Posted - 2009.09.30 08:59:00 - [302]

 

I've always liked the idea of having crews, I understand that the pod is a very efficient control device rendering crews rather pointless but i also know that crews would not be completely pointless and would more than anything just offer a small bonus. I read the initial idea and its not quiet the way i'd thought, while crew would be placed in (slots) for the games sake the effects and how you have suggested that they exist is a bit more complex that what I've thought of.

Obviously this adding of crew simply adds yet another 5% or more bonus to something which is what rigs and skills and some modules already do, so adding crew is less of a priority and more of a fancy.

As i said before i had visioned crews being different with different effect to the original idea, I'm unsure if someone else has already proposed the following ideas but if they have consider this a vote for/elaboration on that same idea.

My idea was that crews would be acquired similarly to datacores, there would be training agents through out the universe that offer to train different types of crew. To use them you'll need standing with the corporation and the relevant skills (command of nav specialist or something), once you start using the agent it could behave a lot like the research agents do now. You could have a wide range of essentially "specialist" crew who will boost a very specific part of your ship ie max speed or agility, increase max speed of missiles or max speed of torpedoes (due to tinkering the specialist learnt with the training agent). Once the crew man/woman is trained they stay that way sort of like passengers do now (you can change a tourist to anything else), as for the number of crew slots on ships you could probably start at cruiser or battle cruiser having one slot for a crew man, two slots on a battleship and 3 for ship types above that.

Lots of options as to what effects the crew man could have on the ships, and having training agents to get crews might make it so they don't flood the market badly. If CCP were to make a change along the lines of what I've said (or previous people who have said similar) I would certainly like it. but admittedly its just adding yet another bonus to ships and we already have that with rigs/skills/modules.

An alternate way to think of crew could be to have station crew (POS crew), have crew slots there that can affect research labs, defenses, etc. these could also be attained in a similar way to what i suggested above.

Again would love crew to be added even if its just 1/2 specialists on a ship or POS crew.

Posted - 2009.09.30 11:29:00 - [304]

 

I want a crew of Exotic Dancers!

No, really!
And be able to bring them along with me in starbases next expac.
They should improve my Charisma-skills when dealing with NPC's. Well, obviously, not EVERYWHERE, there would also be systems where publicly consorting with Exotic Dancers would be frowned upon, thus penalizing my charisma-related skills instead.

Posted - 2009.10.02 02:13:00 - [306]

 

come on CCP, ppl love this idea!!!

Posted - 2009.10.19 07:26:00 - [308]

 

I really do like this idea and unfortunately I don't have the time to read over all the posts right now but there are some things I didn't see in any of the ones I've looked over.

First of all I've noticed at least some people mentioning the problems of having massive numbers of crew on bigger ships, for instance a titan. I always imagined that if Eve did put crews into the game it would consolidate the crews. For instance you would have say a gunnery crew, engineering crew, bridge crew etc. rather than having each crewmember be separate. So in reality on a titan each crew slot may actually be hundreds of crew members that have been training together that you would put on your titan. Along with that I think that different crews should have sizes much like rigs now have. Obviously capital crews would be huge, while cruiser sized crews would only have a few members working together. These crews would not be able to switch between ships, although it may be possible in a later update to split them up or combine them into larger or smaller crews, this would have to take them time to train together and such but would make it possible to take your elite battleship crew and make them the core of a new dreadnaught crew.

The second thing I’ve noticed is that a great deal of people think that immediately crews are going to be used in pvp and in almost everything. I tend to disagree, most people don’t use Tech II rigs in their pvp ships today or faction modules. I think for the most part crews will be used in mission running, ratting, and maybe fleet sized pvp operations where the expense of the crew isn’t going to outweigh their use.

Anyway I have some other ideas that I think deserve some thought.

Player skills involving crews should be added. For one thing this would finally balance out the Charisma attribute with the rest of the attributes. Just to start with I believe some basic skills that should be added are, Crew survival (lowers the number of crew that die when your ship is destroyed), Morale (increases the bonuses given to you by your crew), Recruitment (increases the basic crewmembers you get when you buy a crew and when you have to replace crewmembers if some of them die). There are numerous skills that could be added to a section like that.

Crew survival. Obviously all ships probably have some basic escape pod capabilities however there should be ways to increase the chances your crew stays alive. Possible ways would be to add more escape pods, training your crew to get to their escape pods quicker, the right training for the player so that they give their crew more warning, and even the possibility to take the entire crew and clone them making the immortal (which would reduce losses to 0% but would be an advance cost much liking buying your own clone does).

Finally training is something I see as being one of the best things about this. Multiple times people have said that “obviously” crews would only gain experience while in battle. I disagree, there is no reason that a crew shouldn’t be busy training even when the ship is docked, after all their lives may depend on it. The skills should be far more limited than they are for a player but it should be possible to train a crew in much the same way that players train new skills. However, combat experience should still have it’s uses by granting special abilities to crews based on the actions of a player while in combat. For example a player that uses primarily missiles may have his crew gain an ability that improves his missiles in some way, but not a skill that would say improve rail guns. Depending on what the crew is actually doing there should be a very small percentage of getting a new skill but if the ship is just sitting there in space then they aren’t actually getting experience doing anything.

Anyway, sorry about the long message and thanks for reading it. I have some other ideas that I may post later but for now this is all I have time for.

Posted - 2009.10.19 18:32:00 - [310]

 

Edited by: Lemmy Kravitz on 19/10/2009 18:41:51
Edited by: Lemmy Kravitz on 19/10/2009 18:37:04
eh... I'd make one mod for original OP under the crew survival heading. there is a % chance of % crew survival IF you buy and fit a low slot thing called "CREW ESCAPE PODS" different levels allow for better % chance of % crew survival. If you don't buy low slot "CREW ESCAPE POD" guess what all hands lost except for you the captn. So when the ship blows up, two pods come out. One is you, the other is the % crew that managed to get to escape pods and..... Do you know how much database/computational power it would take to implement a crew system!?!?! It's a great idea but I think the loads that would be generated would be stupid. Other games can get away with thier pet systems like WOW and FFXI because they have a whole bunch of tiny servers that only have a couple 1000's of people. Eve on the other hand at any given time has around 40k people flying around doing things blowing stuff up all on one server. Now think that each person has a crew, crews all have different stats, maybe there are multiple crews for different ships multiply all the variables you can think of for a crew system and multiply it by 35k-45k and I think we'll arrive at a number that would give the system a complete stroke.

Crews for me fall under the same catagory as Line of sight detection

GREAT idea, would love to see it happen. But most likely won't happen with the limitations of the hardware that the computer world has now. Maybe in 3-5 years we will see computer systems based off of IMB's cell processor that have enough computational power and networks fast enough to handle the loads that Eve gaming systems like those would generate.

Posted - 2009.10.20 06:47:00 - [312]

 

Why in the world would their be a second pod for the crews. I always imgained something more like say the pods in starship troopers or even the ones in Serenity. Small pods that just got you to the nearest planet. From there the crew would find their way back to whatever station was closest. In fact it would make it interesting to decide how many crew members survived based on where exactly you lost your ship, was it close to the sun (some crew members might have gotten pulled in), was their a station in system/how populated is the system (your crew might not have a way to get back). It would also add another part to the game where you could potentially recover crew by scanning them down or hiring npc's to go find them.

As for adding to the server load, I don't think it would be to bad. We aren't talking about a huge graphics update in fact most of it would be text and numbers based. Even if there were server load problems Eve could just have a server update the crew info after later since it would take time for your crew to reassemble after having to use their escape pods.

Seriously it would probably add about as much of a server load as rigs combined with the new invention system do to the current Eve universe. Sure it wouldn't be a small part of the Eve universe, but it's not going to slow computers down when people are actually doing battle.

Posted - 2009.12.01 20:28:00 - [314]

 

Do we really need...

* another thing that you have to spend time waiting for or building up before you're any good against other players in a game where the fastest lessons are typically learned through ship-loss?

* to give people even more reasons to go out and camp gates and sack noobies than the one (fun) they already have?

* yet another piece of intel to evaluate when assessing threats?

It sometimes feels like one but this isn't an RTS or I'd think it was a great idea. It's an MMO that is often criticized of being, perhaps, a smidge complex even by those who love it.

I don't hate the idea for capitals, however, as no noob will ever own one that has a right to.

Posted - 2009.12.02 17:43:00 - [316]

 

The more I think about the idea of crews the more it makes sense to me.

Whilst reading through the chronicles and short stories, there is always a mention of crew members. The captain of the ship is safe inside the Jovian-made capsule controlling his/her ship with thought. Then throughout the ship there are crew members operating the vessel.

I've been around EVE for more than six months and whilst I'm still trying to find my footing in this universe, there are already some things which are very obvious. The first and most striking one is the big difference between the guys who have been around a while and those who are beginners at the game. The second feature is the total lack of roleplaying.

I trust that the introduction of crew members would provide a true balancing effect in the following ways. Pilots should have a kind of survivability index much like the sec status. The higher this survivability index the easier and cheaper it will be to find crew members as these are more willing to join the pilot. This survivability index increases the longer the pilot's ships stay intact and decreases the more they get destroyed. Thus players who like pvp will have this premium to pay as they will inevitably get killed many times. Secondly, crews need wages and they are needed for as long as ships are assembled inside hangars. Thus this would prevent wealthy players from having an enormous stockpile of ships which they can just undock one after another. Also due to wages, pilots will be more careful as to the type of ships they use, thus promoting roleplay.

Posted - 2009.12.26 00:42:00 - [318]

 

/Signed on the crew idea

-Recieving missions from crew for extra crew related addons
-Boost on verious systems (reload, mining, exploration)
-Makeing ships with crew a lot more risky to loose (since that way you will not be just loosing isk, but also the time you have spent on the crew ;) )
-With the next expansion coming up, could be interesting if we also get to see our crew members
-Options such as crew quarters, or bigger quarters for higher ranked crew maters(level ? / crew SP ?)

After all, there crew is there, we might just as well have fun with it :P

Posted - 2010.01.02 19:28:00 - [320]

 

Edited by: Daugar Draaken on 02/01/2010 19:30:50
I didn't read the entire thread, but let me emphasize I am in favor of adding crews.

A new argument (I hope) would be for competition reasons. Eve is currently a very constrained franchise that sometimes alienates potential new players. I know that established players want the game to be inhospitable to many new players, for whatever distasteful reason, but I do not want that. I want features added, as soon as possible, that make the game more appealing to new players. I think adding crews would add to realism. How it is implemented is up to CCP and I am sure they are competent to fully explore all doors that have been kicked open long ago.

Since Eve will be subject to fierce competition I advocate implementing crews as soon as possible - within 2 years. Additionally I would like to see crews reflect strongly in other gameplay dimensions. I'd love seeing members of my crews in recognizable uniforms on stations when ambulation appears.

Posted - 2010.01.12 19:17:00 - [322]

 

There are no crews. The whole point of a pod to begin with is both to remove the need for a crew due to the limited number of skilled crew members available as well as eliminate their physical limitations allowing a pod piloted ship to perform manuvers and stand stresses that a normally crewed ship is not capable of withstanding (admittedly this is somewhat undermined by the speed and performance of some NPC rats but that's the lore behind PODs).

The reason your ships have windows and other things that imply the posibility of a crew is because those same ships are used by non pod pilots specifically in the faction navies as well as by other NPCs the economy of scale make it more efficient and cost effective to just modify existing designs to accomidate a pod rather than create entirely new ships around the pods.

Remember accodring to the EVE lore POD pilots are a very recent developement in New Eden (basically 8 years at this point)it was only through the convergence of POD technology and memory transfer tech that made them posible. If this were an actual universe you would expect to start seeing pod specific ships soon (of course isn't that really what a T3 ships is?)

Posted - 2010.01.12 20:31:00 - [324]

 

linky 1

linky 2

linky 3

Now understand I never said that no ships had crews I said that POD piloted ships don't need them and most likely wouldn't have them since a crew would negate many of the advantages of using a POD pilot in the first place.

Of course some of the stories have crews. All non-POD piloted ships have crews.

Now I've linked the articles supporting my position perhaps you could provide me with a link showing that I'm wrong?

Posted - 2010.01.13 09:13:00 - [326]

 

Originally by: Skex Relbore

---

Bleh I retract my previous point I skimmed Jovian Wetgrve and it appears to be cannon. So there is support for the idea of a crew. I still think it's stupid and that a crew would negate many of the advantages of a POD yet if that's the siliness the devs want to push it's their game.

Still it brings up the quesiton where from come all these suicidal technically competent crew members and why aren't we paying them a salary?

I think it would be better if CCP simply left the ships crewless and automated with a POD Pilt in control and would stop this silly threadnaught seeking out additional overpowering abilities.

---

according to cannon, not everyone can be a pod pilot. you have to have a specific neural make up. So to many the only option of heading out into space is to join a crew. which as we all know, will most likely end badly for them. But i do love this crew idea, especially as they act as a kinda rig. allowing you to boost your ship up just a little bit more. it would also be great because it adds a new and interesting level to the game. Having to hire crews to get say a dessy or a cruiser in the air makes sense.

Posted - 2010.01.15 13:37:00 - [328]

 

This for me is a convincer that ships, especially anything larger than a frig, needs a crew.

Real ship sizes shown to scale!

The bigger the ship, the bigger the crew, but still up to only about a dozen max I'd say.

And instead of training the crews up, how about just hiring better skilled crewmen? This would tie in excellently with WIS, as you'd trawl the bars to find crew, and also acts as a money sink, as you'd have to pay them! Better skilled crew obviously demanding higher wages.

It would also tie in to the planetary interaction, as yo would own or run various industries on the ground, you could also run training centres, and hire more experienced crew from those.

As has been previously mentioned, crew slots like rig slots, so for example, 4 slots on a cruiser, and can be filled with any 4 different crewmen, to gain a minor increase in one of many subskills. You could hire a weapons officer, trained in projectile weapons, specialising in long range combat, or reloading, or any of the key skills, giving you a small percentage increase IN THE SPECIALIST SUBSET ONLY (to prevent overpowering). Rinse and repeat for missiles, energy weapons, hybrids, engines, shield, armour, etc etc.

Finally, it shouldn't be hard to implement. The crew would fill slots just like any other module, and can be bought the same way, except it'd be weekly/monthly cost (office rental for example) as opposed to a one-off.

Well, I like the idea.

Posted - 2010.01.15 14:05:00 - [330]

 

I would be ok with crews as long as it met the following conditions:

- No skill to train to use them. The only one I'd support is Leadership(1-5) which could make the crew run better.
- Crews over time become better as they go(to a point) through battle which in turn boost your ship stats of ROF, shield, armor, etc.