some ships need crews

[Decerebrated.Individual]

I was browsing some threads with ever-repeating discussions about people who don't care if they die (IRP) and too many caps and alleged waste of resources and too many power-traders and suicide-trading and people who asked for it to cost money to fly caps and so on.

So I an idea that may address some of those issues, but its not fully thought through yet and I wondered if there were problems that other people see with the idea.

So the first idea is to only let larger ships do anything else but traveling (no trading or fighting, neither attacking nor self defence) if they have the right number of space ship crew aboard. Other people how ever can attack you, but you cant fight back without a crew.

For example: 5k transports can only trade if they have 5 crew aboard. Battleships need hm... I dunno... 50 crew. Gunboats 3. And so on. The number of needed crew can be written into the infocards of the ships.

The crew will not be mountable, so it will be lost every time you explode. If you want to spar in connecticut, your partner can hold your crew for you while you are dead.

Furthermore, crew will only be sold in the guard systems, and can only be sold for much less than they cost (so that pirates wont be motivated to just blow people up for their crews)

I guess for this to have any impact, crews should cost around 100k to 1 mil. If you want only a certain part of the dying to have an impact, you could make it cost less.

As far as I can think of the game mechanics will be affected the following ways:

-will make suicide trading (I dont actually know how it works exactly but I think its true) less
profitable.
-more IRP behavior from traders and caps
-you will have to go back to your guard system if you lost your ship. Will draw people closer to their core ZOI
-more trading, less flying around in caps on a regular basis.

I can think of some negative side effects for this though:

-Pirates will ask for more money, which wont make traders happy

-Cap ships are going to try harder to not die, so they will probably team up more and prefer ganking instead of "fighting fair" were they could die.

-people are gonna be even more pissed off when they die than they already are now.

All in all I'm not sure if it would do more good than bad.

What do you guys thing?

[Dusty Lens]

Same reason I dislike requiring the purchase of fuel.

Would need to add the same item to every base. Would need to go through the motions of purchasing the things everytime you pop. Net gain is little more than a unnecessary time sink with a financial sink to boot that no one could agree on.

If you could buy accessory crew that'd aid in some manner of performance but died with the ship that'd make for an interesting dynamic on par with our good friend armor, but, ya know.

Not generally a fan of required time wasters.

If you want to make for a money sink the best bet'd just be insurance.

In my opinion, at any rate.

[Zeb Harley]

For example: 5k transports can only trade if they have 5 crew aboard.

Furthermore, crew will only be sold in the guard systems, and can only be sold for much less than they cost (so that pirates wont be motivated to just blow people up for their crews)

-will make suicide trading (I dont actually know how it works exactly but I think its true) less
profitable.

-you will have to go back to your guard system if you lost your ship.

There are usually no guard systems for traders. It would be much easier to do this with the IDs instead of crew.

I don't really see your point though. This is not a simulation. People not having to care if they die or not is part of the game. Otherwise it wouldn't be a game.

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for those who missed it: the moral of it all is ----> traders with teeth are fun for pirates. - within reason.

[EisenSeele]

"this is a game, I can die" turns to "-expletive expletive fifty million credits expletive forty minutes of grinding expletive-"

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FEEDBACK

[VoluptaBox]

Pretty much what Dusty said. If crew gave an advantage, much like in WoT, for example, that could make for some interesting new dynamics. Otherwise, just waste of time.

[ExoGeni Corporation]

It's funny how a lot of people throw ideas for 'features' when they don't even have the minimal clue in Freelancer modding. But anyway... this is my contorted opinion of course.

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Over a hundred pixels too tall. It's gone now. -Zuke

[CzeReptile]

Some people will whine. Some like it.

I have load of battleships. I try to play carefully. But really, if you would induct insurance, or any sort of maintenance fees for flying them, itd reduce the amount.

Question is, will it reduce number of players?

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[Omicron]

People will powertrade/mine instead of role-playing. It wouldn't affect me but if your "too much caps" regular guy can get a battleship, most certainly he will have funds to ensure it will be flying anyway. I would lower prices of EVERYTHING instead, who wants cap will get it sooner or later.

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[Sava]

Sure thing some ppl dislike it up to stop playing but i think it will be compensated by far more better gameplay by others. Cap owners should feel inRP responsibility for their ships.

[Daedric]

Sure thing some ppl dislike it up to stop playing but i think it will be compensated by far more better gameplay by others. Cap owners should feel inRP responsibility for their ships.

Read below.

People will powertrade/mine instead of role-playing.

All pilots should feel some inRP responsibility for their ships, not just cap owners. Why should caps have a tax or some type of credit sink if smaller craft don't?

I'd be all for crews and having to stock fuel if a cap ship was what it should be. Meaning it would take 4+ people to even have a chance to kill it. That won't happen because then everyone would fly them.

I'd love to see multiple players be able to dock to a cap ship and then control a turret while the owner pilots it. Doubt that is possible with this ancient game though.

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