Can you crew it? Star Citizen IAE 2953

[@Cornerboy73]

I'm very confident that AI crew and blades will be the de facto/conventional approach to large ships. I say this because a) CI have yet to demonstrate how standing in front of an engineering terminal will be fun. Oh some people will be into pushing buttons and stuff for a bit, but the majority of players are going to want to see the action via turrets or flying themselves. B) Too many people have spent too much money on big ships to be ignored. Say whatever you want about how clear CI was about needing lots of people for them... CI has said a lot of things over the years. One of them was that big ships, especially cap ships would be rare. Well, that went out the door once they saw how many people bought Idris ships... Those thousands of people will be adamant that they get to play with their thousand + dollar toys. Lastly, getting people together in SC is like herding cats. If people only have an hour or 2 to play, they want to get in on the action early; not spend 2/3 of their time getting people together and assigning roles. Just my thoughts, thanks for the video

[@beardedbarnstormer9577]

sounds like an org issue, one org i play with, 3 hours to do anything, the other org were knee deep in fun within 15 min

[@Mor4me]

My thoughts exactly 👍👍

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Relying on blades and AI is a recipe for destruction. If you don't have enough friends, don't buy a big ship.

[@beardedbarnstormer9577]

@@JohnFromAccounting at the end of the day. This. My squadron runs full distortions on the F8C. The blades are going to be a huge liability

[@LoudGuns]

I unfortunately feel that if large amounts of AI becomes the meta then the game will turn into very large numbers of cap ships vs cap ships (and then it’ll just be a case of org with biggest numbers wins). I’d also say that I know a lot of people who want to be useful on a ship but don’t care about shooting stuff - for them engineering is really exciting. Finally - and I don’t mean this to be mean in any way - but re CIG having to bend to the demands of people who’ve spent a lot of money….why? They’ve got the money. After that someone who spent $10K is statistically no different to someone who spent $45 unless you desperately need the big spender to keep spending. In fact I believe kinda the opposite - CIG are more likely to do things that are $45 spender friendly even if it’s at the expense of the $10K spender since at a certain point it’s about keeping player population up (people don’t like being seals to be clubbed).

[@latch9781]

A very important point; how many people dream of being a captain of their own spaceship, and how many dream of crewing someone else's?

[@LoudGuns]

A point I wrote out but cut from the video because I felt it risked getting overly preachy was about how if you're using your ship as part of an Org (which you'll need with a lot of ships) you might end up as not the captain onboard your own ship. I think it's a mega red flag if any Org Leader or Officer's are over interested in what your cash pledges look like, and speaking for myself promoting people in our org is 100% about how they handle leading other people and giving everyone a good time and 0% about what ships they have. And if anyone were to ever say to me "we can use my Kraken but I've got to be the Captain of it because it's my ship" I would say "cool....we won't use your Kraken". :D

[@qboid4763]

@@LoudGuns im fine with someone else running my ship, its what Captains Quarters are for.

[@Archmage9885]

I think both sound fun. Just depends on what I feel like doing at the time.

[@ducktape4502]

I like the idea of being apart of a fleet. Being a fighter pilot with my ship in the bay of some super carrier on our way to war. Sounds dope

[@Mor4me]

@@ducktape4502it dose indeed.

[@LordCritish]

With all these human players needed to be commanded over VOIP on large ships involving whole friggin command chains, this whole gameplay around them quickly turns into a full-time job. May be suitable for unemployed or retired players. Good luck CiG and large orgs in maintaining this!

[@Bluefork]

An amazing view on what you see in the future of big ships, I feel its wonderful and I hope it comes true and the only down side is getting all your crew on time online and the sitting about waiting for that one person (you know who you are)

[@andrewcoulthard-clark]

Are you familiar with Star Trek: Bridge Crew? The idea of a Captain coordinating a Helmsman, Tactical, Operations, and Engineering. Works surprisingly well with AI, assuming the player is clever enough to juggle that many roles on his own. Check out a tutorial, particularly with something as complicated as the Enterprise D, as I'd love to know if you think this principle would apply here...

[@muhschaf]

Wonderful Video. period. i actual like the common sense you put in here. Like always.

[@KrazzyFrank-337]

I have been planning my fleets to that reason there, Crew!

[@redshirt49]

I really look forward to the Kraken. I get the feeling it is less of a combat carrier though and more of a mobile space station type deal. I think it would be incredibly useful in systems that don't have refueling opportunities for small ships. In that capacity, it is probably also feasible to use it with smaller orgs or even just your personal group of friends if all you are using it for is to deploy your fighters and raiders since all you really need is a single dude to fly it where it needs to go.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

To efficiently crew a ship, everyone will have several roles.

[@LoudGuns]

In all likelihood this ^ I used some fairly extreme examples to show how many roles there could be but realistically it’d make sense at some point to scale down crew and bring out 2 ships. I do think one of the things people underestimate is that at a certain point you are going to need 1 or 2 people doing nothing but organising the others. This to me is particularly prevalent amongst those who haven’t actually done any serious multiplayer stuff in game.

[@russich6957]

Very interesting video. I agree with you that you don't have to hurry up with buying big ships. unfortunately, many have already bought ships for a large crew, but the crew itself has not yet assembled. hi from Russia

[@Rathian1]

Great video and an honest conversation that a lot of people should have. I imagine a lot of people are going to get multi ships of the sane type so they can reload fast for combat like in EVE online.

[@cyborgcoyote3251]

The downside of multi-crew stuff is actually enjoying the role. The Scorpius is a wonderful example of that. The QED version, the copilot does exactly one thing. Not much incentive to climb into that seat to just press one button when needed, and nothing else.

[@Light-hawk]

That 10 crew figure CIG gives for the Kraken mostly makes sense to me if they figured 9 players for the turrets and 1 pilot/captain. Otherwise I agree that 10 is rather low. Maybe as a skeleton crew figure with the Kraken operating in very high security areas where there shouldn't be much need for gunners, or if attacked, the small crew would still be able to crew the guns long enough for security to arrive.

[@kuzerov2123]

one thing i see is you want every specific position mend and i think that will kill your crew from bordem, you will need to play it like sea of thieves and decide when you have all the fire power/ship control or servivabilty like with the power management but its crew management, a way that i believe they can inforce this is but making the ship oxygen system capable to supply 100% only for the intended crew the more people the fester the oxygen will deplete.

[@maxnoah743]

So I've bugged crew onto a 600i a couple times. Basically did the 890J mission above microtech and wanted to see if I could salvage it. Had my 600i and he took my vulture while I did the mission. After mission is completed they'll will randomly pop into the 600i (10 mins or so) and walk around. 4-7 crew will walk around the ship and sit on the beds. One sometimes lays in the captain's bed. So they have pathing down for the most part. No use of elevators, turrets, or the upper floor not including the kitchen bar area. Haven't tried it since the pyro test so might be patched. They do not have plans for an npc to be able to pilot any of our ships we own. They talked about a limit of npcs per person to control. I think it was 6 npcs per person so you can't control a frigate by any means, but a carrack and below are decent options. They have made the role amounts smaller realizing no one is going to want to be the 5th engineer on a javelin.

[@yrovie]

Nice video. Additionally, first, CiG needs crew logouts in place. Until this is implemented, real crew play remains limited, especially now that Pyro in on the horizon.

[@Alopen-xb1rb]

Awesome take. I have come to a similar position and starting to scrap parts of the fleet for smaller ships. If the bigger ships need that much crew, someone else will have it. AI and blades will be more of a thing with CIG when ship sales fall off because twenty people don’t need to buy the same ship that it takes all of them to crew one.

[@LoudGuns]

My view is that after a point, when more people arrive for whom $45 is their max spend, big ship sales won’t matter so much. I’d imagine AI will fill some of the blanks - I can see maybe 30-50% of jobs depending on the ship (a Hammerhead for example could probably be highly effective with 6 NPC’s and 2-3 human players), but if it gets pushed too far then it becomes a game of who brings the most Javelins! 😂

[@HalfSac]

so glad you made this... but im still buying a galaxy and running it solo

[@Wilolino]

100% agree that you'd want real people for engineering/mining and such, I think the main use of AI will be to fill turrets and pretty much everything else will be drastically worse if you use AI over real people.

[@Shawnedia]

I feel people underestimate the power of having non-combat operations on a ship. There are plenty of people who like /certain/ aspects of the game and not others, and it shouldn't be a surprise combat doesn't have to be on someone's list. People also over estimate how exciting it is to sit in a turret. Especially since in order to actually be effective on a turret you need great comms with your pilot to not screw you over, it's not easy and it's easily frustrating since the majority of your agency isn't in your hands. But if someone wants to mostly chill or do something else while logged in and serving on a friend's ship, why not just chill in engineering waiting for the call to put out fires? The real issue will be marketing, CIG will need to ensure that the non-combat roles aren't advertised in a combat situation. The Hull C trailer is actually a bit worrisome since it features for a brief moment the ship flying through a combat zone. That added nothing to the experience or sell that this is an impressive hauling ship, it just added action were it wasn't needed. It's why the mining updates everyone was posting 'why make mining easier to gank' when in reality it was just adding depth and options to the existing system. They just threw in combat as an extreme way to highlight some of the more edge case risk/rewards of using gadgets. Same with persistence being 'the pirate update'. I'm sure plenty of people, especially those that bought multiple caps thinking they can have an NPC run fleet of their own, aren't even concerned with having players as options. NPCs may not be as good as players, but they're consistent and won't back talk. But to those that actually want to just chill out on a ship and do the maintenance, get involved in medical gameplay, or just be an ATC, we will need to showcase and highlight these professions as they are without the veil of combat. Whenever scanning or exploration trailers get dropped, I really don't want to see it being exclusively a Hornet scanning before a fight and a Carrack getting attacked by pirates.

[@Hokie2k11]

Supposedly we'll be able to hire a crew for the entire thing, we'll see. I personally wouldn't mine being able to hire even a pilot for my Privateer. Let me take over any position when I want... but I'm the captain. I tell you where to go, you do it.

[@Recon_19D3x]

I glad you've made this video. I don't make videos but I've been warning against this for a couple of years now, especially after the popularity of the Carrack exploded. . I usually get blown off or told I'm wrong. I don't think I am. At some point, sooner than we think, if you don't have a regular group that wants to "ride" in your ship and you have unmanned turrets you won't survive a fight

[@Brunnen_Gee]

I'm a solo player, well, have been for the past few years, but I do own some larger ships, the Endeavor and Odyssey (plan on adding a Starfarer). But I went into them knowing full well that they were ships I'd likely not fly for a very long time after full game release, not until I was able to put together crews for them. Until that time, I'm more than happy to use smaller, one or two player ships.

[@vital-wyn1310]

Honest review regarding these big ships. It will be a lot more fun to bring a kraken to life than 5 of them because they could be npc crewed. Nobody is considering the time, effort, and organization it will take to run a ship this size. Npc crew should be viewed purely to fill gaps and more simplistic roles. Instead of can you it will be should you.

[@Hawkeye6941]

I don't know, CIG said they were looking at reducing crew size on a lot of big ships, my belief is for every 1 real person they be fine with like 4 npc. The carrack alone would be like a raid in wow for just a explorer ship. They will have to strike a balance between accessibility and actual skill.

[@BigSneed404]

I have always contended that AI will be a stopgap measure, not something to overly rely on. If you need to fill in a few vacant slots because some of your friends were doing IRL stuff, that's fine. If you want to run two large ships with a smaller player crew, thats fine. If you expect to be top dog of nullsec space in your Javelin crewed entirely by NPCs, you're going to get clowned on by organizations with the social skills to field entirely human crewed fleets.

[@LoudGuns]

I also think NPC’s should also be used where the gameplay might be less fun - the example I like to use the most is the Perseus. Piloting: fun. Gunning on those two massive turrets: fun. Engineering: fun for some people……point defence turrets on the off chance a torpedo or fighter sneaks up in your blind spot: a bit meh (give those 2 slots to AI).

[@Iukrative]

imo you've lost your mind lol, you don't need 4 people to make a cup of tea. People will be expected to have multiple job roles and multitask because that's fun and stops people being bored when their one job isn't used 95% of the time like a ships doctor. There will also be life support limits to housing so many people on a ship. Going back to the tea analogy you don't need one person to boil the kettle, another to get a cup, another to get a tea bag and final person to pour the water in. I do agree that trying to solo big ships isn't going to work and I'm also very dubious of what the ai crew will be able to do too apart from act as turret gunners, because that role is essentially already in the game

[@Loco_Da_Ryder]

It's a 100% chance that AI will crew many more ships than groups of ppl. True enough the AI may not be as deadly or as professional as a crew of ppl that all know their jobs and what to do. But the AI will be Hella better than a crew of ppl fukin around. I'm pretty sure they will make sumthin where the crew positions can be assigned as to where if u have a buddy or two that want to get in you can give them the position they want for the day. After your vid i really feel like it'll be the squad42 Ai with u having more control over all as to what the ship does. Must ship will need more crew than the min. Keep up the good vids tho brother!

[@LoudGuns]

My biggest problem with the AI to the rescue argument is that big orgs will just crew massive amounts of cap ships with AI. 50 Javelins will splat 1 Javelin in an instant. Then the same people who thought they wanted AI will hate that they can never get more than an hour into a play session without getting Zerg’d.

[@anepicotter4595]

This is a point I make when people say you should get something like an orion instead of a handful of smaller ships. Sure the Orion is probably gonna be a money printer but it alone will probably take a solid dozen crew and you’ll want it running as much as possible so you might want a support ship just with a double crew who can run it when your crew isn’t. Then you’ll definitely want a decent combat escort along with support craft like fuelers and freighters. Finally, you’d want to consider actual operating expenses. Im sure the parts, consumable tools, and fuel would be through the roof that you’d need to be prepared to pay before you can even start using it. So you’d want to be in an org with hundreds of members and that org would need to actually be organized enough to deploy and operate an effective mining fleet and I honestly think the number of orgs that can pull that off will limit the number of orions you see more than the cost of the ship.

[@PrvtSNAFU-ne3ls]

Since the introduction of multicrew ships, I have trouble to believe they figure out a way that they become an important part of SC, should it be released in a state, that it would have a meaning and a gameplay loop. Assuming you need 21 player to crew a Polaris, imagine the hassle to get the number of players online, connected on the same server, having them in a stable condition, assuming one polaris would be more combat efficient than 21 Hornets (or whatever single seat combat ship)? I just lack the imagination to believe this is achievable by CIG, assuming their delevloment pace of the last 10 years. How will they balance all this, without starting the overhoul of all ships all over again every year?

[@zeroxception]

my org can easily crew the largest ships if needed. As long as everyone gets a cut of the money its all cool

[@Gofr5]

I'm a solo player for the most part, but damn if I ain't lusting after a MISC Odyssey. However it being a massive ship has given me pause and my concerns of actually being able to use it on my own (even with NPCs/AI blades) is what has held me back on going for it. What a first world problem to have.

[@GenericName007]

In things like piloting sure but in some of that stuff you mentioned it's more just a matter of how perfect they want to make the AI. It is entirely possible to have AI that is flawless at certain tasks, you can have an AI that will never miss as a turret gunner if you wanted to do that. You mentioned the engineering, pathing aside, once the crewmate was at the problem location that's another thing where they could just code their execution of the task to be perfect if they wanted, making them far better than any human ever would be. Things where AI wouldn't excel would just be stuff with randomness. The way fire propagates has a random element so they probably wouldn't be the best at putting out fires with an extinguisher, piloting as mentioned or any task with pathing really as that just boils down to how good their pathing logic is. But defined tasks like repairing things, that's mostly fixed data and they can code an NPC to be as skilled as they want at that.

[@TrampyPulsar]

Crew should always be suboptimal to skilled players, slower to respond, slower to track, ect.

[@twelvewingproductions7508]

As usual I love your videos... another fantastic topic. One thing I think you missed in this video that is HUGELY problematic is the question of ship ownership. Don't feel bad, I think it is a can that CIG has kicked down the road for so long that most people have just forgotten about and aren't holding their feet to the fire over. They are going to need to separate what is allowed to happen to a ship in PES in accordance with the class of the ship. Certain levels of expedited removal may need to remain for smaller ships but one thing is certain... capital ships and some other sub capital ships are a different animal all together. Large freighters, exploration ships like the Carrack, the 890... some others... are going to have to be separated from their owners. By that I mean that the ship MUST remain in game and ship compliment assignments MUST remain active per ship registration no matter the disposition of the owners account. While I have just mentioned the smaller of the ships this applies to, once you start talking about ships like the Kraken, the rational becomes unavoidable. There is zero chance of crewing a Kraken if this can't be done absent the presence of the owner of the ship. ZERO. Real life logistics alone preclude this much less when we start talking about game stability. And that brings up part two here. The ship itself MUST act as its own entity. Ships past a certain size that is. By that I mean that if the game crashes without the owner present, the ship itself must be able to reinitialize and re-enter the game if so much as a single crew member is present online. So CIG has its work to do. And this is a decision that the marketing department needs to be removed from. There is only so much longer they can kick this can down the road and we might as well snatch it from the road now and force CIG to put it in the bin.

[@Wolfgang1224]

This all sounds great, except it seems nobody takes into account the fact that players aren't really stationed on a ship. You could spend a lot of time getting 14 people to fully man your ship, then on your way out to adventure, one or two people suddenly have to log off for one reason or another. I play with people in multiple countries so availability times vary drastically & I think only once or twice did we ever get a dozen people on at the same time. If this was real life & we could ship out on a capital ship for a few days, that would be awesome. However, I think time will make full human crews very difficult to achieve.

[@ThatBigRedBear]

You scared me at the beginning. I thought they changed their minds about AI crew and I somehow missed it

[@Luredreier]

14:19 A coms officer?

[@Darktiger01]

I think people will have to do multiple roles for different scenarios i am personally not sure why you wanna differ betweeen co-pilot and scanner unless your doing a task where you see a high chance of the pilot dying as i would think a lot scanning could be done by one of the gunners/marines or engineers which will switch to the other role if deemed more needed as a lot of scenarios i doubt it will help being soley dedicated on scanning as i see it more as a passive role for most operation either identifying targets beyond vision or behind cover But when the fight begins unless for certain situations like pirates scanning cargo for valuables i don't see it offering much value

[@koopakinkreet]

Im glad you're touching on this Ever since I started following this game all those years ago, I can't help but notice everyones buying ships that need huge crew. If everyone wants to captain a Polaris, how do you plan on having crew? Also good luck managing 20 people online in real time while you're ships actively on fire 🤷

[@LoudGuns]

Thanks mate - I think with CitCon kicking off the hype and IAE following it up there’s always that tendency to go “ooooo I need a Polaris / Kraken / Idris” but I just think people need to stop and ask “do I know the 20-30 people I’m gonna crew that with”.

[@imushavem4061]

I don't know many players that would like to be the dedicated "away team". I would hate to be in space combat and have to watch from a window. I guess they could be additional repair crew.

[@LoudGuns]

Realistically I reckon you’d be doubled up - away team are turret gunners or extra mechanics, then when they’re on a mission you scale back to a skeleton crew. I just wanted to highlight all the roles I could think of to give a more realistic max crew than the matrix of lies.

[@wsippel]

One important aspect that was really first mentioned at Citizencon this year is that players will be able to produce everything in the game, and will be able to research blueprints to produce better versions of everything. As a long-time Eve player, a lot of things suddenly clicked for me listening to Todd. Sure, you can buy stuff, and ships, for real money - but they're all "T1", to use Eve parlance. Players will be able to produce "T2" versions that will be better in every way, maybe significantly so. That may be frustrating for a few whales, but I welcome it and think it's ultimately necessary, given there will be millions of ships essentially on cooldown. They have to be trash, otherwise the in-game economy won't ever work. I expect that player-built T2 ships can't be insured, either. They will have a much higher value in-game, will be an actually limited resource (because actual players have to collect the materials and build them, and maintain and defend the resource spots and shipyards), and any pilot worth his salt will want to fly a T2 variant, especially outside of high security space. So I think the entire large ship situation, multicrew and all, will correct itself organically.

[@5000562]

I doubt they'll make ships up-gradable directly. I'm pretty sure the main thing that it was aimed at was weapons/components, not the entirety of a ship, but we'll have to wait and see as always.

[@peterpantoffel727]

This was great! Can you do this for more medium sized ships too? I think most people will try and manage to solo an MSR or Connie. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

[@jay70335]

That's the real question, cuz even the spirit which only has the one extra co pilot seat has a size and layout that would suggest you'd want a third crew mate even though there are only 2 beds.. The real balance for this game is going to be struck in the medium ships. Solo ships have to work in a way that doesn't make you cry that it has no capacity for an engineer and these medium ships have to manage to operate solo but see benefits from real crewmates. It seems we're fighting how relevant a.i crew is going to be but the reality is we might see them more than we'd like to

[@shawnc5188]

Been doing solo and group bounties for the cargo loot, but while we don’t crew ships together - we do loot together, as stacking all the different boxes is like 3D Tetris! Then there’s the PVP over the salvageyards.. SC is multi-player, multi-crew and multi-genre - only current game where a dozen players can fight PVP/PVE in vehicles or FPS.. with no loading screens. Hmm.. AI ship crew.. sorta like Privateer? You could hire AI crew that you level up - so I can see a full AI crew manning my Polaris (as long their salary is paid in AUEC yes), with me as the Capitan. 😋

[@kenkokommandant5992]

The line that separates this game from beeing Pay to Win is AI crew. If a guy can spend 2000$ in a kraken and have NPCs manning the turrets an everything, a guy with a Mustang Alpha has no chance. However, if a player with that Capital ship flies it solo, he should get owned by the Mustang Alpha pilot.

[@justalex4214]

I'm mostly playing solo or with a few friends and the biggest ship I'm planning to get is the 600i (cos it'll probably get a fat price increase after the rework). Anything bigger really doesn't make much sense for me and I think many large ship owners will face a rude awakening once the resource management system is here.

[@AussieGhost789]

CIG have talked about the potential to hire full crews for larger ships. While the idea of needing large player crews is interesting, I think it proves far too limiting. I don't believe it is CIG's intention to limit npc crews to the role of gunners only, and i don't think you should base the idea of how NPC crew will function on the current AI implementation as we are expecting improvements there. That being said, maybe they won't be able to implement it in that way. But at this stage I think it's CIG's intention to make NPC's mostly capable of crewing ships, likely with some limitations.

[@jay70335]

I think it's a mute point with these larger ships, once you see main weapons be assigned to turrets it comes with the understanding that alot of these ships will be operated by multiple people, inceasing the crew size by 5-8 people won't make a difference to those players. It feels like the purpose of the video is to devalue npc crew by highlighting how dynamic some of these roles are going to be and why npcs won't be sufficient. While that part IS true, I don't think cig will limit npc crews or a.i blades enough that we won't see them in a carrak or Polaris. for solo players having npcs in turrets or doing basic engineering will be enough. Compared to solo ships that usually don't have room to crew a engineer, a carrak with npcs or blades more or less becomes a big solo ship, leaving the dynamic bits to the captain. With what's layed out in the video, even with compitant npcs I don't see orgs doing important operations with a dozen krakens crewed by npcs. I think the dynamic element added by real players will overwhelm a npc crew when you start playing in these bigger ships. But even with that limitation then you just have a org that crews 30 Connie andromedas and now you have the same problem, but I think cig will favor npcs adding a lil too much over getting real players for the sake of not completely screwing over anyone who made the mistake of buying anything bigger than a nomad to play solo.

[@kofeyh]

I have a Banu Merchant Man, I expect it'll be something that is used periodically, when I can find enough people to be down for some shenanigans - and any number of times I expressly expect to _not_ be the captain. There is this notion that people will be able to solo anything, including massive ships, because "surely AI or NPCs will be fine", which I think is exposing an overreliance on the game playing itself for you, versus you playing the game. I suspect a combo of a few people with NPCs filling up extra roles, may work out pretty good as that's a bit of a balance; but to get the best out of some of the biggest ships, it's going to need some actual people to run. AI are always going to struggle with pathing, nuance and decision making. Which is going to lead to a sub par experience. We have ample example across any number of games to support that. Naively believing that CIG are going to cater for solo player in every single area, and NPCs can solve all roles just fine, and "all these people have spent so much money" so that somehow buys them the right to do whatever they want, is probably an unrealistic expectation.

[@JohnVanderbeck]

While don't disagree with your analysis, I feel like CIG is planning/hoping/intending to find a way to not require all these crew positions for the simple reason that many of them would be incredibly boring for most people. Who is going to want to be assigned to "security" or "engineering" full time and not be doing anything 90% of the time?

[@SomeFnClown]

The biggest ships i want to captain are the Redeemer and the Perseus.

[@crusher531]

I got a BMM so make it my daily. Even if its a big pain in the ass ima solo it one way or another.

[@MrGrownman455]

CIG wil make sure NPCs can handle flying, engineering and tactical but NPCs aren't a priority right now. I think NPC crews will be used by everyone even solo players with a lot of credits to pay them because there will never be enough players in any ORG available at one time to fully crew a capital ship frequently enough to make them worth the price. So NPC crews will have to be a thing and be extremely advanced. How many times in a month do you believe 20 to 30 members of org will be available to take out your capital ship???

[@TairnKA]

The majority of my fleet are solo ships, while the remainder are pilot and turret gunner so I'm waiting for an AI interface (can't remember what their called) to handle the turret(s), versus a NPC who I'd have to pay? ;-) I'm trying to imagine how you would set up a "Battle Fleet" or Long Duration/Range "Exploration Fleet" (if either existed in S.C.), considering the types of Ships/their use in the fleet, Crews/not all ships need away teams, fighter squads, etc... and Logistics/do fleet ships get their supplies directly from the weekly(?) supply ship, from a fleet supply ship that transports supplies to each fleet ship? These are just a few of the considerations of these scenarios. ;-)

[@taccntb4345]

CIG MUST bring AI for crewing. ALOT of players want to play solo with a ship like the carrok which is an exploration ship.

[@RavingNut]

After seeing the engineering play at Cit Con and seeing how much damage a Gladius can do to the C2 (I think it was) (and yes I understand that the guns had not been manned). But everyone bar the pilot was on repairing and it was still crippled. Seems to me that there is TOO much to do for engineering, or you are going to need stupid numbers in crew to run muti crew ships. It should be at max to the number of beds in these ships to operate at the most efficient. As you also have to take in life support strain (which they also talked about).

[@garrycopeland6149]

5 to 14 people to crew a Carrack! I sincerely hope not. I assume you're talking about future gameplay where exploration is a thing or risky endeavours in Pyro? The Carrack is my favourite ship by far, multi-purpose, has good medical med bed, a respawn point and my daily driver, I really hope I'll be able to continue to solo it, in the context of 'safe' bunker and trading runs in 'safe' systems like Stanton. Personally I think this whole engineering thing is just going to be more grind and struggling to see what value it's going to add.

[@Overlegen]

But they are so shiny! 🤩

[@dennisanderson3286]

🤔 If you were gambling man? How long have you been a backer of SC Mr. Gambling man ? One of the first things I noticed about the SC community is, maybe a third of it is serving and retired military. Some CAP ships will have crews, organized in every time zone to do battle whenever wherever 24/7-365 just like they do in their day-to-day lives they will do in the verse, with peak efficiency ✅. effectively rendering many cap ship jpegs into paperweights. LG thanks for sharing Your thoughts. 2 Big Island burritos are in the post 🤪🪐

[@LoudGuns]

Haha ok so maybe I do buy a lottery ticket from time to time. I agree with you on a lot of this, and I think one of the things people making the “AI to the rescue” argument are underestimating is exactly these super organised orgs - if you give people like this the capacity to run cap ships with 5-10 people then they will just smash your cap ship in seconds with their 50.

[@Elguapoe]

90% of your game will be solo if not more.

[@amd1031]

Hey I was wondering about the Hercules ships?

[@LoudGuns]

Which one exactly? I’d probably say 4 at the lower end of the C2 up to more like 8-10 for the A2?

[@BradAhrens]

I think you've got the right idea but probably overly exaggerated the crew requirements quite a bit. I think a Polaris could fare very well with a crew of 5 or 6. Carrack a group of 4 no problem. You said find the crew first then get the ship...but I've had good luck in-game finding crew lately without even getting the orgmates together. If you build it, they will come sort of thing. For me personally, I have chains that I've been working on for years for massive ships, only the BMM I've committed fully too and applied. Store Credit is for trying all the new stuff, putting them in buybacks and getting them out if needed. IMO your money goes much further with the large ships, and if you're in need of crew all you gotta do is make it worth it for the other players. If it's not worth it for them, then you're doing something wrong. "Who wants to make 3-5 million for 6 hours of work on the Orion today? Meeting at Everus, I'll invite you if you're interested."

[@Mor4me]

IMO multi crew sounds good on paper. But Who wants to a red shirt? you could just go back work. Paying real $$ for AI crew might be a good funding model. Let’s say $2.00-5.00-7.00-10.00 to pay for the npc “contract” pre/mo and then the quality of ship will help determine quantity of crew. (Drake dogs) for 2 and 5 bucks and (rsi) 5-7 (origin and capital) 5-10. Yes it’s pay to win but nothing is stopping the Mongrol squad so who cares 🏴‍☠️🏁

[@LoudGuns]

I wouldn’t underestimate the desire of some people to be in the alpha org - nobody cares that they were below decks fixing broken fuses if they were in the org that won the battle of such and such a place. Personally I would hate to see a cash shop for NPC’s because it’d just be feeding off the whales. Then the game would become about people slapping “the poors” with their wallets and most people wouldn’t sign up to be the seal.

[@AnnaVahtera]

I have to disagree on your 9min-point, or at least fervently hope that's not enforced: Pilot being the captain. I'd rather we take a page out of SciFi books, and have the pilot be different from the captain (larger Star Wars and Star Trek ships are a good example, as is Mass Effect.) Pilot can be the captain when you have a smaller ship. But Pilot needs to concentrate on flying, Captaining the ship and coordinating the whole ship and crew should be a job for another person, not the pilot.

[@vmklink]

Ive been banking on ai crew ever since i bought my first multi crew ship. Honestly how else is a casual player supposed yo explore and play ever feature this game has to offer without it

[@DismayingHades6]

another thing you gotta think about when it comes to crew is once the game shows off fully crewed polaris/kraken/idris, so on & so on, people will flock to the game like never seen before, everyone has wanted cap ship combat and logistics for forever now and plenty of "New Crew" noobies will join to fill out these ships easier, not a fore sure of course but think about it.

[@LoudGuns]

I agree with you to an extent, but at the same time let’s say 50 people have a $45 pack and want to crew a cap ship and 1 guy has the cap ship. Why do the 50 people follow the 1 guy? Because if the only reason is that he had $2000 to spend and he’s not a good leader or communicator then those 50 folks are just going to make the UEC and follow someone who is.

[@DismayingHades6]

@@LoudGuns an in-game group finder and some bigger missions would change a lot, and ya of course if your shitty leader or person no one will wanna follow you but besides that features are what we need, orgs are great and all but there needs to be multiple ways to crew large ships

[@meyatetana2973]

You keep saying AI however these are just bots not ai, an ai most certainly can do these things probably far better then a human can, this is why we nerf npcs, bots, and mobs and htose aren't even close to being an AI. game devs have been nerfing what a npc can do for last ten or more years now because when they don't nerf them they annihalate the human players

[@cj-um4xl]

once the death of your space ship has a greater impact, a lot of people will feel more inclined to earn money at someone else's risk.

[@arrclyde4325]

What? Why do people always overthink stuff? A Carrack with a crew of 12 to 14 people? While the ship only supports 6, both in beds and in lifesupport. The max crew is determined by the number of bed: one for each crew member. Thats a game mechanic, no multiple people per bed log out. Yes, in a Carrack people will have multiple jobs, because not all will have to be done all the time and not all at once. I am sure you can play in this over organised way. Just be sure that you can only log out at stations and landing zones, and you have to restock O2 more often.

[@LoudGuns]

Literally it’s a game. If CIG want to make it so when I logout at a bed my character dematerialises and my gear goes in the ship inventory they can.

[@arrclyde4325]

@@LoudGuns that is not what CIG wants. Ship inventory goes away and is replaced with mostly physical storage compartments. But that has nothing to to do with you are trying to use more than max crew. CIG has said on multiple occasions that its one bed per crew member. And that life support will be limited to the max crew. For short term you will be able to have more people on board (i.e. dropships). The way you plan it is maybe for a shorr while, but not for long operations. And what you call as a "disadvantage" that players will have to switch from gunner to engineer or medic in the heat of battle is actually the intended gameplay. And it makes sense. Should the gunner just sit in the turret when it doesn't function because of a blown relay or damaged powerplant? The min crew is variable but the max crew is limited to the number of beds and the life support system. That is what they plan.

[@janedoe4586]

u can hire NPCs u don't need a real Player for everything ... would also be boring to play a Idle Doctor or Gunner the whole day long.

[@coreycooper4597]

AI Crew would be a great addition. But from a organisation standpoint it will be terrible as it could quickly ruin the balance and these guys will try and formulate the most exploitave strategies to win and so I hope they find a system that works.

[@chrisandrews3979]

With the thousands of the big capital ships that have been sold, Al crew and blades better work well or there will be a lot of empty krakens or idris's flying around. Sure it would be fun to once in awhile work on a large ship doing engineering or whatever, but not many will want to spend all their time in the game doing that when they could be flying around the verse in their own ship.

[@LoudGuns]

I hate to say it - and I’ve got no intention to be mean - but I don’t think the big spenders should dictate the evolution of the game. If AI becomes meta then those Kraken / Idris / Javelin owners will be the same people moaning about getting splatted by 30 Javelins.

[@chrisandrews3979]

@@LoudGuns I agree, they shouldn't, but typically in games devs tend to gravitate toward where the money is. Hopefully it will be a well balanced game in which a lone wolf can enjoy the game as much as an org commander.

[@friest1984]

But you also have to think about the Manpower needed for even smaller fleets. As a long term EvE-Player i see SC in the Danger of beeing too Time-Consuming and needing to much Crew. We are just beginning and even now i need about 30 Minutes to meet up with friends. Modern MMO use different ways to led to fast action/fun and to be honest... it will never be fun to crew a Hull-D and fly around in relative safe space. I wont get my friends to sit in a turret ir change fuses whule QT from Terra to Stanton.

[@Nosferatus29]

The vast majority of players will want to be their own Captain of their ship, which means that everyone will quickly be scattered throughout the galaxy, making it difficult and very long to regroup to play with other players since teleportation does not exist. At the end, everyone will play solo with an IA crew!

[@skoomd4447]

so lets be honest, who wants to be a doctor on a ship and have something to do maybe once per session or never depending on what your doing. Most of these "extra" crew positions (ie:doctor, engineer, co pilot, away team, scanning, chief engineer) can all be ran by turret gunners with the exception of maybe engineering. Like are you seriously trying to tell me a crew of 10 people is going to sit in the ship and do nothing while the ground team goes out for a mission? Absolutely stupid imo and these can easily be taken by players in other roles

[@rooster1012]

I would point out that adding all these extra people as you are showing will break the life support and bed logout gameplay.

[@LoudGuns]

Bed logouts maybe, assuming that people remain physicalised on ships and don’t just disappear. Life support though is surely just a number that can be turned up and down?

[@vulcan4d]

CIG knows that AI crews will be a must. Their goal is to have a living and breathing AI implemintation in the game. This way the galaxy will be filled with life and function. I love this idea because as a parent I can't plan and dedicate a set amount of hours of gameplay so I pop in and out very frequenty when I can. One day I'll fly in the verse in my Endeavor and my AI crew.

[@LoudGuns]

I completely get time commitments, I’ve got a real life myself 😂 But to this end I think CIG would do more good providing you with some scaling in 1-5 person ships (I.e. a high performance mini endeavor etc) as opposed to selling you an endeavor. Because if you can solo your endeavor then my org can solo 100. And then the solo players and small groups will get upset that everywhere they go they get Zerg’d by a hundred cap ships.

[@SleepyFl0wer]

@@LoudGunsbut who says it’s always going to be a solo player that is truly solo vs an org of 100? That’s a very unrealistic assumption, most players will join an org eventually when orgs actually benefit players more. Also who’s to say it’s not a solo player that is also backed by an org? Even then why would an org of 100 attack a singular player? Doesn’t make much sense.

[@PvtDamion]

There are quite a bunch of encounters in SC that don't make sense imho. And later on there'll be territories being defended by Orgs, so you might end up jumping into the wrong system and getting ganked at the gate

[@WigganNuG]

@@SleepyFl0wer bro.. real siimple NO ONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO SOLO A CAP SHIP!! THat is just SO obvious, anyone arguing against it needs their brain checked for worms.

[@RavingNut]

​​​@@WigganNuG, make it simple and have a cap on how many AI crew you can have. Either over all or per ship max crew numbers. Or have it so the larger the ship gets the less percentage overall can be AI crew, such as the min required for large ships (like capital size) can be fully AI but not fully filled with AI. However the smaller the ship, the more leeway.

[@chrishoppner150]

I quit EVE because I was fed up with massive orgs owning the entire game. Only to walk right into this god damn joke of a setup.

[@xxbeatleadxx]

Your choice to play this game is your own.

[@chrishoppner150]

​@@xxbeatleadxx The two answers this community has for literally everything. "Game is alpha" and "go play something else". Did you have any more profound wisdom to share?

[@LoudGuns]

My argument is not that massive orgs should own the game, it’s only that people who wish for a small org or solo experience probably shouldn’t underestimate the crew requirements of massive ships that do realistically need a massive org to operate. That’s why I made the follow up argument that there needs to be solid options for progression in terms of ships that are not just “bigger”.

[@BasicallyPie]

The best part is that you'd have to probably up to double your crew count or more to deal with time zones

[@cmdr_thrudd]

I think a LOT of people are going to get tripped up by this. I'm happy to crew friends ships as I enjoy the group play but from talking to folks over the years most seem to think they'll be the pilot/captain and others will crew their ships. I wonder where they think they'll find all these crew? I know CIG have said we'll have AI crew and they'll probably be fine for smaller ships or to fill in some spots with your friends but the larger ships are going to be a serious logistical task to manage. From other games just trying to get 20 people together to do a raid takes dedication. Another thing I've always wondered is how will we deal with people 'living' on a ship full time, logging on and off at different times and managing the crew across time zones. If I join my friends ship for a play session and we go off to do some stuff then they log off for a week, what does my character do if I want to play when they're not around.

[@LoudGuns]

This is what I’m hoping - that hiring a couple of NPC’s to flesh out you (or you and a mate) on a Zeus or a MSR will be cheap and easy. But hiring 50 to make your Javelin work will be impossible - because if that’s not the case then it becomes a game of who has the numbers to bring the most Javs 😂

[@cmdr_thrudd]

@@LoudGunsYeah I hope they get that balance right!

[@PvtDamion]

Also you'll need to be controlling/managing those NPC's who are running around your ship, you don't want to end up with everybody doing their own thing (random turret guy shoots UEE who is trying to scan you for no reason, good luck son). So I'm curious to see how you'll be able to influence your AI crew in different situations and have them react appropriately

[@soli9305]

Compliments on an excellent video. I can imagine NPC crew being handled much like forces in an RTS; each are given orders which limit the choices the AI needs to make. EG, an NPC medic is given a 'patrol' route around the ship; any downed crew member they come within 'n' meters/visual/whatever gets treatment. Or an Engineer is assigned a specific set of components and the ready spare room; any damaged component in their assignment gets replaced. Security NPC are also damage control (fires). Having a player 'chief' manage them and modify placement/orders on the fly.

[@PaladinStem]

Crewing ships to run at full potential will definitely be important in the future. It will be interesting to see what crew requirements will be once we see blades and AI crew can do but that is definitely a way off.

[@JL-rj9fl]

I generally like your content, but those gripes you have with AI and things being difficult to do, are actually not difficult. AI could easily manage engineering systems, call out targets, manage a medical bay, ship pathing (granted, some ships need to be fixed for that to work correctly), etc. They don't need to pioneer this AI behavior. I love multicrew as much as the next guy, but at the end of the day NPCs are coming, CIG has said as much.

[@karakiri283]

Nobody dream of being turret crew on a large ship, it would be the most boring stuff ever. As for engineering, lot of people pointed out they used a big ship that is sold to have crew of 2 during the demonstration. That say a lot about how they understant their own game and what they want to do with it... I'm not worried about the fact that they will need to turn down their "multi crew" gamaplay quite a lot (max 3 or 4 people), because it will be too boring for 80% of the crew and far to hard to manage more than 5 people in a ship. As a former sailor, it's already hard in a professional environment with good discipline to manage people on board, i can't imagine in a video game (which is far more fast passed than anything in real life). That doesn't make any sense at all...

[@LimpVengeance]

the logic of not wanting orgs to have 50 ai javs is just a larger scale but same problem then an org having more ppl. if no ai crew and you an one buddie go out in your ship and they have a fully stocked one according to your crew calcs, your still a bug on a windshield. same same, scale is just different. i think mega zergs in rust are a good demo of this. and as some have pointed out that to many ppl flip burgers irl and dont want to log into a game and do it, they want their own ship, ect ect. So if you make sc so granular that you need your crew recommendations... good luck finding enough ppl that play the same time, style and ect who also want to do a meaningly job.. (not hating) but out side the small rp sector, good luck. and many will leave the game. i think ppl should stop and consider what they are asking for when they put their ideas out for cig.... make the game so tedious and then why not just do real life... Also, the thing with the Antaries... im not sure you have a good read on that either since the blue, warlock, raven, sent and the newly announced mr (Q&A answer) is that the qed/emp is pilot. the reason they haven't changed the antaries after the backlash is because there isnt anything to give to the second seat/ or decided to rip it out. but never would it be better to bring one of those compared to two blue's ect. Literally the one button push for qed in that ship sums up the problem. like what are you gonna add a mini game for scanning or some other sub divided thing/task for the 2nd chair guy to do in-between... the more interesting you make that sub divide the lamer it gets to be as a game. Reality dose not need to be a 1-1 translation into the video game. its 2953 ffs. let some things dare i say be "futuristic".... but your welcome to your opinions same as i am.

[@rtek777]

Good luck getting that many friends to crew big ships. Especially when people get bored of some of those roles and say fuck this and go get in another ship. NPCs will be the way to go for majority of players.

[@puddingking2141]

This is all theory crafting, nothing more. Most of this doesn't exist, and a chance of it never coming to fruition.

[@PvtDamion]

I look to only pledge for small crew ships (2-5 crew) and I'd love to be part of a crew of a larger ship one day. I've had the opportunity to join FRCN during the Foundation Festival and got to be a crewmember; it was epic! Would love to be able to play with you guys more

[@TheOneAndOnlyRavnak]

Feel free to come join us. Our discord is linked in the video description, and we have an application page on there if you're keen to join the org itself.

[@PvtDamion]

I have and I did (just not through the RSI website, for I'm not ready yet), it mostly comes down to that I can't invest the time that I want to and I have trouble jumping into the voice channels due to some anxiety among other things. But thanks for the invite!

[@Glathgrundel]

I’m part of an org, but I’ve never actually played with them. With Pyro coming (soon*) orgs and cap ships will come into their own. Even in Stanton, I plan on finding a regular group using a Reclaimer and RPG as a salvage guy. There is no good reason to buy a cap ship while there are dozens of them DESPERATE for crewmen. What we REALLY need is a simple way to match up someone with a ship that needs a crew, with people who are looking to be crew members and who are in the same location and on the same server.

[@LoudGuns]

@@PvtDamion you’re always welcome at any events you can make regardless of time commitments mate - just come and have fun when you can 👍

[@paratrooperz1]

well theres a couple players that used chat GPT to turn a third party program into an in game automated computer that can do things that was intended for NPCs. you can also set parameters such at any and all ship fittings can start a trigger when the module isnt 100% then it auto activates engineers to approach and with a timer you can see improvements to mods. so its not that complex i think crew defending against assaults seems to be the hardest as the crew has to be aware of player interactions vs its easier to program an AI to react to triggers generated by the computer

[@Ben_D.]

Most experts are putting AGI at 2025, no later than the end of 2026. ASI by 2028 or 2029. When AGI is here, all bets are off. There will be no way of testing if it’s a human or not, that can’t be fooled. CIG are going to have to accommodate the play style. Some people WILL make an AI crew, put them on extra accounts, cheap shoebox puters, and go have tons of fun. If CIG resists, they might delay it a bit, but eventually they just need to welcome it.

[@viscounttudon68]

This is why I've only pledged for 2 large combat ships - the polaris, specifically for org work, and the perseus specifically for the lowered crew demand. Everything else is either much smaller or (in my opinion) much more easy to "under"crew - like non-combat ships such as the galaxy. In my opinion, non combat ops should be quite a lot easier to undercrew, since issues should generally be a lot less intense.

[@DakkaDakka12]

I feel like your carrack crew is a bit big. I think you would be fine with a pilot, copilot/scanning, engineer, 4 flex. Your 4 flex members will use turrets, help engineer, and be away team as necessity arrives. Your copilot/engineer could also use turrets if the need arises. For the polaris and the kraken, I agree with your crew estimates, kraken might be a bit too few crew.

[@LoudGuns]

It’s undoubtedly a bit overkill and that’s why I tried to emphasise that you could always collapse it down, I just really wanted to get the point across that you have all these roles and if you do come at it with less people then you’re leaving yourself weaker (if those turret gunners move to engineering to keep you alive you lose defensive pressure since they’re not shooting).

[@mcaddc]

A fully crewed ship requires purpose, gameplay. Why would anyone join a crewed ship otherwise? How menial, boring and pointless would that game session be?

[@LoudGuns]

Strongly agree - absolutely we need purpose for all of the ships in game.

[@jedi_drifter2988]

My largest ships are a Caterpillar max 4 crew, a Carrack max 6 crew and a Perseus max 6 crew. Even though the max crew size is say 6, I know you can operate with like 4 on the Perseus, but the Carrack probably not, you would need 6. I am not sure that it will be easy to even get 6 RL players to crew together, not alone 18 and up for Cap. ships. This is the reason, I own no Cap. ships.

[@nilox4037]

The thing I want most from this game is a full team working on a ship to get something done. Thats the spirit.

[@Azreal15]

I agree that the ship matrix is woefully inadequate. But I fear some of these numbers probably exceed the life support systems. Then there are ships like the Idris that went from 60 +, then ballooned to 80+. It’s going to be interesting when the Idris & Polaris drops. The later probably coming first.🇺🇦🇭🇹🇾🇪

[@LawAbidingBird]

In terms of the Kraken crew complement, you can shave three right off the top, namely the doctor and the medics. The Kraken has no medical facilities.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

John Crewe confirmed the Kraken has a medical bay. It wasn't part of the original concept, but will still be important for the ship to be useful.

[@LawAbidingBird]

@JohnFromAccounting That's fantastic to hear, my group had decided against trying for a Kraken because of the lack of medical facility.

[@NoblePathwaysHQ]

This is an incredible vision for future of SC. I can only imagine how beautiful this would be with events, battles, and missions. (fingers crossed)🙏

[@TheAngriestGamer.]

were going to have to Vehemently & fundamentally disagree on the crew thing. I'm NOT a fan of the engineering or damage control stuff. I personally HATE the idea of eating/drinking and pooing in the space game, and i don't want ships that require half the server to run. Before you say anything about increasing server caps. thats NOT the point. We cant even get gunners for our fighters and small ships turrets. NOONE wants to crew someone else's ships, they want to fly their own and go off and do their own things. You can get people do a group thing once or twice for fun or if it benefits the people doing it, but Good luck ever having that being a regular thing. I get that a tiny population wants lots of people on 1 ship, but you guys live in a psychosis and need to wake up. you will never get crews for your ships and the longer the game goes on the worse this problem will be. NPCs NEED to be-able to take care of all the gunner and maybe even damage con roles so players are free to do fun and more technical things like mining or piloting drones or ground vehicles/fighters other things. that is stuff the players should be doing.

[@LoudGuns]

No need for caps 😂 honestly it makes me feel like you’re shouting at me with flecks of spit popping out your mouth! I’m happy to disagree though, it’s something that merits a discussion. I think maybe you are taking some personal experiences of multi-crew gameplay and extrapolating it to the wider audience. Multi-crew sessions have been hands down the most fun I’ve had in game and I think elements like engineering just make it more interesting.

[@LoudGuns]

Follow up Q - how will you feel if you get your cap ship out with a bunch of NPC’s onboard and a big org splats you with their 20 Javs just because cap ship explosions are pretty?

[@TheAngriestGamer.]

@@LoudGuns i mean.. Thats life, the Blob/horde will always beat the small village, the village will always beat the individual. sure it sucks but take ur ships and go join another org to combine your power, or even join the org that attacked you and be part of the horde. Cuz the alternative is using your method, where the big orgs can field 2-3 of these things, and you and your friends cant even field 1 (assuming you can all even get on at the same time and feel like doing a capital ship outing more than once or twice a month) so you still lose no matter what. Atleast with the NPC crew thing, you/the owners of this ship get to go out and have fun with it. sure you might not be as good as a fully player crewed ship, or cant beat the blob of javalins from the big orgs, but atleast you can go somewhere else and actually get use out of your ship, vs never being able to undock cuz you don't have the crew to run the thing.

[@LoudGuns]

@@TheAngriestGamer. I guess that if you’re not flying around in a cap ship you’re less likely to be a target or even appear on the scanners of the big org. If someone turns up in a gunslingers town wearing a Stetson with 2 six guns (sorry I have weird ideas about America) they are more likely to get themselves shot.

[@TheAngriestGamer.]

@@LoudGuns firefighting and repair on large ships is going to be a nightmare for the solo player or small friend group guys. And you can have fun with multi-crew, i didnt say you couldn't. but its not the norm, you wont get on and get to play with your big ship very often if it needs crew. Most people only have certain times they can play, and it rarely aligns with other peoples free time, even then people with limited time want to go off and do their own thing, so not everyone will want to do the Multi crew thing all the time. Space Games are already a niche, Capital ship enthusiasts are a niche, people who want to do multi crew are a niche. were already 3 layers deep in niche-ception here. then you want to add a 4th layer to do that which is Survival mechanics and upkeep, which is another niche. Some find that kinda thing fun and immersive. others find it to be a Mind-numbingly outputting and frustrating waste of time that takes away from doing what they want to do with their limited time. Can you start to see how adding Layers of this stuff that players might not like, really filters down the potential pool of people who will want to play this game long term when all of these bad features come in? ALSO IM OLD AND I LIKE ALL CAPS RAGE!!!! AHHHHHH, no but seriously im old and i remember a time when keyboards and computers that didn't even have lower case letters so.. i don't type caps to "yell" i do it to emphasize important/critical points. i use it like you would a highlighter... actually do you kids even still use those or know what they are?

[@S1leNtRIP]

Still, my favorite star, Citizen creator! Thanks for the work loud!

[@LoudGuns]

Thank you very much!

[@Ben_D.]

By the time this game launches for real and all of the ships are up and running, Artificial Intelligence is going to be a real thing as well. Multi modal open source bots that are in every way indistinguishable from a human online. If you have an extra rig and an account, you can put a custom bot in the gunner seat. I don’t know that an org will actually be that much fun. Trying to coordinate 50 people to be serious and maintain coms discipline and everyone being available at the same time and NOT preferring to fly their own ship that they paid mint for… AI is eventually, inevitably, going to supplant most humans with butts in chairs.

[@davewills6121]

Cant wait to solo my BMM....that's a solo ship right?. CIG are in no rush to replace CASH SPENDING, WARBOND BUYING backers for AI/Blades/NPC's, not happening, who's gonna put out all those fires....exactly. Where my ''custom ship paints'', think you get it now.