Multi Crew Systems Letter and a Question about Multi-Boxing

[zachaol]

I'm really hoping all of these can be configured however I want. For example say I normally fly with two buddies, one can't make it. Hopefully I can split his duties up between me and the remaining buddy, then maybe dump some of our lesser tasks onto a NPC.

[Rocket Man]

I'm really hoping all of these can be configured however I want. For example say I normally fly with two buddies, one can't make it. Hopefully I can split his duties up between me and the remaining buddy, then maybe dump some of our lesser tasks onto a NPC.

I think that was hinted to in the letter. But I'm with you, I hope to modify them as needed on the fly.

[zachaol]

It would be nice if we could set up multiple setups that we can switch to. For example when just cruising the pilot won't be extremely busy so he could manage radar, but I'd like to be able to turn on battle ready state so the pilot can focus on flying and switch radar to one person and shields to another.

As you can tell multi person ships are what really excite me. I already am forming task lists for multiple person ships with the hope of having the ability to easy switch between setups.

[NuclearWoo]

We know that we can hire npc to crew your ship. We also know that we can hire npc to be our wingmen. CIG stated a while back that there will be cap on number of npc wingman you can have, number was not decided. My speculation is that there will also be a cap on number of npc crew you can hire. Going even further, you should count both crew and wingman towards npc cap. Let's say that npc cap is at 8, you can hire 6 crew and 2 wingmen, or any combination. At the end of the day, you are hiring 8 npc.

I personally think that 1 person should not be able to hire enough crew to fully man a idris. Idris is a frigate and should be in the capital ship class. I would even put the new corvette in capital ship class.

[Wu Jen]

 Idris is a frigate and should be in the capital ship class. I would even put the new corvette in capital ship class.

Er, the Idris has been a Captial ship class for a while now.

 

Even when it was revealed as a Corvette CIG defined it as a Capital Ship.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13097-Idris-Corvette-Revealed

"The Idris is a small capital ship capable of storing smaller fighters and being run by a team of players working together."

[Prospero]

The truly impressive part is that CIG will not only have to design literally hundreds of consoles since there are quite a few ships and multiple consoles per ship. They've signed up to make that in addition to having to design those systems to be fun. When playing on a cap ship manning that station is all you do. It better be a fun experience and not Microsoft Excel Space Edition. That's not even to mention balancing them so that things like the electronic combat suite isn't op. It seems like even more challenge in an already ambitious game. It's a big task.

[Osclin]

The truly impressive part is that CIG will not only have to design literally hundreds of consoles since there are quite a few ships and multiple consoles per ship. They've signed up to make that in addition to having to having to design those systems to be fun. When playing on a cap ship manning that station is all you do. It better be a fun experience and not Microsoft Excel Space Edition. That's not even to mention balancing them so that thing like the electronic combat sweet isn't op. It seems like even more challenge in an already ambitious game. It's a big task.

 

They can get around some of that by making the console designs specific to the equipment manufacturer, not specific to the type/maker of the ship.  They'll still have to make a bunch of consoles/interfaces, but it should reduce the absolute amount of work by a good bit.  

 

Electronic countermeasures and electronic warfare capabilities will indeed need a bunch of thought and balancing, both in what effects can be employed and how those effects are triggered.  Ideally the more pronounced the effect on a ship/ship's systems the more actual skill and effort would be required to pull it off(and not just a rote string of commands, however complex, lest we end up in macro territory).

[Rocket Man]

The way I imagine manning a crew station, say radar, shields, or electronic warfare, is it will be like a Real-Time Strategy game. You have to listen to your crew mates as they man turrets and flying the ship. Take shields for one. You will want to max the shield generation where the most enemy firepower is coming from. As your ships maneuvers and the fighters are swarming around you, you gotta keep moving the power around to minimize damage. It will be fast and intense at times, where you feel like you cannot keep up with protecting the ship at max level. Same goes for radar. With this you will need to ping at the opportune time, and keep the crew's focus on the right targets. This person will also have to be quick in managing how the ships handles switching enemies in battle.

The one thing I wonder is when the ship is cruising and not much is happening, then what? Are we going to have time to sit with other crew members and play some in-lore dice or card games? What shenanigans can we partake in during boredom?

[zachaol]

I really love how everything is ingame. I can imagine captains walking around the bridge of the huge ships watching the performance of his crew.

[BrewMagoo]

I am also very exited for the multicrew gameplay discussed in the letter. To see what they have in mind for gameplay, I recommend checking out some videos of people playing Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator, a game Chris mentioned that Foundry 42 has played for research. I expect in Star Citizen the pace will be much greater, since the combat will be more like Star Wars than Trek, but the emphasis on teamwork will be the same.

[WarWulf]

I'm really hoping that I'm wrong with this, but this is what I'm getting from the announcement. 

 

 

 

After a lot of research and a lot of thinking (and credit where credit is due: a lot of Star Trek viewings and team games of Artemis Bridge Simulator)

 

Pretty positive, always been a fan of Artemis. Supports the idea of multi-crew and co-operative play.

 

 

 

The specific answer to the ongoing question is that yes, you can operate a Carrack by yourself using the control system outlined below… but that we believe that it will be significantly more fun for users of such larger ships to take on the galaxy with friends.

 

Okay, so maybe not so much the multi-crew thing. Sure, you can still play with your mates but honestly, wouldn't you have them bring their own ships in order to maximise your potential? Ah well, at least you can't solo Capital or Sub-Capital ships.

 

 

 

Capital ships such as the Javelin will require multiple players (or NPCs) to run all the various ships systems

 

Alright, so maybe you CAN run a capital ship by yourself. I stand corrected again. At least you can't automate your ship so you'll at least have to pay attention and can't do things like multi-boxing. Because having one guy acting as a fleet of capitals is just a ridiculous idea.

 

 

 

Presets allow you to save a number of configurations per action. 

 

...

 

 

 

We firmly believe that multi-crew ships and the ability to come together to form a crew and manage your ship is something that’s never before been seen.

 

 

So it IS designed to be multi-crew? or isn't it?

 

FFS I think I may have accidentally backed Eve 2.0.

[Wu Jen]

I'm really hoping that I'm wrong with this, but this is what I'm getting from the announcement. 

 

 

Pretty positive, always been a fan of Artemis. Supports the idea of multi-crew and co-operative play.

 

 

Okay, so maybe not so much the multi-crew thing. Sure, you can still play with your mates but honestly, wouldn't you have them bring their own ships in order to maximise your potential? Ah well, at least you can't solo Capital or Sub-Capital ships.

 

 

Alright, so maybe you CAN run a capital ship by yourself. I stand corrected again. At least you can't automate your ship so you'll at least have to pay attention and can't do things like multi-boxing. Because having one guy acting as a fleet of capitals is just a ridiculous idea.

 

 

...

 

 

 

So it IS designed to be multi-crew? or isn't it?

 

FFS I think I may have accidentally backed Eve 2.0.

If you look at it as being able to jump into friends NPCs onboard their multi-crew/capital ships then it still is group friendly. Everyone gets to fly their own ship and everyone can jump into a friends ship to help out in case things get bad. Should be very fun indeed. Now if your an 'immersion' player this could be bad but otherwise, I'm excited.

[Gremlich]

My personal view regarding piloting multi-crew ships solo?

Don't - because you will NOT be able to do it well.

This game is all about social interaction. To do solo of the larger ships is just to be playing EVE with a different skin. You had time in EVE to do lots of things during a battle - because of TD. You will not have that in SC. You will need humans, not NPCs, to be successful. Start learning to get along and trust people now. You'll have more fun.

If you absolutely must solo a multi-crew ship, you should consider the roccat app I posted in the hardware section.

Cheers

[WarWulf]

 

(Shortened to highlight certain points)

Sure, you can still play with your mates but honestly, wouldn't you have them bring their own ships in order to maximise your potential? 

 

 you CAN run a capital ship by yourself. 

 

 

If you look at it as being able to jump into friends NPCs onboard their multi-crew/capital ships then it still is group friendly. Everyone gets to fly their own ship and everyone can jump into a friends ship to help out in case things get bad. Should be very fun indeed. Now if your an 'immersion' player this could be bad but otherwise, I'm excited.

 

Quite the opposite, couldn't give a crap about immersion. What I gave a crap about was that this has suddenly changed from a game that would require organisation, teamplay, co-operation and a lot of other stuff that you just don't see in many games in order to run just a single ship and has transformed into a game where every player can bring a capital or group of capitals into play by himself (extreme example, but a possibility). If he wants help from his friends he'd be a fool to say "I need you to man my turret for me" when he can say "I need you to bring your javelin, a couple of Idris and some Retaliators. And tell Jeff to standby with his Reclaimer fleet so we can clean up afterwards."

 

Am I reading too much into this? (Please tell me that I am, and please explain how) because right now it seems it's gone from being the BDSSE to a bastardisation of STO and Eve with a graphical overhaul and different UI.

 

My personal view regarding piloting multi-crew ships solo?

Don't - because you will NOT be able to do it well.

This game is all about social interaction. To do solo of the larger ships is just to be playing EVE with a different skin. You had time in EVE to do lots of things during a battle - because of TD. You will not have that in SC. You will need humans, not NPCs, to be successful. Start learning to get along and trust people now. You'll have more fun.

 

Grem, I hope you're right. But I can't prove that and the letter seems to point against it.

[Wu Jen]

 

Quite the opposite, couldn't give a crap about immersion. What I gave a crap about was that this has suddenly changed from a game that would require organisation, teamplay, co-operation and a lot of other stuff that you just don't see in many games in order to run just a single ship and has transformed into a game where every player can bring a capital or group of capitals into play by himself (extreme example, but a possibility). If he wants help from his friends he'd be a fool to say "I need you to man my turret for me" when he can say "I need you to bring your javelin, a couple of Idris and some Retaliators. And tell Jeff to standby with his Reclaimer fleet so we can clean up afterwards."

Running Capitals will cost UEE Credits though and lot of them. So unless your making enough or buying enough UEE from CIG it won't be a common occurrence.

[Gremlich]

I hope I'm right, too. I'm thinking people will eventually just opt for human crews more often than not.

[Osclin]

 

 

 

 

 

Quite the opposite, couldn't give a crap about immersion. What I gave a crap about was that this has suddenly changed from a game that would require organisation, teamplay, co-operation and a lot of other stuff that you just don't see in many games in order to run just a single ship and has transformed into a game where every player can bring a capital or group of capitals into play by himself (extreme example, but a possibility). If he wants help from his friends he'd be a fool to say "I need you to man my turret for me" when he can say "I need you to bring your javelin, a couple of Idris and some Retaliators. And tell Jeff to standby with his Reclaimer fleet so we can clean up afterwards."

 

Am I reading too much into this? (Please tell me that I am, and please explain how) because right now it seems it's gone from being the BDSSE to a bastardisation of STO and Eve with a graphical overhaul and different UI.

 

 

Grem, I hope you're right. But I can't prove that and the letter seems to point against it.

 

 

Yes, you're reading too much into it.  We already know that there will be a  hard cap on npc's one can have at any time, and while we don't know the exact figure(because they haven't decided it), there has never been any sort of indication it would be close to enough to run a javelin or even an idris.  Chris has repeatedly stated that the "largest" ship we would be able to solo with just npcs rounding out the crew was the constellation.  Assuming he meant according to crew size and  not tonnage, that probably means 5-6 npcs will be the max.  They may even up that to 7 to accomodate the Retaliator players, who knows, but it is a far cry from Javelin's 25 minimum crew.

 

If we're talking resource harvesting or salvage it is possible that you coudl get away with multi-boxing, chances are the gameplay will be slow enough that it could be done, but given that our combat skill is player based not the traditional rpg "skills", you'd be hard pressed to effectively multi-box in even the most minor of engagements.

 

And remember that you're quoting snippets from a much larger document, and in doing so lose a lot of the context in order to make your point.

 

In short, we won't be able to hire that many npcs, multi-boxing in combat will get you killed(quickly), and we've known full well people would be running their connies etc solo for a long time.

[Wu Jen]

Yes, you're reading too much into it.  We already know that there will be a  hard cap on npc's one can have at any time, and while we don't know the exact figure(because they haven't decided it), there has never been any sort of indication it would be close to enough to run a javelin or even an idris. 

Not exactly true Osclin.

 

https://forums.rober...#Comment_128675

 

Quote

jkncnr:

How far will NPC crew go? Sure it would be crazy expensive (I assume), but could you crew a small capital ship with just yourself and NPCs?

 

That's the goal. We don't want not having any friends to keep you away from the game.

[Osclin]

And Chris has talked much more recently(that was from March 2013) about max npc numbers.  I see where your point of contention is, but a forum question about "small capital ships" that was answered without specifics really isn't conclusive, not least because if you and I and all of CIG got together we'd find about 300 different definitions for a capital ship.  Do I wish he's spoken more specifically?  Yes, but for now I'm going to stick with my understanding of npc limits, at least until we get something more definitive than Erin Roberts trying to seque into multi-crew station functionality.

[WarWulf]

@Osclin you're right mate, I am quoting snippets. Rather than cutting and pasting the entire document all members can view the original here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14354-Letter-From-The-Chairman-Multi-Crew-Ship-Systems

 

In short I think one paragraph that sums up the cause of my concerns is this one, copy pasted in it's entirity from the letter but certainly not the only point that has led me to this concern:

 

 

 

However, with multi-crew ships such as the Retaliator, Freelancer or Constellation, we needed to approach the concept of stations a little differently. You, the fans, expressed an interest in being able to fly your multi-crew ships solo as well as having the option to invite friends to man the various support stations and turrets. Therefore we decided that you should be able to fly a multi-crew ship solo, having access to the same management system seen on the HUD of any single-pilot ship. However, should you want to invite your friends along to help manage your ship, you could access additional crew support stations, giving you a little more control over the ships’ various systems. In brief, multi-crew ships needed to be entirely more flexible than either single-seat or capital ships.

 

The rest you can just do simple CTRL + F searches for if you don't have time to read the document in it's entirety. I promise that I've not tried to distort anything to support a concern. I'm genuinely getting the feeling that the majority of people want to be able to fly their own fleet and that CIG are going to at least try to implement this.

 

I know that in the past people have assumed that you could solo a multi-crew ship, but nothing solid was confirmed (beyond a response to a question by Ben (highlighted in Wu Jens post)) and I wasn't going to treat this as a real factor until solid confirmation. Solid confirmation has been provided. I can't speak for Capitals and sub-capitals but I'm now getting the feeling that this is a distinct possibility, I honestly don't think I've contributed this much to a thread in a long time and I'm getting the feeling that this is only disappointing to me.

 

Not too worried about the Multi-Boxing point that I made (not going to edit the post, that just feels like disinformation somehow) but it's already being discussed and you know that if you can control a ship without piloting and gunning it personally, someone will find a way to do it, even if it involves scripts and bots.

 

The game has changed. How far it's changed remains to be seen. I keep hoping for the original vision of SC, or at least something close to it. I'm now no longer convinced that CR word is law after seeing his twitch stream http://www.twitch.tv/cigcommunity/b/593084668(from 21.30 onwards)

 

Direct quote "One thing people don't get about star citizen is the whole co-operative aspect, which we're pretty big on making sure happens..."

 

He also mentions that the Multi-Crew ships like the constellation will not only be playable with NPC crews but will also be flyable without a crew at all.

 

In short: this doesn't seem to be a major concern for most players, it is for me. I was looking forward to the multi-crew gameplay, I was satisfied that some ships would be tailored for those who couldn't (or wouldn't) play with friends. I'm now having to reconsider everything that I thought this game would be about. The original vision is no longer the case (at least that seems to be the case).

[Blade]

@WarWulf There's a difference between flyable and working as intended. I can fly an AC-130 gunship solo, in fact I could even autopilot the entire trip and let the computer fly most of it for me, however performing a mission with it solo is a completely different story. To make these ships work as intended and not just fly from point A to point B with cargo, is probably going to take a crew of some sort. The type of crew used probably depends on the mission type at hand.

 

I think CR just wants to try and keep the game as flexible as possible to include the different player needs. If the crew slots are highly specialized and actually do useful stuff for the ship, then people will want to play them. I definitely agree with you on the issue with bots and scripts though, that's a huge problem I hope CIG has some plan to prevent in the future and basically the only issue which undermines the entire plan.

[Gremlich]

I know for a fact that the "I wanna fly my capital ships solo" players are the insignificant, but loudly whinging, minority, so, I wish that CR's response had been "some fans expressed" instead of "the fans expressed" because I don't think flying multi-crew ships solo is how this game should be played. EVE players fly their huge ships solo and I think some of those players, the ones possessed of very poor social skills, are the ones clamouring for solo.

[WarWulf]

I'm just going to wait for an official response for now. Kinda hoping this gets addressed in the next 10 4 tc but expecting to wait longer.

 

After reading many threads on the RSI website I'm starting to expect the BDSRTSE

[Rocket Man]

@WarWulf I think you are missing one underlying point from the letter; it was subtle, but pointed to throughout the letter. They are making multi-crew ships capable of being flown solo, but if you do, you will be severely disadvantaged. From all of the types of crew stations available, a Connie manned solo will not have the effectiveness as one fully manned. It was hinted to that a solo pilot will have too much to manage to keep the ship alive. Good luck fighting fires by yourself and avoiding further enemy fire! Oh, and good luck rerouting power to your shield generator while you're at it. You can fly it, but you will not be able to handle it in battle. I'm just not seeing what you are.

[Rakos]

I'm just going to wait for an official response for now. Kinda hoping this gets addressed in the next 10 4 tc but expecting to wait longer.

After reading many threads on the RSI website I'm starting to expect the BDSRTSE

Meh, its not going to be ship vs ship. Its going to be crew vs crew. Most encounters will reward the better crew.

1 guy controlling 8 super hornets though, that will have to be addressed. I would suppose it will be harder than multiboxing in a regular mmo (aiming in a 3d enviornment, compensating for EWar, etc.), but if internet gaming has taught me anything, its that someone is going figure out how to make it work and will be a problem at some point. Hopefully it doesnt make it to release.