[SUGGESTION] Veteran Crew Roster and Captains

[Kestral B]

Preface, I love and am satisfied with this game just the way it is and I think the devs deserve a break. I'm very grateful to them for putting out a patch already so soon after release. These suggestions are just things I think would be awesome; free ideas with no strings attached.

So here are my suggestions:

1.) The veteran crew roster.
This is a list of survivors from previous games. This would be unlocked the first time you beat the game. When you win a game, the whole surviving crew goes here. When setting up a new ship in the hanger, you can swap out some of the ship's default crew for crew from the veterans roster. This means you could give yourself a leg-up by swapping in veterans of your favorite races who already have good skills, but in doing so you'd also be risking their lives a second time.
The most basic form of the veteran crew roster would be super simple to implement as well - just have a place in the profile to keep a list of crew member stats, and add the GUI needed to allow swapping them in.
If you wanted to get fancy, you could add more ways of sending crew members to the veteran's roster without beating the game - an escape pod that lets a single, beloved crew member escape a doomed ship, for instance, or the option to "chicken out" if you should limp into sector 8, but know full well that your ship is in no shape to face the boss.
Why is this Awesome?
It is an incredibly simple way to add a lot of depth and replayability - just by allowing crew and their stories and statistics to transcend a single play-through. It allows that attachment to grow between the player and the

2.) Captains.
The only way to get a captain should be to win the game - when that happens you should get to pick one crew member to be promoted to captain. Captains would have a little something extra compared to normal crew. They might have some other small personal advantages - a bit more HP than usual for their race, or an ability to get just a bit better at normal crew tasks - but the main advantage of a captain should be a unique special ability determined by their race.
Of course you can only take one captain on your ship when you start a new mission.
Why is this Awesome?
Every ship needs a captain! And truly iconic Starship's all have an equally iconic man or woman in command. Not only does this provide more progression for your veteran crew, but it gives the game more variety and replayability because of all the cool combinations of ship and captain that there are to try.

Here are some ideas of special abilities for captains of different races - of course they could be anything; this is just what I was able to come up with:
Human Captain - Charisma: +50% exp gain for all crew in all areas of experience.
Zoltan Captain - Contributes 2 power instead of one to systems in his room. If he is piloting the ship, this power is added directly to the reactor.
Rockman Captain - 35% Chance to prevent system damage to the room in which he is stationed(hull damage still gets through).
Mantis Captain - You can teleport through enemy Zoltan shields. Your teleporters can retrieve your crew from an enemy ship even if it is cloaked.
Android Race Captain - Can remotely repair any ship system (at half speed) from the bridge. (this could be an active ability button, like the crystal crew power, that is only active when in the pilot room).
Slug Captain - Your ship's sensors are immune to nebula interference. Slowly regenerates his own health no matter what he's doing?
Crystal Captain - Wasn't sure on this one. Maybe he always knows the way to the secret sector.

Thanks for reading!

[gumball360]

I would like having a difference between Captains and normal crew members. If would make them more valuable to protect in combat.

[embair]

Big thumbs up for both the suggestions! In general giving the crew members a more unique feel (more skins, random perks, short randomly generated bio's, anything) would add a lot to the game for me.

The Mantis Captain seems a bit OP though

[brianon]

Love both your ideas. On a similar line to this I'd love more stats on previous crew members. Would love to know HOW a crew member died and when. Would be great to see the favourite way for my crew to die

[StarWarsOZ]

Great idea, this would be easy to add to the game, and it may teach other poeple to respect their crew a bit more.

So many times i have forgottern that my boarders are on a ship, and blown it up with them still on. If u could keep them and use them again, I would take better care if them.

And Captains would be fantastic, because every ship has a captain, and if your captain dies, then u should lose, so u do learn how to take care of your crew.

[Wabznasm]

It's an interesting idea, but I feel like it runs counter to the design of the game.

Making progress in FTL is limited to achievements, high scores and a ship/layout unlocks. Whilst achievements and unlocks are a merely a way of measuring progress, new Ships open up new gameplay possibilities. For the most part, each ship is equally viable: some ships are better positioned to take advantage of certain strategies; some ships will fare better in certain sectors; having certain crew members gives more options in some encounters etc.

The above means that - all things being equal - the only factor that matters in how successful a given run will be is player skill and knowledge. That skill and knowledge can help the player to mitigate the bad luck during a run, and to make the most of good luck. Veteran crew would give a huge advantage to those who have access to them, and that would change this dynamic.

In theory, this would be fine as long as that advantage is balanced by a handicap of some kind. In that sense, the risk/reward element of your idea is good (i.e. that to get the advantage you must risk the lives of your veteran crew). But it would always be optimal to use veterans if they are available, so it wouldn't add any real depth or new gameplay possibilities.

Furthermore, if you lose them, you need to grind in order to replace them so that your next run has a chance of beating your high score. It would end up just being a time-sink; an arbitrary hurdle you need to jump to play optimally. Arguably this wouldn't be so bad if it was only player skill that affected whether or not crew survived, but that's not always the case - for example, there are a significant number of events that have options that give a chance for either a large reward or a loss of a crew member. If you're carrying veterans, you wouldn't risk them and your options overall would therefore be limited. I don't think there are currently any bits of equipment, augments or crew in the game which actually reduce player options.

Above all, a large part of the appeal of FTL for me is starting from scratch at the beginning of each run. The fact that any mistake that I make during a run will only affect the duration of that run is liberating; it allows me to experiment, because I know that if my ideas fail I can do better next time. Having to babysit veterans would hamper my enjoyment.

On the other hand, there's real value in the narrative potential of your idea. This could be achieved otherwise than at the expense of the design of the game by keeping a record of each named crew member's stats that would persist across runs - number of kills/deaths; number of repairs; number of skill masteries; times jumped etc.

[Kestral B]

Ideas to help mitigate downsides:
1.) "The only way to get a highscore will be to use veterans." Possible Solution: Put scores from "Newgame+" runs using veteran crew/a captain in a different category. Really, only the captain abilities would make a big difference in power though...normal veteran crew would just save you the trouble of finding a weak enemy you can grind experience on in the early sectors.

2.) "Babysitting veterans sounds stressful." Possible Solution: Reducing the stress of babysitting veterans could be considered good or bad, actually - some people are in it for the stress or "narrative tension". But assuming you wanted to reduce it, that could be accomplished by giving every Newgame+ ship a single escape pod for free - that way you're free to use a single custom crew member in each mission without (too much) fear because you'll know they have at least a sporting chance to escape if things go bad, and you can avoid having to "grind out" more victories to replace them. (note: having a captain jump ship by grabbing the only escape pod and and leave his crew to die just feels wrong though. Its un-captain-like. Doing so should come with at least a risk of being demoted back to normal crew member.)

3.) "What about that sense of starting each mission with a clean slate?" Yeah...I know what you mean. It really is a nice feeling. But so is the feeling of being on a mission that's part of something bigger. And I'm not sure we can have both at once. Still...we CAN give people the option of which feeling they want to feel each time they play.
I think making a clear distinction between regular new games and a "Newgame+" option and categorizing high-scores accordingly would let people make that choice for themselves and still enjoy both ways.

[Baby Fark McGee-zax]

This idea is just awesome.

[Aerowind]

I like the captain idea, but ideally I'd like to see some more risk/reward for it. Basically make them better at doing "heroic" things (that has a higher chance of getting them killed), but make the crew suffer a morale hit if he dies.

[Sovereighn2280]

Human Captain - Charisma: +50% exp gain for all crew in all areas of experience.

+50% is a bit too overpowered, maybe +15%-25%.

Zoltan Captain - Contributes 2 power instead of one to systems in his room. If he is piloting the ship, this power is added directly to the reactor.

I actually quite like this one.

Rockman Captain - 35% Chance to prevent system damage to the room in which he is stationed(hull damage still gets through).

Meh? It fits but it just seems a bit odd to add.

Mantis Captain - You can teleport through enemy Zoltan shields. Your teleporters can retrieve your crew from an enemy ship even if it is cloaked.

Android Race Captain - Can remotely repair any ship system (at half speed) from the bridge. (this could be an active ability button, like the crystal crew power, that is only active when in the pilot room).

Heh, it's Engi . I think this one is quite nice, not too overpowered, but not to useless.

Slug Captain - Your ship's sensors are immune to nebula interference. Slowly regenerates his own health no matter what he's doing?

This would be EXTREMELY useful

Crystal Captain - Wasn't sure on this one. Maybe he always knows the way to the secret sector.

Might be useful, but if you already unlocked the Crystalline Cruiser, it's pretty redundant. Maybe freezing the enemy ship's guns or rooms, or blocking up air leaks without actually repairing them so it wears off after a time.

Having a captain can open up new Dialect options too. And may some captain AND race specific choices, this way you need to a an exact race of captain to use the dialect!