Crew fame requirement death spiral

[General Curmudgeon]

I have a fairly beefy flagship that requires 54 crew and 2 smaller ships I took over that need 6 crew apiece. Since I lost some crew in battle, my flagship is now running at 43 crew (-11). But I can't get any more crew unless I raise my fame to 215 (It's 210 right now). I've "out-leveled" everything in the second system fame-wise. My only choices are attack a threat 6 pirate base guarded by multiple ships and turrets (which I've tried and failed) or jump to the next system which is level 5-7. I've tried that a couple of times and the warp in point is very close to a multiple ship spawn that I can beat, but lose more crew in the process.

It seems like my only option is to abandon my two smaller ships, put those crew back on the flagship and make the flagship even beefier. I can't make any changes to the other ships because then they'll need more crew.

That is probably what I'll do, but the reason I mention all this is because, while I understand crew being a finite resource as a limiting factor to progression, the current system seems a bit heavy-handed. I've bought blueprints for nearly every piece of equipment in the game in the first two systems, but I can't use them simply because I'm not famous enough and can't get crew. And if the crew rosters in the stations where I'm at are any indication of what I'll see in the next system, getting to 215 seems to only net me 1 new crew per station.

I'm really enjoying the game, but the progression curve of tech and fame seem completely out of step with each other, and it feels bad. I was hoping to at least see new blueprints when I jumped to a new system, or maybe upgraded quality of of existing parts.

The loot progression curve seems like a flat line. The first few ships I salvaged were exciting and then I realized that all I'm ever going to get as loot is steel plates, coils, and a handful of uranium and warp fuel. Might be nice to occasionally get some cash or special upgrade parts that can be applied to existing equipment to boost performance (basically some sort of socketing system)

My wall of text has probably already passed the tl;dr stage, so I'll stop here.

[PhotriusPyrelus]

Have you tried going back to the first system and looking for random traders? They sometimes have crew.

[CptnRedstone]

How did you get more crew than your fame allows in the first place? Losing crew doesn't deduct fame in any way, it seems like you somehow ended up with more crew than you should. Did you change difficulty settings mid-way through or something?

[Zero Proximity]

Tac on question about crew, iv lost a few and noticed they just keep getting more expensive? do low stock crew not replenish?

[Shibe]

Depends on game difficulty, but the fame bracket is not as low as you think when moving into new systems

I don't know about single player but crew numbers can be abused in co-op. As long as one player has money you can transfer crew to your friends ship and the cost/fame requirements go down again as if you lost a bunch of crew.

Buy them back up again until all other players ships are full, if you run out of money just switch player roles or transfer control of ships around to the player who has money left.

[Petrothian]

yah, would be nice if there is no cap to crew.

my flag ship already takes up 1k crew already while my factory ship is another 1k..

[hOtaRcticsTunt]

Same here. A have 873 authority points and my crew's cap is 148.
But i now have 70 crewmembers and just can't hire any more due to they want me to be more famous.
I just hired everyone cheap and when they was lost in battle, i can not buy them again.

They just not respawn in station rosters if you lost some.

What am i doing wrong?

[Zero Proximity]

Originally posted by hOtaRcticsTunt:

Same here. A have 873 authority points and my crew's cap is 148.
But i now have 70 crewmembers and just can't hire any more due to they want me to be more famous.
I just hired everyone cheap and when they was lost in battle, i can not buy them again.

They just not respawn in station rosters if you lost some.

What am i doing wrong?

This is my issue as well, especially early game if your not aware you cant get them back you have them man front facing guns that get destroyed and that can kill them, making you have to rehire new crew more expensive

[WillieSea]

You can remove the cap on crew in the settings menu. I can hire as many as I want after making it unlimited.

There are also other settings if you don't want infinite.

[hOtaRcticsTunt]

Originally posted by Zero Proximity:

Originally posted by hOtaRcticsTunt:

Same here. A have 873 authority points and my crew's cap is 148.
But i now have 70 crewmembers and just can't hire any more due to they want me to be more famous.
I just hired everyone cheap and when they was lost in battle, i can not buy them again.

They just not respawn in station rosters if you lost some.

What am i doing wrong?

This is my issue as well, especially early game if your not aware you cant get them back you have them man front facing guns that get destroyed and that can kill them, making you have to rehire new crew more expensive

I solved this by hosting an mp game and changing player slot from first to second. Somehow worked out.

[LordIvan]

Honestly, sounds like a bug, and a bad one. You're the 2nd person in the first page of the steam discussions here to report this.

Does anyone know for sure what the behaivour is supposed to be? Sounds like from what some are saying that when you lose crew, you're supposed to be able to re-hire. that is, the required fame drops again, and the only cost is credits.

Otherwise, it's an extraordinarily bad design decision, leading to, as you said, death spirals from which there is no escape, as you can't just grind up. And given how well designed everything else in the game is, I very much doubt such a poor design is intentional from the devs. Has to be a bug.

[CptnRedstone]

It definitely sounds like a bug, though I'm not 100% sure yet. If anyone here could provide a save of the issue that'd be awesome.

The expected behavior is that (boiled down), losing crewmembers reverts the crew fame requirements proportional to how many you lost. If you lose any amount of crew and buy as many crew back as you can, theoretically you'll end up with the same amount that you started with.

[Zero Proximity]

Originally posted by CptnRedstone:

It definitely sounds like a bug, though I'm not 100% sure yet. If anyone here could provide a save of the issue that'd be awesome.

The expected behavior is that (boiled down), losing crewmembers reverts the crew fame requirements proportional to how many you lost. If you lose any amount of crew and buy as many crew back as you can, theoretically you'll end up with the same amount that you started with.

yeah sure, where do i find the save, also should be noted im playing modded but im fairly sure this issue was happening before i did mod the game. basically the cost of crew ALWAYS goes up, doesn't matter that i lost some, and all 0 rep crew once lost are gone forever

[OldPopsy]

I have noticed this as well. I can't upgrade my ship any further because I need more crew to run everything and my fame isn't high enough to hire anyone and I have difficulty fighting things of much higher level. I had to do the "scrap the smaller ships" thing as well.

[Walt Destler]

Fame imposes a limit on how many crew you can have at any one time, but as soon as crew are lost/killed, that should free up slots for more crew. If that's not happening, it's a bug. Please send me a saved game using the in-game feedback feature. (F11)

[Zero Proximity]

Originally posted by Walt Destler:

Fame imposes a limit on how many crew you can have at any one time, but as soon as crew are lost/killed, that should free up slots for more crew. If that's not happening, it's a bug. Please send me a saved game using the in-game feedback feature. (F11)

We are not talking about ship crew limits...i think, we are talking about replishing crew from station stock.

As it is currently lets say a station has 20 Zero Rep crew, you buy all 20 to crew your ship. then your ship gets mostly destroyed leaving you with only 5 crew left on the ship. if you go back to that station that had the 20 Zero Rep crew you will find it doesnt have them any more(they died) and your only option is to increase your rep level....now not possible because your ship is undermanned and you dont have the ability to get more crew because of rep requirements and no Low to Zero rep crew replenish at the stations