ship slots. I haven't finished the crew manager yet so making this decision now is good timing. If I do this I'll make sure the ground crew can be assigned to ground and ship if you like. I actually like this idea and I don't see any reason to limit the crew to your selected ground team. I'll need to look at this carefully.

Right now I'm busy getting all the content pushed out into the universe. More on that when I post the progress update.

[Innominatam]

Originally posted by Stellar Tactics:

I have been following this thread.

I'm considering allowing your ship crew to be assigned separate from your ground crew. You would need to make manual assignments in the Crew manager to both ground and ship slots. I haven't finished the crew manager yet so making this decision now is good timing. If I do this I'll make sure the ground crew can be assigned to ground and ship if you like. I actually like this idea and I don't see any reason to limit the crew to your selected ground team. I'll need to look at this carefully.

Right now I'm busy getting all the content pushed out into the universe. More on that when I post the progress update.

Perhaps I can lend an opinion here based on a type of realism. I am a US combat solider been in over 15 years now.

In my exprience or even in games, I have never really seen crew operators of vehicles ever fight, like IFV crewmen their job is soely stay in and man your vehicles.

Even navy ships have desginated combat soliders on the ship incase of potential board, like an engineer isn't expected to grab a gun and hold down the fort. Even in all the space sim games I played the crew who control the ship are always their own people.

I see this system alot in movies or animations but thats because they purely want to limit characters.

I simply don't think it makes sense to have your crew be your away team.

In both a RL real combat exprience or in a video game style.

If your system was rigged to only allow four guys on the ship, that would make some sense then but you yourself said 20, it seems odd you have 16 people just idle not doing anything really, when you can easyily have four of them become the crew.


Also tho this is just an idea and chances are you have no desire to use this but perhaps at one point there can be a terminal or something where you send idle crew members on jobs to do things to get random rewards like exp. That would take X amount of hours, So that you have something to use this idle mercs for.

Another idea even I know this one is silly tho, if you get a big enough ship maybe it has "hanger" slots and you can assign some spare guys to pilot a single engine figther. Kind of like how Star Wolves three worked. I clearly don't not expect this to ever happen.

[R.4.V.3.N]

Originally posted by E.:

Originally posted by Stellar Tactics:

I have been following this thread.

I'm considering allowing your ship crew to be assigned separate from your ground crew. You would need to make manual assignments in the Crew manager to both ground and ship slots. I haven't finished the crew manager yet so making this decision now is good timing. If I do this I'll make sure the ground crew can be assigned to ground and ship if you like. I actually like this idea and I don't see any reason to limit the crew to your selected ground team. I'll need to look at this carefully.

Right now I'm busy getting all the content pushed out into the universe. More on that when I post the progress update.

Perhaps I can lend an opinion here based on a type of realism. I am a US combat solider been in over 15 years now.

In my exprience or even in games, I have never really seen crew operators of vehicles ever fight, like IFV crewmen their job is soely stay in and man your vehicles.

Even navy ships have desginated combat soliders on the ship incase of potential board, like an engineer isn't expected to grab a gun and hold down the fort. Even in all the space sim games I played the crew who control the ship are always their own people.

I see this system alot in movies or animations but thats because they purely want to limit characters.

I simply don't think it makes sense to have your crew be your away team.

In both a RL real combat exprience or in a video game style.

If your system was rigged to only allow four guys on the ship, that would make some sense then but you yourself said 20, it seems odd you have 16 people just idle not doing anything really, when you can easyily have four of them become the crew.


Also tho this is just an idea and chances are you have no desire to use this but perhaps at one point there can be a terminal or something where you send idle crew members on jobs to do things to get random rewards like exp. That would take X amount of hours, So that you have something to use this idle mercs for.

Another idea even I know this one is silly tho, if you get a big enough ship maybe it has "hanger" slots and you can assign some spare guys to pilot a single engine figther. Kind of like how Star Wolves three worked. I clearly don't not expect this to ever happen.

12B10 and 11B10 here. Word of advice. Our "Combat experience" will never matter when it comes to game development, especially in sci-fi, and should never be a contributing factor to such games (Unless it's a MilSim like ARMA) :P. But I see what you're saying. Right now though they are focusing on getting the FTL Gates open and a galaxy opened up for us to explore so we may see a more Star Trek style feel later on once the major things are out. They only did it the way they have now because honestly that is all that was needed for testing the current content in the game itself.

Originally posted by Stellar Tactics:

I have been following this thread.

I'm considering allowing your ship crew to be assigned separate from your ground crew. You would need to make manual assignments in the Crew manager to both ground and ship slots. I haven't finished the crew manager yet so making this decision now is good timing. If I do this I'll make sure the ground crew can be assigned to ground and ship if you like. I actually like this idea and I don't see any reason to limit the crew to your selected ground team. I'll need to look at this carefully.

Right now I'm busy getting all the content pushed out into the universe. More on that when I post the progress update.

It's a good thing to consider that could add to that "Star Trek" feel of crew managment. but I can't wait for the gates to open. I'm ready to die horribly in space




P.S. It took me longer than expected to write this because my neighbors are above me having sex and I keep getting distracted by the horrible off beat "pumping" of the bed. It's like dude, at least keep a nice pace and maintain impact control, she will enjoy that more than stopping or hessitating every 5 seconds!.

[qcarmicheal]

Didn't want to start a new thread.

But I've been in at least 12 SUCCESSFUL space battles, several of them against multiple hostiles and once I took on three enemies; however; my crew is NOT leveling up. What's the threshhold?

[nobrien]

after battles are you not seeing a bunch of info in the log that has the ships skills typed out with diff numbers after ?

EDIT: forgot to note, your ship skills if they are low single digets you should probably have gotten an improve but if you waited untill you lvled abit b4 recruiteing mercs on the trade station then they might be higher than 10 and prolly will take afew more kills ect.

[justaname]

I'm not sure if you are talking about a level or skill increase. With space battles your level won't increase only your skills.
How many ships you have to kill depends on your current skill. Multiply your current skill by 6 to determine the kills needed. Example: If your pilot has a skill of 8 then you need to kill 8*6=48 ships to reach skill 9 (then your points are reset to 0 and you need to kill 9*6=54 ships to reach skill 10). Each kill awards 1 point for each category. Example: Your pilot gains 1 point in piloting, your gunner gains 1 point in weapoinry etc.
You can gain additional points in electronics by scanning your opponent. Yet I'm not sure what the conditions here are. Sometimes you get one sometimes not. Maybe only the first time you scan a ship type. I don't know.

Edit: If I'm not mistaken you need
10620 kills to get from lvl 1 to 60 and
29700 kills to get from lvl 1 to 100 (but levelcap is 60 at the moment)

[qcarmicheal]

Okay, THANKS Guys!
I'll have to checked the log after my next battle. Talking about 'Skills'

Ah, I see. Makes sense. I've only killed roughly about 20 ships & my current skill level is 5 so going by your analogy, 6x5=30, I'd have about 10 more kills. Just making sure I was not out running around for nothing and like it wouldn't be implemented until the new patch or something.

I have six turret slots. Three are missiles. What do you recommend for the remaining three?

[justaname]

After a battle scroll through your log. It will show you everything. As a side note: If you only need 1 point for the next skillpoint and your assignment is to kill 3 ships, 2 kills are "wasted" cause your skill points are awarded after the fight and after a skill update your points are reset to 0 no matter what (at least thats how I remember things).

As for weapons: I read somewhere that Ion weapons do additional damage to shields - that's why I go all Ion. And I prefer Ion beam, cause they don't need ammunition. But I only fought a lot with the starter ship, not with the heavy fighter - maybe things there are a bit different. Yet, Ion against shields and rhree missile turrets once they are down sounds reasonable.
Actually in most fights I didn't need missiles at all and I deactivated the turret to preserve ammunition. Just scan your opponent(s) and read their weapon loadout. Hevy Ions and/or a lot of missile launchers might be troublesome. As for now other weapon types shouldn't be a problem (somewhre in the future things will chnage)

[qcarmicheal]

OH I SEE, said the Blind Man. Yes Sir. EVERYTHING is right there in the log. Skill Level, Skill points need, skills points earned.
THANK YOU All !!!

Thanx 4 the tip on weapons loadouts. I've been running with a Legendary Hvy Plasma, Execeptional Ion, and an Rare Hvy Gauss. And I'll I can find on the Hvy Missile turrets are Basics. But I'll toy with my turrets config and see what works. :)