In the many years of fantasizing about my own little gameplay loops, I've always been drawn back to "Be your own captain". Everybody wants to pilot their own shiny ship and they want them to operate at their maximum potential. So obviously, to maximize your potential you want actual humans filling roles in your expensive ship and not NPCs or Blades. I see a lot of problems with this.
Example 1
You have a big org. You have an Idris. If you are going out on a specific mission with a specific goal, yea I see no problem filling it with actual people. Same could be said for other bigger capital military ships. IE you know you are going out for 2 hours to provide QRF for a pioneer building a base for an orgie err. ...um org person.
Example 2
You have an Orion or a Reclaimer. I don't think it's unreasonable to have 2-3 friends with you to help with the main goal. They can swap to turrets if need be. Still might be screwed if it's just the Reclaimer.
Example 3
Odyssey, Pioneer, Kraken variants and Merchantman. My own personal gameplay loops. So yes. I would love to have dedicated actual RL humans go out with me. They are expensive ships. But you mean to tell me that I'm going to be able to tie up someone to a boring turret position for who knows how long, and maybe nothing happens? And how do I pay the people I have to pay? How do I leverage what I may OR NOT make. You could argue a contract for a flat percentage of whatever you earn. But in a game in which everything takes a long time to get going, and your profits are probably going to be determined by how long you stay out, how are you ever going to have IRL people? Is it fair that for these gameplay loops you pretty much have to have NPCs or Blades? You could also argue that yes, you need to just have NPCs and Blades, but hire people in other ships to protect you. I don't see this making a lot of sense financially either. Unless it's like a batphone. The other aspect of this is the old argument of the casual vs the hardcore player. These are probably going to be very long gameplay loops...especially exploration. As a casual player, it would suck to not be able to experience a lot bc your experience is tied up behind a sweet spot of when action might happen. I dunno. Sorry if that was incoherent or a rant.
The ideas I had, tbh I don't ever see happening but here goes. You have NPCs, Blades and Robot blanks. You fill your ship like normal with NPCs and Blades, but if something happens, you can call on comms that you have room for 4 turret gunners and an engineer. You get these volunteers from your org, and theyre scattered doing their own gameplay loops. They go to a casting station...like a VR booth. Maybe its only in cities. Maybe you can put one in a ship. Maybe there is even a caster ship that specializes in it. But you jack in to the robots, and the NPCs take a break or whatever. Maybe they get On The Job training bonus lol. You have your gunners/engineers until the threat is over and then they jack off errr jack out. Everybody is happy bc it is quantifiable time to be paid. The casuals can do something they probably wouldn't normally be able to do. You could potentially tie it to non org slots, or even into my other idea (no ships for F2P). And to be completely honest, I don't think it breaks the "MAGIC" or "Suspension of Disbelief" rule for RSI.
The other idea I had was that if you were to play F2P you can't own a ship. You have to fill ship roles. Maybe they have stats or ranking for what they do. Pay someone more if they are a badass turret gunner or engi.
These are my own personal wishes. The only way I see the most fun happening is with a drop in drop out mechanic. What will honestly probably happen is they will put so much emphasis on making your NPCs and Blades the best they can be so your ship is only IRL crewed in very specific loops. And then you cry when your ship blows up with those assets.
Example 1
You have a big org. You have an Idris. If you are going out on a specific mission with a specific goal, yea I see no problem filling it with actual people. Same could be said for other bigger capital military ships. IE you know you are going out for 2 hours to provide QRF for a pioneer building a base for an orgie err. ...um org person.
Example 2
You have an Orion or a Reclaimer. I don't think it's unreasonable to have 2-3 friends with you to help with the main goal. They can swap to turrets if need be. Still might be screwed if it's just the Reclaimer.
Example 3
Odyssey, Pioneer, Kraken variants and Merchantman. My own personal gameplay loops. So yes. I would love to have dedicated actual RL humans go out with me. They are expensive ships. But you mean to tell me that I'm going to be able to tie up someone to a boring turret position for who knows how long, and maybe nothing happens? And how do I pay the people I have to pay? How do I leverage what I may OR NOT make. You could argue a contract for a flat percentage of whatever you earn. But in a game in which everything takes a long time to get going, and your profits are probably going to be determined by how long you stay out, how are you ever going to have IRL people? Is it fair that for these gameplay loops you pretty much have to have NPCs or Blades? You could also argue that yes, you need to just have NPCs and Blades, but hire people in other ships to protect you. I don't see this making a lot of sense financially either. Unless it's like a batphone. The other aspect of this is the old argument of the casual vs the hardcore player. These are probably going to be very long gameplay loops...especially exploration. As a casual player, it would suck to not be able to experience a lot bc your experience is tied up behind a sweet spot of when action might happen. I dunno. Sorry if that was incoherent or a rant.
The ideas I had, tbh I don't ever see happening but here goes. You have NPCs, Blades and Robot blanks. You fill your ship like normal with NPCs and Blades, but if something happens, you can call on comms that you have room for 4 turret gunners and an engineer. You get these volunteers from your org, and theyre scattered doing their own gameplay loops. They go to a casting station...like a VR booth. Maybe its only in cities. Maybe you can put one in a ship. Maybe there is even a caster ship that specializes in it. But you jack in to the robots, and the NPCs take a break or whatever. Maybe they get On The Job training bonus lol. You have your gunners/engineers until the threat is over and then they jack off errr jack out. Everybody is happy bc it is quantifiable time to be paid. The casuals can do something they probably wouldn't normally be able to do. You could potentially tie it to non org slots, or even into my other idea (no ships for F2P). And to be completely honest, I don't think it breaks the "MAGIC" or "Suspension of Disbelief" rule for RSI.
The other idea I had was that if you were to play F2P you can't own a ship. You have to fill ship roles. Maybe they have stats or ranking for what they do. Pay someone more if they are a badass turret gunner or engi.
These are my own personal wishes. The only way I see the most fun happening is with a drop in drop out mechanic. What will honestly probably happen is they will put so much emphasis on making your NPCs and Blades the best they can be so your ship is only IRL crewed in very specific loops. And then you cry when your ship blows up with those assets.
