Re: Crew Loss Mechanic

virusdancer · July 2013

Oh, the Evil DevStalker...er...DevTracker offered a recent Dev comment on the Crew Loss Mechanic. So I'd like to take a moment to discuss it (not that I haven't discussed it until I was blue in the face previously, but hey - there was a comment by a Dev!).

First, the comment was from the following thread:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=777691

The comment:

archoncryptic wrote: »

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

...and for the life of me, I have no idea why that simple text change in the tooltip has never been made given how many times it keeps coming up.

IMVHO, it wouldn't mean that the way it works makes sense - but - the way it is described would at least make sense.

As it stands, let's take a look at "how it might" work - I'm not looking up any of my old posts for this, and I can't remember if it takes it from total crew or current crew. The examples will be with current crew (which could be wrong).

Say we've got a Fleet B'rel (30 Crew) and a Fleet Vo'Quv (4000 Crew). Just looking at the Able Crew loss...

Fleet B'rel
30 - initial crew
10 - lost 20
0 - lost the remaining 10

Fleet Vo'Quv
4000 - initial crew
3200 - lost 800 crew
2560 - lost 640 crew
2048 - lost 512 crew
1638 - lost 410 crew
1310 - lost 328 crew
1048 - lost 262 crew
838 - lost 210 crew
...etc, etc, etc

Heck, I'll include what it would look like if it was not current but total.

Fleet Vo'Quv
4000 - initial crew
3200 - lost 800 crew
2400 - lost 800 crew
1600 - lost 800 crew
800 - lost 800 crew
0 - lost 800 crew

With how fast Able Crew are lost..hrmm...

And yeah, that would be what we'd still have if they changed it from Lesser to Greater - but at least the description would match, eh? Meh...

...but what if it what it did were to match the current description?

Fleet B'rel
30 - initial crew
24 - lost 6
19 - lost 5
15 - lost 4
etc, etc, etc

Fleet Vo'Quv
4000 - initial crew
3980 - lost 20
3960 - lost 20
etc, etc, etc

Mind-blowing, no? No, it doesn't make Crew uberfantasticalOPmadness - but it increases the value whether you're in the 30 Crew ship or the 4000 Crew ship - AND - it definitely gives the greater value to that big ol' slow ship with lots of Crew.

Hull Regen is based on a % of remaining crew. Say you're in combat hull regen is 5% (simple numbers for the example, your numbers will vary). With 50% crew, you're at 2.5% of that...etc, etc, etc.

Compare how fast crew are lost with Greater vs. Lesser...right there, the value of the crew is increased - sure, a minor increase overall...but it's a solid foundation on which one can look at working with crew in general.

With it being Greater, well - there's just no point. They're gone in the blink of an eye whether there are 30 or 4000.

So with the "address in some way in the future" - how about just making it work like the current description for a start?

marc8219 · July 2013

This will be nice on my Bortasqu and Fleet Voquv if it gets fixed. Theta radiation should also be toned down some, I wonder if the speed it kills crew at is abnormally high due to a similar bug, even my Voquvs crew is almost all gone in an instant even if I am quick to clear it.

Next step is to make having alive crew more useful, its bonuses should be upped some.

earlnyghthawk · July 2013

I'm with that, a ship with a larger crew, should have far more capabilities for repair, etc, than a ship with a smaller crew.

stonedpenguin · July 2013

Maybr tie it in to TT + ET effectiveness.

frtoaster · July 2013

The other side of crew loss is crew recovery. The crew recovery rate displayed in the UI doesn't seem to match how fast crew actually recovers. I will quote myself from an old post that is now out of date. I believe that crew recovery rates have not changed though.

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8340431&postcount=3

frtoaster wrote: »

Crew Recovery Rate

Although strictly speaking, crew recovery rates are a different topic from hull repair rates, I would be remiss if I did not discuss crew recovery rates, because the hull repair rate depends on crew. If you have no bonuses from equipment or doffs, then the UI should report that you have 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. As far as I can tell, they apply to neither. The following numbers were estimated by a human counting the number of seconds it took to regenerate 100 able crew and 100 alive crew. Thus, they are rough estimates only.

Ship: Assault Cruiser
Total Crew: 800
Able Crew (in combat): 100 crew in 98 seconds (61.2 crew/min or 7.65%/min)
Able Crew (out of combat): 100 crew in 12 seconds (500 crew/min or 62.5%/min)
Alive Crew (in combat): no change in over 2 minutes
Alive Crew (out of combat): 100 crew in 8 seconds (750 crew/min or 93.75%/min)

Ship: Light Cruiser
Total Crew: 200
Able Crew (in combat): 100 crew in 100 seconds (60 crew/min or 30%/min)
Able Crew (out of combat): 100 crew in 12 seconds (500 crew/min or 250%/min)
Alive Crew (in combat): no change in over 2 minutes
Alive Crew (out of combat): 100 crew in 26 seconds (230.77 crew/min or 115.38%/min)

My guess is that able crew regenerates at ~60 crew/min in combat and ~500 crew/min out of combat, regardless of ship. I also conjecture that alive crew regenerates at ~100%/min out of combat and never regenerates in combat, regardless of ship.

Re: Crew Loss Mechanic

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