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Let's Revamp the Crewmen System
orangeitis
Member Posts: 5,222 Arc User
Okay, so apparently, this system is worthless. I propose some changes and additions though.
-Scale crew damage by a set amount rather than a percentage
-Stop crewmen death from attacks that still leave white shields; Minimize crew death from attacks that leave yellow shields
-Strengthen crewmen's effect on repair in relation to ship size (hull strength?)
-Rescale ship hull strength in relation to crew amount (especially cruisers - they supposed to be pretty beefy anyway)
-Disable BOFFs at random when crew level runs dangerously low - They're part of your crew too!
-If there's 0 crew left, disable BOFF abilities till the meter restores sufficiently
-The Romulan dreadnought's Thalaron weapon canonically effects living organisms and biological components, so let's change its effect from spike damage to heavy crewmen depletion.
-Respawning fully restores crew
-And most importantly IMO, add new (science) BOFF abilities that heal the crewmen meter (medical abilities obviously)
-Give us medical ships that can heal the crewmen meters of other ships innately
Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?
Edit: And about the adding BOFF abilities that heal/protect the crewmen meter, I got the idea from the note at the STO wiki's upcoming content page about how they might separate the three BOFF professions into six, and I got to thinking - How would a medical BOFF effect space combat? The answer was pretty obvious now that I think about it.
My older suggestion threads (dead threads; do not post in them!)
Orangie's Suggestions - Chameloid
Orangie's Suggestions - Sub-Factions
Orangie's Suggestions - Fleet Holding
Orangie's Suggestions - Zen Store Gifts
Orangie's Suggestions - Non-Combat Gameplay
Orangie's Suggestions - Celestial & Envoy Saucer Separation
Orangie's Suggestions - Cardassian Faction
Orangie's Suggestions - Klingon Blood Color
Orangie's Suggestions - Mission Pod Slot
-Scale crew damage by a set amount rather than a percentage
-Stop crewmen death from attacks that still leave white shields; Minimize crew death from attacks that leave yellow shields
-Strengthen crewmen's effect on repair in relation to ship size (hull strength?)
-Rescale ship hull strength in relation to crew amount (especially cruisers - they supposed to be pretty beefy anyway)
-Disable BOFFs at random when crew level runs dangerously low - They're part of your crew too!
-If there's 0 crew left, disable BOFF abilities till the meter restores sufficiently
-The Romulan dreadnought's Thalaron weapon canonically effects living organisms and biological components, so let's change its effect from spike damage to heavy crewmen depletion.
-Respawning fully restores crew
-And most importantly IMO, add new (science) BOFF abilities that heal the crewmen meter (medical abilities obviously)
-Give us medical ships that can heal the crewmen meters of other ships innately
Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?
Edit: And about the adding BOFF abilities that heal/protect the crewmen meter, I got the idea from the note at the STO wiki's upcoming content page about how they might separate the three BOFF professions into six, and I got to thinking - How would a medical BOFF effect space combat? The answer was pretty obvious now that I think about it.
My older suggestion threads (dead threads; do not post in them!)
Orangie's Suggestions - Chameloid
Orangie's Suggestions - Sub-Factions
Orangie's Suggestions - Fleet Holding
Orangie's Suggestions - Zen Store Gifts
Orangie's Suggestions - Non-Combat Gameplay
Orangie's Suggestions - Celestial & Envoy Saucer Separation
Orangie's Suggestions - Cardassian Faction
Orangie's Suggestions - Klingon Blood Color
Orangie's Suggestions - Mission Pod Slot
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Being hit by a random torpedo through full shields, without any damage to my hull should not result in random drops of crewmen numbers, like 15-25% of them in a shot. Also the comparable ratio of usefulness of crewmen between smaller and really large ships.
Only if they fix the current issues breaking the crewmen mechanic, they could go and start implementing the things you suggested which are not bad, IMHO.
But it wouldn't work at all if the current situation is not fixed, because having your crew drop to 0 is almost inevitable. Being cut out of Boff abilities for ex. under the current circumistances would be gamebreaking.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Agreed. I got the fleet Defiant and it has the same hull repair rate with a crew of 50 as my fleet assault cruiser with 800 crew.
but I have been told that because the defiant and/or escorts are smaller than cruisers an sci ships the crew don't have much repair work. (I hope my meaning is clear.) I understand I could have been told wrong.
The crew is more important than the ship, I'd like a system that works.
The entire health/crew mechanic in this game makes no sense. Shieldsand Hull are mostly fine. But Heals require both Aux AND Crew. You have ways to up your Aux power, but no Crew heals. Instead you have to lose a Console slot to Crew Recovery and such.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Honestly no matter how they say it a ship thats 50 times the size and has 50 times the crew shouldnt have the same repair rate. Tiny ship = no sotrage and no extra stuff lying about. Giant ship = tons of cargo bays and stuff, not to mention a much, much larger sickbay. As seen in DS9 the Defiants med bay was the doctors quarters......
In short the Oddy should have a much much faster crew recovery rate than the Defiant, and Sci/Medical ships should have an even better crew recovery rate than that.
On top of all that Engineering ships should have better hull repair to crew ratio anyways as its an ENGINEERING ship.......
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I agree with you on this 100%. my Defiant should not have the same hull repair rate as a cruiser or science ship.
Now as far as crew recovery rate goes maybe there shoul be a boff skill for crew heal or a captain ability or some other system to heal crew. I don't have enouph finger and toes to count how many time I when I in an ESTF an I have 1 crewmen on board. Can a ship run on one crew? or a crew with less the 25% of total crew regaurdless of class of ship?
Crew were an irreplacable component of the ship. The more crew died, the less your repair rate was. If you blew up, you lost a permanent part of your crew, which scaled to your overall crew compliment (the more you died in a cruiser, the more overall crew you lost).
In combat, your ship was naturally outfitted with holographic crew which would act as a temporary replacement for lost crewmembers, but weren't a permanent solution. Since holographics (while advanced) are a temporary band-aid. You need organic crew. They could replace lost crewmen in combat, but if you did another mission without recrewing, the holographic crew couldn't replace the permanently lost crew.
In-between missions you could purchase shuttle consumables which when used in sector space, could call in a convoy of personnel shuttles that would permanently replace a flat % of crew (in the same way losing permanent crew through death would be a flat %). Alternatively you could simply return to a starbase and replenish crew there for free without the use of consumables. The consumables would be purchasable for EC since it's more of a convenience to replenish your crew out in space.
Obviously certain equipment on your ship would mitigate or potentially remove the death penalty system. Bio Monitor science consoles can be used to lessen crew lost or replace injured crew with organic crew faster (lessening the need for holographic crew), Emergency Force Fields can lower the % of crew lost in combat. Obviously the flipside to this is you'd be taking up console slots to counter the death penalty system rather than use consoles for other useful consoles. Science ships furthermore would have a bigger impact since they could have certain abilities to act as a hospital ship and prevent crewmembers from dying on friendly ships.
More importantly, the number of crew affecting your ship would be more like "death of a thousand cuts". Your individual death 'penalty' would be quite low, and stay low. But over time if you didn't recrew it'd be more and more apparent your ship isn't working well.
But we have the current death penalty system instead. Which while useful, doesn't really address the relative uselessness of the crew system. I would prefer to see the crew system become important since a ship is only as good as the crew that fly her. And in STO that hasn't been the case since launch.
20% hull repair is 20% hull repair. 50 crew - 30k hull versus 2500 crew to 42.9k hull. So my 2450 crew cant repair an extra 12.9k hull faster?
Now you have the FECR (Fleet Exploration Cruiser Retrofit) at 44k hull with 1k crew vs. the FTER (Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit) at 33k hull and 50 crew. 2 Basic fleet level ships. 11k in hull difference. So much for bigger ships having bigger hull.
If Cruisers ACTUALLY had the hull to backup that claim id be more inclined to listen instead of plugging my ears and nananana'ing.
Same example as above if the FECR was BASE 55k with the FTER remaining 33k i would be absolutely behind you.
Next lets throw the FLRSV ( Fleet Long Range Science Vessel) at you. 200 crew 29.7k hull.
This is how it should line out. Top tier 5 Fleet vessels as examples, basic ships all equal in cost (minus Fleet level) to the player. Not including lockbox/Lobi ships. These are all hull values.
Cruiser - 55k
Science Vessel - 36k
Escort - 33k
Next. Crew regeneration rates. Base starter ( no consoles or such)
Science Vessel - 30%
Cruiser - 25%
Escort - 20%
Dont even get me started on Shield Regen......
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
How is it I'm able to heal my Jem Dreadnought from 4% hull back up to 90% hull in 3 minutes. But my crew is still under 100 members? Who the hell is healing the ship's hull? Magical ponies and Fairies with pixie dust?
I say either fix it to where it's tied directly to the hull percentage or remove it completely.
Why not both?
Redesign how crewmembers die. Reduce the % to kill crew with projectile weapons, boarding party, etc. to be more balanced with this penalty system while at the same time using said crew system as I mentioned before.
Make crew death a fairly uncommon occurance in low-threat situations (like soloing), but increase crew death chance in highly-dangerous situations, like STFs. Which means having a science ship on your team would be useful since it can handle the duties of a hospital ship if required.
Which could really go for any team play. You make science vessels more useful while simultaneously making use of the crew system -- while making the game itself more challenging since you have to take crew loss into account in terms of ship performance.
Crew kills and recovery are based off of percentages.
Weapon hits will reduce a percentage of crew, relative to the ship's max.
Crew recovery time is also based on a percentage, relative to the ship's max.
If ship A has 100 crew and ship B has 1000 crew, both ships will have the same hull repair if they take the exact same hits. Both ships require the same amount of time to fully recover their crew.
How much hulls you gain per second is based on your maximum hulls.
50% hull repair on a 60k hull ship will regenerate 500 hulls per second.
50% hull repair on a 40k hull ship will regenerate 333 hulls per second.
Bigger ships tend to have more hulls, therefore; bigger ships tend to repair more hulls per second.
Interesting, that's why my vesta always blew up. I hated how my hull was 37K (I think) after putting my gear on it. It's the lowest hull of any of my ships and it blows up the most. Yet on the contrast my Atrox (54.5k hull), Mirror Star Cruiser (52k hull) and Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier (62k hull) rarely ever blows up.
Hell half the time my hull barely dips below 95% and yeap, there it is half my crew is gone.
WTF? Honestly I think bigger crews are more of a liability.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
How I would like to see it implemented
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Just beacuse it heals more hull doesnt mean it heals any faster.
Especailly since weapons remove a % of crew. Removing say 5% crew per hit on a 50 crew ship versus removing 5% crew on a 2500 crew ship.
So 50 crew - 2.5 crew members lost
2500 crew - 125 crew members lost
so essentially you end up as the fight goes on with the escort having higher hull repair rates than the cruiser. Because the Escort is down 20 guys, and the cruiser is down 1500.
So 100% hull repair 50 crew vs 2500.
50 - 1/4 crew = 37.5 crew remaining - 1/4 hull repair removed 75% hull repair
2500 - 1/4 crew = 1875 crew remaining - 1/4 hull reapir removed 75 % hull repair
Great hull repair % remains the same across both ships. BUT Team skills (engineering team, tac team, sci team) lose effectiveness with less and less crew.
So unless they changed those skills to work with number of crew its all BS and nonsense.
So essentially i mean if 50 crew gives eng team +200 HP then 2500 crew should give +10000 HP. but it doesnt work that way.
50 crew or 2500 crew = 100% of crew no matter what. So that team works as + 200 HP on both ships.
remove 1% of the crew you lost half a guy on a 50 crew ship, but you lose 25 crew.
While someone who flies escorts exclusively will see no problem (as they never see a problem unless it affects their DPS) people who fly a variety of ships or cruisers exclusivly notice a HUGE problem.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
As good as that sounds naturally a larger vessel should repair quicker as it takes more to reach a full hull strength than a smaller vessel, but the problem is some vessels seem out of place for its given size in crew and hull strength.
In your above example it would seem accurate with no crew loss.
50% hull repair on a 60k hull ship will regenerate 500 hulls per second=1min full hull repair.
50% hull repair on a 40k hull ship will regenerate 333 hulls per second=1min full hull repair.
Except when you lose crew at an alarming rate of 10-20% per hit
2500 crew-20%per hitx5 hits looks like this
2500-500=2000
2000-400=1600
1600-320=1280
1280-256=1024
1024-204.8 or 205 rnd up=819.2 or 819
for a loss of 67-68% total crew
50 crew-20%per hitx5 hits looks like this
50-10=40
40-8=32
32-6=26
26-5=21
21-4=17
for a loss of 66% total crew
While both examples would both fall into the -66% to -68% crew loss at these levels, it shows just how much quicker crew on larger vessels drop as opposed to smaller ones and it's not like these space whales are getting the defense capabilities of an escort to evade some of this incoming fire, same as if an smaller vessel tends to draw agro for to long they in turn can be punished severely but with better odds of not being hit at the same time. Both examples would suffer hull and boff skill repairs from rapid crew loss, just the whale of a ship has very little chance of evading it outside of breaking off engagement/cloaking/losing agro. These are just examples I have used and in no way represent actual numbers as they can vary due to skills/ship/and other means.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I agree as I think it's ridiculous, that my tac flying a MU Adv Escort(250 crew), loses crew slower, but gains crew faster, than my KFD sci does in her MU Vo'QUV (4000 crew), and my KDF eng in her MU Vor'cha (I believe 2500 crew). Even my Fed eng and sci, in their fleet Excel's, with like 850 crew, don't lose crew as fast, and gain it much quicker, than the larger crewed ships. I could see a hit, that on my smaller ships, say does 10 crew damage, doing 12-15 on the bigger ones. But this losing 2000 crew on a hit, that only takes 5-10 crew, on my escort, or like7 on my Risian 'vette is just ridiculous.
Not to mention, the bigger ships would have more & better stocked sickbays, than the smaller ships, so that should enhance crew recovery as well.
So the wiole crew loss/gain mechanic DEFINATELY needs a good hard "do-over", from the way it works now.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
I concur, Unless my Crew is as dumb as the rest of the AI's and i have 200 crew members standing in the same place.
Seriously ship that big crew should be lost until the shields are lost, or are below 40%.
But the fact that hits take a percentage of crew is awful, obviously the massively crewed ships suffer way more from this mechanic. I even tried tossing on two Biofunction Monitors and two Emergency Force field Gens to no avail. It decreased my crew loss by a very tiny percentage. the numbers on this stuff is way to far off.
40% increase to the resistance rating, great whats the original rating? 0? Resistance and Resistance ratings are meaning less in this game.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I'd love to be able to use something besides 2-Borg/(Maco or Fleet Elite Shields). Unfortunately my Mirror Vo'quv's crew of 4000 is all dead 95% of the time, so I have no choice but to use 2-Borg.
Broken is an Understatement. Crews have better Survivability plowing into a planet than flying through a cloud in this game.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Course like other have pointed out a lot of things would need changing and fixing for this. Still the game needs other ways to win than to do more damage, that or all ship classes need to be capable of doing the same levels of damage over time.
Would be nice if 200 crew members didn't spontaneously commit suicide for entering combat. Think someone put it best when they said carriers are mass graveyards.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
Well that or big cruisers like the Oddy or Bortas. I swear everytime I go into combat by the time it's done I'm down from 3000 crew to around 800.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
I know right not only do crew members become lazy during combat causing hull regen to plummet vs non-combat but they seem to injure or kill themselves. :rolleyes:
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
THIS.
SERIOUSLY, THIS ^^^^^^^
It's so ridiculously simple.
Change torpedo/mine/kinetic crew damage to a fixed number rather than a percentage.
The idea that the same photon torpedo that blows a 5 square metre hole in a Defiant and kills 10 crew suddenly becomes super charged when hitting an Atrox and takes out hundreds is plainly stupid.
Small ships in a prolonged firefight should not be able to absorb crew loss as easily as bigger ships.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Bio-Molecular_Warhead_Launcher
Considering they already have a torpedo in game that uses this idea, make them all act in the same fashion.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!