Engineering Is The Biggest Gameplay Change To Star Citizen…Ever Ft. Morphologis | Launch Sequence

One of the biggest gameplay systems in Star Citizen, in development for years, is finally approaching its first in-game iteration, but what does that mean? I’m joined by Morphologis to discuss one of the biggest changes to Star Citizen that affects every ship in the game. Engineering will drive ships, cities, outposts, and space stations in the future, this is your introduction to the new profession.
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@Morphologis
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Morphologis' Most Recent V9deo: • Big Ships are Changing...
ToC:
0:00 Introductions
02:25 How Are You Feeling About Star Citizen?
09:25 New Features in 3.22
31:10 Our Thoughts on Engineering Gameplay
40:15 What Is Engineering?
47:30 Should You Be Worried?
1:00:00 Future Gameplay
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[@S0HJIN]

I'm looking forward to when capital ship armor is impervious to light fighters. Time to bring in the heavy hitters, or run like hell!

[@3556df44]

I agree but a skilled pilot should still be able to target and disable turrets and maybe thrusters and engines if the large ships shields are down.

[@S0HJIN]

@@3556df44 sure, I could get behind that. And an insane pilot could perhaps EVA to a boarding action with mag-boots, an oxy-cutter and an explosive charge! We can dream right?

[@delkenobi]

Point is that a single light fighter shouldn't be able to shutdown the shields of a capital ship. So, if it can't take down the shields then no damage to the engines, turrets, etc. It should take multiple fighters to bring some fight to the table for a capital ship. @@3556df44

[@JizzyNinja]

It will be interesting too because ships like the ares and eclipse will need to be dealt with quickly

[@MrSolLeks]

​@@JizzyNinjai bet when cap ships are more out it will take a handful of size 9s to kill, i feel a hammerhead should tank atleast 2 lol. Tho for now its super nice to take my tali out and erase erts

[@Shikhano]

They need to start by making group gameplay more lucrative. Right now everytime I log on with my org or with friends I'm losing money/rep by playing with them. I don't mind because I'm having fun with them but I'm not going out of my way to play with others when they're not on. It's just not worth the headache and losses.

[@jedi_drifter2988]

IMO the bigger you go in ship size, the more UEC you will have to spend, on fuel, food, components, crew and on Capital ships, where you can get repair, components etc. I don't think you'll be getting your cap ship repaired in the podunk outer rim. You will probably need a reliable shipyard. I also think with engineering gameplay, it will be a big deal to manage ships with a min crew of 10 and up, especially if your not in an org. large Cap ships, bases and large manufacturing sites, along with networking/logistics, are all end game goals, if there is such a thing in the PU.

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

completely agree with this. It needs to feel special, like your group accomplished something when you are using a cap ship effectively

[@Uboo]

I like the idea of diving into the wrecks and finding custom suites or armor or ammo, even like crates of the stuff would be cool. Like an illegal deal gone wrong. Can't wait also to be able to fix the parts on the ship you pull off and sell them. Lots of money to be had if we can just get the ability to do it.

[@wafflesinsanity]

Glad to see Morph is in a more positive state regarding development. Much more than earlier this year. It's good to see you two looking forward.

[@demonfandango]

I think engineering is going to be great but I think there is going to have to be some reworks on a lot of ships where the component locations aren't great or where the implications of engineering could impact the design of some ships e.g. toxic environments within the ship or loss of atmosphere etc. Also, the questions around playing solo. In the ‘Death of a Spaceman’ article I’m pretty sure it’s mentioned that you can run your own server but not sure if that was a ‘then’ requirement and no longer a ‘now’ requirement. The other point about engineering that might have people nervous is when they mentioned that there’s an RnG element to malfunctions - I think there needs to be clarity on what that actually means. Are malfunctions on relevant when a component is past a certain point in decay? We’ve all played a game where the random number generator doesn’t feel so random 😁

[@CitizenScott]

That Death of a Spaceman article you mentioned is 10 years old now. Mostly useless at this point. We are never gonna run our own SC servers.

[@demonfandango]

@@CitizenScottI have not been involved in Star Citizen long enough to understand or feel the pain of the long term community but some outlets still seem to be hanging on to this article but anyway, I’m beginning to understand that everything with this game should be taken with a grain of salt.

[@CitizenScott]

@@demonfandango Yeah 100% grain of salt. Also yeah there’s a lot of things like this article where we haven’t had an update in a decade so people still refer to them, which isn’t totally wrong, but some parts have been confirmed to have changed.

[@SlayR1101]

I agree with Morph on the lets get things in their basic form, then work on fancy things. All of these systems tie in together so hard in the overall gameplay of the game, more than we all realize. Like structural salvage for instance, The system to break apart a ship is not there yet, so they are getting it in the game with the same mechanic as breaking rocks apart in mining. This gets the system in our hands and integrated into the overall economy data, so they can start balancing that. And all of the engineering gameplay, I think some people don't realize how complicated this is actually going to be in the first iteration. We don't need it more complicated right now, we need the system and get start balancing it, then make it more complex and pretty from there. My last thought, for engineering is that the complexity of engineering should scale with the size of the ship. Small ships, really simple, just maintenance, as the ship gets larger and the components get bigger they become more cumbersome to manage, just like a small car vs a large cargo ship on the ocean.

[@ITHYANDEL]

A solution to salvage when maelstrom is in: give the claw a sphere of effect, disintegrate what is inside the sphere and remove a sphere from the ship a la terminator. Like that you can target specific areas to access internal components.

[@amigo3284]

There’s been a lot done. SQ42 is feature complete. Lots of ships and places we haven’t seen and won’t see because it’s with the single player game. 1000 people are moving back to SC and once they are settled in and get the flow, we should see a lot more to SC.

[@ChanTheman-fe3wf]

1000 people will be moved back to SC?

[@amigo3284]

@@ChanTheman-fe3wf that’s a rough estimate. CIG has, according to google search, a little over 2000 people working for them. When SQ42 was in development the majority of their employees were working on SQ42. So let’s say 80% were on active development for SQ42, which is about 1,600 employees, with the remaining 400 working on SC. Now with them switching back, one could say 400-500 are polishing SQ42 and 1100-1200 are going to be working on SC. It will take time for them to get into the flow, but once they do, SC features will come quickly. Those numbers are all rough estimates to use as an example and that is if all employees are developing the game. Not including customer service, website development, forum moderators, marketing, attorneys, etc.

[@leslieviljoen]

26:50 I've seen people trade this way - with the 2SCU box in their ship in a hangar. So you can't kill the person and take the goods in that case because armistice. Though one party has to trust the other and transfer either goods or money first.

[@BboyCorrosive]

"[insert feature here] will work sooo much better when the servers run better"

[@Pharesm]

I get it - Star Citizen turns into a giant chore generator! Fear your large ships, you can't keep 'em running and even the smaller ones are going to a bore. Our story won't be what we want to do, instead what we must do to keep buying replacement parts and components, and the bigger components you can't service or replace, so your live in Star Citizen will not be YOUR story, it'll be the story of chores without pay. The likelihood that I play this keeps dropping.

[@blaqbastion1501]

As soon as engineerings in I’m taking my ship on a shakedown cruise.

[@adamconner9302]

I don't expect it to happen with engineering, but what I really hope is that at some point you can multicrew ships comfortably with npcs and blades at something like 60-70% the effectiveness of what a competent human crew can accomplish. I think that would be the sweet spot where say a redeemer vs redeemer with average crew and npc crew could have a competitive fight that slightly favors the human crew and in the same scenario a competent crew handily beats the same npc crewed ship. This would allow the larger ships, at least in terms of combat, to still be competitive enough to be viable with a healthy ship while giving a clear advantage to those willing to put in the extra effort required to multicrew a larger ship, particularly if they've also put in the time together to become a competent, cohesive crew. I'm no programmer and I don't know if that's a moderate ask, big ask, or pie in the sky ask, but I think that would be the ideal outcome for game in terms of general likability that would maximize interest to the general gaming population. It would also make for a lot more opportunity for dynamic gameplay. Then you could say feasibly see battles between a solo player npc javelin vs a handful of human-crewed ares fighters and maybe a hammerhead or redeemer and it be a fun battle for all involved while the same battle might just be a slaughter if the javelin is wholly human crewed. I hope they opt for a generalized strategy akin to this that maximizes the scope of fun without alienating any specific player segment. Time will tell the tale...

[@aurieteixeira]

I think that NPC crew would be really clutch if the game had voice commands built in. Learning the verbal commands to say to your crew and having “mapped” areas of the ship would allow you to be the captain and the NPC’s to be more or less efficient based on how you’re commanding them. Then again, SC is complicated, so idk how much the NPC engineers will be able to do.

[@Ticoriko]

ENGINEERING IDEA keep beam citizen , it's simple and in a pinch anyone can do it but add an "injury" system for components like our medical does. Nothing too bad , just bad enough that If left unchecked after a battle causes annoyance and have it be easily solved by going to station to repair OR having an engineer diagnose and do a BESPOKE repair for the component . If you know how to repair the "injury" you save a trip to the station that way repair stays easy to learn and play but harder to master and gives you autonomy and let's willing players dive deep into the mechanic. Have it only happen when components are heavily damaged like in combat and have it be am aftermath thing not an urgent thing

[@Dorm_]

Morph is such a good guy! Hope we can have him on more often! :)

[@delkenobi]

Thank you for having Morphologis. I've always enjoyed his ship review videos but this kind of dialog is also enjoyable and informative. I think we're going to see some significant progress on the backend in 2024. Maybe not so much on the content overall....though I'd be happy to be wrong. With respect to Engineering game play, I hope it doesn't end up being a tedious time suck. There ought to be some repair work needed for larger ships for sure however, if it ends up being added work, such as constantly having to drink and eat for your character every hour or so, then ship maintenance will get old fast...at least for me.

[@BestShifty]

I wasn´t able to catch this one live due to the timezone difference so here we go!

[@jay70335]

Also, we forget the pool of irl players is not endless we will need npc to fill the holes of roles people will not have enough players for

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

while I agree we should have NPC crew in some form I do want them to encourage group play. If people don't have personal friends ready to play there is the option to join orgs which is like a guild in other MMOs and the thought would be there are usually people available in the org to play. I just don't want to end up in a state where 80% of these capital sized ships are solo with NPC crew. It will make for a fairly boring universe so I'd like CIG to push people towards group play options.

[@jay70335]

@@Spike.SpiegeI The option to play with friends, or with a org should be encouragement enough, and not what money you'll save or what Edge you'll have against other players. This is the balance we must strike against NPCs. If it comes down to 'oh well you'll save credits and you'll definitely win against a ship with a npc crew" you're just pigeon holing people into a preferred type of gameplay.

[@jay70335]

@@Spike.SpiegeI you have to hope that star citizen eventually becomes the sort of community where the majority prefers to play with others and not punish solo play. Unfortunately when I look at the other communities and see the sort of convos people have in general coms in the verse - we should definitely allow for solo play 🤣🤣

[@OgLockpin]

Really enjoyed this episode. Thanks guys.

[@Cadehighhill]

I truly think it should take way more than a few light fighters to take out even the biggest ships we have now. You look at any of the big scifi shows or movies. The fighters do minimal damage to the capital ships unless they find some one off exploit. Thats how I'd like to see it done. Send in landing Parties to punch through the hull and take it from the inside. Use the hammer head to push the other capital ship to a less defendable position. Take out the shield generators and subsystems etc to disable the other ship. That's how fleet gameplay should be going.

[@forgedstar2883]

I’m so looking forward to engineering.

[@goldmund22]

Nice discussion, appreciate the direct acknowledgements early on from Morph on the very slow development times. Also appreciate all your work ST! Nice in depth videos. We all hope 2024 will be a solid year for SC and development will pick up.

[@HappyRBOB]

If they make capital ship battles like in battlestar galactica it would be amazing.

[@LeandroMenaUgarte]

The problem with NPC crews is that AI will consume server resources too, it can be endless. If you have to choose to either allow more players per server or bigger/complex NPC crews, what would you choose? A 150 payer server with NPC crews won’t be a 150 player server. Server meshing will likely increase costs for CIG because they will have to pay for more servers for the same amount of game with less actual payers? It’s tricky.

[@grigorkyokuto7546]

the Hurston air quality was in and NPC did wear plastic bags around, if I remember correctly

[@beavschannel5217]

I think NPC crew beyond being basic gunners is going to be a monumental task for CIG to create, and the mechanics to control and issue orders to all the crew of large ships is going to be so distracting the it would be difficult to even concentrate on flying. Imagine all the things you need to do while flying, now add in going through a nest of contextual commands to issues orders to NPC crew to manage power management, fight fires, select the repair of specific componets, vent rooms, get gunners to target specific targets, repel boarders and everything else that may need to be done. I think its a bit pie in the sky, and will go 1 of 2 ways, a lot of it will be automated and provably be a bit too OP compared to having a player crew, or it will be too basic or even not possible and people wont be happy they can't actually solo their ships with NPCs, personally I hope its the latter, it is a multi-PLAYER game after all.

[@mariocarolino9607]

We need npcs multi-crew to help us with all the tasks in our ship.

[@ricky6608]

or at least turret gunners. Wouldn’t be that hard since NPCs use them already

[@mariocarolino9607]

@@ricky6608 exactly

[@0Metatron]

The remnants of an “economy” that we have now does actually mater! It matters to pirates, it matters to bounty hunters and many more cases like this. When players are ridiculously rich they don’t care, they don’t care about dying, losing their ship, losing their cargo, their armor etc etc and that’s bad for the gameplay we enjoy right now. And people can argue “oh is still a pre alpha” blah blah but it’s the regular players who play the game for what it is now who are keeping the dream alive and kicking!

[@EmanuelSpader]

I can't wait for engineering and i want it to be as complex and deep as they dare make it. I want a challenge!

[@Nine-Signs]

"less than 50% complete" - Space Tomato "There is more still to do than has been done" - Morphologis "It wont take another ten years." - Chris Roberts One of those statements would appear to be undone by the other two.

[@sebc8938]

The main issue is that they are progressing on many functions but they always leave things totally unfinished. And instead of returnung to them, they introduce new functions that are the excuse not finishing previous ones as they will probably be impacted. The examples are very numerous. In planets, they put frost on armors in Microtech a long time ago, but never extend it to others objects like weapons, ships, ... And it happens also in green biomes. And no dust has been added elsewhere on Hurston. No mud on foot. In Microtech, in the forest, the sounds are similar to a rocky planet. The ships are also very late. Still no suit lockers nor escape pods. Many ships lacks components. And the black boxe used in some missions has not been added to components. It has been years that console having remote turrets should indicate wichi one is which one ... The more functions they add to the game. the more unfinished things tere are ...

[@conasca]

Tbh, my friend and I have been bringing in the 1scu box into bunker runs since they let us destroy ships to create them. Super useful.

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

Couldn't agree more that group play needs to be a different experience than playing solo. I don't mind if they allow solo players to pilot big ships but it should be harder for them and they should be at a significant disadvantage if they come across another big ship that has a crew. I think of it similar to sea of thieves. Yes you can take a galleon out solo and sail it, but it's very difficult to do everything needed (steer the ship, turn the sails, shoot the guns, repair, etc.) and if you come across another ship you're going to be at a huge disadvantage because you can't perform all those functions at once the same way a solo player can in a sloop. Give people the option to fly big ships if they really want to, but it needs to be clear they are meant for multi-crew and that it's a disadvantage to try without a crew. I know some people who own large ships will be opposed to this but personally I want big ships to *feel* significantly different from small ones. There has to be advantages to joining an org or playing with friends, this is an MMO after all. Edit: They mentioned the sea of thieves reference right after I wrote this haha but great analogy, if anyone hasn't played it I recommend looking up some videos to see what we mean as I'm sure the devs have seen this game too and have drawn parallels to it.

[@arielis78]

I imagine Capital Ship battle's to resemble a game that recently shut down called Dreadnought.

[@sirtaron]

I think it would be great if they had degraded the components by flight hours. I think something like the component needs repair/replacement after 4,000 to 8,000 flight hours depending on how hard you pushed the component. A character that always travels at max speed is going to wear out their components faster than someone who constantly travels at SCM speeds.

[@yexiu5649]

My worry is that all of this sounds fun and good now in theory, but after doing it 5-6 times, it will start to feel way too forced, tedious, and just homework and not feel fun. You play game yes for immersion but when you put in way to many little annoying realistic gameplay limitations or things that feel like homework, it stops being fun and starts to feel like real life, which for a lot of people is not very fun, gaming is for escaping that crap lol im happy with everything so far, just bring it, we test it and just modify ir make changes depending on feedback.

[@Gioke.]

Agreed, hopefully the devs stand by what they said. Build a base of realism, and bring it back to where it is fun, and doesnt feel like a chore.

[@aennaenn7468]

I absolutely worry about this too. However... There will be people (like me) who just wanna be Scotty ala star trek. Engineering is my gameplay loop for multicrew AND solo. If I have a crew to run around with, I'm the ship engineer. If I don't, I'm the tow truck/repair man you call to fix your dead ship out in the black, and if I can't fix it, I'll strip it and salvage it. I do think that for those who aren't brain damaged like me, engineering should be simple enough to control on a solo ship (I consider solo ships anything with a crew size of 1-3) that it feels meaningful but not like a chore. And For those of us WITH that engineer brain, it should be meaningfully empowering if you have a dedication to maintaining and boosting your ship capabilities.

[@yexiu5649]

@aennaenn7468 Yeah, I get it, but for most players, that is not the case. It's gonna be fun at the beginning, but later, it's not gonna feel so fun. especially for solo players. Also it looks like it's more common when fighting so you will definitely will need someone with you to take care of it which will be good depending on how your friend circle is because not everyone has friends and even more than that, not everyone has friends that play this particular game either. I do think the best solution for these types of tasks is to make it possible for an npc to do. Obviously, it does not make it better than a player because that's the balance like it was mentioned in the video. I think making the game more viable for solo play is healthier for the life span of the game when it launches. But I do believe we will make the game better by adding what they want to implement and giving feedback. Regardless, I'm very happy with what is to come. This game is the sci-fi game I have been wanting to play. I know that we will get there. Patience is the key, though 🤣 God help us.

[@aennaenn7468]

@@yexiu5649 Yeah no that's why I clarified that the engineering loop should feel meaningful, but not tedious, or like a chore. Essentially what id be looking for is for small ships (crew 1-3) all preventative maintenance should be able to be done at a station easily before takeoff, or in-between flights, and barring combat or impact damage, that's all you should need and even then, not every time you land. I'd even say that in instances like that you should be able to pay station services to do it for you. Like hey, you CAN do this yourself and save a buck, OR you can have station mechanics do it for you, and pay for it. (Timers for how long the service takes??) Maintenance I mean, tuning (modding and buffing ship abilities) should be done only by players.

[@yexiu5649]

@aennaenn7468 yeah that's a really good suggestion. I guess it all depends on how bad it gets before you can take care of it cause it sounds like it's gonna be urgent if not attended quickly. We'll see how they implement it. Either way, we gonna have fun xD

[@CMDR-odanrot]

I think the other thing you guys are forgetting as well is the multi-tool does have a repair function now using RMC to patch up holes in your ship so that's something else that's going to be added on as a repair feature for your ship because those holes in the hall are actually going to make a difference on your oxygen

[@bhee1076]

I just dont want my msr to just up and explode when i take it out for a jaunt solo. Like sometimes i cant get 6 friends together just let me fly the bigger ones a bit without them self destructing, im fine if i cant get into too much combat

[@Splincir]

I'll add another comment. I think much of this game and this engineering loop not feeling like dog crap, will stem from maelstrom and physicalized damage, including ship armor. Having ship battles where ballistics and or lasers have to penetrate armor to do real damage is so cool and what ive been hoping for for years. Imagine having bullets tearing through your ship interior as the shields are down and youre rushing about to repair damages. Having to actually hit the actual components to truly disable a ship could completely change ship combat. Time to kill would be an entirely different converstion because it would be reliant on you disabling ship parts. In the future hitting the engines will probably be the most effective way of stopping a ship because they are the largest and most exposed component. Maybe a lucky spray through the cockpit could kill the pilot as well. Anyway, there wont be an average TTK, theyll have to base it off a specific component, like potential ttk on X ship via disabled engines is Y. It opens up the game to much more interesting encounters... especially when we're met with the idea of armor just completely negating guns under X size. Oh, you have size 3s... how quaint. "Sips tea, powers off shields, and loads up QT drive for jump". I dont know how theyll balance it, but like size 1 and 2 guns only effect size 1 ships. 3 will work on size 2 ships but arent super effective. 4 is effective for size 2 ships and midly effective on size 3. Like attacking anything size 3 or up with anything smaller than size 5 is pretty much a non starter. Man that would be pretty cool. I can imagine all the tears. The fighter meta would still be meta in size 1 combat but beyond that theyd be ineffective in large ship combat. They could still help pick away at shields but wouldnt do much else. It would make ships like the eclipse and the inferno and ion much more deadly and meaningful. And besides taking out other small fighters the small fighters would excell in removing those equalizers off the board. Just opinions and would need testing and balancing but it sounds cool in the moment.

[@4syates]

I am hoping that there is still going to be a benefit to having the repair bay on the carrack, the drones on the vulture or even carrying spare sub components. I will be disappointed if every type of damage and wear is repairable by a basic player with a multi tool.

[@koopakinkreet]

Im really excited for engeneeeing, having a fully realized ship is the life blood of this game. And as far as progress, I feel like the last tasks on the chopping block are the real meat of the game. Jump points, server meshing, npc crew .. once these last few roles are in game its about polish and star systems after that.

[@danielhartland3737]

When it comes to salvage. I would like for us to eva out to the ship and have to cut up the ship oursleves using a cutting torch. Would bring a bit of a skill knowing where is a good spot to cut for each ship. We can also salvage the components and weapons.

[@Splincir]

My biggest issue with many of the star citizen systems implementations is how often you might have to interact with that system. Eventually there will be so man SIM like interactions it will be like the issue with there being so many streaming services that you are now paying substantially more than when you had cable. We just cut the cable to replace it with 100s of companies now offering their own service... i mean its only 10 bucks right? Then you have 20 of them and realize youre spending 200 bucks a month. Anyway, i digress, my point is we'll spend more time performing tedious functions than actually playing and interacting with the game in meaningful ways at some point. Thats what worries me. Finding people who want to sit in the belly of a ship and play the wire game so your ship can operate will end up being like looking for a tank or healer in regular mmos. Most people arent going to want to do that but everyone wants to play on a big ship and have that stars/trek experience. Thats my main concern. I am excited for what the system could bring, i just know that it will need a lot of balance and i doubt it will feel right at first. Who wants to spend more than half their olay session managing a bar, for, thirst, hunger, ship components, etc. Etc. Like you guys said it should be like my car, or even my motorcycle which sees track use. I change the oil once a month or so and check the tires every once in a while. If our guns are malfunction or the ship is breaking down multiple times in a long play session that will be multiple times too many. With general maintenance on occasion these things should work for a decent amount of time. Fun should always supercede realism and the "realism" of the sim definitely shouldnt exceed actual realism. Some things can be sped up because time scale in game is shorter, but the main thing is it needs to be balanced to not just be a constant reminder of unrealistic game survival mechanics.

[@fatalsyn]

😂 I made the same face at the same time when morphologist mentioned the 40-100 hour rumored gameplay of squadron

[@FederalNewsNetwork1138]

There is talk about not allowing money to equal power (using money to buy large ships and crews to be efficient) vs not using money, and having friends to be greater in power, but here's my argument: Should social wealth (i.e having friends who happen to be cool with playing star citizen) be the most powerful force of the two?

[@HypherionTV]

We're not even close to 25% complete look at all the missing systems

[@grigorkyokuto7546]

Morph, base on what you said, the smaller craft/fighter should be the one getting maintaince requiement like IRL with requirement of 1:4 to 1:20 ground time, and be more expensive in uec, higher insurance claim time ect.

[@EasytheGoon]

like on science ships it would be cool to have NPCs doing research. having them on board especially on larger ships making things feel more alive. I dont see them being great at repairs maybe decent turret gunners.

[@kevinm3751]

Personally I am still waiting for this snowball effect that Chris said was going to happen with the development! Instead of getting a snowball effect all we have seen and appear to be getting in the future is this slow melt effect! One would think with the record breaking numbers of funding that continue to break records and for all practical definition is "snowballing" as they continue to break records on that front, the game development would travel along with that and speed up as more money comes it. Yet here we are and all we see is the same drag our feet process and honestly I am getting tired of it!

[@hawkzulu5671]

Maybe im just desensitized. Ive been following since Port Olisar with a jpeg of crusader, hanging in the background was all there was - and the project looked so cool, i checked older vids from before this time and saw the box hangar was all there was b4 this. So i checked up from time to time.. i remember seeing an ISC where they were showing the tools they wanted to use to make Area 18 and procedurally generate the entire city planet ..then a time later i watched that CitCon where they flew to and through area 18 - then up to orbit and landed on that space station. Saw mining come in.. i figured once they get to the point where salvaging and more fleshed out cargo is on the way, ill pull the trigger. So i started playing in 3.17.something - just over a year ago In the year and couple months ive been playing the servers went from 50 people to 100 salvaging came into game cargo went from a thing that looks like its sitting in your ship - to a thing that can be physically added, removed or pirated. when i called called to land at or retrieve a ship at a station, i got an external pad. ships can be field upgraded / weapons and components removed, swapped out or stripped and sold people used to have to make a macro for voice attack - if they wanted to move a bunch of items from 1 inventory window to another, Or sit thru clicking and dragging, I spent over an hour just transferring my inventory from NB to my ship, when a new patch reset everything and i wanted to move all my stuff to a legrange station. This was a every patch ritual. Soft death came to game, instead of ship only being able to blow up. combat logging was common place group mining, salvage, cargo - or anything else wasnt practical because unless X commodity was harvested with my ship, and hauled to market with my hauler - the goods are considered Stolen Ship tractor beams were not a thing Mining anything other than quant was pointless rental ships weapons / tools could not be upgraded If you had a 30k you lose everything There was no global persistence. race tracks, rivers, caves, settlements 100 other additions or improvements i cant remember Now im in 3.22 testing personal cargo boxes and structural salvage, with eyes on all the features coming after this 3.22 goes from PTU to live. Plus all that manpower thats coming from SQ42 over to the SC PTU teams. If CIG did a mass hire - cool. Some of those people would be fresh out of school, some from other game studios or other related industries - and the next order of business would be mass - training .. to get them caught up on the project and its workflow, the tools that are bespoke to StarEngine.. etc. This flood of people is already familiar with all of it and will be able to hit the ground traveling at light speed vs fresh hires. Look at that SQ 42 demo.. the environments, lighting, textures, ships, weapons, animation..etc - THESE guys are coming in Q1 2024. Im glad i paced myself and didnt pledge or start playing SC earlier. Id might be fed up and crying in comment sections - instead of enjoying myself through this long, slow process. I watched the CitCon when they did their 1st landing on a planet. .. years later when i jump in myself, suddenly the game is going to go into turbo drive, because 'Im here now'? .. Nope. Keep pushing foreward, 1 buggy ass patch at a time. I want a longer list of stuff that wasnt in game when i started - when i hit the 2 year mark.

[@michaelsmith2039]

Regarding Real Money investment and Solo vs. Multiplayer. I feel that those funding the game during development should reap the rewards when it comes to insurance claims, asset recovery, and opportunites due to having multiple platforms available to drive different gameplay loops. Solo- should be able to fly and operate any ship and work a gameplay loop, but the trade-off is survivability, efficiency, yield, and operating costs. Multiplayer- improves upon all of those aspects which will drive better rewards and ability to tackle missions that are out of reach for the solo player. Exploration, resource gathering, bounty hunting, cargo hauling all can be accomplished with a solo player just as IRL. The concerns about Pay 2 Win should disappear upon full release as I suspect the focus will turn to more cosmetic items and concepts which will not be purchased by all players similar to investment now. Lets be honest the majority of players in SC currently have invested more money than most other games and its not released, so the sampling for these discussions is greatly skewed.

[@kyle.carmen]

I am very excited about engineering. It will definitely make for some fun multi-crew gameplay and add tasks for crews to manage on larger ships!

[@Mordekaiserize]

I’m biggest worry with engineering gameplay is will my Connie be to big to solo now and if so what will be my new solo ship

[@KarlBarbosa]

NPC crew situation is really easy to solve: if you bring an npc crew with you, your mission rewards get split among them. Cargo, mining, all the profit making stuff ... NPCs need to be paid. So you then get a choice: split profits with NPCs, or split them with players. Either way, you have to share the creds if you're running a massive ship.

[@Splincir]

There is no need to do even that. You get the full payouts, but npc crews have like a weekly/bi weekly/ or monthly salary. Meaning if you want an npc crew, you have to hire them and manage their salary. Paying an npc crew if you're not running enough content with them could be expensive enough that you potentially couldn't afford them.

[@TrashedRedPanda]

Both are good options

[@grimmsalem]

I can see both options being good. Low-medium level npc might just want the stable salary but Higher levels might want to be pay base on haul.@@TrashedRedPanda

[@swiftbow2110]

Really good discussion. I personally lean towards having fun, in terms of human crew vs NPC crew with large ships. Everyone can’t be the Captain on a large crewed ship and my worry is many people will not have fun with that model. SC has to be careful here and not fall off in enjoyment like EVE ONLINE. I played Eve for 8 years and I left disgruntled because of people. Just sayin, there has to be a balance and we should not be so quick to use absolutes like a human crew must be better than an NPC crew. Not necessarily if the ship is crewed with a bunch of Noobs who played SC for the first time. Let’s see how it plays out.

[@jsullivan649]

Until they let us blown open the doors on bunkers a little wider, 1SCU box is the only work around we get for now. One day I can be my true loot goblin self

[@TheDeadgedd]

As a solo player i wont buy any ship outside single seaters until we see what engineering and npc crews entail I understand the worry over solo whales so as a solo player i think a cap on npc crew numbers is a fair solution say maybe 3-4 max and leave the bigger ships to orgs

[@animusnocturnus7131]

So I don't have any really big ships, and all ships that are bigger that I am interested in, I want to crew with multiple people, most of which will hopefully be my friends, but some would be additional hands that are just there to fill out the crew. That being said, I do hope that NPC crew will be a thing and that the most competent NPC crews will be better than a badly coordinated crew of players, and I do hope so because of 2 reasons: 1. If there are levels of competence between NPCs that are all worse than any kind of player, then there won't be any challange for players in PvE. Even the worst crew of players will then always win against even the best crew of NPCs. And I don't think that this would be fun either. Battles between big multicrew ships still need to be engaging for a crew of players even in PvE. 2. If there are severl levels of competence between NPCs and they will all be worse than even the most disorganized players, then there is no reason to have multiple levels of competence between NPCs in the first place. I also hope that there will be ways to take over NPCs for other players, just in order to be able to play together as a crew one day while being able to fly around solo the next. If my friends and I crew up on a friends Carrack and we fly out towards the edge of the knows systems, and I have to use the single character that I have for that, and my friends don't have time to play for the next 2 or 3 days afterwards, then I am stuck and can't play either. I can't get back to my ships, I can't have solo adventures, and even if I would be able to somehow manage to get back and do have solo adventures, it's likely that I won't be able to get back to my friends in the Carrack afterwards. And conversely if I don't have time for a few days, suddenly my friends will have a potentially significantly harder time without me depending on how easy it would be to operate a ship with less than the full amount of crew. So I do hope that either we get multiple characters to use and if I don't play one, they will be taken over by an NPC, or that I can just jump into a NPC Crewmate on a friends Carrack... without my reputation, without my gear, without my skills, just to be able to play with my friends.

[@JoseJimenez-fc6pu]

Nevermind that it becomes a pay to win scenario but if you're allowed to crew a big ship with just AI, then doesn't that contradict what SC is trying to be, an MMO? There has to be a severe penalty for trying to solo an Idris, for example.

[@NutjobChuck]

It is sad that you can only imagine what you’ve seen before

[@rivermoneyg6277]

You can trade weapons in a safe space already? literally call your ship to a hangar and put them in a external storage? it's that easy always take payment before letting people on the ship too

[@grimmsalem]

I think hanges can be realy good way to sink some money. Make a bunch of fun props to add

[@Nine-Signs]

homesteads and 5 star systems, + dynamic econ and missions, would be enough.

[@ausername7470]

There has to be the aspect of you being able to solo a small medium ship like the Zeus and still be competent. Sure it wont be as good in a fight against one with a crew, but you should still be able to somewhat hold your own. Also NPC crew needs to be viable for people who want to solo jav yes, I dont own one but if someone is at a position where a jav is viable to maintain financially for them they should also be able to buy enough crew members for it to "solo" it. Im guessing something like that would cost a solo player a lot and I a LOT

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

I'm ok with that but that Jav filled with NPC should be like 50-60% as effective as a fully crewed Jav with real players. There should be a significant advantage for having multi crew over NPCs in my opinion becuase it is hard to coordinate and pull off. If you put in that kind of work you should be rewarded with a significant advantage in combat imo. I hope CIG basically incentivizes people to multi crew. Like yes, you can use NPCs but it's not the preferred method for big ships.

[@mrdot1126]

A- the big ship alone players should go play EVE Online or X4 or No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous, Starfield.... B- NPC should be barely adequate against NPC pirates/peacekeeping force, but should way underperform compared to a players. C- its a god damn MMO..

[@CitizenScott]

18:14 "They can't put it together, because we just don't have enough locations and stuff..." That's the real issue. Impossible scope. And I mean "impossible" literally. They continue to expand the vision and implement perpetual "placeholders," which just makes it that much more complex and difficult to flesh out or actually balance anything. So long as the vocal minority of blind sycophants keep shouting down valid criticism this will never change.

[@CitizenScott]

38:34 "It is not an insignificant amount of people who are looking to play the game solo." That's a gross understatement. I constantly have to remind folks that the vast, overwhelming majority of SC players want to play mostly solo. The perception gets skewed by those on social media (including twitch, youtube, etc.) who are a vocal minority. Social players tend to be more social people, so they are more likely to engage on social media. Solo players tend to be less social people, so they are less likely to engage on social media. Again, the perception is skewed, and most players are solos.

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

I feel like CIG has to try and change this. SC is designed as an MMO after all. They can do this by incentivizing group play and the way to do that is 1. make large ships very expensive to maintain (which is realistic anyway) so that it's hard for a solo player to pay for all the upkeep. 2. always ensure that a fully crewed ship will outperform one filled with NPCs. Like yes you can solo it, they're not locking you out of that game loop, but it's a disadvantage. There are plenty of small and medium size ships people can easily solo, but it's unrealistic and almost game breaking if a solo player can buy and pay to crew a capital sized ship and it's on par with a multi crewed one. It's basically pay to win at that point. Like they mentioned, sea of thieves is a good parallel. Sure you can take a galleon out and solo it but it's going to be very hard to maintain that ship and also to fight another ship that has the proper amount of crew in it.

[@CitizenScott]

@@Spike.SpiegeI Why should solo players be punished for their preference? Especially when we are the overwhelming majority of not only SC players but MMO players in general? No. CIG can incentivize co-operation without forcing it or punishing those who abstain. Speaking only for myself here but I know others who feel the same, but the point of SC is immersion and the easiest way to be ripped out of your immersion is to interact with other players.

[@Captain_Alkami]

Tech built right is slow. If this kind of tech was easy everyone would be using it. Relative to their ambition their progress is both acceptable and incomparable. What should be judged is how much faster the team is building up to the release of Squadron 42 and afterwards. Until then hold onto any cynicism.

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

Just look at all the hyped games that come out half broken and huge letdowns. Look at starfield, look at cyberpunk, look at no mans sky release. I'd much rather CIG take their time and do it right over rushing it out to meet some made up deadline and everyone is just disappointed in the final result. Bethesda should have just kept cooking starfield for a few more years... its been out a month and everyone is basically over it.

[@Anonnymouse53]

The logic that is practicable with NPCs is at direct odds with SCs tendancy to have a lot lf simulated elements and systemic everything. The conversation should be whether anyone really believes NPCs can achieve 1/4 of what players can automomously. CIG have never demonstrated NPC AI that can do anything besides combat (which is a well understood problem). I have Very low expectations for AI crew mates putside of SQ42's scripted scenes.

[@ltwinter5098]

Fix radar scanning, medical and related gameplay. Then maybe engineering.

[@dizzylemongaming2175]

People already took 2 scu boxes into bunkers for gear. Why is M acting like it will be new?

[@Tainted-Soul]

Its easy to make friends or have players wanting to play with you when your a content creator but try to think about some of the players that find it hard to make friends in real life let a lone in game. I am the opposite as in I can make friend in real life just not so much in game. I have spent a lot of money on bigger ships not because I want to lord over anyone or have a big ship to say LOOK what I have but to enjoy flying it and looking at it . I know I have spent too much on the game and have stopped ass my pockets have been empty of late with real life crap but I still would like to fly my Perseus when it comes out or the Liberator with my Vulture on it so I can salvage and store the stuff in the liberator and then store the Vulture and fly home to sell / build my base / home. I am at this time trying to join an org because I feel the game is pushing me to I hope I picked one that things and plays like I do. I don't also want to dish on the Engineering game play as I know a lot of people would like this but as I work in a factory I've seen enough of this in my life time with 40 years at work to not to want to do it in a game, so there ned to be a balance. EG. if you can take your ship to a service yard to have it serviced so stuff dont brake then good as for punish people for having a fleet I think I have spent enough to have to gride the game just to pay for the fleet to be in storage, we haven't had our fleet given to us buy CIG in the referral I do agree about the NPC crew Vs a manned crew for sure I would want to be out gunned / classed by npc's Dont get me wrong, I do see what your saying and agree with most of it but you should not have to find people to play with to play the game even if its harder. Morph's comments about the Arrastra made a lot of cense and as you say a solo Arrastra can be dont but it will take more time and have to more work to get out of what a crew can.

[@ricky6608]

I want to solo big ships not because I don’t want to play with other people but because I don’t have the time to get involved with an org and I don’t play on a regular schedule. I’m more than happy for NPC crew to be worse than a player crew but they should at least be fun and competent for PVE content considering how many players have bought big ships and how much these things cost. As mentioned in the video balancing should be somewhat easy since they could make NPCs repair components slower and/or they could make them less effective at aiming turrets

[@VICT0RLAZL0]

SQ42 Is 42 hours long But speed runners will be done in 42 min. 🤪

[@thoughtthru1848]

Make the more successful ships cost more.

[@aaustin94]

It's not pay to win it's pay to get ahead. Everything of significance can be earned in game. what is winning in Star Citizen. Yeah PvP you can win but as it currently stands you can buy a good PvP ship but you won't just win every engagement.

[@JonathanS89]

Solo players that grind in game to be able to afford NPC crew should absolutely be able to have a large ship run effectively. I feel like this is much more difficult than just grabbing some friends and manning a large ship. For me personally, playing with people is a lot more fun, solo play long term gets boring.

[@InfernosPhantoms]

People can gush all they want over engineering and multi-crew with players. Honestly it's a great idea and interesting but the sad reality is it's a novelty and players are fickle. Once the novelty wears off I'll be happily surprised if there's still a majority of players who would rather mess around with crew work and engineering over playing their own 'story' rather than being someone else's NPC crew equivalent.

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

At the end of the day it's an MMO though, so there has to be some aspect of multicrew gameplay. I feel like if people don't want to do that, there are plenty of small and medium ships that are probably OK to solo. Also, I'm ok with the NPC option but if people go that route they should be at a noticeable disadvantage to a fully crewed large ship. Otherwise, the game is basically pay 2 win if someone can just buy a capital ship and pay for NPC crew and still be just as effective as a multi crew ship. Multi crew should almost always trump solo players.

[@justalex4214]

I was looking forward so much to structural salvage because I really love the idea of it, but they dropped the ball so hard with this initial release... and I don't really care that they blatantly copy pasted the mining mechanics, but what makes this so disappointing to me is that there is no skill element to it whatsoever, no hands-on approach, nothing. Even with the limitations to the system they have now they could have done so many things to make it engaging, challenging and fun, but instead we literally press 3 buttons and are done. This is exactly the opposite of what they said salvage would be and that worries me a lot.

[@llillian4055]

Improved medical is necessary now, because CIG has for some years now started making armours that support the "temporary' work around mechanics that they call medical gameplay. Its meant to be just as important as mining or other major professions .. but it's beam citizen where everyone has a magic beam so there is no reason to have a dedicated medic. They 100% need a better medical design before they start pushing ships into "gold" state, or designing ships like the Apollo, Medivac, Endeavor, or Galaxy medical bay. The beams are just ... boring, with gameplay that is not even close to Star Wars Galaxies medic or heck, even World of Warcraft healing. That game even had a *triage* mission ... things game can't get to that level when "instant beam healing" just does quite literally everything. I want Engineering to be deep, and have lots of subcomponents etc ... because the "placeholder beam citizen" is looking more an more like the final version for many things. If I want super simple mechanics, I'd just play Sea of Theives.

[@jonnybeebeesee1530]

Omg tomato and morph it is the best

[@Traumglanz]

Yeah that sounds like a good combo.

[@aaronnelson7702]

​@@Traumglanzneeds saltE

[@Acklend]

Why do people like over complicate mechanics on operations of loops

[@Katzh]

talking about the performance of ai crew vs human crew, they already stated that the ai will become better at a task, the more it's trained to. I don't think that means they'll become the best crew to have, cig have to balance ai right. and there are many game that are online, but also have bots, or ai to replace player right? so if you think about it, it's not something new in the game industry. what I mean is, I played many games, and with many different people. ai have different tunning, and people have different skill level. I saw games where bad bots play better than bad human. so yes, human players can be so bad, they also have afk time, drama etc.. but good players generaly perform way better than bots in games. So I expect for star citizen, that a good player crew will be way better to have than ai crew. But trash players will not be something you want to have in your crew. Also we never got a clarification on the ai crew limits. how many can you have? do you have to "take care" of them? what's the cost? can it be paid with real money? cause yes, if one rich guy can full ai crew a javelin, plus have an army of wingman ai crew, that autopilot all your other ship, and you just go out there with a fleet of ai crew you paid with real money and become god, that's messed up. (and sometimes I believe that's how some people imagine how the game will be when they post their fleet on spectrum with 5 javs, 10idris etc...) I think you'll have some hard limit to ai crew.

[@SgtHack802]

This game will never be released. Ship sales can never stop

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

Once SQ42 comes out it will be another revenue stream, that's why they've been focused on releasing it ASAP. However, I think there are still lots of ships and vehicles they want to make so that will also continue to be a revenue stream. As an MMO I hope the game is never truly "finished". Eventually they will release it but then there will hopefully always be expnasions and new content added. Both ships and gameplay.

[@Tentacl]

Frankly a lot of those discussions mirror exactly what happened to Warframe and Railjack missions - in the end of the day, it must be flexible and organized players will ALWAYS beat 1 player plus NPCs he has to gve orders to, but you just can't make it MP only or the very reason many people like videogame - not being forced into social interactions after a tiresome day of work - wil just leave. The game mode was pretty much abandoned the minute the devs tried to force players into doing it in groups. Also, SC is a pay to win game since day 1, I made my peace with it, but there is the point where playing with a group matters - if one player is alone and is attacked by 2 really organized dudes on discord he is screwed, even if his ship in considerably more powerful - and even when light fighters lose their teeth against large ships (with realistic damage model instead of just HP pool and DPS like nowadays) they can always choose if they will engage and slowly chew away at subsystems and have freedom to disengage if anything goes north. Big ships working as naval vessels is exactly how it always worked in classic sci fi and it works (just look, well, aywhere, from Star Wars to Battlestar Galactica to Homeworld), as long as light fighters are NOT nerfed and murder those who would prey on up armed middle size ships meant to attack big ships but realistically lack the firepower to gravely damage much larget targets. They are supposed to be the defensive line to stop bombers and torpedo bombers, dogfight enemy light fighters while heavy fighters attack the constellations and corsairs who are tryng to hit the large and logistic ships in the back line. That said, at least for now crime, not war, is what actually creates PvP, and that means usually people will be using hybrids, ganking and just choosing targets of opportunity - so really balance is pretty much null here, all that matters is awareness, intent and numbers. Now, in the race to be rich ingame the ship has sailed. People who have reclaimers and Arrastras from day 1 will just skyrocket in front of the pack.

[@CaptainBrawnson]

I strongly disagree with Morphologis' suggestion that they need to focus on adding interim versions of gameplay systems. It would be a terrible, terrible management decision to waste resources on polishing up placeholder versions of systems that are not yet set in stone and will have to be thrown out and redone, simply to have them as a selling point in the alpha, instead of devoting those resources to building the foundations that the final systems actually need and only releasing the iterations of that system as they become viable. Leave early prototyping to ugly, unreleasable internal tests. Do not waste time and money prettying it up to release quality only for it to be thrown away when the final design specifications and pipeline are determined. We have had enough of that already, and minimizing it and going heads down on SQ42 without worry about interim public releases is a HUGE part of why we're finally seeing major progress. Setting your requirements and building a system monolithically is simply much, much more effective, and lets you design better systems, than trying to design by increments. All that does is paralyze you in an ever expanding web of interdependencies that you have to painstakingly untangle with every minor change, or throw out and start over. Prioritizing getting unfinished, placeholder systems into the alpha, at the expense of actually developing the finished systems for the final product, is just a fantastic way to mismanage the project to an early death.

[@leslieviljoen]

33:50 Before big ships have a maintenance cost, we should be able to sell them. And if they have such a cost, it should only be WHEN THE SHIP IS IN USE. Elite charges rent for Fleet Carriers and it's an absolutely awful thing - one of the worst ideas ever. It makes me want to not log in because of the psychological toll of how much money I've been fined for not playing the game. The 890J's expensive fuel already partially accomplishes this "maintenance cost". They could easily implement this right now by adding a maintenance tax to fuel so that fuel costs more for expensive ships.

[@dreadrabbit]

If engineering is oxi scrub replacement I'll take a HARD pass. Systems that just add more timers is just so much more tedium.

[@magvad6472]

Yeah biggest Im going is the Railen and that's only with 2 friends. If I want to be part of a big ship I'll just join someone who has one. Anyone saying they bought a big ship with the understanding they could pilot it alone without npcs is just being willfully ignorant. Like come on, we knew. The whole "I can just get npcs to do everything" excuse also gets me a bit doubtful, like I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. The amount of bugs and such? Unless they make NPCs teleport around and do fundamentally complex stuff without animations or movement is the only other option and that just undermines the use of having real players because real players are under the contraints of the game, npcs wouldn't be...so they'd be the meta choice for a lot of these roles over players. I just don't really see a world in which npc ran ships are going to be viable beyond filling in a role and doing it just well enough that you don't have to stay ontop of it...but because they are npcs you'll still need to put time into it. Not to mention lower payouts still applying and possibly them being more expensive than player options who will just want a cut of the profits of the missions they do...but not paychecks while you are offline and such....or the process of collecting all the npcs and getting them on your ship if you don't just log off in a bed and leave your ship floating in space with all the npcs cashing checks.

[@intothevoid2046]

Development will slow down from now on. They will have to deal with so many technical issues due to the new technology that is coming up. You will see the same pattern as always: Initial implementation, the one or two years until the fixes start rolling in. And there is so much missing still, even with maps and UI, before you can actually call it a game. I promise you: In two years you will say the same as today: "Maybe next year will be better." Remember how long it took until 3.0 was actually barely playable? The real game changer for me will be personal hangars. That is when it starts to become "my" game. Refarding big ships: The Carrack was subtextually sold as a solo-able ship. Look at the commercial. People with Carracks are mostly explorers. They don't need power, they want a home away from home. Not everything is about combat. A Carrack should be solo-able. Explorers a significant portion of the player base. Battleships however, should need a trained crew. Instead of an NPC crew, solo players would very much benefit from a Droid companion, who can do engineering and other simple tasks. That would not be an advantage over trained gunners. Imagine you coud buy a R2d2 Unit, and customize it....

[@M4cex]

There should 100% be benefit for working together. Just as much as there's benefit for completing raids and dungeons and stuff in other games that are not possible to be done solo. This is a MMO. We need group gameplay as much as possible but still leave most stuff out of group exclusivity.

[@clovernacknime6984]

This is an MMO. This is also a space sim. How many people play because of the MMO aspects and how many play despite it? I know for sure that should I ever try SC, it will be due to wanting a sandbox space sim more than I dislike multiplayer. Maybe I'm unique that way, but I sincerely doubt that. Also, it seems to me that running a crewed ship requires much more long-term investment and coordination than just getting together for a raid, to the point where you'd have to treat the game like a job for it to be workable.

[@M4cex]

@@clovernacknime6984 ofc bigger ships would require more hands on to be effectively operational but you'd get reward for doing so after all. I'd imagine that there would be certain hostile systems which you can never settle on but could do huge missions where you fight agains large alien fleets etc to reach a place where you could get some intel to sell for huge profit. If you're a solo player you could try to go there but not survive long enough to reach the goal.

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

Agree we need group play options just like there are raids etc. in other MMOs. In my opinion, SC has always been marketed as an MMO and SQ42 is the single player companion. Yes it's a space sim but that is just the type of MMO it is, space based.

[@jonpolitis7787]

personally pay to win does not bother me unless you cannot get at least an equivalent in game thro work and ftr im poor as balls i live off of literally $9600 a year and theres no way i can not afford to pay to win

[@Cheesebread42]

NPC crew should have fairly high costs that make it worthwhile to hire player crew.

[@hephaestion12]

I dissagree with you guys about the economy - I think they need to start building this now. Most games figure out their gameplay first and then build the systems. But CIG haven't nailed down how this economy is expected to work and it touches everything. This isn't like an engineering problem with the game its a social problem and the social side needs alpha testing too. Can't just keep assuming a magical technical solution is going to arrive and solve everything - if they can't make a decent economy in a simple game they can't make one in a complex game in my view.

[@aennaenn7468]

One big concern is that crew requirements will mean we wont see some ships out in the wild, and thats sad. To put it into perspective, in MMOs like wow and ff14, the largest group activities require 10, 25, and 40 people. Im only bringing up these other mmos because group dynamics are universal. I dont think crew requirement should exceed that amount because those groups meet often once a week and its a task to organize just that. The org question can be satisfied temporarily once 3 things are in the game. 1. Persistent hangars (your guild area) 2. Cargo elevators (your guild bank/armory) 3. Cargo refactor and nested boxes (organizing group assets) Some place to gather, with your stuff, and sally forth from.

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

I still think we'll see them in the wild but they will be fairly rare and I think that's a good thing. If I see a ship like a Jav or Idris I want to stop and stare like holy shit haven't seen one of these in the wild in so long. I don't want it to be an everyday occurrence. I want seeing them or being on them to feel special.

[@matt_vince]

S42 with about 80 to 100 hours, is that with or without Quantum travel🤔. 🤣

[@maxvonkrieger5043]

npcs will fix everything, trust me.

[@KingCobraStunts]

Kinda of hard to tell people who pay for the development of the game that, oh now you have to join an org to fly your 1k+ ship.... you should be able to solo the game, will be as efficient and better as an actual crew no but should be locked off to oh go find some friends that share the same time schedule as you after investing real cash, no... just my 2cents

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

Well they've always been saying that large ships will require multi crew. They've been talking about engineering gameplay and the large costs to maintain large ships for literally years. I don't think they should lock any game play off, but they also need to ground the game in realism. Having one person flying in a giant ship doing everything makes no sense. Let people hire NPCs (at a cost) and then they can also use the ships but they should be at a disadvantage to those who put in the time and effort to coordinate multicrew. At the end of the day SC has always been sold as an MMO and therefore there should be game loops that are more rewarding when you play them with other people.

[@midriffzero]

Morph one idea that will make a player crew better then an NPC crew, is make the NPC crew need to be micromanaged individually, slower then an average player doing then same task and turret gunners that need to be told what to attack. So a single person doing economy work or just exploring will find it easy enough to run with an all npc crew but in combat an all NPC crew would require more attention then a single pilot could do while flying and will be less optimal then a player crew.

[@Hardgrim]

Overall, I agree. The question is what is a "big" ship. I believe for Large ships according to the matrix yes all this makes sense, but with a bit of struggle Medium ships (cutlass, Spirit, Zeus etc.) should be able to be used solo or with NPC.

[@thodempire5365]

I think AI crew is a good idea. Its hard to get a bunch of friends together to play. The AI could be a robotic crew you could rent or buy. It'd be great if you could give them voice commands as well. Basic voice recognition and response.

[@mrdot1126]

for that kind of game experience, these are the games to play : EVE Online, X4, No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous, Starfield.

[@thodempire5365]

@mrdot1126 true, I just hope those who bought an Idris can crew it with enough players :s