How did you deduce the minimum crew sizes? The ship specs change so much and are so inconsistent they might as well be meaningless. Conceptually I don't see a reason with one person doing everything. You coiuld switch between operating the boom and piloting. Thats just adding more speculation though.
The Starfarer is so heavily armed because space is the Wild West I'm sure.
CIG has already stated that the biggest ship that can be operated solo will be the Connie. Using that and other places they've mentioned minimum crew, the pattern is: Max crew minus manned turrets. So, sure, maybe the min crew on a Starfarer could end up being 2, but I'm not getting my hopes up on that.
As to the armament, by your logic, the Hulls must be disposable then.
I don't know why anyone would assume that you'd be able to pilot a large multi-function ship by yourself.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
I don't know why anyone would assume that you'd be able to pilot a large multi-function ship by yourself.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
That's not exciting sci-fi though. A ship that pilots itself through space is boring for the end-user. Technically a "ship's computer" could do everything from start to finish (and likely better than humans ever could), but you have to have people sitting in the seats, it's space tradition.
+1
Options
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
You have to have a standalone system checking the math and the readings. Humans are pretty ok at this job.
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
So, apparently, RSI decided that they wanted to live up to their name and break everybody's mouse fingers. I mean, that's the only reason I can see for this existing (if my index finger is any proof):
EDIT - Ugh...I am *WAY* late to that party. That's what I get for spending all weekend in a GTA Online bender.
EDIT the SECOND - And HyperPink Level 3 can eat a bag of dicks. It doesn't help that if the mouse goes out of the tiny window, your ship becomes unresponsive...and if you were firing while your mouse was out of bounds (but you don't want to be firing) you'll continue shooting until you manually click again.
Erlkönig on
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
How did you deduce the minimum crew sizes? The ship specs change so much and are so inconsistent they might as well be meaningless. Conceptually I don't see a reason with one person doing everything. You coiuld switch between operating the boom and piloting. Thats just adding more speculation though.
The Starfarer is so heavily armed because space is the Wild West I'm sure.
CIG has already stated that the biggest ship that can be operated solo will be the Connie. Using that and other places they've mentioned minimum crew, the pattern is: Max crew minus manned turrets. So, sure, maybe the min crew on a Starfarer could end up being 2, but I'm not getting my hopes up on that.
As to the armament, by your logic, the Hulls must be disposable then.
CIG has mentioned before that you can solo-run an Orion, it just wouldn't be very efficient running back and forth between stations. Every time there is a sale on a large ship, scores of people post on the forums wanting to know if they can run their personal Firefly fantasy ship solo, and CIG always responds in vague "you kinda can" ways.
There are going to be tons of large sittings ducks in the PU, is what I'm saying.
I don't know why anyone would assume that you'd be able to pilot a large multi-function ship by yourself.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
That's not exciting sci-fi though. A ship that pilots itself through space is boring for the end-user. Technically a "ship's computer" could do everything from start to finish (and likely better than humans ever could), but you have to have people sitting in the seats, it's space tradition.
Right, but I can't think of what you'd need multiple people on the Starfarer for save for gunners. It's basically just a space fuel truck so a single pilot should be fine.
This has probably been said before, but I backed this game and have a lot of faith in it, but it scares the shit out of me now. It's reached Tower of Babel levels of expectations, and to be honest... I didn't sign up for this. I just wanted a good space flight action Sim, I wasn't asking Roberts to redefine the genre. I am excited and terrified at what this project has become, and I've purposefully steered clear of getting any more info on it.
Whatever happens to this game, it's going to be spectacular. I'm just praying it's the good kind.
I don't know why anyone would assume that you'd be able to pilot a large multi-function ship by yourself.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
That's not exciting sci-fi though. A ship that pilots itself through space is boring for the end-user. Technically a "ship's computer" could do everything from start to finish (and likely better than humans ever could), but you have to have people sitting in the seats, it's space tradition.
Right, but I can't think of what you'd need multiple people on the Starfarer for save for gunners. It's basically just a space fuel truck so a single pilot should be fine.
If you've got one guy flying, one guy operating the refueling hose, and one guy monitoring communications/"radar"/looking for pirates, and one guy manning one of the turrets, there's four right there.
How many people does it take to operate one of those C130 tanker planes?
+1
Options
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
I don't know why anyone would assume that you'd be able to pilot a large multi-function ship by yourself.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
That's not exciting sci-fi though. A ship that pilots itself through space is boring for the end-user. Technically a "ship's computer" could do everything from start to finish (and likely better than humans ever could), but you have to have people sitting in the seats, it's space tradition.
Right, but I can't think of what you'd need multiple people on the Starfarer for save for gunners. It's basically just a space fuel truck so a single pilot should be fine.
I don't know why anyone would assume that you'd be able to pilot a large multi-function ship by yourself.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
That's not exciting sci-fi though. A ship that pilots itself through space is boring for the end-user. Technically a "ship's computer" could do everything from start to finish (and likely better than humans ever could), but you have to have people sitting in the seats, it's space tradition.
The thing is that very few humans are content to sit in a turret or station and idle for more then a minute. If folks can get their own vehicle they will almost always do that instead of play gunner. Outside of clans depending on crewed stations just didn't work well (going off over a decade of battlefield franchise vehicle combat). AI is going to be a big make or break for the vast numbers of multicrew ships. All I'm worried about is the "skill before gameplay" crowd making AI targeting mostly useless (i.e. warthunder bomber turret AI nerfs).
Consider me one of those humans who will be content pulling security in a turret.
I'll also man your cocktail station if your ship has one.
+5
Options
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
If there are interesting things to do on the ship, outside the turrent, you don't need to rely on your partners to sit there the whole time. Have them on the ship, doing cool fun stuff like simulations until your ship comes under attack, adnt hen have the red alert pop them out of whatever they were doing and they scramble for the turrets.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
+4
Options
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Consider me one of those humans who will be content pulling security in a turret.
I'll also man your cocktail station if your ship has one.
Yeah, if it's worth my time almost to the extent that piloting my own ship is, I'd be fine with killing the occasional evening manning a turret and shooting the shit over TS or whatever.
I don't know why anyone would assume that you'd be able to pilot a large multi-function ship by yourself.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
That's not exciting sci-fi though. A ship that pilots itself through space is boring for the end-user. Technically a "ship's computer" could do everything from start to finish (and likely better than humans ever could), but you have to have people sitting in the seats, it's space tradition.
Right, but I can't think of what you'd need multiple people on the Starfarer for save for gunners. It's basically just a space fuel truck so a single pilot should be fine.
I don't know why anyone would assume that you'd be able to pilot a large multi-function ship by yourself.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
That's not exciting sci-fi though. A ship that pilots itself through space is boring for the end-user. Technically a "ship's computer" could do everything from start to finish (and likely better than humans ever could), but you have to have people sitting in the seats, it's space tradition.
Right, but I can't think of what you'd need multiple people on the Starfarer for save for gunners. It's basically just a space fuel truck so a single pilot should be fine.
Which was why the original crew listing of 2 made sense. With a refinery on board I did expect to see that bumped to 3 or 4, which I still would have been good with. I wasn't really planning to run it as a refinery anyway. A crew of 7 just frustrates me though. I mean really, in a combat situation your refueler and refinery engineer aren't going to be running their equipment, they're going to be manning turrets.
Which is the philosophy that you see with the Connie. Crew of 4: pilot, co-pilot/navigator, engineering/sciences/loadmaster/pool cleaner for the other two when nothing is happening. Combat time... Pilot, gunner, gunner, snub fighter pilot/co-pilot/engineer (depending if you have a snub fighter). Some of the bigger ships seem to be departing from that concept though and are manned as if every operation is on-going whether in combat or not, so you've got gunners twiddling their thumbs during safe travel and operators twiddling their thumbs during combat. Unless you staff at the minimum crew size, which seems more like the proper crew size.
As to having butts in seats, you need that even with automation. You just need fewer than if you needed people to turn dials, valves, and knobs. As TOG pointed out, modern ships can mostly travel from point A to point B by themselves, but we still have people there for oversight. Same with modern passenger jets, those things are pretty much on auto from take off to landing, but we still put pilots at the controls, just in case. I fully expect we'll have autopilot systems on most multi-crew, jump capable ships. Program in your route, hit go, sit back, relax, and monitor things; go make a space sandwich and space cocktail or visit the space restroom. But when the alarms start blaring, you're going to be active at the controls.
If there are interesting things to do on the ship, outside the turrent, you don't need to rely on your partners to sit there the whole time. Have them on the ship, doing cool fun stuff like simulations until your ship comes under attack, adnt hen have the red alert pop them out of whatever they were doing and they scramble for the turrets.
I don't know why anyone would assume that you'd be able to pilot a large multi-function ship by yourself.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
That's not exciting sci-fi though. A ship that pilots itself through space is boring for the end-user. Technically a "ship's computer" could do everything from start to finish (and likely better than humans ever could), but you have to have people sitting in the seats, it's space tradition.
Right, but I can't think of what you'd need multiple people on the Starfarer for save for gunners. It's basically just a space fuel truck so a single pilot should be fine.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I don't see any particular problem with any of the crew size requirements. Just rent some NPCs and voila, you now have a ship you're flying solo, because the game is doing everything you don't want to do.
I don't see any particular problem with any of the crew size requirements. Just rent some NPCs and voila, you now have a ship you're flying solo, because the game is doing everything you don't want to do.
Agreed. If Star Citizen REQUIRES you to have a ship full of actual human crew to do well, then it will be a disaster. The reality is a vast majority of the "MMO" space wants to play solo or at least solo most of the time. Don't force people to group, but do make it a lot of fun for people who do.
I don't see anything wrong with someone wanting to get a larger ship, like a Constellation, then manning it all with NPC crew to live out their Firefly/Star Wars/Star Trek fantasy. Letting people realize their space fantasies is so crucial to the success here, it can't be understated.
Otherwise, you put way to much effort on creating and coding stupid "minigames" to keep people occupied while they're in the "not fun mode" of their ship role. Sure, the engineer or gunner part might be super cool during an intense combat, but fucking mindlessly boring apart from that. The key is to not incorporate stupid mini games to waste people's time during non-active parts of that role, but to simply allow NPCs or automation to fill that role adequately.
And I say that because I'm of the same mindset as @Quiotu here. The game is getting TOO big in scope, and starting to get a bit off the path of what people really wanted in the beginning: A great space sim. But if they start to get to deep in the weeds where the simulation part overrides the "have fun in space" part, they're going to start to alienate a lot of people who've already backed or could be customers when the game launches.
Trying to grind out these badges in Hyper Vanguard Force only reminds me that I'm awful at SHMUPs. Luckily I've managed to earn the first, but I can already tell the second will be a chore.
Trying to grind out these badges in Hyper Vanguard Force only reminds me that I'm awful at SHMUPs. Luckily I've managed to earn the first, but I can already tell the second will be a chore.
Has anyone here earned the second badge yet?
im ranked 149 right now. The hard part is getting 100 percent kills and 100 percent hull in the regular missions in order to unlock the hyperpink levels. The hyperpink levels themselves aren't bad if you're just trying to beat them...it just takes practice.
Getting 100 percent kills and 100 percent hull on Hyperpink 2 and 3 however.....fuck
If there are interesting things to do on the ship, outside the turrent, you don't need to rely on your partners to sit there the whole time. Have them on the ship, doing cool fun stuff like simulations until your ship comes under attack, adnt hen have the red alert pop them out of whatever they were doing and they scramble for the turrets.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
The thing is that there would have to be even more content added to maybe get people to hang out "just in case". When given the choice I've very, very, rarely seen people chose to crew someone else's vehicle over driving their own. Nevermind splitting profit between humans and such.
Only thing that honestly seems practical is having npc's at all stations and a white list of friends that can "hijack" that ai to take control of it. Even then it would be hugely based on net code and load times or they will just hop into an exploding/doomed ship.
Edit - on second thought, turning crew slots into smartphone/web games would be pretty skippy. Assuming you could keep -=69StarTroll96=- from jettesoning your load of space kitten's or opening fire on stuff friendly to you.
Planetside 2 is the perfect example of people choosing to crew vehicles over using their own. Sometimes you can't spawn the right vehicle for the mission, your vehicle doesn't have the right equipment for the mission, you aren't as capable of a pilot, crewing their vehicle presents less personal risk for you, and/or their vehicle is more useful with you as a gunner (and even more useful than yours). These reasons are pretty intuitive and players are very often willing crew a vehicle for the greater good without any debate.
I don't think we'll have much trouble convincing other PA'ers to crew vehicles instead of using their own during group missions.
So I backed this when they were still in the 10's of thousands of dollar range on their kickstarter and really haven't been keeping up with it. Is there a release date for this thing yet?
" I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.”
― John Quincy Adams
So I backed this when they were still in the 10's of thousands of dollar range on their kickstarter and really haven't been keeping up with it. Is there a release date for this thing yet?
You can play Arena Commander right now, if you want to!
I think they're still targeting end of this year for the first part of Squadron 42, the single-player military campaign.
Planetside 2 is the perfect example of people choosing to crew vehicles over using their own. Sometimes you can't spawn the right vehicle for the mission, your vehicle doesn't have the right equipment for the mission, you aren't as capable of a pilot, crewing their vehicle presents less personal risk for you, and/or their vehicle is more useful with you as a gunner (and even more useful than yours). These reasons are pretty intuitive and players are very often willing crew a vehicle for the greater good without any debate.
I don't think we'll have much trouble convincing other PA'ers to crew vehicles instead of using their own during group missions.
Planetside 2 is also a game where there is a reasonable expectation that any given person will take that tank and drive it straight at the nearest thing to shoot at.
How viable is the Starfarer as a solo player ship? Max crew has grown quite a bit on it.
Perfectly viable! The Starfarer has had several seats added for its part in Squadron 42, but we don’t see the gameplay changing significantly. Remember that ‘max crew’ refers to the number of people who can have a role at any one time, not the number of people needed to fly the ship in the first place.
I want that Apex Predator RSI forum badge far more than I probably should. I've never been good at bullet hells and I can't for the life of me get the "Hull Intact" medal to unlock hyper pink for the 3rd stage. Fuck those Cutlasses that spawn behind you.
How viable is the Starfarer as a solo player ship? Max crew has grown quite a bit on it.
Perfectly viable! The Starfarer has had several seats added for its part in Squadron 42, but we don’t see the gameplay changing significantly. Remember that ‘max crew’ refers to the number of people who can have a role at any one time, not the number of people needed to fly the ship in the first place.
I gotta be honest, some of the most fun I've ever had while gaming was serving as a gunner in someone else's tank or plane in PS2.
Oh, I loved crewing in BF with the assorted tow's, mg's, or just to throw explosives out the door for giggles. I just found that vehicle heavy maps generally resolved in people wanting to control their own vehicle.
I will be quite happy to be wrong once they start rolling out crewed ships in MP.
0
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SanguineAngelLordCentre of the UniverseRegistered Userregular
We're not talking about pubbies here, but PA'ers. Everyone will use vent and you'll know what you're getting into.
I've never used Ventrilo in my life. I do use mumble though. Still, I'm really hoping SC is going to have some advanced voice comm options - I thought that was talked about quite early on in development?
We're not talking about pubbies here, but PA'ers. Everyone will use vent and you'll know what you're getting into.
I've never used Ventrilo in my life. I do use mumble though. Still, I'm really hoping SC is going to have some advanced voice comm options - I thought that was talked about quite early on in development?
I'm pretty sure they've talked about it, but I can't remember where or when. Thing is, push-to-talk is mandatory on the PA vent server and that could make flying with a HOTAS somewhat less than ideal.
--
According to Reverse the Verse, the Reliant (ie the two person MISC starter ship) will go on sale next week.
If you had any hankering on trying out one of the Mustang racers, or had given some thought into a space motorhome Beta, or was wondering if it would be worth it to bump your lowly Aurora ES into a lean, mean Legionnaire than this would be the week to check them out.
Posts
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
CIG has already stated that the biggest ship that can be operated solo will be the Connie. Using that and other places they've mentioned minimum crew, the pattern is: Max crew minus manned turrets. So, sure, maybe the min crew on a Starfarer could end up being 2, but I'm not getting my hopes up on that.
As to the armament, by your logic, the Hulls must be disposable then.
Once you leave "cockpit" territory and enter "bridge" territory it's assumed you're going to need a helping hand. Or three.
On the other hand, modern ship automation is pretty wild shit. It doesn't take much to run a ship these days. Most of the crew is just there for watchstanding/maintenance/emergency purposes. Hell, until it's time to dock or depart the ships generally run themselves.
That's not exciting sci-fi though. A ship that pilots itself through space is boring for the end-user. Technically a "ship's computer" could do everything from start to finish (and likely better than humans ever could), but you have to have people sitting in the seats, it's space tradition.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Counterpoint: Sunshine.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14704-Hyper-Vanguard-Force
EDIT - Ugh...I am *WAY* late to that party. That's what I get for spending all weekend in a GTA Online bender.
EDIT the SECOND - And HyperPink Level 3 can eat a bag of dicks. It doesn't help that if the mouse goes out of the tiny window, your ship becomes unresponsive...and if you were firing while your mouse was out of bounds (but you don't want to be firing) you'll continue shooting until you manually click again.
CIG has mentioned before that you can solo-run an Orion, it just wouldn't be very efficient running back and forth between stations. Every time there is a sale on a large ship, scores of people post on the forums wanting to know if they can run their personal Firefly fantasy ship solo, and CIG always responds in vague "you kinda can" ways.
There are going to be tons of large sittings ducks in the PU, is what I'm saying.
Nintendo Network ID: imperialparadox | 3DS FC: 2294-4029-6793
XBL Gamertag: Paradox3351 | PSN: imperialparadox
Right, but I can't think of what you'd need multiple people on the Starfarer for save for gunners. It's basically just a space fuel truck so a single pilot should be fine.
Whatever happens to this game, it's going to be spectacular. I'm just praying it's the good kind.
If you've got one guy flying, one guy operating the refueling hose, and one guy monitoring communications/"radar"/looking for pirates, and one guy manning one of the turrets, there's four right there.
How many people does it take to operate one of those C130 tanker planes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_KC-130 (crew of 4)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-135_Stratotanker (crew of 3 or 4)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46_Pegasus (crew of 3)
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
The thing is that very few humans are content to sit in a turret or station and idle for more then a minute. If folks can get their own vehicle they will almost always do that instead of play gunner. Outside of clans depending on crewed stations just didn't work well (going off over a decade of battlefield franchise vehicle combat). AI is going to be a big make or break for the vast numbers of multicrew ships. All I'm worried about is the "skill before gameplay" crowd making AI targeting mostly useless (i.e. warthunder bomber turret AI nerfs).
I'll also man your cocktail station if your ship has one.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Yeah, if it's worth my time almost to the extent that piloting my own ship is, I'd be fine with killing the occasional evening manning a turret and shooting the shit over TS or whatever.
Which was why the original crew listing of 2 made sense. With a refinery on board I did expect to see that bumped to 3 or 4, which I still would have been good with. I wasn't really planning to run it as a refinery anyway. A crew of 7 just frustrates me though. I mean really, in a combat situation your refueler and refinery engineer aren't going to be running their equipment, they're going to be manning turrets.
Which is the philosophy that you see with the Connie. Crew of 4: pilot, co-pilot/navigator, engineering/sciences/loadmaster/pool cleaner for the other two when nothing is happening. Combat time... Pilot, gunner, gunner, snub fighter pilot/co-pilot/engineer (depending if you have a snub fighter). Some of the bigger ships seem to be departing from that concept though and are manned as if every operation is on-going whether in combat or not, so you've got gunners twiddling their thumbs during safe travel and operators twiddling their thumbs during combat. Unless you staff at the minimum crew size, which seems more like the proper crew size.
As to having butts in seats, you need that even with automation. You just need fewer than if you needed people to turn dials, valves, and knobs. As TOG pointed out, modern ships can mostly travel from point A to point B by themselves, but we still have people there for oversight. Same with modern passenger jets, those things are pretty much on auto from take off to landing, but we still put pilots at the controls, just in case. I fully expect we'll have autopilot systems on most multi-crew, jump capable ships. Program in your route, hit go, sit back, relax, and monitor things; go make a space sandwich and space cocktail or visit the space restroom. But when the alarms start blaring, you're going to be active at the controls.
/gems worked well for Everquest!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_KC-390
Agreed. If Star Citizen REQUIRES you to have a ship full of actual human crew to do well, then it will be a disaster. The reality is a vast majority of the "MMO" space wants to play solo or at least solo most of the time. Don't force people to group, but do make it a lot of fun for people who do.
I don't see anything wrong with someone wanting to get a larger ship, like a Constellation, then manning it all with NPC crew to live out their Firefly/Star Wars/Star Trek fantasy. Letting people realize their space fantasies is so crucial to the success here, it can't be understated.
Otherwise, you put way to much effort on creating and coding stupid "minigames" to keep people occupied while they're in the "not fun mode" of their ship role. Sure, the engineer or gunner part might be super cool during an intense combat, but fucking mindlessly boring apart from that. The key is to not incorporate stupid mini games to waste people's time during non-active parts of that role, but to simply allow NPCs or automation to fill that role adequately.
And I say that because I'm of the same mindset as @Quiotu here. The game is getting TOO big in scope, and starting to get a bit off the path of what people really wanted in the beginning: A great space sim. But if they start to get to deep in the weeds where the simulation part overrides the "have fun in space" part, they're going to start to alienate a lot of people who've already backed or could be customers when the game launches.
Has anyone here earned the second badge yet?
im ranked 149 right now. The hard part is getting 100 percent kills and 100 percent hull in the regular missions in order to unlock the hyperpink levels. The hyperpink levels themselves aren't bad if you're just trying to beat them...it just takes practice.
Getting 100 percent kills and 100 percent hull on Hyperpink 2 and 3 however.....fuck
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
The thing is that there would have to be even more content added to maybe get people to hang out "just in case". When given the choice I've very, very, rarely seen people chose to crew someone else's vehicle over driving their own. Nevermind splitting profit between humans and such.
Only thing that honestly seems practical is having npc's at all stations and a white list of friends that can "hijack" that ai to take control of it. Even then it would be hugely based on net code and load times or they will just hop into an exploding/doomed ship.
Edit - on second thought, turning crew slots into smartphone/web games would be pretty skippy. Assuming you could keep -=69StarTroll96=- from jettesoning your load of space kitten's or opening fire on stuff friendly to you.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I don't think we'll have much trouble convincing other PA'ers to crew vehicles instead of using their own during group missions.
― John Quincy Adams
You can play Arena Commander right now, if you want to!
I think they're still targeting end of this year for the first part of Squadron 42, the single-player military campaign.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
The FPS module alpha should come out sometime in the next few weeks.
Multi crew ships should be available in the arena commander alpha this summer.
The full game is scheduled for late next year.
Currently you can explore your ships in your hangar and play various game modes in the dogfighting arena commander module.
Planetside 2 is also a game where there is a reasonable expectation that any given person will take that tank and drive it straight at the nearest thing to shoot at.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14710-Starfarer-Q-A-Part-1
That's good news, if it holds up. Not holding my breath, but cautiously optimistic.
Oh, I loved crewing in BF with the assorted tow's, mg's, or just to throw explosives out the door for giggles. I just found that vehicle heavy maps generally resolved in people wanting to control their own vehicle.
I will be quite happy to be wrong once they start rolling out crewed ships in MP.
I've never used Ventrilo in my life. I do use mumble though. Still, I'm really hoping SC is going to have some advanced voice comm options - I thought that was talked about quite early on in development?
I'm pretty sure they've talked about it, but I can't remember where or when. Thing is, push-to-talk is mandatory on the PA vent server and that could make flying with a HOTAS somewhat less than ideal.
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According to Reverse the Verse, the Reliant (ie the two person MISC starter ship) will go on sale next week.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14720-Test-Drive-The-Starter-Ships
If you had any hankering on trying out one of the Mustang racers, or had given some thought into a space motorhome Beta, or was wondering if it would be worth it to bump your lowly Aurora ES into a lean, mean Legionnaire than this would be the week to check them out.