Crew for big ships?

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 12:52 am

I've been trawling some of the very old threads tonight - based on a query/accusation by Vajo that I needed/wanted to refute.

Anyway that got me thinking about some of the very, very old suggestions and I originally posted something here: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?p=94733#94733

But I thought perhaps it might be worth raising as a query of its own...

Given the "new" js-scripting would it be possible to implement the need to have, and pay the wages of, a crew for the big ships?

This wasn't possible I seem to recall with the older, now legacy, method for scripting.

Perhaps for added "realism" the injection method deployed by Snoopers could be used to generate messages from your crew?

Killer Wolf · Post by **Killer Wolf** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 7:58 am

buying a crew was a pretty cool feature of the Elite sequels. IIRC, you could buy a nice big ship but you couldn't take off until you'd hired the necessary crew numbers. i remember the little thumbnails of all the characters, i always hired the pretty girlies

that would be cool to implement, we could get a bunch of artists doing a load of simple characters etc, or submitting photos, if you wanted to star in the game in an additional way to the Personalities oxp : you could mebbes PSHop a few alien variants of yourself.

Chrisfs · Post by **Chrisfs** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 8:34 am

What benefit would you get in return for the cost of a crew?

A really big ship?
There is an OXP that allows you to have escort. Maybe they could man small fighters docked in your big ship and provide backup in fights.
Perhaps you can have them fire side or rear lasers using code similar to the plasma turrets on the Caduceus.

Wolfwood · Post by **Wolfwood** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 9:03 am

How about making all turrets require crew members instead of them being automatic systems?

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 11:40 am

Wolfwood wrote:
How about making all turrets require crew members instead of them being automatic systems?

Might be great for fun, especially if those crew members could gain experience by shooting down ships and thus become better

For realism...the slow speed and inaccuracy of human like creatures compared to that of computers probably would speak against it

Screet

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 1:07 pm

Screet wrote:
Wolfwood wrote:
How about making all turrets require crew members instead of them being automatic systems?
Might be great for fun, especially if those crew members could gain experience by shooting down ships and thus become better

For realism...the slow speed and inaccuracy of human like creatures compared to that of computers probably would speak against it

Screet

But you'd hire insectiods or rodents (or even birds - a pigeon sees 10x faster than the human - i.e. for a film in a cinema to look like a continuous shot it would have to be played at 250fps) to be your gun crew.

And I'm not saying there should be any advantage to having a crew - just a simple realistic necessity of owning such a large vessel - i.e. I'm not saying your game should stall (unless it was an oxp induced mission thing) because you didn't have enough crew - you should always have, or be able to hire enough crew - but they should be there...

And as an extension to Personalities - excellent idea! I Alienfied my (then 5yr old) daughter in one of my first YAH ads (Alien Abduction)

CptnEcho · Post by **CptnEcho** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 1:29 pm

There are pros & cons to crews.

Crews require berthing spaces, food & beverages, sanitation facilities, clothing & equipment and wages, among other things. Crews contribute towards the completion of the ships mission(s). Crews (and passengers) also provide writers with characters and storytelling options.

In Elite/Oolite, the ship & the player are considered the same thing. Perhaps crews are optional, even on big ships, because of advances in automation and robotics.

As with many other nice things available in Oolite, hiring crews could be voluntary and optional.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 1:41 pm

CptnEcho wrote:
There are pros & cons to crews.

Crews require berthing spaces, food & beverages, sanitation facilities, clothing & equipment and wages, among other things. Crews contribute towards the completion of the ships mission(s). Crews (and passengers) also provide writers with characters and storytelling options.

In Elite/Oolite, the ship & the player are considered the same thing. Perhaps crews are optional, even on big ships, because of advances in automation and robotics.

As with many other nice things available in Oolite, hiring crews could be voluntary and optional.

According to this the Anaconda has a crew compliment of between 40 and 72 - I presume crew quarters are already an integral part of the ship design - but I do think they should be paid for - and fed and watered - the joy of owning a ship that can move 750TC of stuff in one go...

Killer Wolf · Post by **Killer Wolf** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 2:50 pm

yeah. if you want the benefits of a megabig ship you should take the hit of having to hire x amount of staff and paying them y per week/month. teh whole concept (to me) doesn't need to be made any more complex than this :-
- if a ship is rated as needed x crew members you can't launch until you've hired them.
- crew can be hired from the stations, they could have varying prices, not sure how that would influence the game tho? Slow the ship's speed/manoeuverability to suggest more inexperience etc??
- crew are hired on a per-trip basis (for easier scripting)? ie, each time you launch the total wages are deducted from your money. on docking you can fire/rehire as you see fit.
- maybe there could be personnel droids as a buyable extra? buy once, no ongoing wages. offset by fairly large price and potential to be damaged in combat like other equipment. (Should people have a chace to be killed??)

CptnEcho · Post by **CptnEcho** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 2:56 pm

DaddyHoggy wrote:
According to this the Anaconda has a crew compliment of between 40 and 72 - I presume crew quarters are already an integral part of the ship design - but I do think they should be paid for - and fed and watered - the joy of owning a ship that can move 750TC of stuff in one go...

I figure that at least some of the documentation was written when the player could not purchase a new ship. They were in the Cobra Mk-III forever. Therefore crews, and the logistics associated with them, wasn't a concern for the player or the game programmers. The documentation mentioned things so people could use their imaginations to add depth to the game.

CptnEcho · Post by **CptnEcho** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 3:11 pm

Killer Wolf wrote:
yeah. if you want the benefits of a megabig ship you should take the hit of having to hire x amount of staff and paying them y per week/month. teh whole concept (to me) doesn't need to be made any more complex than this :-
- if a ship is rated as needed x crew members you can't launch until you've hired them.
- crew can be hired from the stations, they could have varying prices, not sure how that would influence the game tho? Slow the ship's speed/manoeuverability to suggest more inexperience etc??
- crew are hired on a per-trip basis (for easier scripting)? ie, each time you launch the total wages are deducted from your money. on docking you can fire/rehire as you see fit.
- maybe there could be personnel droids as a buyable extra? buy once, no ongoing wages. offset by fairly large price and potential to be damaged in combat like other equipment. (Should people have a chace to be killed??)

Do crews earn pay per trip or per unit of time spent in service to the ship?
Short hauls along milk-run routes would be different from long-haul cargo contracts, exploration missions or military service?

The 'droids could be a variation of a crewmember character (i.e. simply treated as another species with appropriate costs and logistics).

Are 'droids subject to Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

The chance of damage/destruction/death to a particular ship component, cargo container and members of the crew would have to be modeled properly.
There are several combat flight simulation games where a hit to the pilot is possible.
Even though the rest of the airplane remains in flyable condition, the pilot is dead and the plane eventually crashes with the pilot slumped at the controls.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 3:14 pm

Killer Wolf wrote:
buying a crew was a pretty cool feature of the Elite sequels. IIRC, you could buy a nice big ship but you couldn't take off until you'd hired the necessary crew numbers. i remember the little thumbnails of all the characters, i always hired the pretty girlies :-D

Is it me, or does this sound like the basis of a rather sordid SF flick with almost guaranteed financial success?

Seriously, though… crew support in Oolite itself is not going to happen. On the other hand, if someone drew up a plan for a way to do it in JS, we might be able to help by filling in blanks in the scripting interface. However, I think the main problem will be user interface – you’d be stuck using mission screens. There is a plan to improve this, but it’s very explicitly a post-MNSR thing.

So yeah, crewed ships through JS are currently a pipe dream for the even-more-mythical-stable-release-after-next (EMMSTRAN for short).

pagroove · Post by **pagroove** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 4:40 pm

This was indeed an old suggestion but this feature one of my greatest wishes to have in Oolite. So bring on the Crew.oxp

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 5:43 pm

CptnEcho wrote:
DaddyHoggy wrote:
According to this the Anaconda has a crew compliment of between 40 and 72 - I presume crew quarters are already an integral part of the ship design - but I do think they should be paid for - and fed and watered - the joy of owning a ship that can move 750TC of stuff in one go...
I figure that at least some of the documentation was written when the player could not purchase a new ship. They were in the Cobra Mk-III forever. Therefore crews, and the logistics associated with them, wasn't a concern for the player or the game programmers. The documentation mentioned things so people could use their imaginations to add depth to the game.

And now (or not according Ahruman) we have the ability to do all the things in Oolite we only imagined or read about in the Traders Manual and Dark Wheel (Tionisla Orbital Graveyard, Lave.oxp, buying ships other than the Cobby3, Planetfall, Gen. Ships, to name but a few of those gap fillers).

While I would love a complex crew manifesto I would be happy to suspend a little disbelief and keep it very simple.

- when you buy a new ship that requires a crew, a mission screen pops up - it's from the Guild of Crew/Hauliers And Other Spacefarers (GoCHAOS)
- they've have preselected a number of crews suitable to crew your ship, dealing with the wages (fixed amount per month and/or percentage of each trade run - you get to choose), this bypasses inter-species tensions and bathroom/dietary requirements.
- You may renegotiate your terms with the GoCHAOS as often as you want, but remember, they charge a finders fee each time, which goes up if you appear to be a bad ships captain and you can't (legally) get a crew any other way...

Killer Wolf · Post by **Killer Wolf** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 8:38 am

"Is it me, or does this sound like the basis of a rather sordid SF flick with almost guaranteed financial success? "
we've got a Hoopy Casino, would there be market for a "Wolfie's Brothel and Crew-hire" ship d'you think?

@DH:
"GoCHAOS"

that's much of what i was thinking about : add a bit colour to the game but don't make it too complex. Like i said, i think the crew simply gets a per-trip fee, launch to dock. if you're on a long haul that involves jump-skim-jump-skim etc, i dunno : get an extra x-credits per jump after the first one?
droids is probably the easiest way to implement this, as they could be bought like missiles then the code could do a simple "ship xxx needs z robots, how many are fitted?" and if there's not enough you can't launch until you have the required amount. this would negate the ability to hire pretty girlies tho, so i'm strongly against it