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).
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).
Because ther is no such thing as your crew staying alive longer. The only way to keep crew alive is at the Expense of the way you want to build your ship. I dont use sets because other stuff has a tendency to not keep my ship alive as well as the things i use.
So yay my ship is more difficult to keep in one piece but my crew isnt as incapacitated. How does that make sense? Less damage to the ship should mean less damage to the crew. But thats not how it works.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Or just equip the crew survival, and repair consoles. Works just as well.
Post like this make me wonder if STO will stay broken and extremely buggy just because of the apologists that back up stupid stuff in the game that needs fix.
"Don't need to change the crew system, just equip the consoles, works fine." Ok, wow.
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.
This is a more reasonable post. Personally I'd like to see an overhaul in place, but as you pointed out, probably won't happen. Next best solution, get rid of the entire crew system.
I like the idea of a moral system, but it can't be a re-label of what we have, just throwing that out there.
Probably get rid of the worthless Abandon Ship thing too.
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.
Yep, well inverting that so that you loose the lesser amount (and up with more able crew) would go a long way towards fixing it. If they also made it faster for more populated ships to 'heal' their injured crew, then I'd be just fine with it and call it fixed and done.
While it would appear simple to do, the fact the devs haven't fixed it (effectively gimping ships with large crews) makes it seem difficult, impossible or just unwelcome to fix. Then I'd rather see the crew mechanic overboard.
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.
Good example of how screwy the crewman system is I will compare two of my own instances.
1: My tac oddy w/adapted maco 2 pc. set http://sto.gamepedia.com/Adapted_M.A.C.O._(Space) with its +7 crew recovery rate and +70% crew man loss resistance bonus running any STF using brace for impact as often as it refreshes never comes out without missing half or more of it's crew. That's -50 to -70% of my crew every single mission.
2: My Ar'Kif tac carrier wb using the exact same adapted maco 2 pc. + brace for impact never loses more than 10-30% crew unless I am actually destroyed.
Gut Dominion Cruiser/Carrier she is nice gut a crew recovery off 65 %.
But I lose faster crew then I could compensate for. But if you keep your Health high enough it will be ok.
But to speak the truth I never eyeball crew status because i'm too busy shooting and keep my ship in one peace.....
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
First off, I would change it so that the crew is injured/incapacitated, instead of "dead" - it doesn't make sense for dead crew to regenerate.
Second, crew injuries should be a percent, with hard lower and upper limits.
1% - min of 1, max of 25
for example. The max is because in a larger ship, a torpedo hit isn't going to necessarily affect a percentage of a crew - it's always going to affect a certain area of the hull, and behind that hull is a maximum number of people.
Crews restoration is boosted with Science Team
15%, min of 5, max of 250
This encourages use of Science Team to restore crew
For effects, there's "realistic" effect and then there's "balanceable" effects. I'd go for balanceable effects over realistic.
Crew would affect two things, repair rate and accuracy. As the crew gets more and more incapacitated, weapons start taking a debuff to accuracy, maxing at something like 20%. This should be a visible debuff icon on your buff/debuff bar.
Also, passive healing should be added to the combat log so we can make accurate choices between hull protection or crew protection, and should have a larger effect when fully crewed, and hurt more with less crew. This would encourage uncertainty (which is where making the meta fun comes in) between shielding yourself from damage with a Neutronium armor or helping you heal damage over time with an Emergency Force Fields.
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.
I favor reworking it as a quality of life feature. Maybe more crew unlock more DOff assignments, shipboard crafting and repairs, etc. (Maybe alternate DOff assignments for low crew. Would also be funny if consoles sparked and lights dimmed.)
Then have resources that expend crew.
- Summonable security escorts which persist until dead (but which die easily, with flashy death animations; unlike the Tac versions, these guys have no beam out animation and WILL die even if it's just a heart attack on map change). Owning the DS9 bundle lets you use DS9 costumed versions. Owning the TOS bundle allows TOS costumed versions. You lose one crew a piece.
** An easy way to do this? Have a store window with various types of NPC escort consumables. You spend crew to buy consumables. **
- A similar feature for space that places them in explosion prone shuttle pets.
- The ability to spend crew to improve odds on DOff assignments.
- The ability to spend crew on injury repairs or maybe even a large chunk on something not unlike temporal backstep, which saves your ship from blowing up. Must be at below 10% hull to use, makes you immune to most damage for 10 seconds while you receive a HoT and a cooldown decrease on heals. Perhaps another that allows you to bypass respawn timers.
I like the idea of having this resource that depletes but rather than an up and down yo-yo mechanic, I'd rather see it as an extended resource system over time.
I'd also like it if ship death was more like ground death. Ie. you don't "blow up" until you release. You're disabled. Other ships can repair you. From there, I think a major balance/QoL feature is to take lower DPS ships and give them a revive in place ability like the ground android has. Or give all ships this ability (maybe with the cooldown being tied to crew and the ability costing crew). This could emphasize certain ships as being better sustained DPS options by allowing them to rez in place (possibly at the cost of crew) for steadier damage.
Your little DPS escort is going to need to release and blow up or wait 15 minutes whereas maybe a big cruiser with less damage gets the penalty free respawn-in-place more frequently. Could be a big fix for a ship like the Galaxy, if it has the shortest "no explosion/respawn" recovery time from "disabled".
In terms of my idea for the monetization approach behind this?
Let people replenish their crew "for free" every X hours at each faction social hub, including fleet starbase. (See? You're encouraging travel right there.)
Then for the extra perks crew brings, you either wait until the timer comes back around or you can get an "Emergency Crew Replenishment Request Form" for dilithium instead of waiting out the timer.
I have some other ideas for how you could spend crew as well.
In terms of my idea for the monetization approach behind this?
Let people replenish their crew "for free" every X hours at each faction social hub, including fleet starbase. (See? You're encouraging travel right there.)
Then for the extra perks crew brings, you either wait until the timer comes back around or you can get an "Emergency Crew Replenishment Request Form" for dilithium instead of waiting out the timer.
I have some other ideas for how you could spend crew as well.
For this, I'd just as well suggest new doff missions for assignment in the various station interior maps.
Regarding the crew damage concerns, that's a part of how crew damage works for all ships.
Basically, most attacks that cause crew damage either take a percentage of your total crew or a certain minimum value, whichever value is higher. (This means that small ships with lower crew totals still often take a higher percentage than large ships.)
This is unintuitive, and it's something that we intend to address in some way in the future.
As anybody that is familiar with this topic of conversation is familiar - the tooltips read something like the following...
50% Chance: Lesser of -20 or -20% Able Crew
10% Chance: Lesser of -10 or -10% Alive Crew
...and that it is actually the opposite.
Like archon said, it's really the following...
50% Chance: Greater of -20 or -20% Able Crew
10% Chance: Greater of -10 or -10% Alive Crew
The tooltip might actually make sense if you think in terms of negative crew gain instead of positive crew loss, but most players will likely misinterpret it.
Crew Recovery
If you have no bonuses from equipment or doffs, then the UI reports a crew recovery rate of 50%/min out of combat and 5%/min in combat. It is not clear whether these rates refer to alive crew or able crew. From my observations, the actual crew recovery rates are as follows:
Able Crew (in combat): ~60 crew/min
Able Crew (out of combat): ~500 crew/min
Alive Crew (in combat): never recovers during combat
Alive Crew (out of combat): ~100%/min
Although the rates above are rough estimates only, they clearly don't match the numbers reported by the UI. Note that during combat, able crew recovers at a rate of ~60 crew/min, not ~60%/min. This means that for each minute spent in combat, a ship with a smaller crew will recover a greater percentage of able crew than a ship with a larger crew.
Hull Repair
Here I will explain how hull repair rate is calculated in the simple scenario in which the player has no bonuses to hull repair from gear, doffs, passives, captain traits, or boff traits. The only variables under consideration are ship, skill in "Starship Hull Repair", crew, and whether the player is in combat or not. I will start with some definitions.
base_HRR: the base hull repair rate of your ship determined by its class:
Cruiser, Carrier: 72%/min
Light Cruiser: 60%/min
Science Vessel: 60%/min
Bird-of-Prey: 60%/min
Escort: 50%/min (The Steamrunner is an exception: its base hull repair rate is 60%/min.)
SHR: your skill in "Starship Hull Repair" (This refers to the number in your "Status" tab, not how many bars you put into the skill.)
combat_factor: 1 if you are out of combat; 1/6 if you are in combat.
total_crew: the crew complement of your ship
able_crew: the number of able crew on your ship. This is different from the number of alive crew.
able_crew_frac: able_crew / total_crew
crew_factor: a scale factor that depends on your crew, computed as follows:
crew_factor =
1, if able_crew_frac >= 3/4,
(4/3) * able_crew_frac, if 3/16 <= able_crew_frac < 3/4,
1/4, if able_crew_frac < 3/16.
With the above definitions, the hull repair rate is computed as follows:
Most players won't notice the effect of crew on hull repair rate, because your hull repair rate is multiplied by 1/6 once you enter combat. The leadership trait was so strong before Legacy of Romulus, because it was ignoring this in-combat penalty as well as crew. I don't think the in-combat penalty of 1/6 should just be removed without further testing; I don't want to repeat the situation with leadership before Legacy of Romulus.
In my opinion, the system for calculating hull repair rate is unnecessarily complicated. Consider the following questions:
How many players know about the in-combat penalty of 1/6?
How many players know that each ship has a base hull repair rate related to its ship class?
How many players know that the bonus from "Starship Hull Repair" is affected by crew?
How many players know that the relationship between able crew and hull repair rate is not linear, but piecewise linear?
How many players know that hull repair rate depends on able crew, not alive crew?
How many players even know that there is a difference between able crew and alive crew?
Subsystem Repair
This isn't something I've looked into much, but from what I remember reading, the effect of the skill "Starship Subsystem Repair" also depends on crew. I'll leave the explanation to others who know more about subsystem repair.
Tactical Team
Currently, tactical team grants bonuses to the skills "Starship Energy Weapons" and "Starship Projectile Weapons", and these bonuses depend on crew. Again, I'll let someone who knows more about this mechanic explain it.
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.
What exactly do you mean by this? It seems to me that you are saying that crew and the skill "Starship Hull Repair" are alternative sources of hull repair rate. But as I explained above, in the current system, the effect of "Starship Hull Repair" depends on crew. I believe the same is true of "Starship Subsystem Repair".
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.
The way it's built now, I sure wouldn't. I stopped caring about my crew deaths long before F2P and stopped bothering with consoles and skills like inertial dampers. Because it's not noticeably useful.
Right now, I can't think of any way that there could be any benefit to crew surviving unless different levels offered special abilities like ways to survive, similar to Miracle Worker.
Side NOte:
When I started playing this game, I thought that the crew size meant that I could have more DOFF missions. For example my Vesta has a crew of 750. So I assume I can use 80% of that. But when I realized that they limited BOFF missions to 20,...needless to say I wasn't happy.
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.
I think the biggest problem with the crewmen system is that damage is dealt in percentage rather than a fixed amount, which cripples ships with a large crew.
I think the biggest problem with the crewmen system is that damage is dealt in percentage rather than a fixed amount, which cripples ships with a large crew.
This doubly screws large ships over because crew recovery is also in percentage. This makes it so large ships take forever to recover, but smaller ships can recover almost instantly. :rolleyes:
This doubly screws large ships over because crew recovery is also in percentage. This makes it so large ships take forever to recover, but smaller ships can recover almost instantly. :rolleyes:
Actually, the in-combat recovery rate of able crew is not percentage-based, despite what the tooltips say. If it were, then crew loss might be balanced by crew recovery. There are actually four different crew recovery rates, and none of them are what the tooltips say. For further details, read my earlier post:
Actually, the in-combat recovery rate of able crew is not percentage-based, despite what the tooltips say. If it were, then crew loss might be balanced by crew recovery. There are actually four different crew recovery rates, and none of them are what the tooltips say. For further details, read my earlier post:
Which is why it needs to be overhauled or completely removed, and isn't able crew by definition the same as alive crew? Or am I guessing those thousands of crew members during combat simply vanish or become un accounted for, or maybe are just simply lazy and/or suicidal.
Actually, the in-combat recovery rate of able crew is not percentage-based, despite what the tooltips say. If it were, then crew loss might be balanced by crew recovery. There are actually four different crew recovery rates, and none of them are what the tooltips say. For further details, read my earlier post:
After listening to Priority One's discussion about the crew system, it occurred to me. While they specifically mentioned the idea of the DOFF system, we know that wouldn't be too popular since losing DOFFs permanently or having one of your useful DOFFs injured at an inopportune moment, I got the idea, what if we had a Crew System simliar to the DOFF system?
The Crew System would be really more about numbers than individuals like the DOFF system.
You organize your Security Teams that helps deal with countering Boarding Parties.
Engineering Teams helps with repairs.
Science Teams helps with finding countermeasures.
And Medical Teams, the more they are, the more effective in saving crews lives.
You could send some Crew Teams on DOFF missions along with DOFFs. And some ship skills like Subsystem Repairs or BOFF abilities (Tac/Eng/Sci Teams), could affect these crew members. So they could work hand-in-hand.
Over all the game does a poor job of differentiating the difference between able crew (which technically are alive) vs alive crew which seem to be no better than able crew. Than throw in crew loss % from combat vs crew recovery (only able crew applies in combat, while alive don't recover but do out of combat..go figure). Than watching your passive hull regeneration out of combat vs in combat (with no crew loss or injuries) plummet, it's no wonder it's a messed up system.
As far as crew death rates from taking damage I don't want to see a flat rate per hit. We have that now with a percentage changing it to X amount per hit by X weapon is practicaly the same thing. I would much prefer it to be up to X amount per hit by X weapon. Say a photon torpedo hits and you lose 0 crew one time and 10 the next hit followed by 3 another hit.
I would also like to see alive and well, injured, incapacitated, and dead crew states. Alive and well 0% decrease in repair rate, injured 50% decrease, incapacitated/dead 100%. During a mission dead will not regenerate, after a mission is over then full crew is restored when you warp out of normal missions and requires a repair when doing elite level.
Adding a DOFF system wouldnt be bad and would make a handy storage for DOFF's for fleet projects. Basicly a ship DOFF storage container of maybe 100 crew that affects crew performance. Adding DOFF's to it that are specific to a career could improve skills used like putting all science DOFF's science abilities get an improvement. But these improvement shouldnt increase DPS, only things that benifit the ship. Tac team, evasive, brace for impact, aux2X etc etc. Then add in rarity of the stored DOFF's to improve the buff. These DOFF's replace the "crew" as they are added, everyone gets a buff from those crew and can improve that buff and buff other abilities.
Normal 100 DOFF's not on assignment are part of the crew. So if your ship has 50 crew and you have 50 DOFF's then 100% of your generic "crew" is replaced 150 crew ship then 100 is replaced from those and 50 from the container.
Join Date: Nobody cares.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Okay, so apparently, this system is worthless. I propose some changes and additions though.
It is worthless. It needs to be left alone or removed. Tinkering with it is a recipe for bugs and a lot of negative effects on peoples' current ships and how they play.
Picking at threads can unravel things really fast. Resist the temptation to tinker with things that don't need tinkering.
It is worthless. It needs to be left alone or removed. Tinkering with it is a recipe for bugs and a lot of negative effects on peoples' current ships and how they play.
Picking at threads can unravel things really fast. Resist the temptation to tinker with things that don't need tinkering.
If we're too scared to revamp a system because it might have bugs, we'll never get anything changed around here. Many of us here feel that it's worth it, so why not take the chance?
It is worthless. It needs to be left alone or removed. Tinkering with it is a recipe for bugs and a lot of negative effects on peoples' current ships and how they play.
Picking at threads can unravel things really fast. Resist the temptation to tinker with things that don't need tinkering.
Why bother removing it until you have a brand new representation of crew casualties/expenditure developed?
Which is why it needs to be overhauled or completely removed, and isn't able crew by definition the same as alive crew? Or am I guessing those thousands of crew members during combat simply vanish or become un accounted for, or maybe are just simply lazy and/or suicidal.
No, able crew is not the same as alive crew as far as the game mechanics are concerned. You can lose both able crew and alive crew, but I think able crew has to always be less than alive crew. My guess is that crew who are alive, but not able, are supposed to be injured.
Over all the game does a poor job of differentiating the difference between able crew (which technically are alive) vs alive crew which seem to be no better than able crew. Than throw in crew loss % from combat vs crew recovery (only able crew applies in combat, while alive don't recover but do out of combat..go figure). Than watching your passive hull regeneration out of combat vs in combat (with no crew loss or injuries) plummet, it's no wonder it's a messed up system.
Yes, the reason I wrote my earlier post is to explain how confusing the current crew system is.
No, able crew is not the same as alive crew as far as the game mechanics are concerned. You can lose both able crew and alive crew, but I think able crew has to always be less than alive crew. My guess is that crew who are alive, but not able, are supposed to be injured.
Personally, I always hated these confusing terms with the toolbar. Never really understood "Able Crew" or you have some skills say "flight strength". Wish they made these definitions clear, even looking at the description just makes you go more.
Personally, I always hated these confusing terms with the toolbar. Never really understood "Able Crew" or you have some skills say "flight strength". Wish they made these definitions clear, even looking at the description just makes you go more.
Thats quite valid, the game provides you with only half the information. Nobody has the other half it was all [Redacted]. Unfortunately Cryptic didn't save any files from Redaction, so they dont know what the other half of the information is either....
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Comments
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?
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).
Because ther is no such thing as your crew staying alive longer. The only way to keep crew alive is at the Expense of the way you want to build your ship. I dont use sets because other stuff has a tendency to not keep my ship alive as well as the things i use.
So yay my ship is more difficult to keep in one piece but my crew isnt as incapacitated. How does that make sense? Less damage to the ship should mean less damage to the crew. But thats not how it works.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post like this make me wonder if STO will stay broken and extremely buggy just because of the apologists that back up stupid stuff in the game that needs fix.
"Don't need to change the crew system, just equip the consoles, works fine." Ok, wow.
This is a more reasonable post. Personally I'd like to see an overhaul in place, but as you pointed out, probably won't happen. Next best solution, get rid of the entire crew system.
I like the idea of a moral system, but it can't be a re-label of what we have, just throwing that out there.
Probably get rid of the worthless Abandon Ship thing too.
Yep, well inverting that so that you loose the lesser amount (and up with more able crew) would go a long way towards fixing it. If they also made it faster for more populated ships to 'heal' their injured crew, then I'd be just fine with it and call it fixed and done.
While it would appear simple to do, the fact the devs haven't fixed it (effectively gimping ships with large crews) makes it seem difficult, impossible or just unwelcome to fix. Then I'd rather see the crew mechanic overboard.
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!
1: My tac oddy w/adapted maco 2 pc. set http://sto.gamepedia.com/Adapted_M.A.C.O._(Space) with its +7 crew recovery rate and +70% crew man loss resistance bonus running any STF using brace for impact as often as it refreshes never comes out without missing half or more of it's crew. That's -50 to -70% of my crew every single mission.
2: My Ar'Kif tac carrier wb using the exact same adapted maco 2 pc. + brace for impact never loses more than 10-30% crew unless I am actually destroyed.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
But I lose faster crew then I could compensate for. But if you keep your Health high enough it will be ok.
But to speak the truth I never eyeball crew status because i'm too busy shooting and keep my ship in one peace.....
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
Second, crew injuries should be a percent, with hard lower and upper limits.
1% - min of 1, max of 25
for example. The max is because in a larger ship, a torpedo hit isn't going to necessarily affect a percentage of a crew - it's always going to affect a certain area of the hull, and behind that hull is a maximum number of people.
Crews restoration is boosted with Science Team
15%, min of 5, max of 250
This encourages use of Science Team to restore crew
For effects, there's "realistic" effect and then there's "balanceable" effects. I'd go for balanceable effects over realistic.
Crew would affect two things, repair rate and accuracy. As the crew gets more and more incapacitated, weapons start taking a debuff to accuracy, maxing at something like 20%. This should be a visible debuff icon on your buff/debuff bar.
Also, passive healing should be added to the combat log so we can make accurate choices between hull protection or crew protection, and should have a larger effect when fully crewed, and hurt more with less crew. This would encourage uncertainty (which is where making the meta fun comes in) between shielding yourself from damage with a Neutronium armor or helping you heal damage over time with an Emergency Force Fields.
I favor reworking it as a quality of life feature. Maybe more crew unlock more DOff assignments, shipboard crafting and repairs, etc. (Maybe alternate DOff assignments for low crew. Would also be funny if consoles sparked and lights dimmed.)
Then have resources that expend crew.
- Summonable security escorts which persist until dead (but which die easily, with flashy death animations; unlike the Tac versions, these guys have no beam out animation and WILL die even if it's just a heart attack on map change). Owning the DS9 bundle lets you use DS9 costumed versions. Owning the TOS bundle allows TOS costumed versions. You lose one crew a piece.
** An easy way to do this? Have a store window with various types of NPC escort consumables. You spend crew to buy consumables. **
- A similar feature for space that places them in explosion prone shuttle pets.
- The ability to spend crew to improve odds on DOff assignments.
- The ability to spend crew on injury repairs or maybe even a large chunk on something not unlike temporal backstep, which saves your ship from blowing up. Must be at below 10% hull to use, makes you immune to most damage for 10 seconds while you receive a HoT and a cooldown decrease on heals. Perhaps another that allows you to bypass respawn timers.
I like the idea of having this resource that depletes but rather than an up and down yo-yo mechanic, I'd rather see it as an extended resource system over time.
I'd also like it if ship death was more like ground death. Ie. you don't "blow up" until you release. You're disabled. Other ships can repair you. From there, I think a major balance/QoL feature is to take lower DPS ships and give them a revive in place ability like the ground android has. Or give all ships this ability (maybe with the cooldown being tied to crew and the ability costing crew). This could emphasize certain ships as being better sustained DPS options by allowing them to rez in place (possibly at the cost of crew) for steadier damage.
Your little DPS escort is going to need to release and blow up or wait 15 minutes whereas maybe a big cruiser with less damage gets the penalty free respawn-in-place more frequently. Could be a big fix for a ship like the Galaxy, if it has the shortest "no explosion/respawn" recovery time from "disabled".
Let people replenish their crew "for free" every X hours at each faction social hub, including fleet starbase. (See? You're encouraging travel right there.)
Then for the extra perks crew brings, you either wait until the timer comes back around or you can get an "Emergency Crew Replenishment Request Form" for dilithium instead of waiting out the timer.
I have some other ideas for how you could spend crew as well.
For this, I'd just as well suggest new doff missions for assignment in the various station interior maps.
Before you decide to change the crew mechanic or remove it entirely, I think it would be helpful to review how crew currently functions.
References
A comment by archoncryptic:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=11488171&postcount=394
Some threads started by virusdancer:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=798011
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=926131
A post I wrote long ago, before Legacy of Romulus:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8340431&postcount=3
Since the leadership trait was changed with Legacy of Romulus, the comments about leadership in the post above no longer apply.
Crew Loss
Here is a quote from archoncryptic that explains how crew loss works:
The tooltip for crew loss is confusing.
The tooltip might actually make sense if you think in terms of negative crew gain instead of positive crew loss, but most players will likely misinterpret it.
Crew Recovery
If you have no bonuses from equipment or doffs, then the UI reports a crew recovery rate of 50%/min out of combat and 5%/min in combat. It is not clear whether these rates refer to alive crew or able crew. From my observations, the actual crew recovery rates are as follows:
Able Crew (in combat): ~60 crew/min
Able Crew (out of combat): ~500 crew/min
Alive Crew (in combat): never recovers during combat
Alive Crew (out of combat): ~100%/min
Although the rates above are rough estimates only, they clearly don't match the numbers reported by the UI. Note that during combat, able crew recovers at a rate of ~60 crew/min, not ~60%/min. This means that for each minute spent in combat, a ship with a smaller crew will recover a greater percentage of able crew than a ship with a larger crew.
Hull Repair
Here I will explain how hull repair rate is calculated in the simple scenario in which the player has no bonuses to hull repair from gear, doffs, passives, captain traits, or boff traits. The only variables under consideration are ship, skill in "Starship Hull Repair", crew, and whether the player is in combat or not. I will start with some definitions.
base_HRR: the base hull repair rate of your ship determined by its class:
Cruiser, Carrier: 72%/min
Light Cruiser: 60%/min
Science Vessel: 60%/min
Bird-of-Prey: 60%/min
Escort: 50%/min (The Steamrunner is an exception: its base hull repair rate is 60%/min.)
SHR: your skill in "Starship Hull Repair" (This refers to the number in your "Status" tab, not how many bars you put into the skill.)
combat_factor: 1 if you are out of combat; 1/6 if you are in combat.
total_crew: the crew complement of your ship
able_crew: the number of able crew on your ship. This is different from the number of alive crew.
able_crew_frac: able_crew / total_crew
crew_factor: a scale factor that depends on your crew, computed as follows:
crew_factor =
1, if able_crew_frac >= 3/4,
(4/3) * able_crew_frac, if 3/16 <= able_crew_frac < 3/4,
1/4, if able_crew_frac < 3/16.
With the above definitions, the hull repair rate is computed as follows:
HRR = base_HRR * (1 + SHR/100) * combat_factor * crew_factor
Most players won't notice the effect of crew on hull repair rate, because your hull repair rate is multiplied by 1/6 once you enter combat. The leadership trait was so strong before Legacy of Romulus, because it was ignoring this in-combat penalty as well as crew. I don't think the in-combat penalty of 1/6 should just be removed without further testing; I don't want to repeat the situation with leadership before Legacy of Romulus.
In my opinion, the system for calculating hull repair rate is unnecessarily complicated. Consider the following questions:
Subsystem Repair
This isn't something I've looked into much, but from what I remember reading, the effect of the skill "Starship Subsystem Repair" also depends on crew. I'll leave the explanation to others who know more about subsystem repair.
Tactical Team
Currently, tactical team grants bonuses to the skills "Starship Energy Weapons" and "Starship Projectile Weapons", and these bonuses depend on crew. Again, I'll let someone who knows more about this mechanic explain it.
What exactly do you mean by this? It seems to me that you are saying that crew and the skill "Starship Hull Repair" are alternative sources of hull repair rate. But as I explained above, in the current system, the effect of "Starship Hull Repair" depends on crew. I believe the same is true of "Starship Subsystem Repair".
The way it's built now, I sure wouldn't. I stopped caring about my crew deaths long before F2P and stopped bothering with consoles and skills like inertial dampers. Because it's not noticeably useful.
Right now, I can't think of any way that there could be any benefit to crew surviving unless different levels offered special abilities like ways to survive, similar to Miracle Worker.
When I started playing this game, I thought that the crew size meant that I could have more DOFF missions. For example my Vesta has a crew of 750. So I assume I can use 80% of that. But when I realized that they limited BOFF missions to 20,...needless to say I wasn't happy.
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This doubly screws large ships over because crew recovery is also in percentage. This makes it so large ships take forever to recover, but smaller ships can recover almost instantly. :rolleyes:
Actually, the in-combat recovery rate of able crew is not percentage-based, despite what the tooltips say. If it were, then crew loss might be balanced by crew recovery. There are actually four different crew recovery rates, and none of them are what the tooltips say. For further details, read my earlier post:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=13649191&postcount=104
Which is why it needs to be overhauled or completely removed, and isn't able crew by definition the same as alive crew? Or am I guessing those thousands of crew members during combat simply vanish or become un accounted for, or maybe are just simply lazy and/or suicidal.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Things that assist in crew recovery (RE: Biobed) still are.
Either way, the effect is still the same.
The Crew System would be really more about numbers than individuals like the DOFF system.
You organize your Security Teams that helps deal with countering Boarding Parties.
Engineering Teams helps with repairs.
Science Teams helps with finding countermeasures.
And Medical Teams, the more they are, the more effective in saving crews lives.
You could send some Crew Teams on DOFF missions along with DOFFs. And some ship skills like Subsystem Repairs or BOFF abilities (Tac/Eng/Sci Teams), could affect these crew members. So they could work hand-in-hand.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I would also like to see alive and well, injured, incapacitated, and dead crew states. Alive and well 0% decrease in repair rate, injured 50% decrease, incapacitated/dead 100%. During a mission dead will not regenerate, after a mission is over then full crew is restored when you warp out of normal missions and requires a repair when doing elite level.
Adding a DOFF system wouldnt be bad and would make a handy storage for DOFF's for fleet projects. Basicly a ship DOFF storage container of maybe 100 crew that affects crew performance. Adding DOFF's to it that are specific to a career could improve skills used like putting all science DOFF's science abilities get an improvement. But these improvement shouldnt increase DPS, only things that benifit the ship. Tac team, evasive, brace for impact, aux2X etc etc. Then add in rarity of the stored DOFF's to improve the buff. These DOFF's replace the "crew" as they are added, everyone gets a buff from those crew and can improve that buff and buff other abilities.
Normal 100 DOFF's not on assignment are part of the crew. So if your ship has 50 crew and you have 50 DOFF's then 100% of your generic "crew" is replaced 150 crew ship then 100 is replaced from those and 50 from the container.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
It is worthless. It needs to be left alone or removed. Tinkering with it is a recipe for bugs and a lot of negative effects on peoples' current ships and how they play.
Picking at threads can unravel things really fast. Resist the temptation to tinker with things that don't need tinkering.
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Why bother removing it until you have a brand new representation of crew casualties/expenditure developed?
No, able crew is not the same as alive crew as far as the game mechanics are concerned. You can lose both able crew and alive crew, but I think able crew has to always be less than alive crew. My guess is that crew who are alive, but not able, are supposed to be injured.
Yes, the reason I wrote my earlier post is to explain how confusing the current crew system is.
Personally, I always hated these confusing terms with the toolbar. Never really understood "Able Crew" or you have some skills say "flight strength". Wish they made these definitions clear, even looking at the description just makes you go more.
Thats quite valid, the game provides you with only half the information. Nobody has the other half it was all [Redacted]. Unfortunately Cryptic didn't save any files from Redaction, so they dont know what the other half of the information is either....
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
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