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Crew skills, hiring, management, gameplay opportunities

#1
It seems to me that the addition of crew could add worthwhile depths to LT, if they're regarded as a valuable subsystem of a ship.

I'm not suggesting any sort of crew management simulation; no Sims in Space or roguelike runaround, but that each crewman would fit a "slot" and add some value to ship performance. Pretty much as any other fitted component. The one difference is that crew should be regarded as valuable - you would be discouraged from sacrificing them or regarding them as expendable. Keeping your crew alive would be one of your priorities with a cost for failure.

Crew Slots
So, I suggest that each ship will have a number of crew "slots", each of which can hold a crewman. Some will be mandatory e.g. a pilot slot must always be filled, while others will be optional. This will vary from ship to ship; e.g. a particular model of fighter will have a slot for a mandatory pilot and another slot for an optional crewman. A large battleship may require a pilot, a commander and a weapons officer, and have a dozen more optional slots. Ship design will determine this.

Skills
Crewmen may have certain skills, and these will have a ranking, e.g. Pilot-2, Negotiator-1. If a ship has a skilled crewman it should perform better in some way, e.g. a better pilot makes the ship more manoeuvrable, a better negotiator gets keener prices when trading. Effectively they add bonuses to some sort of behaviour. Whilst a crewman is in your employ there is a small chance that his skill level may increase, so that over time he will gradually become more skilled. Ideally this chance of an increase should occur when his skills are being used; a pilot may increase in skill if he wins a dogfight, a negotiator when he secures a good deal. The higher the skill, the smaller the chance of an increase.

Hiring
Crewmen need to be hired. Venues of doing so may range from random conversations in bars, acting on rumours, to employment agencies. You would have to pay an initial hiring fee and a subsequent salary. The higher the skill, the more they cost. Crew cost would also depend on your track record of looking after them. Firing crew should have no cost as long as you do so at a friendly station. Or maybe it should, but the cost is lower for leaving them at busy stations where work is easy to find.

Crews are Valuable
If you look after your crew so that they have a high survival rate, then your employment reputation is good and crew costs will be lower. On the other hand if you frequently lose them and their life expectancy is low, then they'll cost more and be harder to find. If you abandon your crews when they're in trouble (e.g. being ransomed, stranded), then your reputation sinks even lower resulting in even higher costs. Even crew dying in a rescue attempt should have a lesser effect than just abandoning them to their fate. So look after your crew.

Lone Wolf vs. Fleet Manager
If you are a lone wolf or have a small fleet, then the micromanagement of hiring and assigning individual crewmen could be fun. However, if you have a large fleet requiring hundreds, then it won't. For this reason there should be in-game mechanisms for assigning large numbers of crew to fleets e.g. hiring dozens at a time through agencies and assigning them automatically to ships. When buying a new ship, crew may be included, and the amount you pay will determine their average skill level. This should still allow micromanagement where desired, e.g. assigning particular commanders. Swapping crewmen between ships should also be allowed when appropriate i.e. they're docked at a friendly station.
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Re: Crew as a well-oiled machine

#2
Great post! Overall it feels like something I'd enjoy myself with.

How do you feel about morale, and it impacting crew performance? Morale could be the effect of winning of losing a battle, quality of living, wages... (without going into sims-territory)
I've always enjoyed playing around with morale in strategy games like GalCiv2. I also think morale might allow for even more exciting gameplay when planet ownership/colonisation is added.
Abusing a ship and its crew might make pirates out of them.

Concerning crew slots: Perhaps in the ship editor you can create a crew quarters which determines how many crew you can add? When you're advancing in the game, you'll probably unlock/find/discover/research technology that helps you create crew quarters that would offer some bonuses (more experience for crew, higher morale, quicker response, ...)

I like the hiring mechanism. It makes sense. Areas around a shipyard would be full of people looking for a job. Just like harbours are now. So it makes sense that the ships would come with a crew. The cost of the hiring would be invisible to the player as some sort of overhead/upkeep cost perhaps. (Vetting crew takes time, you don't want to hire pirates on a trading vessel.)

Making crew valuable and the consequences could easily be done with a morale system. The higher the morale of your empire, more people want to be a part of it, the more influence you can exert to other factions and the more motivated your crew is to protect what they have. Very low morale could mean defections / declarations of independence. Finding the sweet spot between morale, conquering more sectors, profit, ... would be an awesome balancing act for the player.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Crew as a well-oiled machine

#3
Just for the record: Now if someone were to do the considerable work of extracting all the useful bits (regardless of personal preference) from all existing posts about "crew" and putting them into some sort of readable format, I'd gladly lock some redundant ones...
Whether boarding fits in there or not is arguable. It is not entirely a "crew" issue.
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
Post

Re: Crew as a well-oiled machine

#4
Crew-related conversations from the topic : Commando Boarding Partys
and
General ideas from the topic : Capital ship command and Crew experiance/readiness/drills


Level of detail of crew:
Some are in favor of adding more details, others want a single score for crew proficiency. What everybody agrees on is that only the skilled part of the crew should be represented.
  • * Ships should be piloted by crew. If carriers use drones, these drones could be controlled by crew on the carrier.
  • * Tieing skill levels to a crew, as in the total of a ship's crew.
  • * Think of a crewman as a piece of equipment, and a ship as having a number of crew slots. Each ship would have a minimum requirement and maybe further slots for optional additional crew. If each crewman has a particular skill, that will improve the performance of the ship in some way.
  • * Generic crew shouldn't be managed. But they should get promoted (by the AI) to a higher pay grade/whatever when they've gained experience.
  • * A Star Trek: Bridge Commander style of commanding capital ships
  • * The ship has a skill / experience level and gets better at doing ship stuff. The XP level of persons is never even tracked outside ships because after hiring, you can only transfer persons to other ships - even if it's just some shuttle / space bus.
  • * Let crew interaction be on a RPG level. where in speaking with your crew builds loyalty and might unlock information your crew knows about.
  • * If someone were to create a system that allowed you to not only enjoy first person space fighter combat, but to also have a way to have a crew and to interact with them in a way that added something to the game as a whole in a slower more strategy based setting. I would be throwing my money at them so fast you'd have to clock in in fractions of C.

Experience, skill level and wages.:
The general consensus seems to be that "crew" needs to get more proficient at what they do, over time.
The highlights of this discussion are:
  • * Crew should get wages.
  • * Crew should work their way up, get promotions, get skills and be an asset to you in various ways.
  • * Game mechanisms that add to crew skill level while in your employ.
  • * Over time, there is a small chance that each crewman may improve his skill, the chance decreasing as his skill gets higher.
  • * RPG : Deciding on what maneuvers to use, how many ships to assign to different tasks, and overall not flying a fighter. (like Star Trek Bridge Commander)
  • * You can hold training exercises for your crew. These are things like shooting practice, red alert drills, or flying through imaginary hoops.

Assigning and hiring crew:
Assigning and hiring crew can be made very complex. There are voices of KISS and others that want it a bit more complex.
  • * Scrapping ships and keeping their veteran crews around could be done in a very generic way without even requiring to save the skill levels of each individual seaman.
  • * If your crew have a short life expectancy, then hiring new ones will become more difficult and costly.
  • * There might be a simple interface where you can assign officers to ships.
  • * The AI (captain) would take care of assigning crew to the job they are best at.
  • * An option for "optimize" that can assigns crew to the best position available.
  • * It must not be possible to buy an experienced crew right off the bat. Then it would really just be another installed upgrade.

Events:
Crew can be subjected to many situations. These are a few ideas about events and their effect.
  • * When an officer (other crew doesn't seem to be worth much money) gets ransomed, then his experience and perks might be worth it to pay his ransom.
  • * Crew can die when a ship takes damage.
  • * Profiles of crew members could list what positions they had within the fleet, on which ships, and what battles they were in. Perhaps even their kill count and special events like being taken hostage.
  • * The way a company treats its employees could be reflected in what (quality) of people want to work for it, how much wages they expect and perhaps even how much people are willing to pay their your products.
  • * The crew readiness system is a system in which your crew perform better depending on how rested and stress free their lives are
  • * If your crew dont like you they can leave (like real people can) or if you realy piss them off say hello mutiny.
  • * If you pay better than average or offer a safer work environment the id sugest letting your crew offer potentially useful information. ' lenor here says shes heard of a shortage of food on markus prime might be a good area to look into selling that last patch of grain weve got in our hold. especially since they are trying to keep a lid on it' and the like.

Concerns:
  • * I don't want to play The Sims on each of my 300 ships.
  • * A single modern aircraft carrier requires a crew of thousands. I do not want to deal with the skills and promotions of each and every one of them. Neither does the captain of a real carrier. He has subordinates to deal with the gunnery practice course of seaman Helmschtucker.
  • * In LT you are not limited to 3 ships. You could have 20 or 600. Any micromanagement still has to be fun and scale.
  • * I'm all for features that improve the depth of the gameplay just as long as it doesn't force the players into using it, as well as a means to generically optimize when it comes to situations where you might want something better than the generic assignments but not want the micromanagement hassle yourself.
  • * I wouldn't want to manually order every bridge officer on each of my 30 capital ships on and off duty all the time.
  • * The only way I could see a "stamina" system work (if badly...) is globally per ship. A ship on high alert (or in combat) is more effective but this drains the crew's stamina. That still creates the same issue, though. If I have many ships on duty like patrols and blockade, I'd be very busy altering alert levels or pulling ships back to "rest".
  • * The problem with systems of great fiddly-ness... which are then streamlined to be usable with reasonable effort...is that you may just as well skip the whole thing and get the same result.
  • * If you let the crew influence aspects of the ship's performance with are already keyed to other upgradeable components, you kind of defeat the purpose of adding those components in the first place.
  • * Advancement could be acceptable if crew was a "running cost", i.E. if you have to pay them in regular intervals, but with that model, all your crew will end up at the "level cap" pretty fast.
  • * Players in general have a low tolerance for underperforming equipment, and the crew is no different. Just how big should the difference between two identical ships be, if one was to be crewed by the greenest of recruits and one with the choicest of pros? How would both ships perform in comparison to a ship of the next larger size class with "average" crew? How about ships that are actually too small to have crew, like fighters and drones?
  • * The point is that I expect my AI ships to perform at the best the AI can do. Why? Because sure as hell all other ships in the universe do. It'd feel odd if only my crew consisted of bumbling idiots which I have to train to perform adequately, while everyone else in the universe gets top competent AI.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Crew as a well-oiled machine

#5
Wow, muchisimo kudos to you for all that, @Katorone!
Katorone wrote:How do you feel about morale, and it impacting crew performance? Morale could be the effect of winning of losing a battle, quality of living, wages... (without going into sims-territory)
It could be good if easily implementable, but I fear it would be hard to do well. Would you apply it to each crewman? A whole crew? A whole fleet? What happens if you chop and change crewmen between ships? It could be a lot of development effort and run-time overhead for a limited benefit. Similarly I suggested that skill increase would be a resuilt of a triggered probability calc rather than experience points being tracked for each crewman, as it's easier to implement and has the same long term effect.
Concerning crew slots: Perhaps in the ship editor you can create a crew quarters which determines how many crew you can add? When you're advancing in the game, you'll probably unlock/find/discover/research technology that helps you create crew quarters that would offer some bonuses (more experience for crew, higher morale, quicker response, ...)
I was thinking it would just be a fixed number of slots for any one type of ship. As the interiors of ships are not modelled, it's only a simple functional representation that would be needed.
I like the hiring mechanism. It makes sense. Areas around a shipyard would be full of people looking for a job. Just like harbours are now. So it makes sense that the ships would come with a crew. The cost of the hiring would be invisible to the player as some sort of overhead/upkeep cost perhaps. (Vetting crew takes time, you don't want to hire pirates on a trading vessel.)
If you're commissioning a ship (I'm presuming you can only buy small ships 'off the shelf'), then you'll decide what components are fitted, adding to the total cost. Part of that process would be fitting crew, and you'd need to be able to set their skill levels, with cost being added accordingly. Effectively the shipyard has an arrangement with an agency to provide crew on demand, though availability may be limited due to location and buyer reputation. You can probably set a cost and which slots are to be filled, and it will work out the best result. Or you can completely micromanage it if you prefer :D

The idea of vetting is interesting - maybe there could be an 'agent' crewman you can hire, and have him infiltrate someone else's crew. At the risk of discovery by an agent in their own crew. Hmmm... espionage and covert information gathering could be an interesting dimension to LT. It could be a way of stealing a rival's navigation charts or acquiring locations of rich asteroids, or the whereabouts of an assassination target. An agent could sabotage an enemy ship, making it easy for you to capture. He could infiltrate the control room of a JG that has banned you, and enable you to travel. There are quite a few possibilites in this idea, though also a lot of difficulties. Maybe needs more thought...

Another consequence of having crew is that they could get killed in battle even if the ship is not destroyed i.e. their crew station is hit. Probably this could be handled the same way as ship damage.
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Re: Crew as a well-oiled machine

#6
JabbleWok wrote: It could be good if easily implementable, but I fear it would be hard to do well. Would you apply it to each crewman? A whole crew? A whole fleet? What happens if you chop and change crewmen between ships? It could be a lot of development effort and run-time overhead for a limited benefit. Similarly I suggested that skill increase would be a resuilt of a triggered probability calc rather than experience points being tracked for each crewman, as it's easier to implement and has the same long term effect.
I'd apply it to communities. Ship level, starbase level, planet level. The morale would really the be way the game lets you know how well you're doing concerning crew management. LT would need some way of keeping track of that anyway. (for instance for the effects of not paying ransom)
JabbleWok wrote:
Concerning crew slots: Perhaps in the ship editor you can create a crew quarters which determines how many crew you can add? When you're advancing in the game, you'll probably unlock/find/discover/research technology that helps you create crew quarters that would offer some bonuses (more experience for crew, higher morale, quicker response, ...)
I was thinking it would just be a fixed number of slots for any one type of ship. As the interiors of ships are not modelled, it's only a simple functional representation that would be needed.
The problem with that is that there aren't any ship types. It will be up to the player to define what role a ship should take on. A crew quarters would just add another layer of customizability and allow you to use more or less crew depending how many you install. Like an engine they'd be needed on almost any design. I'm not sure how to link crew to things they can get better at though. It doesn't make sense that the gunner advances in the manoeuvring skill. Or, perhaps a crew quarters will tell LT that there should be some open slots for crew. (as opposed to some AI controlled drones/ferries)
Perhaps, in the same way, there should be a trading console for vessels doing trading, and a cockpit for fighter craft? They wouldn't be mutually exclusive either.

Concerning crew... How much crew do you yourself managing per ship? Personally I'd like an upkeep/ship which includes supportive/maintenance crew and only bother with the officers. These officers would be in charge of movement, enemy tracking, trading, manoeuvres, ...
It would be them that are getting better at their job, give better orders, etc.
JabbleWok wrote: If you're commissioning a ship (I'm presuming you can only buy small ships 'off the shelf'), then you'll decide what components are fitted, adding to the total cost. Part of that process would be fitting crew, and you'd need to be able to set their skill levels, with cost being added accordingly. Effectively the shipyard has an arrangement with an agency to provide crew on demand, though availability may be limited due to location and buyer reputation. You can probably set a cost and which slots are to be filled, and it will work out the best result. Or you can completely micromanage it if you prefer :D
Yep, I was thinking the same about that agency. Being able to set a price for more experienced crews is an idea I like, IF it's still impossible to buy fully trained crew. If there's a need for trained crew, we should ask Josh to include officer school space stations. :D
Personally, I probably wouldn't bother a lot with hiring crew. I'd just get inexperienced ones.
JabbleWok wrote: The idea of vetting is interesting - maybe there could be an 'agent' crewman you can hire, and have him infiltrate someone else's crew. At the risk of discovery by an agent in their own crew. Hmmm... espionage and covert information gathering could be an interesting dimension to LT. It could be a way of stealing a rival's navigation charts or acquiring locations of rich asteroids, or the whereabouts of an assassination target. An agent could sabotage an enemy ship, making it easy for you to capture. He could infiltrate the control room of a JG that has banned you, and enable you to travel. There are quite a few possibilites in this idea, though also a lot of difficulties. Maybe needs more thought...
The vetting was just an example of what the agency would do for you. :) I do like the aspect of espionage though. And yes, spies could be hired by an agency too. If you have spies, the AI has spies, so having an anti-spie spie makes sense. Perhaps it's best to create a separate topic concerning espionage? (if there isn't one already)
JabbleWok wrote: Another consequence of having crew is that they could get killed in battle even if the ship is not destroyed i.e. their crew station is hit. Probably this could be handled the same way as ship damage.
Yes! Exactly. If they can level up, they can have other stuff happen to them as well. As I said somewhere, when crew would get captured by pirates, they'd hold the officers hostage. The other crew isn't really worth the hassle. Losing an officer should be something that impacts the ship. Perhaps it will lower morale, and it would certainly hurt performance until that empty space is filled.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Post

Re: Crew as a well-oiled machine

#7
Katorone wrote:The morale would really the be way the game lets you know how well you're doing concerning crew management. LT would need some way of keeping track of that anyway. (for instance for the effects of not paying ransom)
I was thinking of some simple player reputation level, which would be modified by a running average of crew life expectancy and maybe a few other factors. Every time you have crew killed (or other suitable trigger) there's a recalc, and the circumstances may add modifiers e.g. x5 if killed while being ransomed because the deadline has expired.
It will be up to the player to define what role a ship should take on.
True, but it would also be up to the designer to fit out a ship with whatever components. The crew slots are just the same idea as component slots. More crew slots, less other components. This will come down to how ships are designed as far as internal components are concerned. I'm suggesting there should be optional crew slots that you can fill or leave empty as you want. You may want a second pilot in case the first one is killed (otherwise you'd be stranded or be at the mercy of a basic autopilot), or you may want a team of negotiators on board if you're heading to do a deal with Mr. Big.
I'm not sure how to link crew to things they can get better at though. It doesn't make sense that the gunner advances in the manoeuvring skill.
Well, a gunner would only add bonuses if he's fitted to a gunner slot. A pilot would be needed for manoeuvring, and he must be fitted to a pilot slot. An extra gunner fitted to a non-gunner slot would have no benefit as he can't do anything. This does highlight that certain slots must be dedicated for certain purposes, and you need someone with that skill to be able to use their bonus. Other slots may be general purpose, e.g. 3 negotiators would do better business than 2 when you dock at a marketplace, but serve no ship-function purpose whilst in space. If you put a negotiator in a gunner slot then as far as gunnery is concerned, it's equivalent to being empty. He's just a passenger who can only be used when you arrive at a trading post. Likewise a gunner in a general purpose slot has no benefit, apart from being substituted in if an active gunner dies. Maybe some crewmen could be multi-skilled.
Concerning crew... How much crew do you yourself managing per ship?
This is the micromanagement issue. I think zero management should be possible once fitted, unless there are deaths. Chopping and changing would only be desirable if you want to move the skills around, and even that could be automated to a great extent if you're dealing with large fleets. A few simple controls to configure hiring, movement, balancing and exclusion (for the slots you want to directly manage).
Personally, I probably wouldn't bother a lot with hiring crew. I'd just get inexperienced ones.
Autocannon fodder!
Perhaps it's best to create a separate topic concerning espionage? (if there isn't one already)
I don't see one, so go for it! :D
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Re: Crew skills, hiring, management, gameplay opportunities

#8
Whenever it comes to a feature/suggestion like this that has the potential to add unnecessary steps for the players, you need to keep that in mind.

You tackled the lone wolf vs. fleet players, and that's one half of it. The other half is what does it add to the gameplay and whether or not it is a mandatory step for the player--i.e. is this going to be a tedious task I actually need to pay attention to, or is it something that I don't need to worry about unless I really have to? Just because I'm playing a lone wolf or as a fleet admiral, why should I have to pay attention to this if I don't want to deal with it?

If it is automated enough that I can get by (not scrape by, but get by in a general feel-good sense and not feel forced into using it just to advance past certain points), then it is up to the player on whether or not to use that feature.

I'm of the opinion that as long as players who don't want to deal with something that can be considered tedious to some has the option to be skipped by those players, then I'm all for some of this. Otherwise, I say toss it out because it feels like an unnecessary micromanagement. Sorry for the negativity, but I know I'm not alone here.
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Re: Crew skills, hiring, management, gameplay opportunities

#9
DWMagus wrote:The other half is what does it add to the gameplay and whether or not it is a mandatory step for the player--i.e. is this going to be a tedious task I actually need to pay attention to, or is it something that I don't need to worry about unless I really have to? Just because I'm playing a lone wolf or as a fleet admiral, why should I have to pay attention to this if I don't want to deal with it?
It should add a certain depth to gameplay i.e. that skilled crew can make your ships perform better, and treating them as expendable should have a cost. It adds the potential for ship/crew capture and ransoming to be added, along with the sort of corporations or pirates who might wish to do so.

As for required micromanagement, I suggest that should be minimal so that you'll not have to do much if you don't want to, though it won't be zero. The main areas would be initial commissioning of the ship, where crew would be assigned, though even that could be largely automated. Possibly the only decision you'd be forced to make would be the cost. Apart from that you can ignore it if you want, unless essential crew get killed in action in which case they must be replaced; if you have no living pilot you may find your ship stranded until it can be recovered or a replacement pilot put on board (though an autopilot would get you to a station). If ransoming is implemented then you can choose to ignore or respond to such situations, though I'd suggest that many of us quite like the idea of hitting back at the bad guys and rescuing their captives. More potential gameplay depth for those who want it.
If it is automated enough that I can get by (not scrape by, but get by in a general feel-good sense and not feel forced into using it just to advance past certain points), then it is up to the player on whether or not to use that feature.
Ideally it's the sort of thing where tinkering will bring benefits, but not bothering won't be too big a deal, especially for larger fleets. Like any sort of bean counting in games, a good balance is that ignoring it (or setting to auto) would be only slightly detrimental in most cases. Probably the single biggest factor should be the result of treating your crews as expendable; the bearing is not on crew micromanagement there, but on your combat behaviour and the costs you face when hiring more crew.
I'm of the opinion that as long as players who don't want to deal with something that can be considered tedious to some has the option to be skipped by those players, then I'm all for some of this. Otherwise, I say toss it out because it feels like an unnecessary micromanagement. Sorry for the negativity, but I know I'm not alone here.
As above, I suggest you can almost entirely ignore the available micromanagement if you want, and even the costs of replacing sacrificed crews if you have deep pockets.

So I think this could enable welcome additions to gameplay without imposing any significant mandatory burden on those who'd rather ignore it.
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Crew

#10
Hello everyone!
I don't know if this has been said before, but having a crew with different specialties, so like, one is an engineer and fixes your ship gradually or a fighter pilot and gives the ship more handling, or even a researcher, which allows you to research randomly generated technologies, like new types of missiles and such, the possibilities are endless, and could be procedural 8-) post your ideas on the topic!

~Sly
IVE BEEN OUT OF MY MIND A LONG TIME
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Re: Player character being "on" a station

#11
JoshParnell wrote: EDIT : I notice that you're also flirting with the possibility of a player without any ship whatsoever, just residing in another entity. It's a very interesting possibility and I'd like to explore it further. I've been trying to loosen the coupling between player and ship for some time now. The only issue is that every time I do so it leads me closer to a full 'crew' mechanic. In the end I'm not sure if we'll be able to make do without crew gameplay...but I guess I'll face that when the time comes :think:
I'm not sure what constitutes a full crew mechanic, but I'm highly in favor of at least /some/ crew. Meaning hiring and employing NPCs, and of course paying them a wage or percentage of their profits for traders.
I'm on the fence about if they should have stats or not. But if the player is getting employees from the same pool as the NPCs do, then there isn't really a reason why they wouldn't have some statistics. Each sector with a populated planet could have a recruiting agency that helps you get specific skills or even training. Perhaps space stations could always come with some people looking for a job, but the pool from which you could pick would be smaller (but perhaps they'd have their own ship already?).

I do like some extra min/maxing through micromanagment, as long as it's optional. I don't like my ships exploding because we hired a tech with 3 stars for an engine that requires 5.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

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