get rid of crew. if you make it mater more, certain ships would randomly get huge benefits from their huge crews and other similar ships wouldn't. compare the crew numbers of the negvar to the galaxy for example.
If crew is made to matter more, I'd also like to see crew complements revisited for all ships. That way we wouldn't see huge disparities among similarly-equipped ships. That, or perhaps there could be crew "sizes" -- small, medium, large, huge, etc.
Regardless, this is a good point that should be addressed.
Currently, the only things affected by your Crew level are Hull Repair Rate (aka passive regen) and Subsystem Repair rate (aka Subsystem Offline Resistance). Both are also already improved by Skills in the same manner. We could easily remove Crew, and roll those bonuses into their respective skills.
Again, this is not a proposal or anything. Please don't assume that just cuz a Dev is talking about it, it is something we're necessarily going to do.
Of course....a bit of blue sky discussion with no strings is a good thing.
My take on it is we should keep the crew mechanic, and merely simplify it.
Crew strength should have just one effect, which would be to modify hull repair.
100% crew, 100% hull repair.
Lose crew, lose hull repair effciency at the same rate.
So, 50% crew, 50% hull repair rate.
Use the game mechanic from the bio molecular warhead for all torpedoes, mines and other weapons that effect crew.
Have them take out a fixed number of crew on each hit, rather than a percentage.
Simple.
Uses technology already built for the game, makes crew strength matter and means that big ships with more crew can be hit by a torpedo and not suddenly lose 1500 crew members, when the same torp takes out 10 crew on a Defiant.
*Sits back, secure in the certain knowledge that his wise counsel will be immediately acted on by the Devs. Perhaps they'll name a small star in his honour. All the time unaware that the black hole of doom awaits him*
get rid of crew. if you make it mater more, certain ships would randomly get huge benefits from their huge crews and other similar ships wouldn't. compare the crew numbers of the negvar to the galaxy for example.
In case of the Negh'Var for example I'd say the "crew" includes the troops.
In TOS the D7 had a crew of 400 ("Day of the Dove") while the K't'inga has some 800 so it's probably also half of them are troops.
Using a soft-canon source for a second the Chancellor class which is similar in size to the Vor'cha has a large number of troops among its total compliment.
Another example: the 1,000 "crew" on the Galaxy is probably not only crew.
In TNG the Enterprise-D only had 1,000 including civis. So assuming they no longer ferry those around some 250 or so are probably something else. Maybe more redshirts.
So to make things a bit more interesting how about seperating the "crew" we have now into two parts: crew and troops. The former for primary ships functions and the latter for resistances to stuff like boarding parties, reducing their effects and durations.
This would also allow for some additional faction diversity with the Klingons getting more bonus to troops while Starfleet gets more bonus to primary ship functions with Romulans somewhere inbetween.:)
In case of the Negh'Var for example I'd say the "crew" includes the troops.
In TOS the D7 had a crew of 400 ("Day of the Dove") while the K't'inga has some 800 so it's probably also half of them are troops.
Using a soft-canon source for a second the Chancellor class which is similar in size to the Vor'cha has a large number of troops among its total compliment.
Another example: the 1,000 "crew" on the Galaxy is probably not only crew.
In TNG the Enterprise-D only had 1,000 including civis. So assuming they no longer ferry those around some 250 or so are probably something else. Maybe more redshirts.
So to make things a bit more interesting how about seperating the "crew" we have now into two parts: crew and troops. The former for primary ships functions and the latter for resistances to stuff like boarding parties, reducing their effects and durations.
This would also allow for some additional faction diversity with the Klingons getting more bonus to troops while Starfleet gets more bonus to primary ship functions with Romulans somewhere inbetween.:)
I'd be wary of complexity.
I do take your point though, however boarding parties and the like take away a set amount of your crew as things stand.
Under my proposal that would give the sending ship a corresponding dip in their hull repair rate. Fewer crew to send round with bandaids.
However, resistence to things that reduce crew strength are already ingame.
There are consoles and space set powers. The Jemmie space set comes to mind.
In order to integrate them with my proposed system, I'd suggest they do one of two things.
Provide resistence to crew loss. Things like blast doors mitigate the effects of attacks. Such owers would reduce the number of crew lost to a given attack by a certain percentage up to 50, with a floor of one crew member.
Make crew more efficient. This is what I think the Jemmie space set does, by making the work of an individual crew member mean more. To make these powers work we would need to identify two terms; crew strength and crew rating. The former is the number of crew toy have active. The latter is the modifier thats going to get multiplied by your hull repair rate. Jemmie space set would add 5-10% to your crew rating, meaning that at full strenth your hull repair rate would actually be 105-110%.
Furthermore, to address your idea, each faction would get a base 5% in one of the two mechanics.
Klingons are better at resisting crew rating loss, so get a bse 5%. Feds are better at making systems synergise, so get a base 5% bonus to their crew rating.
Romulans........romulans are a pest. so either apply the bonus at level 11 or give the Rommies 2.5% in each to represent their ability to spy on both factions tech equally.
I think that crew once had more of a place in STO, but has fallen out of context due to various changes over time.
-The easy option would be to remove it, which wouldn't be a bad thing necessarily, as it currently affects little and is more of a "fluff" spec to let you know what sort of complement a ship would have.
-The more difficult option would be to update the mechanic as something worthwhile to add another layer of strategy and bring currently implemented skills and equipment back into use.
A somewhat simple change could be to beef up crew base resistance to make it less of a hassle (I would also just remove "crew death" as wording and make it "crew critical") and then have disabled/critical crew negatively affect BO healing powers by a noticeable amount in addition to the passive healing.
You could also add in a "morale" system where you could have crew in excellent condition (lets say a green highlight vs the orange "disabled" highlight) that increase the healing abilities of BO healing powers. If added as a stat, you could also add in +moral engineering consoles such as replicators/holodecks and have crew leave doff missions reward a +morale buff on critical. The Risian Corvette from the summer event could even have a follow-up item set that gives +morale.
Its not like it doesn't have possibilities, but right now it is rather pointless.
I would like to see crew tied to DOFFs. If I had 400 crew on the ship and 400 DOFFs, I would be able to completely customize my own crew. If I had more Science DOFFs on my roster, my ship could do science skills better. If more Purple than white, then my crew would perform better. Almost like the old game Castles, where the mixture of masons versus labourers could make a big difference in how fast the castle was built, the mixture of the DOFFs I kept on my roster could affect the ship performance.
Of course, I would want to see my own DOFFs when I walk the interior on my ship.
Currently, the only things affected by your Crew level are Hull Repair Rate (aka passive regen) and Subsystem Repair rate (aka Subsystem Offline Resistance). Both are also already improved by Skills in the same manner. We could easily remove Crew, and roll those bonuses into their respective skills...
To be honest Borticus, I don't notice/feel my crew effects at all in PvE play. To me they are not there anyway / already gone. >shrug<
I vote to completely remove the existing Crew System.
:rolleyes:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
The larger problems with the crew feature is how they have zero effect on your ship. The 4 things that would allow the crew system to work well would be
1. allow the crew to be picked in a % way to effect how the ship works, sci, engi, tac boosts dependant on how much of the crew is from those professions.
2. Every time your ship is destroyed, 5% of your crew is permanently dead. You must travel to your home system to replenish your crew. the trade off for this is that the more missions you complete with fewer crew losses, the crew performs better, similar to the way fighters work now for carriers.
3. Increase the effectiveness of the bridge officer department head settings. Do not just have them give recommendations for duty officers to perform, have them actually impact the way ship systems work and perform.
4. similar to tac team, sci team, engi team. there needs to be a medical team ability. This could activate a number of E.M.H.'s throughout the ship, or even the rapid deployment of medical personnel throughout the ship.
Currently, the only things affected by your Crew level are Hull Repair Rate (aka passive regen) and Subsystem Repair rate (aka Subsystem Offline Resistance). Both are also already improved by Skills in the same manner. We could easily remove Crew, and roll those bonuses into their respective skills.
Again, this is not a proposal or anything. Please don't assume that just cuz a Dev is talking about it, it is something we're necessarily going to do.
Crew also affects the boost from TT.
TT1 for example, is on a range of +4.5 Energy/+4.5 Projectile to +18 Energy/+18 Projectile based on the Crew level. That's a base damage boost of +2.25% to +9%. A TT1 with Crew above the threshold percentage is better than a +7.6% 2pc bonus.
edit: BTW, when you fixed the tooltip for the KHG shields - was it actually a bigger issue than that? Many folks had said they did not seem to have Subvert working. When I went to test this post to get you some numbers for the TT differences, I couldn't lose Crew on the toon with the 2pc KHG. And yeah, I got distracted by that. Well, I could lose them - but they'd be back in a blink. I couldn't take significant losses. Hopped on a couple of other toons, and the Crystalline Entity had no problem removing my crew...quickly. Yeah, still distracted by this - going to see if anybody's saying anything else about it elsewhere on the forums...
Everyday I read these forums and everyday it's "Let's revamp this/that/these". Let's just revamp the whole damn game.
The only problem is the game might "need" 12 things and the players might want a thousand different things, but cryptic's free to play model and modest zen revenue might cover the budgets of doing 6 of these things after all the server/operating costs are paid. It can be hard to justify the costs in overhauling systems and creating features and at the end of the day it is usually still a gamble. Spending a qtr million on getting Dorn to voice a few lines has to be weighed against the model rendering person that could be hired to give old models a new canon revamp. I don't envy the decisions cryptic has to make these days.
well, how about instead of total crew, it just displays damage control teams. you know, the ones that would actually be passively healing. then you could normalize a number per given size range of ship.
A somewhat simple change could be to beef up crew base resistance to make it less of a hassle (I would also just remove "crew death" as wording and make it "crew critical")
This has already happened. Crew haven't died since early in STO's beta (because players went all emo that their crew were "dying"). Currently they're just incapacitated, and waiting for sickbay to regen them.
Everyday I read these forums and everyday it's "Let's revamp this/that/these". Let's just revamp the whole damn game.
The only problem is the game might "need" 12 things and the players might want a thousand different things, but cryptic's free to play model and modest zen revenue might cover the budgets of doing 6 of these things after all the server/operating costs are paid. It can be hard to justify the costs in overhauling systems and creating features and at the end of the day it is usually still a gamble. Spending a qtr million on getting Dorn to voice a few lines has to be weighed against the model rendering person that could be hired to give old models a new canon revamp. I don't envy the decisions cryptic has to make these days.
So what are you saying? That it's unreasonable for players to make a few suggestions for the game they're playing?
2. Every time your ship is destroyed, 5% of your crew is permanently dead. You must travel to your home system to replenish your crew. the trade off for this is that the more missions you complete with fewer crew losses, the crew performs better, similar to the way fighters work now for carriers.
With the exception of the hangar pet progression, this is essentially how it worked in STO's early beta. People apparently couldn't "deal" with their crew actually dying.
Afaik, the crew 'should' help larger vessels with more personnel. That is currently not the case since you loose a given percentage of crew while you regain a set number of crew. (Well, as far as I noticed.)
If it can't simply be fixed by normalizing (as in, you loose a fixed amount, you gain a fixed amount - if they're lost more slowly, populous vessels will keep at least some crew alive after a short fight while escorts will get empty fast) or inverting the loss/gain (as in, you loose fixed amounts per weapons hit while you regain a percentage), I'd advise the crew stat to be ousted from the game.
I'm not convinced trying to build a new system out of it will be beneficial; too much new trouble given the intricate relations between all current systems.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Afaik, the crew 'should' help larger vessels with more personnel. That is currently not the case since you loose a given percentage of crew while you regain a set number of crew. (Well, as far as I noticed.)
If it can't simply be fixed by normalizing (as in, you loose a fixed amount, you gain a fixed amount - if they're lost more slowly, populous vessels will keep at least some crew alive after a short fight while escorts will get empty fast) or inverting the loss/gain (as in, you loose fixed amounts per weapons hit while you regain a percentage), I'd advise the crew stat to be ousted from the game.
I'm not convinced trying to build a new system out of it will be beneficial; too much new trouble given the intricate relations between all current systems.
It's gets into the language of how some of the things read - and - how some read them. It's been brought up a few times regarding that language.
50% Chance: Lesser of -20 or -20% Able Crew
10% Chance: Lesser of -10 or -10% Alive Crew
Some folks read that as it would be the lesser amount...but it's actually a case of it being the greater amount, whichever number results in less crew.
The torp kills 400 crew on the one ship and 40 crew on the other ship. So when you get into that Crew Recovery Rate, the larger crew ship ends up at a quirky disadvantage.
If the Crew Loss Mechanics were tweaked, other mechanics should fall into place, no? The larger crew would matter, right? The crew regen vs. crew loss on larger crew ships wouldn't look so silly. Etc, etc, etc...no?
I would perfer to see an expansion on crew system. maybe a toggle bar for duty off system. one for medical...one for damage control..one for security.. when under attack, a skilled captain can pay attn to click those icons to assign damage control or order med teams to deck 5. The ship has an inherent regen, but these could add a bonus to those areas.
I'm not really in favor of introducing a crew-allocation system to deal with during space combat.
I think Bort's point is that ripping it out entirely is probably reasonably do-able, if that wouldn't upset the player base too much.
Tweaking it, maybe.
Overhauling it, probably not.
I think a crew morale mechanic could be grafted in without changing the existing crew damage mechanic too much. It would still be a lot of work, but not as much as a complete overhaul. Crew "loss" and recovery would still need work so that they do not continue to adversely impact ships with large crews.
If I have to choose between accepting the broken system we have now and ripping it out, then I guess I'd rather have it out. But I'd much rather see it fixed.
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Something else I've noticed on this game. My Qun Raptor takes a minscule amount of Crew loss compared to say my Bortas or Neg'var or Oddy on my main Fed.
I find it odd a raptor with 200 crew can fight a borg cube and lose maybe 25% or less of my crew, do the same fight with my oddy and I lose over 50% of my crew.
Can somebody explain that?
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I'm not really in favor of introducing a crew-allocation system to deal with during space combat.
I think Bort's point is that ripping it out entirely is probably reasonably do-able, if that wouldn't upset the player base too much.
Tweaking it, maybe.
Overhauling it, probably not.
I think a crew morale mechanic could be grafted in without changing the existing crew damage mechanic too much. It would still be a lot of work, but not as much as a complete overhaul. Crew "loss" and recovery would still need work so that they do not continue to adversely impact ships with large crews.
If I have to choose between accepting the broken system we have now and ripping it out, then I guess I'd rather have it out. But I'd much rather see it fixed.
But it raises the question of would it result in a nerf to items that are based around the crew - since those scale and are thus balanced around scaling. If the crew mechanic were removed, those would no longer scale - if they were 24/7 at max, they'd no longer be balanced...thus, would they in turn be nerfed to reflect an average from somewhere along that scale or something that would more closely reflect where those values are on average.
Basically, removing Crew would nerf several things...or...removing Crew would buff several things.
Currently, the only things affected by your Crew level are Hull Repair Rate (aka passive regen) and Subsystem Repair rate (aka Subsystem Offline Resistance). Both are also already improved by Skills in the same manner. We could easily remove Crew, and roll those bonuses into their respective skills.
Again, this is not a proposal or anything. Please don't assume that just cuz a Dev is talking about it, it is something we're necessarily going to do.
If it were to be revamped imo it would be something to use in conjunction with what Mr. Stahl talked about awhile back about how he would *like to see* with using ships that usually collect dust being used. The keyword he said was *like* though so if it were revamped in a way to benefit being in command of multiple ships as something for a later season/update it would be a good way to take already existing assets and play around with it to improve the game.
This has already happened. Crew haven't died since early in STO's beta (because players went all emo that their crew were "dying"). Currently they're just incapacitated, and waiting for sickbay to regen them.
I think I recall this from when they were working on a death penalty mechanic, you had to pick up more crew from K-7, Starbase 39, ESD, etc. In the end they decided on the injury/difficulty system for those who wanted an added penalty. Some text still refers to "alive" crewmen, or "crew death/disable resistance" which is what I meant they should change the wording of.
But it raises the question of would it result in a nerf to items that are based around the crew - since those scale and are thus balanced around scaling. If the crew mechanic were removed, those would no longer scale - if they were 24/7 at max, they'd no longer be balanced...thus, would they in turn be nerfed to reflect an average from somewhere along that scale or something that would more closely reflect where those values are on average.
Basically, removing Crew would nerf several things...or...removing Crew would buff several things.
You have a good point, I'd rather them remove crew and convert those crew console items to hull items (or some other item). It still confuses me how my vesta's crew (750 crew members) dies faster than my advanced escort (150 crew members).
One day Cryptic will be free from their Perfect World overlord. Until that day comes, they will continue to pamper the whales of this game, and ignore everyone that isn't a whale.
You have a good point, I'd rather them remove crew and convert those crew console items to hull items (or some other item). It still confuses me how my vesta's crew (750 crew members) dies faster than my advanced escort (150 crew members).
Heh, it's the "Lesser" thing imho that causes the most issues. That value on Projectiles reflects the the train of thought.
I see "Lesser" of X and Y, I'm thinking the lesser of the two numbers. Doesn't work that way though...it's whatever results in the lesser amount. So the more crew you've got, rather than losing fewer or holding on to that larger crew for a longer period of time...you lose crew faster the more you have of them.
It's definitely one of the trippy discussions - folks have been trying to get an answer on it forever.
In answer to Borticus' questions. in it's present state, it might as well not exists. Get rid of the crew machanic, replace the crew sizes with a bonus/factor to the passive regens they affect.
On the hand i do like it. I tend to fly large ships, when my crew is intact, it really cuts down on my having to hull heal or having to use Engineering Team to tic subsystems. The problem is the Project Weapons crew loss mechanic. A 20% chance to a huge amount of crew loss is large considering the large number of torpedoes that get spammed by NPCs. With a large group of NPC ships like in the Contested Zone around the Towers of a Dreadnaught group, it's raised from a chance of crew loss to a certainty.
If the Crew Mechanic is to be salved, Projectile Crew loss has to change. The only workable solution I see with only a short time thinking about it is this. Change the 20% for big crew loss to be based on a Critical hit from the weapon. And a smaller crew loss if a projectile weapon hit the bare full directly. Make the Shield really count for protecting the crew of the ship.
I'm not really in favor of introducing a crew-allocation system to deal with during space combat.
I think Bort's point is that ripping it out entirely is probably reasonably do-able, if that wouldn't upset the player base too much.
Tweaking it, maybe.
Overhauling it, probably not.
I think a crew morale mechanic could be grafted in without changing the existing crew damage mechanic too much. It would still be a lot of work, but not as much as a complete overhaul. Crew "loss" and recovery would still need work so that they do not continue to adversely impact ships with large crews.
If I have to choose between accepting the broken system we have now and ripping it out, then I guess I'd rather have it out. But I'd much rather see it fixed.
I concur with this statement. Bigger Crews suffer more. The items that affect crew and work off crew dont scale with actual number of crew, it scales by percentage of crew. Part of why this system needs to be tweaked.
While it would make things like teams a tad unbalanced. It would make using teams more reasonable on other ships, most people dont use Engineering team, or Science team opting instead for Tactical Team as thats the most effective.
I would propose a very simple change. This would require the crew system to be split in three in a way. Tactical Crew, Science Crew and Engineering Crew. Split each ships crew into an amount. Wether it be 1/3 per department, or 1/2 for ship type and 1/4 for other departments.
So if it where 1/3 per department. Example Oddy, its a Cruiser with 2500 Crew.
1/3 Tactical = Roughly 833
1/3 Engineering = Roughly 833
1/3 Science = Roughly 833
(You end up short one crew member[so well call that guy redshirt bob])
Then have the Teams work off that, and remove their shared CD. Each Department works in conjuction with each other as far as receiving damage, but seperately when giving out heals.
Swith out the Mechanic for damage received. instead of 20% to crew loss, you lose 10% of your engineering, 5% for the other two = the total 20% loss but hurting each department individually and less.
This is my view on how it could be fixed/overhauled/tweaked while changing up a few Boff powers to make them more useable and more desirable to have. Possibly changing Science team to Crew recovery instead of shield regen, with the science debuff removal remaining.
I think that would be a bit of work for the dev folk to do, but i think that would be the closest to win/win you could get....
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
What if we just completely removed the Crew system? Would anyone miss it?
I'm not saying that we will, or are even considering it. Just spitballing ideas for the discussion.
Just remove it, I say.
It seems like most of these ideas are aimed squarely at making the crew system a pain to deal with and a frustration factor in general, as opposed to enhancing game play. As-is it's almost an afterthought, and the terminology is a bit strange, too, because it implies that your crew (including your BOffs and self) are zombies after the Crystaline Entity mission - either that, or considering the crew member turnover rate on your ship, you're the absolute worst captain ever.
Personally I would prefer it if the crew was a standard stat for the ship, which would give an advantage to ships that are larger, but not a huge one, and pretty much leave it at that. Like, a built-in bonus to hull repair or something, but a minor one.
Heh, it's the "Lesser" thing imho that causes the most issues. That value on Projectiles reflects the the train of thought.
I see "Lesser" of X and Y, I'm thinking the lesser of the two numbers. Doesn't work that way though...it's whatever results in the lesser amount. So the more crew you've got, rather than losing fewer or holding on to that larger crew for a longer period of time...you lose crew faster the more you have of them.
It's definitely one of the trippy discussions - folks have been trying to get an answer on it forever.
So then this encourages everyone to play with small crew sized ships aka escorts. Yet players like me whom like piloting carriers will suffer the most. That's kind of funny to me because those of us whom like the "tanking" with our ships (especially large ships) are tanking with only 20% of our original crew size because the other 80% is injured/killed.
So when a torpedo hits my ship...
20% of a Escort ship with 200 crew members = 40 crew members injured.
20% of a Carrier with 3,000 crew members = 600 crew members injured.
Then that will explain why my carriers have more injured. But then that means the game is flawed. Where it gives most of it's space combat benefits to Tactical Escorts.
So if I understand cryptics logic correctly (honestly I don't think anyone can)...escorts can heal their hull just as fast as a carrier, but with less crew casualties?
In answer to Borticus' questions. in it's present state, it might as well not exists. Get rid of the crew machanic, replace the crew sizes with a bonus/factor to the passive regens they affect.
On the hand i do like it. I tend to fly large ships, when my crew is intact, it really cuts down on my having to hull heal or having to use Engineering Team to tic subsystems. The problem is the Project Weapons crew loss mechanic. A 20% chance to a huge amount of crew loss is large considering the large number of torpedoes that get spammed by NPCs. With a large group of NPC ships like in the Contested Zone around the Towers of a Dreadnaught group, it's raised from a chance of crew loss to a certainty.
If the Crew Mechanic is to be salved, Projectile Crew loss has to change. The only workable solution I see with only a short time thinking about it is this. Change the 20% for big crew loss to be based on a Critical hit from the weapon. And a smaller crew loss if a projectile weapon hit the bare full directly. Make the Shield really count for protecting the crew of the ship.
As I stated above, those of us whom like the large ships suffer higher crew losses. Yet we have a larger hull that gets repaired by magical ponies.
One day Cryptic will be free from their Perfect World overlord. Until that day comes, they will continue to pamper the whales of this game, and ignore everyone that isn't a whale.
Currently, the only things affected by your Crew level are Hull Repair Rate (aka passive regen) and Subsystem Repair rate (aka Subsystem Offline Resistance). Both are also already improved by Skills in the same manner. We could easily remove Crew, and roll those bonuses into their respective skills.
Again, this is not a proposal or anything. Please don't assume that just cuz a Dev is talking about it, it is something we're necessarily going to do.
Okay, so picture this. Rather than ripping it out, what if crew gained experience like hangar pets do? And keeping them alive meant that they got better over time (increasing the stuff they increase, plus some minor stuff like repair rates/power levels- that sort of thing).
Comments
If crew is made to matter more, I'd also like to see crew complements revisited for all ships. That way we wouldn't see huge disparities among similarly-equipped ships. That, or perhaps there could be crew "sizes" -- small, medium, large, huge, etc.
Regardless, this is a good point that should be addressed.
Of course....a bit of blue sky discussion with no strings is a good thing.
My take on it is we should keep the crew mechanic, and merely simplify it.
Crew strength should have just one effect, which would be to modify hull repair.
100% crew, 100% hull repair.
Lose crew, lose hull repair effciency at the same rate.
So, 50% crew, 50% hull repair rate.
Use the game mechanic from the bio molecular warhead for all torpedoes, mines and other weapons that effect crew.
Have them take out a fixed number of crew on each hit, rather than a percentage.
Simple.
Uses technology already built for the game, makes crew strength matter and means that big ships with more crew can be hit by a torpedo and not suddenly lose 1500 crew members, when the same torp takes out 10 crew on a Defiant.
*Sits back, secure in the certain knowledge that his wise counsel will be immediately acted on by the Devs. Perhaps they'll name a small star in his honour. All the time unaware that the black hole of doom awaits him*
In case of the Negh'Var for example I'd say the "crew" includes the troops.
In TOS the D7 had a crew of 400 ("Day of the Dove") while the K't'inga has some 800 so it's probably also half of them are troops.
Using a soft-canon source for a second the Chancellor class which is similar in size to the Vor'cha has a large number of troops among its total compliment.
Another example: the 1,000 "crew" on the Galaxy is probably not only crew.
In TNG the Enterprise-D only had 1,000 including civis. So assuming they no longer ferry those around some 250 or so are probably something else. Maybe more redshirts.
So to make things a bit more interesting how about seperating the "crew" we have now into two parts: crew and troops. The former for primary ships functions and the latter for resistances to stuff like boarding parties, reducing their effects and durations.
This would also allow for some additional faction diversity with the Klingons getting more bonus to troops while Starfleet gets more bonus to primary ship functions with Romulans somewhere inbetween.:)
I'd be wary of complexity.
I do take your point though, however boarding parties and the like take away a set amount of your crew as things stand.
Under my proposal that would give the sending ship a corresponding dip in their hull repair rate. Fewer crew to send round with bandaids.
However, resistence to things that reduce crew strength are already ingame.
There are consoles and space set powers. The Jemmie space set comes to mind.
In order to integrate them with my proposed system, I'd suggest they do one of two things.
Provide resistence to crew loss. Things like blast doors mitigate the effects of attacks. Such owers would reduce the number of crew lost to a given attack by a certain percentage up to 50, with a floor of one crew member.
Make crew more efficient. This is what I think the Jemmie space set does, by making the work of an individual crew member mean more. To make these powers work we would need to identify two terms; crew strength and crew rating. The former is the number of crew toy have active. The latter is the modifier thats going to get multiplied by your hull repair rate. Jemmie space set would add 5-10% to your crew rating, meaning that at full strenth your hull repair rate would actually be 105-110%.
Furthermore, to address your idea, each faction would get a base 5% in one of the two mechanics.
Klingons are better at resisting crew rating loss, so get a bse 5%. Feds are better at making systems synergise, so get a base 5% bonus to their crew rating.
Romulans........romulans are a pest. so either apply the bonus at level 11 or give the Rommies 2.5% in each to represent their ability to spy on both factions tech equally.
-The easy option would be to remove it, which wouldn't be a bad thing necessarily, as it currently affects little and is more of a "fluff" spec to let you know what sort of complement a ship would have.
-The more difficult option would be to update the mechanic as something worthwhile to add another layer of strategy and bring currently implemented skills and equipment back into use.
A somewhat simple change could be to beef up crew base resistance to make it less of a hassle (I would also just remove "crew death" as wording and make it "crew critical") and then have disabled/critical crew negatively affect BO healing powers by a noticeable amount in addition to the passive healing.
You could also add in a "morale" system where you could have crew in excellent condition (lets say a green highlight vs the orange "disabled" highlight) that increase the healing abilities of BO healing powers. If added as a stat, you could also add in +moral engineering consoles such as replicators/holodecks and have crew leave doff missions reward a +morale buff on critical. The Risian Corvette from the summer event could even have a follow-up item set that gives +morale.
Its not like it doesn't have possibilities, but right now it is rather pointless.
Of course, I would want to see my own DOFFs when I walk the interior on my ship.
I vote to completely remove the existing Crew System.
:rolleyes:
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1. allow the crew to be picked in a % way to effect how the ship works, sci, engi, tac boosts dependant on how much of the crew is from those professions.
2. Every time your ship is destroyed, 5% of your crew is permanently dead. You must travel to your home system to replenish your crew. the trade off for this is that the more missions you complete with fewer crew losses, the crew performs better, similar to the way fighters work now for carriers.
3. Increase the effectiveness of the bridge officer department head settings. Do not just have them give recommendations for duty officers to perform, have them actually impact the way ship systems work and perform.
4. similar to tac team, sci team, engi team. there needs to be a medical team ability. This could activate a number of E.M.H.'s throughout the ship, or even the rapid deployment of medical personnel throughout the ship.
Crew also affects the boost from TT.
TT1 for example, is on a range of +4.5 Energy/+4.5 Projectile to +18 Energy/+18 Projectile based on the Crew level. That's a base damage boost of +2.25% to +9%. A TT1 with Crew above the threshold percentage is better than a +7.6% 2pc bonus.
edit: BTW, when you fixed the tooltip for the KHG shields - was it actually a bigger issue than that? Many folks had said they did not seem to have Subvert working. When I went to test this post to get you some numbers for the TT differences, I couldn't lose Crew on the toon with the 2pc KHG. And yeah, I got distracted by that. Well, I could lose them - but they'd be back in a blink. I couldn't take significant losses. Hopped on a couple of other toons, and the Crystalline Entity had no problem removing my crew...quickly. Yeah, still distracted by this - going to see if anybody's saying anything else about it elsewhere on the forums...
The only problem is the game might "need" 12 things and the players might want a thousand different things, but cryptic's free to play model and modest zen revenue might cover the budgets of doing 6 of these things after all the server/operating costs are paid. It can be hard to justify the costs in overhauling systems and creating features and at the end of the day it is usually still a gamble. Spending a qtr million on getting Dorn to voice a few lines has to be weighed against the model rendering person that could be hired to give old models a new canon revamp. I don't envy the decisions cryptic has to make these days.
This has already happened. Crew haven't died since early in STO's beta (because players went all emo that their crew were "dying"). Currently they're just incapacitated, and waiting for sickbay to regen them.
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With the exception of the hangar pet progression, this is essentially how it worked in STO's early beta. People apparently couldn't "deal" with their crew actually dying.
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If it can't simply be fixed by normalizing (as in, you loose a fixed amount, you gain a fixed amount - if they're lost more slowly, populous vessels will keep at least some crew alive after a short fight while escorts will get empty fast) or inverting the loss/gain (as in, you loose fixed amounts per weapons hit while you regain a percentage), I'd advise the crew stat to be ousted from the game.
I'm not convinced trying to build a new system out of it will be beneficial; too much new trouble given the intricate relations between all current systems.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
It's gets into the language of how some of the things read - and - how some read them. It's been brought up a few times regarding that language.
50% Chance: Lesser of -20 or -20% Able Crew
10% Chance: Lesser of -10 or -10% Alive Crew
Some folks read that as it would be the lesser amount...but it's actually a case of it being the greater amount, whichever number results in less crew.
Say you've got two ships, eh?
A) Crew: 4000
Say that 10% procs, you're looking at...
A) Crew: 4000 - (4000 * 0.1) = 4000 - 400 = 3600
The torp kills 400 crew on the one ship and 40 crew on the other ship. So when you get into that Crew Recovery Rate, the larger crew ship ends up at a quirky disadvantage.
If the Crew Loss Mechanics were tweaked, other mechanics should fall into place, no? The larger crew would matter, right? The crew regen vs. crew loss on larger crew ships wouldn't look so silly. Etc, etc, etc...no?
I think Bort's point is that ripping it out entirely is probably reasonably do-able, if that wouldn't upset the player base too much.
Tweaking it, maybe.
Overhauling it, probably not.
I think a crew morale mechanic could be grafted in without changing the existing crew damage mechanic too much. It would still be a lot of work, but not as much as a complete overhaul. Crew "loss" and recovery would still need work so that they do not continue to adversely impact ships with large crews.
If I have to choose between accepting the broken system we have now and ripping it out, then I guess I'd rather have it out. But I'd much rather see it fixed.
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I find it odd a raptor with 200 crew can fight a borg cube and lose maybe 25% or less of my crew, do the same fight with my oddy and I lose over 50% of my crew.
Can somebody explain that?
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But it raises the question of would it result in a nerf to items that are based around the crew - since those scale and are thus balanced around scaling. If the crew mechanic were removed, those would no longer scale - if they were 24/7 at max, they'd no longer be balanced...thus, would they in turn be nerfed to reflect an average from somewhere along that scale or something that would more closely reflect where those values are on average.
Basically, removing Crew would nerf several things...or...removing Crew would buff several things.
If it were to be revamped imo it would be something to use in conjunction with what Mr. Stahl talked about awhile back about how he would *like to see* with using ships that usually collect dust being used. The keyword he said was *like* though so if it were revamped in a way to benefit being in command of multiple ships as something for a later season/update it would be a good way to take already existing assets and play around with it to improve the game.
I think I recall this from when they were working on a death penalty mechanic, you had to pick up more crew from K-7, Starbase 39, ESD, etc. In the end they decided on the injury/difficulty system for those who wanted an added penalty. Some text still refers to "alive" crewmen, or "crew death/disable resistance" which is what I meant they should change the wording of.
You have a good point, I'd rather them remove crew and convert those crew console items to hull items (or some other item). It still confuses me how my vesta's crew (750 crew members) dies faster than my advanced escort (150 crew members).
Heh, it's the "Lesser" thing imho that causes the most issues. That value on Projectiles reflects the the train of thought.
I see "Lesser" of X and Y, I'm thinking the lesser of the two numbers. Doesn't work that way though...it's whatever results in the lesser amount. So the more crew you've got, rather than losing fewer or holding on to that larger crew for a longer period of time...you lose crew faster the more you have of them.
It's definitely one of the trippy discussions - folks have been trying to get an answer on it forever.
On the hand i do like it. I tend to fly large ships, when my crew is intact, it really cuts down on my having to hull heal or having to use Engineering Team to tic subsystems. The problem is the Project Weapons crew loss mechanic. A 20% chance to a huge amount of crew loss is large considering the large number of torpedoes that get spammed by NPCs. With a large group of NPC ships like in the Contested Zone around the Towers of a Dreadnaught group, it's raised from a chance of crew loss to a certainty.
If the Crew Mechanic is to be salved, Projectile Crew loss has to change. The only workable solution I see with only a short time thinking about it is this. Change the 20% for big crew loss to be based on a Critical hit from the weapon. And a smaller crew loss if a projectile weapon hit the bare full directly. Make the Shield really count for protecting the crew of the ship.
I concur with this statement. Bigger Crews suffer more. The items that affect crew and work off crew dont scale with actual number of crew, it scales by percentage of crew. Part of why this system needs to be tweaked.
While it would make things like teams a tad unbalanced. It would make using teams more reasonable on other ships, most people dont use Engineering team, or Science team opting instead for Tactical Team as thats the most effective.
I would propose a very simple change. This would require the crew system to be split in three in a way. Tactical Crew, Science Crew and Engineering Crew. Split each ships crew into an amount. Wether it be 1/3 per department, or 1/2 for ship type and 1/4 for other departments.
So if it where 1/3 per department. Example Oddy, its a Cruiser with 2500 Crew.
1/3 Tactical = Roughly 833
1/3 Engineering = Roughly 833
1/3 Science = Roughly 833
(You end up short one crew member[so well call that guy redshirt bob])
But if you did it Ship type specific.
Cruisers (oddy as example)
1/2 Engineering = 1250
1/4 Tactical = 625
1/4 Science = 625
Science (Vesta as example)
1/2 Science = 375
1/4 Engineering = 187.5
1/4 Tactical = 187.5
Tactical (Andorian as Example)
1/2 Tactical = 42.5
1/4 Engineering = 21.25
1/4 Science = 21.25
Then have the Teams work off that, and remove their shared CD. Each Department works in conjuction with each other as far as receiving damage, but seperately when giving out heals.
Swith out the Mechanic for damage received. instead of 20% to crew loss, you lose 10% of your engineering, 5% for the other two = the total 20% loss but hurting each department individually and less.
This is my view on how it could be fixed/overhauled/tweaked while changing up a few Boff powers to make them more useable and more desirable to have. Possibly changing Science team to Crew recovery instead of shield regen, with the science debuff removal remaining.
I think that would be a bit of work for the dev folk to do, but i think that would be the closest to win/win you could get....
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Just remove it, I say.
It seems like most of these ideas are aimed squarely at making the crew system a pain to deal with and a frustration factor in general, as opposed to enhancing game play. As-is it's almost an afterthought, and the terminology is a bit strange, too, because it implies that your crew (including your BOffs and self) are zombies after the Crystaline Entity mission - either that, or considering the crew member turnover rate on your ship, you're the absolute worst captain ever.
Personally I would prefer it if the crew was a standard stat for the ship, which would give an advantage to ships that are larger, but not a huge one, and pretty much leave it at that. Like, a built-in bonus to hull repair or something, but a minor one.
So then this encourages everyone to play with small crew sized ships aka escorts. Yet players like me whom like piloting carriers will suffer the most. That's kind of funny to me because those of us whom like the "tanking" with our ships (especially large ships) are tanking with only 20% of our original crew size
So when a torpedo hits my ship...
20% of a Escort ship with 200 crew members = 40 crew members injured.
20% of a Carrier with 3,000 crew members = 600 crew members injured.
Then that will explain why my carriers have more injured. But then that means the game is flawed. Where it gives most of it's space combat benefits to Tactical Escorts.
So if I understand cryptics logic correctly (honestly I don't think anyone can)...escorts can heal their hull just as fast as a carrier, but with less crew casualties?
As I stated above, those of us whom like the large ships suffer higher crew losses. Yet we have a larger hull that gets repaired by magical ponies.
Okay, so picture this. Rather than ripping it out, what if crew gained experience like hangar pets do? And keeping them alive meant that they got better over time (increasing the stuff they increase, plus some minor stuff like repair rates/power levels- that sort of thing).