Discovery Gaming Community

This idea comes with the necessity for anything of a gunboat size or larger to actually have a spaceship crew to operate ship systems. Such as weaponry and equipment.

However, if we could add the option of killing or incapacitating the crew in battle via certain random 'critical hits', you could potentially leave the ship operating at a very low efficiency, leading the ship to be forced to withdraw, or even stranded in space to be killed or captured. I doubt the latter would work however.

Can you imagine the weapon systems getting a health boost, but if you hit the ship with a strong enough weapon, there is a chance that some of the crew can be injured and taken out of action, or removed from the hold.

I'm unsure how to work out the numbers of how much the efficiency would drop or whether there should be a cap on how much it can fall by.

Thoughts?

Not this again ...
No! My cargo hold is already full! I can't cram more stuff into it!

it does not add much to the roleplay other than a chore - and its detrimental for selected shipclasses

if we went for more realism - we may also make it impossible for snubs to travel more than 2 systems without docking with a friendly station or carrier ( since they are not meant to travel long distances )

and that, too - would hurt more than it helps in terms of gameplay vs. roleplay.

even if doing that only gives you a bonus - as opposed to a malus for not doing it - it becomes a "must" - like a AU8 in snub combat. you either equip for peak efficiency - or you are likely to loose a pvp encounter ( or you are more likely to loose due to game mechanics )

(04-25-2013, 02:31 PM)AshHill07 Wrote: [ -> ]Not this again ...
No! My cargo hold is already full! I can't cram more stuff into it!

I agree, on a cap ship, you already have little cargo space to accomodate for equipment like armor, jump drives, cloaks, and their corresponding fuels. To have to throw spaceship crew in as well would make something thats challenging already even more difficult. You have to draw a line somewhere...

Yet another one who insists on keeping living crew inside CARGOhold.

Hmm fair enough then, I'll drop the thought on this.

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, I can think of a few ways that this could be an interesting and rewarding auxiliary. The key is to make it have little bearing on combat, and to ensure that it does not provide too substantial an advantage. A couple of ideas come to mind:

- Having a crew onboard could reduce the amount of time required to warp a ship, or to perform a hyperspace survey. One expects that fully staffed, a ship would operate more efficiently than otherwise. This cargo space is precious for capital ships, of course; every unit you use for spaceship crew is a little less fuel or armor you can carry in to a fight.
- I doubt the technical feasibility of this, but having spaceship crew onboard could reduce cruise spin-up times as well. This wouldn't negatively impact combat, since engaging cruise engines during a fight counts as a PvP death anyway. Its use for intercepting is limited as well, since cruise drains ship energy. It'd merely help with transit time.

My thinking focuses on having a crew in place to improve capital ships' success rate when fleeing from combat. In general, the idea is unwieldy, of limited benefit, and sounds difficult to implement. But I still kinda like it.

If reducing ship stats is avaliable in real time, it can be done

But if it can, it will need some time...

If we were going for full realism, then it would also make sense to have Food, Water, and Oxygen for all the crew in your hold, and H-fuel to power the ship as well. Seems interesting, but bothersome at the same time.

I like the idea that ship functions (cruise/weapons charge up times) could be enhanced if a ship were carrying these.