Discovery Gaming Community

Found Discovery, I've been wandering about, finding new systems and factions that weren't in the original game. excellent.

Find myself lusting after the capital ships, and half a billion credits?!?!?!? okay, mining/trading it is.
(well, that and the transports have huge offense/defense/cargo compared to fighters)

I've run into a few things that have me scratching head.
bigger ships require crew? is there an in game mechanic that says when you need it or need more? does it change ship capability?
Cargo pods. Are they anything besides making your ship look prettier?
(bought ship with spots for cargo pods, in adding them changed my capacity by not one unit)
Have my handy dandy trusty Freelancer ID, but hear about IFF needed as well. I haven't seen an IFF transponder as yet. is that still in mechanics, or was that phased out/combined with ID?

Thanks all.

In role play, larger ships like cruisers have a crew inside of it. The logic says you can’t run such ship alone. As for cargo pods, it’s just for the beauty and the IFF is what it is showed on a ship. When you see a rogue player the IFF will be a rogue and a rogue ID however, if you meet a person with no IFF it is just the name of the character

Ships do not require crew. Crew is just a commodity that can be traded like any other.
Cargo pods are cosmetic only.
The IFF is the faction name that is displayed in front of a target's name, like Navy, LSF, Police, Universal, etc. It is determined by whatever faction is at the bottom of your reputation sheet (F8) and blinking. Most faction IDs automatically hack their respective reputation to be your IFF.