Needed: AI Ship/Crew Management System

[zinvicta]

Given how buggy moving, placing and 'seating' crew is on ships, this game sorely needs a simple graphical ship/crew management system. Especially for single player or soloing players, there should be a simple graphic/spreadsheet accessible from Ship Properties that simply lists the available Crew Stations on your ship and your available AI crew. Getting crew to man stations should be as simple as dragging a crewperson's name to a station slot and the crew is placed in station.

The current system is far too wonky and inefficient and adds tedium to what should be a quick task of crewing one's ship.

[Deviantdemigodz]

What they need is a simple UI that opens on a Crew tab first is group 1 which you can put crew on cannons and sails .
Group 2 which you can set AI crew to fighting ship to ship or just swabbing the decks when not fighting.

Group 3 set all AI on chairs if it still saves you gold if not skip Group 3.

Set a hot key for group A like key Alt A and group B Alt B or group C like Alt C or any keys not used .

Then its simple hit Alt A your whole crew mans cannons and sails ETC ETC.

I like the CREW Resource box there putting in the game much easyer to supply AI crew gold and berries every day.

[Magnus Chro]

Amen and preach it brother!

[G4M5T3R]

A dedicated UI would be wonderful, but you can use the buggy movement/teleportation to your advantage. Change their follow distance to Low or Lowest and you'll have an easier time with it.

[Nokim]

wont work and stop being lazy.

for that to work every ship would need specific sailor stations.

aka i wouldn't be able to sink my ship with 40 cannons placed on the top deck if i wanted to because it would not be a designated sailor space.

put that sucker on lowest distance follow, take it to where you need it to be and case closed.

I got 3 sailors on sails and 12 on cannons on my brig, i haven't seen any need for "management tools"

think of it this way. pirates were not known as the brightest of the brightest. you hire one, you gotta walk him to his station and show him where its at or he will get lost. Cuz first day on the job, how the hell do you expect him to know where the sails are or which one is for him?! come on now! be a proper boss and at least show them the ropes on day one!

[G4M5T3R]

Originally posted by Nokim:

wont work and stop being lazy.

for that to work every ship would need specific sailor stations.

Nah, all sails and gunports have hard points anyway and deck cannons could easily be accounted for. Its not rocket science. How many cannons are there? Are any unmanned? Update UI.

[Magnus Chro]

Originally posted by Nokim:

wont work and stop being lazy.

for that to work every ship would need specific sailor stations.

aka i wouldn't be able to sink my ship with 40 cannons placed on the top deck if i wanted to because it would not be a designated sailor space.

put that sucker on lowest distance follow, take it to where you need it to be and case closed.

I got 3 sailors on sails and 12 on cannons on my brig, i haven't seen any need for "management tools"

think of it this way. pirates were not known as the brightest of the brightest. you hire one, you gotta walk him to his station and show him where its at or he will get lost. Cuz first day on the job, how the hell do you expect him to know where the sails are or which one is for him?! come on now! be a proper boss and at least show them the ropes on day one!

Pretty sure OP is asking for an “easier” way to do it.

Right now I have 25 cannons on my brig so yeah having to manually do it sucks!

[Faded]

I remember a video of a player moving his cannon crew from left to right and front to back, all at once. Find video and see if it helps. I forgot what buttons he was pressing.

[2ugly]

No need for specific sailer stations. The defenses themselves are the stations. Where you place it is the station.

Placement locking or unlocking would be just to limit players from creating unreasonable creations.

Originally posted by Faded:

I remember a video of a player moving his cannon crew from left to right and front to back, all at once. Find video and see if it helps. I forgot what buttons he was pressing.

Thought I saw this also, but never saw a command to do so. Figured it was a mod....hope I was wrong. At least the NPCs are not as poorly implemented as they were in CE.... That game became a complete joke eventually. I got a pocket full of static crew....lol. Their devs all along the process proclaiming better AI in future builds that never came.

[Canadian_Hoser]

Not all that simple as dude claims it to be.
I use lowest follow but still often the npc's want to mount the steering wheel.I can take several tries and does NOT reflect an actual realistic idea.
Imagine you were the captain and told a crew member "hey buddy ,can you mount that sail" then he moves to the steering wheel.

SO what is needed is a simple fix,add a new CHOICE in the menu to select sail or cannon or steering wheel or inactive.Really it would just be a menu dedicated to the npc crew.