[Suggestion] Improving crew

General discussion about the game.
Purlox
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 12:03 pm

[Suggestion] Improving crew

Postby Purlox » Tue Sep 18, 2012 2:59 pm

I believe that there should be more variety between crew members. When you buy or get a new crew member there is little reason to make them occupy a spot one of your members is using right now, because the crew member who was there first will always have more proficiency in using what is in the room.

The way to fix this is by giving new crew members (probably excluding the starting ones) a random proficiency in the skills, which will get higher the closer you are to the last zone. It needs to get higher with each zone or else the members after certain zone aren't worth switching, this might be good for the last and 1 before last zone, but elsewhere I believe it shouldn't be this way, so I would suggest the maximum they can achieve goes up with each zone, but won't improve after the second zone before the last one (I think that is the sixth zone).


I would also want to make the teleporting crew more diverse. Right now, there is little point in sending someone good at repairing into enemy ship unless they are good at fighting too. I think this could be changed by making them also able to sabotage the enemy ship, which would take control of the (sub)system in case of Door control and Sensors and in other cases it could make bars of the ship unrepairable until you jump away from the fight, but it would go slower than simply destroying it. The problem is what should the person do first then and I'm not sure how to manage that in a good way other than adding a UI button, that switches between sabotage and destroying.


I also think that we could make a 3rd level in experience in the skill for crew members that would be rewarding, but relatively hard to acquire. This is mostly because I sometimes get the 2nd proficiency with one of my crew members pretty quickly, but I can't go further, which is pretty annoying.


I would also increase the amount of crew members to 9, because I don't see why not and because of my previous suggestion (in different thread) the 9th crew member can be very useful.
MajorCoolD
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:36 am

Re: [Suggestion] Improving crew

Postby MajorCoolD » Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:01 pm

I agree with you on the 3rd skill experience rank, afterall it only seems fair.
Rookie-Experienced-Veteran Master
- * ** ***

And I sure hate the Crew limitation aswell... it can be quite a pain in the ass indeed.
Leonidas
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 11:33 pm

Re: [Suggestion] Improving crew

Postby Leonidas » Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:33 am

There is a lot of room for improvement with the crew. They need individuality.

When I play FTL, in my mind I'm playing out episodes of Star Trek, Serenity, or Star Wars. Those shows are about characters and relationships among the characters. When your captain has an identity, then you can care about him. And that makes it much more exciting when he nearly dies trying to put out a fire.

I would use Dwarf Fortress as a model for character individualization, history, talents, and relationships. The modifiers should be subtle enough that players can ignore them and do fine in the game. But players who want to pay attention to them can get a slight edge, and more importantly can spin stories in their minds about what's happening in the game.

The modifier system could be as simple as the ship enhancement system, with each crew member having two good modifiers and one bad one.

For example, a crew member might have two from a list of good traits like: Tough (extra HP), Fast (faster move), Quick to Heal, Natural Aptitude for each of the skills (Melee, Weapons, Navigation, etc), Diver (less damage from low O2), Loner (works better with no one else in the room), People Person (works better with another person in the room). Maybe he gets one extra good trait when he hits the top of the last experience bar.

But then he has one from a list of bad traits. They could be opposites of the good traits: Fragile, Weak, Slow, etc. He could be Panicky (lose control of the character when his HP goes below 20). He could have a racial hatred: The crew member does everything less efficiently when in the same room as the hated race. And when fighting the hated race they fight better, but you lose control over them.

Beyond the traits, I would keep a history of what happened to the crew member over the course of the game: How and when did this person happen to join the crew? How many times did they nearly die? How many people and ships have they killed? Did this crew member ever save the day in a side quest or ground mission? How many of their fellow crew members have they seen die?

The history wouldn't affect the game at all. It would just give a chance to connect to the characters and look back towards the end of a game.
PirateCat
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 6:45 am

Re: [Suggestion] Improving crew

Postby PirateCat » Thu Sep 20, 2012 1:08 am

I like the thought about traits for individual crew members, and would kinda like to see different races gain exp at a lightly faster/slower rate. Like humans gain exp normally at all stations, while Engi gain 5% more exp at the engine station, but 5% less at the weapon station, however the bugs gain 5% more at the weapon station, but 5% less at the shield station. It'd give you another reason to hope for different races and would offer a reason to have a diverse crew beyond Engi to repair, bugs to board, Zoltan for free power on shields/engine/weapons, etc.
TrashMan
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 9:02 am

Re: [Suggestion] Improving crew

Postby TrashMan » Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:48 am

Being able to ASSING specific job. As long as a job is assigned, the crewmember is basicly on auto-pilot

CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER - spends his time in the med bay, increasing the healing speed of anyone inside as long as he's manning it (default medbay healing speed reduced)
If a crew member is injured automaticly goes towards him (if the path is clear) and applies healing on the spot. Slower than the medbay and can heal only 1 person at a time.
Healing speed increases with medical skill.

SECURITY - automaticly engages enemy boarders.

ENGINEER - automatilcy goas to the nearest damaged system and repairs it.

Sending security officers on dangerous missions (like agaisnt spiders) increases chances of sucess.
Sending engineering officers on assist missions (putting out fire, repairing something) increases chances of sucess.

Officers with specific specialites can sabotage systems when they board. They do double damage to an enemy system. So a weapons officer does double damage to enemy weapon systems during boarding actions. Well, that or they make any system they destroy harder to repair.

Option to focus on a system incsted of the enemy during boarding (so if you have 2 crew in the enemy cockpit and the enemy has 1 guy, you can use 1 guy to keep him busy while the other takes out the piloting subsystem)


When you hire a crewmemebr on a station, chance of some having a skil lrank already. They are more costly tough (+10 $)

When you free a slave or someone joins you there is a random chance they will have some skill.
Random Number Generator 0-2
On 0 the crewman gets no skills
On 1 he gets points in 1 skill. Random roll 1-100 to determine how much.
On 2 he gets points in 2 skills. Random roll for each skill.
TrashMan
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 9:02 am

Re: [Suggestion] Improving crew

Postby TrashMan » Fri Sep 21, 2012 5:55 pm

Also, why are humans bland and uninteresting?

Why not give them a slight boost to EXP gain?
Roadie
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:20 pm

Re: [Suggestion] Improving crew

Postby Roadie » Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:34 pm

Leonidas wrote:I would use Dwarf Fortress as a model for character individualization, history, talents, and relationships. The modifiers should be subtle enough that players can ignore them and do fine in the game. But players who want to pay attention to them can get a slight edge, and more importantly can spin stories in their minds about what's happening in the game.


Code: Select all

Kirk is taken by a fey mood!

Kirk screams "I must have bamboo!"

Kirk screams "I must have gunpowder!"

Kirk screams "I must have diamonds!"

Kirk works furiously!

The ++primitive cannon++ menaces with spikes of bamboo.


...sorry, I had to.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, though.
Guswut
Posts: 34
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 2:19 pm

Re: [Suggestion] Improving crew

Postby Guswut » Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:51 pm

Roadie wrote:
Leonidas wrote:I would use Dwarf Fortress as a model for character individualization, history, talents, and relationships. The modifiers should be subtle enough that players can ignore them and do fine in the game. But players who want to pay attention to them can get a slight edge, and more importantly can spin stories in their minds about what's happening in the game.


Code: Select all

Kirk is taken by a fey mood!

Kirk screams "I must have bamboo!"

Kirk screams "I must have gunpowder!"

Kirk screams "I must have diamonds!"

Kirk works furiously!

The ++primitive cannon++ menaces with spikes of bamboo.


...sorry, I had to.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, though.


Now THAT sounds like !!FUN!! to me!
TaiidanHeavyCruiser
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:44 pm

Re: [Suggestion] Improving crew

Postby TaiidanHeavyCruiser » Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:58 pm

Yeah, maybe when you buy crew, they have built in exp, since it does display their EXP when you buy them.

Also, maybe make a couple more races, with built in EXP values, like a Velociraptor race with 1 bar EXP in fighting.