Can you crew it? Star Citizen IAE 2953

Star Citizen's big annual sale - the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo - is about to kick off, so I wanted to make this video about my expectations for crew requirements of some of SC's bigger ships. I know this is the time of year we can all end up aboard the hype train with our wallets out, and while I'll never tell you how to spend your money I can at the least encourage you not to put the cart before the horse!
My referral code for some extra starting cash: STAR-MY2H-6P9B
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If you'd like to fund my burrito habit: patreon.com/loudguns
Thank you to the wonderful Anorii for the awesome backing music - Nebula One!
--Chapters-------------------------------------------------
00:00 - Intro
00:36 - Channel Credits
01:10 - The future of multi-crew
04:08 - NPC Crew
07:22 - Illustrations
08:45 - Anvil Carrack
11:30 - RSI Polaris
14:31 - Drake Kraken
18:39 - Final Thoughts

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@_lewtz]

Great video, and one I wish more people would watch. I feel like it is one of the best realistic expectations videos I have seen on this topic and aligns with my current thoughts.

[@LoudGuns]

Happiness = Expectations minus Reality 😆

[@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)🙏

[@hagbard_ml]

A very informative and down-to-earth video with a sober view on manning and personnel management. Refreshing! BZ

[@BasicallyPie]

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

[@centermassgamer323]

Great vid as always Loud

[@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)

[@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!

[@vallridder9364]

I think the ARMA3 realism community does a really good job most closely related to this videos topic compared to other games out there. I think the guy making the video is spot on.

[@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...

[@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.

[@nilox4037]

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

[@muhschaf]

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

[@anothergoogleuser]

Thanks for the breakdown.

[@nick_cartago]

Wow - that title is so spot on!

[@FlightLizard]

Thank you. I have to watch this as a reminder that no, I do NOT need a Kraken, much as I want one.

[@DawnbreakerDivinations]

A game that did AI crew well was guns of icarus. You could set dedicated roles, but you could also set basic commands to them as needed, such as man the guns or focus on repairing. In neutral, engineers would be on the guns until something needed repairs.

[@S1leNtRIP]

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

[@LoudGuns]

Thank you very much!

[@deRNmEpRrMm]

I love this video and really hope we'll get to this point some time in the not too distant future.

[@Marlax-101]

my general rule so far for ships is any number of beds x2 for day and night crew, or at minimum half player and half npc. then whatever ships you can hold on board so if the kraken says 10 it would be 20 plus the stored ships on board the kraken.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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!

[@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?

[@endsinvention1390]

Two days ago, I ran a PvP bounty hunting event with my org, and a crewed out 26 of us. Hopelite, deemer, max with 2 fury, lighting mantis.

[@endsinvention1390]

Next week will be putting 26 of us inside of a Valkyrie

[@Arkangilos]

I think the Chief Engineer or Co Pilot could be Flight Control. Or even the Weapons Officer. But I think it’s a great video and generally agree

[@TheeJackal_]

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

[@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.

[@bellidrael7457]

Ultimately I think solo crewing these ships (As in, using Ai crewmembers) will come down to what you are doing for money. If you are using an Ai crew on a Kraken, then you need to be doing very high level missions with it, or constant trading. That's A LOT of crew you have to pay upkeep for. That being said, if your goal is a mobile base, where the only crew you have are gunners and engineers, while you keep a ship for different situations on board the ship, like say you have a Cutlass Red, a Prospector, and a Vulture all on board, along with a fighter of your choice, then you're really set for most forms of gameplay. That's what I think the real reason people buy this ship is. Aside from it being the only currently ownable carrier in the game, it allows you to transport your other ships so you can do a little of everything. You can even salvage ships AND haul the cargo they have on board, without having to buy a Reclaimer.

[@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

[@papacass8918]

I think that, for ships like the Polaris, you can overlap gunners with security somewhat since boarding will likely occur during soft death state where turrets don't work. For the Kraken, I wouldn't do a full overlap just due to size.

[@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.

[@ryancarr3274]

One thing I believe they will be adding to the game is ships will only be able to provide x amount of life support for a specific number of occupants. Who knows what effect trying to overcrew would have. I could totally see some roles needing to be 1 person doing multiple jobs.

[@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

[@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.

[@Wh1terider]

I'm happy to hear someone is actually talking about the variable missed and that's efficiency with a proper crew head. Ship reviews are exciting along with their specs, but it's how you're going to get there when it really matters, and what does that look like. There's no replacement for an actual human crew head count and the bond that creates from excitement and adventures to come and share.

[@evokewebsite]

You have outlined some interesting points Loud Guns but there's one thing that everybody is forgetting which is server size. This is the elephant in the the room which decides everything. Most common and well known MMOs generally have a server capacity of 2,000 - 3,000 for example New World is capped at 2,000 but those players are spread out either by creating factions or moving the players to an instanced section like PvP (capture the castle/base). When, well known Twitch/KZbin celebrities decide to start a new character in World of Warcraft Classic which can hold up to 3,000 players and also has phase-shifting/realm-merging the server is bogged down to a slow crawl and that is with one famous Twitch/KZbin personality at the starting zone. At the moment we have 100 player capacity with existing technology which will hopefully be modified with Server Meshing and additional tech to increase that to whatever CIG can run the servers up to. Now let's say hypothetically we can get 2,500 players plus have NPCs and Fauna which should be around 9 to 10 times the player count, that is 27,500 and don't forget vehicles and other entities that the server has to maintain. You can now calculate how many large ships are feasible with a 2,500 cap. We can use your figures as an example, a Kraken will have 30-35 players, so that gives a total of around 71-83 ships that can be fully crewed, IF CIG could get 20,500 players on a server then just add another zero on to that total but who knows what the servers would be like, and don't forget we only have 100 players total at the moment and we all know what the servers are like now. I personally think that CIG will make crew size smaller so they can handle the servers better, it all depends on the tech and what is manageable.

[@mikecroper8422]

Spot on... good video.

[@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.

[@biotechisgodzilla]

Good video! Polaris could be 4-6 humans but ONLY if we had really good npc for the on site teams, so humans would be mostly bridge crews and officers.

[@ragingferret]

So for the polaris the doctoc could also be a gunner, the weapons officer is also a gunner or security. As for the rest i agree, but definitely some multi roles there

[@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.

[@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.

[@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 👍

[@brendankinahan8484]

I'm just getting into the game now, but crewing a capital ship even if just a junior engineer sounds like a riot! What is the gameplay loop for a ship crewed like this? Are there missions or PVP that will pay out 20 crew members? Or is it more along the lines of providing protection for massive trade operations?

[@dayhalk]

I think with IAE around the corner, this is a good opportunity to test out the bigger ships and the crew capacity.

[@tigerchuu2148]

Personally, I think the sweet spot will be a mix of AI blades and AI crew for mundane tasks, and taking over the turrets that can't be covered by the crew. This is a game afterall, and many people want to be in on the action in their own way, whether that be engineering during a fight, shooting guns, or piloting or however else they want to participate. This will make it easier to crew bigger ships, as you won't need as many people, and it can also help cover for when there aren't enough people online from an org or friend group to crew a ship (including smaller ships that require more than 1 person). At the same time, it won't be as efficient or effective as completly staffing a ship with players. I also personally like the ideas of AI blades, because ships have computers, and AI blades take up computer resources that will also be needed for other things, so finding a balance of AI blades and AI crew depending on your actual crew size that fits your needs and your ship will be important. It's also like a barrier to bigger ships, since using all of your compting power for AI blades and a lot of money and resources on AI crew would be a bad idea, and maybe it's not even possible because it's too expensive and uses too much computing power. So with the Polaris example, instead of having 20 something people you have 10 people and a mix of AI blades and AI crew to cover the rest of the posts. Then it won't be too expensive, nor will it take up too much computing power, so you can still fully crew the Polaris and be more effective than if you only had 10 people, but you still won't be as effective as a Polaris fully crewed with players. On the other hand, if its a group of three people, then taking out the Polaris might not be worth it because you'd have to use a lot of AI blades and crew sucking up too much resources.

[@JS-wt8vf]

I think you are fairly accurate in your assessment. Coming from EvE and being in a smaller Corp, it could be a real pain getting everyone online at the same time for an op. Have double or triple the crew gives you a much, much better chance of having enough people online at any one given time to run the ship effectively.

[@LoudGuns]

I think compared with EvE one of SC's biggest strengths and weaknesses is the reliance on crew to make bigger ships function. From a pure gameplay perspective it's a brilliant idea and would make those times that you see a clash of two capital fleets that much more special - the achilles heel is that they have sold these $1000+ ships to people who may not have a hope in hell of actually using them. I just really hope that the gameplay itself wins out and that they also provide meaningful scaling and progression for people who have smaller crews - i.e. ships that increase in power without also increasing in crew count.

[@JS-wt8vf]

@@LoudGuns Absoloutely. Why we didn't buy anything bigger than a Carrack. We do have an Orion and are a little worried about being able to crew that much less a battle ready ship like a Javelin.

[@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.

[@DawnbreakerDivinations]

Also very keen on AI blades for remote turrets. Would be an easy thing to implement too

[@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

[@xxxmina]

NPC to man turrets is more than enough.... just give us that. You can steal a pirate or navy hammerhead , kill the pilot, and the NPC turrets will shoot any target red to you. They do a pretty good job. For role separation... I think co pilot should command NPC while pilot Flys ship and rest of crew can engineer, man snub fighters or turrets.

[@Az-tek1]

I agree with the necessity of crew for these large ships and was in the fleet branch (focus on multicrew / capital ships) of our milsim org for quite a while. After spending ALOT of time aboard these ships the numbers mentioned in this video seem wild, even taking into account future content & features. Travelling the verse is currently a lot of downtime and the odd battle, this will likely continue in the future. Having 20+ people bored out of their minds with nothing to do apart from the pilot doesn't make for a good game, even in battle many turret seats on ships are very boring / frustrating experiences. The ships role, the risk / reward of getting into combat, the mission you are on. It will be rare to find fighters in deep space and engaging another ship far out in deep space involves huge risk with little reward, even if you win you may be left adrift or unable to get back to a friendly system. Sure if you are specifically flying out to war or to start a fight you will want a reasonable gunner compliment and a few engineers but most of the time it will be better to have the poorly placed / ineffective / "defensive" turrets bladed and have an escort fighter instead. My numbers for a balanced crew compliment: Carrack - 4 to 5 [1xPilot / 3xGunners - 1 gunner doubles as engineer, 1 as medical, 1 as 2nd pilot / 1xEngineer] Polaris - 8 to 9 [1x pilot / 5xGunners - 2 gunners double up as engineers / 2xEngineers / 1xFighter pilot] Kraken - 9 to 10 [1x pilot / 5 gunners - 2 double up / 3xengineers / 1x captain]

[@ThanatosGrimm]

Alot of good points LG. I actually enjoy the way CiG is pushing to the multicrew/person play while still having a niche for the solo guys. Good example, Did an ERT where i flew cargo adnd the fighters took out the ships, we did a few of these with me cleaning the site and them killing more bouties. Was a neat playloop. I could see salvagers and ship munchers being there too to really work the site.

[@LoudGuns]

Yeah that sort of synergy is something I really love. I just hope that we see more scaling in solo and small ships (there’s a bit of it already in fighters when you look at stuff like the F8C) but for example I’d like to see a solo salvager that’s an upgrade from then vulture (maybe more space for boxes / better lasers / auto stacking etc) so that your upgrade path isn’t just to a reclaimer where you start needing to crew up.

[@PvtDamion]

I'd love to someday see a group of Prospectors getting their saddle bags exchanged by an Expanse, who itself is getting help from a cargo ship (Hull A maybe?) to sell its goods, so it's actually a group, playing solo, but also as a group

[@asambi69]

I'm hoping my favourite lil ship the Cutlass black will still be soloable without too much nerfs.

[@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.

[@Stolens87]

Totally agree with you, even though I am probably be a lone wolf forever since other people are usually meh. But if playing a capital ship with 2 people as crew is 50% effective compared to one having 20 people of crew, the 20 people just by 10 ships and wreck havoc. Unfortunately, the money for CGI is in allowing 2 people play a capital ship since more people buy a $1k ship instead of their starter or maybe a Cutlass.

[@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.

[@HalfSac]

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

[@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.

[@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.

[@reflexdogtraining1337]

I'm really digging your content, dude. Keep up the great work. I'm affiliated with 3 big orgs, but my org has a consistent 3-4 players(8+ if Real Life allows); enough to bring a Carrack, Reclaimer, Mole, Redeemer, Vulcan, Crucible and C2 out - with capabilities fulfilled. My Endevor seems overkill now in reality. Always knew it, but this video makes it proof. Again. Well done. Perhaps it's time to scuttle a JPEG. 😊

[@LoudGuns]

Thanks mate, I really don’t want to send this message of give up and melt your ships because I’m fully aware I could be totally wrong! Hopefully there were sufficient speculation disclaimers!

[@reflexdogtraining1337]

@LoudGuns I've been in this for a while. Holding on to a jpeg, even with a buy back or two attached for security of original purchase. It's a nice thought, man. Regardless of content* niche, if that was a thought, it was a needed thought. 👏

[@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! 😂

[@christianmaheu]

I totally agree with you! My biggest ship is a Reclaimer as most of my org mates are industrialists and it will be easy for me to crew it, and all my other ships are 4 crew or less. You can man the turrets with AI crew, but like you, I think that the most interesting jobs will need human interaction to operate at peak performance. Oh, and we are a small org... one of our member as a Javelin and a Polaris!!! I already told him it will be a pain to crew!

[@LoudGuns]

My biggest ask of CIG in all of this is that they introduce more scaling options for crews of 1-6 people that don’t just involve the ship getting bigger and the crew count more demanding. Like I want there to be some real progression to be had without just increasing your numbers or getting forced into a ship that’s too big for you.

[@KarlBarbosa]

What I'd really love to know is what is the smallest size of ship that will still be soloable. For example, a Cutlass is a two person ship. Would it actually *need* two people once engineering gameplay goes live? What about the apparently three person 400i? Or hell, the very taken with a grain of salt crew cap of 4 on the Freelancer?

[@rhino5681]

One place the AI crew can obviously fill in is your Marines / Security, low end damage control like fire fighting, low end maintenance roles like refueling and rearming a fighter and maybe a medic (not Doctor). From your 38 Drake Kraken crew members examples, you can probably have 10 NPCs using the current AI, being 5 security, 2-3 from the squadron, 2 from the engineering and 1 medic.

[@JL-rj9fl]

The AI could easily be a doctor: the game knows what injuries you have, looks for the appropriate items, and heals you. Engineering, much the same. The game is aware of the damage the ship has sustained, the AI engineer can re-route systems, make repairs, etc. The challenge is how robust they make this, and humans will always be better at making these decisions.

[@instrutordearmamento]

Apart from the crew needed to operate a large ship, there´s gonna be more ppl needed to operate support ships too. Eg. Kraken + Vulcan + Crucible + SRVs ....

[@the_steamtrain1642]

Came from your basebuilding vid, you make some good stuff, as for this vid and the Kraken specifically (I don't own it but REALLY want to) I think people imagine it having a different role than other capital ships like the Idris. I play way too much Foxhole and they recently had the naval warfare update which introduced large ships and there's a big difference between them, a battleship (coming from the warden side it's the only large combat ship until yesterday's update) has a crew of around 20, 4 for steering the vessel, 2x3 for main guns and 2x4 for engineering minimum, however when it comes to ships like the longhook and bluefin which are a respawn point and mobile stockpile respectively it's very different with the ships only having a crew of 2-3 in normal operation, 1 for driving, 1 optionally for spotting and 1 for helping turn the ship using blueprints (devman really fd up ship maneuvering) This comes back to the Kraken being a carrier and in large operations a ship that wants to avoid combat, especially if you talk AI filling in gunner positions and part of the engineering positions for if something shows up people see potential

[@the_steamtrain1642]

To add onto this for a point I've seen in some comments, people WILL like engineering gameplay, I've already called dibs on driving the air car in my orgmate's Kraken, and again from Foxhole: artillery crews 2-6 players + people driving ammo to them, they have some of the most monotonous gameplay at times adjusting the guns to what the spotter tells them and just firing away, they never see their target or really know what they are shooting at, but people enjoy it partly because it's monotonous, it's more relaxed than the fight itself and at the end of the day you are having a significant effect on the battle

[@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.

[@Moonjaj]

I absolutely agree with the notion, that AI crew will probabely be ok with simple tasks ... as it can perform now. That is obviously manning turrets or may be holding a MOLE as pilot in position while a player does the mining. But I also hope that CIG takes the idea of "space SIMULATION" serious and compares to real life. As I do have a Commercial Ships Master ticket I see that as a good example for a skill based game aproach... I not only have the qualification to navigate and lead, I also have an AEC ( advanded engine course) to be qualified to act as chief engineer, a sips master medical, and a GOC ( Radio liscense). I actually stiched a wound and started to overhaul the air pressure starting for the engine on the same day on one ocasion... while still beeing in command on a completely under crewed ship. So to bring it back to SC ... I hope that it will be still possible to "fly" Cap. and Lrg. ships solo, but SURELY not at the same eficcency as a fully player crewed vessel. I would hope that I can use a Kraken as my (Solo) home base with all the ships on board to take me to different missions ... which could be of the kind to procure the spare parts needed to keep the big Lady going... or to symply use it as a cargo hauler. But I also would be looking forward to take her to battle ... but then fully "human" crewed ... and then I actually see the same numbers of player needed.

[@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).

[@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

[@N1ghtR1der666]

I think you will find opposed to what many commenters are claiming that actually not many people want to be a leader in a large group because of the responsibility and therefore not many will want to be a pilot or captain of a large and important ship, so finding people to fill other roles will be easy

[@TrampyPulsar]

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

[@sly567]

One thing you fail to factor in is Life support, it will only support 6 crew on the Carrack for maximum efficiency, this is how CIG determine crew size. Buy having 15 people on the Carrack will shorten the time spent out in space. Max crew is 6 so multi skilled crew is essential. I see this as a balancing tool, so ships don't have abundance of people to make ships OP.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@EJuliusF]

I bought the polaris, I don't care about flying or shooting, I just want to RP. I want to be an engineering officer or captain. The game for me is about RP. I like the idea of having a boarding part on the polaris insdead of a fighter, threaten people to hand over their goods with missiles. Obviously a lot needs to improve for any of that. Coms being the biggest, then server cap.

[@bobstark4201]

It all depends on how CIG balances it. As it stands right now, even if engineering were added, crewing a Polaris with 20 people might not be as effective as splitting that 20 people into smaller ships in terms of combat. An A2, Redeemer and Retaliator perhaps. All depends on the mission I suppose. Your list is the ideal, I get it. But as a captain, I always pilot, turret gun or in the future, repair. One turret gunner would be the weapons officer. Even in B-17 bombers, crew members had multiple roles including the co-pilot resupplying ammo, checking on wounded crew and occasionally taking over a turret himself. A well trained, experienced crew could run a Polaris with significantly less than 20, I believe.

[@zeroxception]

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

[@mattp1337]

The other side of the equation is that ship respawn times will be significantly higher than they are currently, and that will affect large and capitals ships all the more. Don't be surprised if it takes weeks or a month to get a Kraken back with insurance (could be less, could be more). Groups that work together poorly may find themselves looking to hire on with others once they've burned through their own fleets. Or conflict could find its equilibrium with a systemic ship shortage, driving players from conquest to industry.

[@LoudGuns]

I do think ship claim times are likely to shock some people, and if done right they should be dynamic so if there is a huge war everyone gets slowed down by week long timers turning into month long timers - we need this for conflict to actually mean something and y'know....end at some point :D

[@MrGrownman455]

NPCs as engineers is pretty easy. NPC engineers repairs whatever needs repairing . How fast your repairs take place will depend on the NPC skill level and the power management part can be monitored by you even as the pilot. In Elite Dangerous we make adjustments to are power management systems while in dogfights. It's really not that complicated and the SC power management systems look way more user friendly than Elite Dangerous.

[@Train115]

I am gonna get the C1 for this reason, I get everything I want out of it and I should be able to fly 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.

[@jwalkerr]

top video from a top guy

[@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).

[@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

[@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.

[@SomeFnClown]

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

[@gufo10games.74]

the big ships absolutely should not be soloable with just ai/npc crew, but I do think that npc crew will be required to fill the more boring roles (scanning, security) and some people could definitely fill multiple of those roles, such as the doctor also being a gunner or co-pilot when nobody is actively hurt, as they will only need to be a doctor when the ship is doing something ground based or boarding another ship. also at least for me being the pilot isn't really that fun when you have nothing to do but fly, such as with the carrack, this is more so for ships with missiles/torps, but I think that you should be allowed to at least blade those to the pilot seat, if not just have them accesable from multiple spots like on the corsair, where the pilot can still use them, but they benefit more from someone else using them as they get a wider targeting arc. With security I see your argument, but I feel like if the ship is being boarded that most likely means its disabled, so it wouldn't be too hard to imagine most of the gunners not being in the turrets to help with repairs or guard the airlocks. Engineering absolutely should be separate roles, having to have people get out of a seat run to the terminal and then run to what's broken and fix it will just take too long to be effective. taking the polaris as an example, I don't disagree with the max crew number, but I do feel like that's what the absolute most decked-out ship would be, I don't think its a stretch to say that you could have a few of those roles merged into one and have some removed all together by blades (mainly those 2 remote turrets and the torpedo manager being bladed, and the doctor and co-pilot being merged). granted we don't know what blades will be like and how they will impact the rest of the systems, but id say a crew of 11-13 would be sufficient depending on how much u automate and merge, still a decent crew size, but not one so large that most people don't even have enough friends to crew. there would definitely be benefits to having more, but the more people you add the more you start going into min-max territory, like yes you can have everyone have a super specialized role that someone might be better at doing just that rather than that and a few other things, but that doesn't mean they cant do multiple things good enough. People might also enjoy the variety a bit more, instead of just "I fly the ship" or "I scan for things" it would have people do a bunch of things like "oh I scan for stuff but sometimes i need to hop out and run to go fix something because the engineers are busy, and then i may need to go grab a gun and help secure the airlock, and then after we are done i can go to the medbay and make sure everybody back to full after the battle". that kind of gameplay sounds way more engaging to me also side note but I don't think scanning should be as separate from pilot, the pilot will need to be able to use sensors and whatnot to be able to know where to go, maybe not like the max sensor capabilities, but at least tab scanning to see the ground when its dark or look for nearby loot, and let the dedicated seat have the super long-range detection and whatnot Edit: also thing that the number of beds is a major tell about what the max crew will be, if the ship has 8 beds it wouldn't make sense to crew it with 12 people, also life support may play a big role in this as well Edit 2: hope u didn't take this as me being bitchy, I rly do like ur videos, just putting my thoughts out there

[@AgnosiaAgnosis]

You can crew it put your Carrack into it.

[@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.

[@cmdrmaskime]

Great content as usual ! Keep it up !

[@danielpurcell1558]

Some interesting assumptions. Not sure how your crew sizes will be achievable with life support systems, beds, food storage and the like. But definately something to consider.

[@carbotyrizal]

it would be cool if there was a mode in arena commander where you could join one of two crews of larger ships and battle

[@LoudGuns]

I would also love to see this happen!