Staffing with NPCs

[Liquor_and_ores]

10 for the Designers: Episode 06

23:05 - Staffing with NPCs

Hot damn... this almost sounds crazy with the amount of things the NPCS can do. I could see me mining in a Orion, order my Starfarer to come and fuel me up while a cargo ship picks up, and takes my refined ores to market.

Might be crazy risk, but could br crazy rewards as well

*edit we were told that NPCS would fill spaces, but I expected hardcaps on the amount of NPCs/ships they could control for you

 

[Sintha]

I noticed that as well. I always wondered how massive ships would be staffed, now we know.

While i understand why this happen at a practical level (i never wanted to be a staffer on an idris and this could have been 30 less people flying thier own ships) i cant help starting to feel more star npc

 

[NeoHelios_SC]

"...10 hornet escorts, like 'Don't mess with me'..."

Saw that, too. I was under the impression that Star Citizen would not be an X-series arms race "see who can get the biggest NPC armada" type of game. CR said maybe 3-5 wingmen early in development; perhaps he didn't foresee so much popularity with multi-crew ships, yet here we are. If in fact we are going to have to account for players having dozens of crewed ships, I hope they balance for that keeping in mind folks having a real life outside the game. Potentially a huge game-changer that I'm not too sure I signed up for.

Response to "NPCs are dumb AI, and players pwn joo": oh, yeah, sure, and there's no such thing as "strength in numbers" too, amirite? NPCs notwithstanding, even people can be as dumb as a box of rocks and still win due to larger numbers. Look at modern politics!

 

[Audax Phidippus]

I'm guessing the designers were ill-informed. I know that they pretty much have to be better informed than us - but I'm still sticking with my statement.

It goes against what CR has said in the past, and it just makes for bad gameplay down the road. I think wingmen will be limited.

 

[mromutt]

Its sounding good!

 

[Lienna]

10 may have been an exaggeration.

But even if not you have to own 10 hornets with upfront costs, each of which have insurance, fuel costs, munition costs, repair costs, upgrades if you want them to be in good fighting shape etc. Then you need to find and hire 10 combat pilots, which might be harder than people expect, not to mention the wages they require. Heck you could even do this without your own ships, but I bet hiring pilots that come with their own ships costs extra.

So if you do this you will be bleeding money unless you are doing trading in the huge ships or something, so sure do it for a hull e, but will 10 hornets be enough to deter someone really after a hull e's cargo?

 

[Audax Phidippus]

So if you do this you will be bleeding money unless you are doing trading in the huge ships or something, so sure do it for a hull e, but will 10 hornets be enough to deter someone really after a hull e's cargo?

How does one deal with pirate fleets, when each pirate has 10 npc wingmen? UEC should not directly convert into power/strength, IMO. Goes against the whole "skill-based" argument they've been making since day 1.

 

[Lienna]

How does one deal with pirate fleets, when each pirate has 10 npc wingmen? UEC should not directly convert into power/strength, IMO. Goes against the whole "skill-based" argument they've been making since day 1.

You laugh as their operating costs are far above the value of the things they are taking?

Say you could hire 100 ships at 10,000 uec each, you need to then capture at least 100,000 euc worth of cargo to break even, let alone get a decent profit. Say you make 150,000 uec, congrats you made 50,000 uec profit, but you spent ages hiring, hunting and fighting your mark, it took you all day, but your mark made 4 successful runs today making 100,000 euc after costs each time.

Okay the numbers are pulled out of my ass, but the point is hiring a fleet of people costs time and money, doing stuff by yourself is quick and easy, even *if* the game does let people hire an npc fleet it is still quite possible to balance that.

 

[mromutt]

You laugh as their operating costs are far above the value of the things they are taking?

Say you could hire 100 ships at 10,000 uec each, you need to then capture at least 100,000 euc worth of cargo to break even, let alone get a decent profit. Say you make 150,000 uec, congrats you made 50,000 uec profit, but you spent ages hiring, hunting and fighting your mark, it took you all day, but your mark made 4 successful runs today making 100,000 euc after costs each time.

Okay the numbers are pulled out of my ass, but the point is hiring a fleet of people costs time and money, doing stuff by yourself is quick and easy, even *if* the game does let people hire an npc fleet it is still quite possible to balance that.

I agree in most cases the cost of NPC's would outway the practical use of them, well at least when it comes to things like pirating :)

 

[Audax Phidippus]

I disagree.
Money simply should not convert directly into un-capped power. There will be exploits. There will be windfalls.
We need skill and manpower checks in place, or this thing is going to turn into a gank-fest nightmare.

 

[mromutt]

I disagree.
Money simply should not convert directly into un-capped power. There will be exploits. There will be windfalls.
We need skill and manpower checks in place, or this thing is going to turn into a gank-fest nightmare.

I don't think NPC's will be that powerful, at best I see them being at about the same skill level as a very new player. But this is still all speculation and that could be extremely wrong :)

 

[Audax Phidippus]

I don't think NPC's will be that powerful, at best I see them being at about the same skill level as a very new player. But this is still all speculation and that could be extremely wrong :)

But that's the thing - it doesn't matter how good they are if they aren't limited. 25 first day players could take out one good one.
Maybe crewing one ship with NPCs is profitable, and somehow crewing a fleet with them isn't... that's a tricky balance to maintain(across many different jobs), but for the sake of argument, let's say they make it. OK, so it isn't profitable.
You still have the issue, just less of it. People will just have to work and save up before they go on a one-man-army murder-fest. As time goes on, and we all get richer, and need less - it would happen more and more. Think about the MMOs you've played. You end up rich, bored with normal content, owning almost everything you want.. and now take into account that they will sell UEC themselves.
Sorry to keep repeating it, but: Money should just not = combat power, in this game.

 

[mromutt]

But that's the thing - it doesn't matter how good they are if they aren't limited. 25 first day players could take out one good one.
Maybe crewing one ship with NPCs is profitable, and somehow crewing a fleet with them isn't... that's a tricky balance to maintain(across many different jobs), but for the sake of argument, let's say they make it. OK, so it isn't profitable.
You still have the issue, just less of it. People will just have to work and save up before they go on a one-man-army murder-fest. As time goes on, and we all get richer, and need less - it would happen more and more. Think about the MMOs you've played. You end up rich, bored with normal content, owning almost everything you want.. and now take into account that they will sell UEC themselves.
Sorry to keep repeating it, but: Money should just not = combat power, in this game.

I agree with what you are saying, I just am thinking when it comes to combat they will be easy to take on. They are probably more than capably at doing tasks like taking your ship home or to market to sell off goods. But I really do think in combat they would be more like any NPC you fight in game like pirates or UEE. It would seem like something they would account for so not to make life harder than it should be for players, and to not allow for imbalance.

 

[Enoch Lost]

I pretty much agree with all sides, here.

It shouldn't be possible for someone to have 10 NPC wingmen. That's OP, and it's OP that can easily be reached by paying extra cash money. That's not what we're here for. I don't want to have to know, factually, that I can't enter an area of space without being attacked by like 100 freaking ships being fielded by ten pirates.

I'm also somewhat against the idea of being able to hire an NPC crew to take your Orion out and start printing money with it. That seems . . . well, OP. I knew the Orion would make money, but I think you should at least have to interact with it for it to make money. Not just buy the ship and BAM--sudden income stream.

On the other hand, I feel like it should be allowed for hired NPCs to handle some of the day to day stuff. Say you're mining and want to load it up to send back to sell. A player that "only" has an Orion (and a hornet or something) could maybe radio in-system and hire a Hull to come out and load up and take back to sell. A player that owned his own Hull should be able to have NPCs bring it out for that purpose, and it'd be cheaper since he owned the ship and was only paying the crew. That's reasonable, and I don't see a problem with it. It would feel really annoying to have to hire complete outside help to deal with something that owned a ship for.

Similarly, I'm ok with people hiring a couple wingmen. Wingmen that owned Hornets would cost more than those who were running Auroras, but you could hire whichever you liked. If you owned a couple of Hornets, though, I think it's reasonable to have the cost of wingmen lessened because you're only paying for the talent, not the ship.

But yeah, there has to be a limit. It's not "realistic," no, but realism ends up with what amounts to unrestrained capitalism. Those with more money, even UEC, will have more ships and more wingmen. A good pilot can make up the difference between a crap ship and a great ship (just watch how many people in Auroras kill my Super Hornet in Arena Commander), but even a stunning pilot is going to lose against a couple people with 10 or 15 NPC hirelings each. And the people running those mini-NPC-fleets around are going to be able to make even MORE money, and get more ships. Hell, "realistically," you could hire 10 or 15 NPCs and have them go pirate for you.

Or hell, let's be simple. Tell your Orion to go mine, and eventually when it makes enough money to buy a second Orion, tell them BOTH to go mine. Time to third Orion is half what time to second Orion was. Then the fourth Orion would be quick as hell. There has to be a limit to how well this system works, or it makes little sense NOT to have hundreds of NPC-crewed Orions out there mining (and occasionally putting their profits towards even more Orions).

 

[mromutt]

What I got out of what they were saying was you need to tell them what to do and they will only do so much before needing more input from you. Say you are using them to mine, someone probably needs to be there to keep things going and making choices/decisions.

 

[BubbleKing]

I disagree.
Money simply should not convert directly into un-capped power. There will be exploits. There will be windfalls.
We need skill and manpower checks in place, or this thing is going to turn into a gank-fest nightmare.

Yep.

 

[Unshaven]

Shouldn't they be called NDC's?
(Non-Drunk Characters)

 

[honcho12]

I don't see an issue with hiring however many NPCs, because someone could hire just as many actual players.

I do like the idea that NPCs will need you to keep giving them directions so you can't just by a ship and farm credits.

 

[shadowvinez]

Be prepared for NPC's to have problems I am a huge fan of the X series and they have been trying to get NPC crew to work properly for years and its always been problematic on some level

 

[AntiSqueaker]

Also don't forget that, last time I heard, you could "own" custom NPCs from your extra game packs, which you don't have to pay upkeep costs on IIRC.

That + this new info could mean 1 man fleets.

I think NPCs should be able to fly 1 man ships and crew bigger ships with a player pilot. But no remote mule runs or having 2 NPC Retaliators at your beck and call.