All for one and one for ...everything?

[Shar Treuse]

Today's letter from the chairman confirms it, you will be able to fly multi-crew ships solo, with npcs in all other crew slots:

"we decided that you should be able to fly a multi-crew ship solo, having access to the same management system seen on the HUD of any single-pilot ship. However, should you want to invite your friends along to help manage your ship, you could access additional crew support stations, giving you a little more control over the ships’ various systems"

I'm not sure if this will be good or bad, but it will definitely be interesting.

 

[CrashMan054]

Makes sense, I don't want to have to get 3 friends every time I want to fly a cutlass around.

Honestly, whether or not NPCs are a viable option will depend on how much skill compared to a person(and of course, aimbot) that they have.

 

[Macabre Poetry]

Makes sense, I don't want to have to get 3 friends every time I want to fly a cutlass around.

Honestly, whether or not NPCs are a viable option will depend on how much skill compared to a person(and of course, aimbot) that they have.

Just pray NPCs don't unionize

 

[maynard]

a ship with a player crew should wipe the floor with an NPC crewed ship, I look forward to encountering idiots soloing their big ships

 

[Macabre Poetry]

a ship with a player crew should wipe the floor with an NPC crewed ship, I look forward to encountering idiots soloing their big ships

However, NPCs will have specializations and different salaries based on their skills

 

[Dalarast]

a ship with a player crew should wipe the floor with an NPC crewed ship, I look forward to encountering idiots soloing their big ships

True they may be idiots; but not everyone wants to play an MMO, right? I for one would love to buy a Carrack and when I do not want to coordinate play time with a Test member (and/or hopefully my wife) I may just want to cruise the verse to see whats out there. Since the PU is supposed to be like 1 and every 10 or 100 people (forgot that exact number) is going to be an PC that means the chances of me running into another PC should be slim. Now the idiots will be the ones who man an entire Javi with NPCs... I would think your "bridge" crew would all be PCs and all the "joes" such as gunners and all can be NPCs.

 

[SkippyLeDoo]

I like it. It gives players who want the big ships the opportunity to captain them without having to people. I can empathize.

That being said, ships crewed by players will still have the edge in terms of skill and strategy, which is pretty much innate for something of this scale.

I think of it as a kind of like squads and platoons in planetside, except the ships have their own squads representing a single unit, if that makes any sense.

 

[CrashMan054]

True they may be idiots; but not everyone wants to play an MMO, right? I for one would love to buy a Carrack and when I do not want to coordinate play time with a Test member (and/or hopefully my wife) I may just want to cruise the verse to see whats out there. Since the PU is supposed to be like 1 and every 10 or 100 people (forgot that exact number) is going to be an PC that means the chances of me running into another PC should be slim. Now the idiots will be the ones who man an entire Javi with NPCs... I would think your "bridge" crew would all be PCs and all the "joes" such as gunners and all can be NPCs.

I certainly wouldn't give a job such as gunner to an NPC with a program that automatically adjusts accuracy to prevent him for aimbotting, I'd want a player amped up on mountain dew that has crazy reflexes.

 

[Shar Treuse]

I just wonder how much reflexes will count vs. internet latency. The reason EVE isn't 1st person dogfighting is because they had so much trouble with latency between clients with good and bad (and terrible) internet connections. Even now with so much broadband everywhere, there are still people whose game will be significantly affected by their latency.

 

[Texelis]

I'm looking forward to boarding all these NPC crewed ships, gonna make FPS takeovers a walk in the park.

 

[Black Sunder]

Honestly this decision by CR only allows us even more opportunities for fun. It will be much easier to steal larger capital ships crewed by NPCs than by a bunch of players.

As seen here, I outline a fun way for us to 'acquire' some new ships post launch in the persistent universe.


Honestly anything larger than my Connie I'm probably not going to even try soloing and even then I'll probably have some real people on board to help out as we cruise around.

 

[Liquor_and_ores]

NPC's will work fine until crap hits the fan, and if you are lucky with a org chat help call, people in system can ether come or Agent Smith into your ship npcs to PEW PEW

 

[Shar Treuse]

I can see this becoming a Matrix/Star Citizen meme..."Come on peeps, I need someone to Agent Smith into my npcs to fight off these drunks!"

 

[WarrenPeace]

"I need someone to Agent Smith my pilot, I'm too drunk to fly this thing anymore!"

 

[CrashMan054]

"I need someone to Agent Smith my pilot, I'm too drunk to fly this thing anymore!"

That's a TEST meme.

 

[Huegpaynis]

I just wonder how much reflexes will count vs. internet latency. The reason EVE isn't 1st person dogfighting is because they had so much trouble with latency between clients with good and bad (and terrible) internet connections. Even now with so much broadband everywhere, there are still people whose game will be significantly affected by their latency.

That's one of the reasons they're instancing in the PU. By limiting the number of people in an instance, not only can they limit the number of ships that they have to render, but they can also optimize the network traffic between clients by limitinbg the total number of players in one instance.

 

[AntiSqueaker]

I have mixed feelings on this.

On one hand, I completely see why Carrack owners would want to be able to fly their ships solo. Thats all right with me.

On the other hand, I really hope that you actually have to "pay" for those NPCs in your extra packages, or else people will just be running solo Constellations for "free" and not have to pay for their NPCs or other players.

And I kinda hope that the Idris and Javelin really require a few real players, because soloing a capital ship seems a bit silly to me.

 

[Flashwit]

As far as I know, you'll always have to pay for any NPC crewmen on any ship. I can imagine someone soloing in an Idris but I'm betting that person would be spending a lot of money on NPC fees to keep it crewed.

 

[Huegpaynis]

IIRC, the NPC slots you get from your extra packages are "free" in the sense that they're basically your alts. However, while you don't have to pay them wages, you still have to physically pay for the package to get the character slot. The regular NPCs you can hire all require wages to be paid, but you don't have to have an extra game package to use them.

This would be a good question for one of the subscribers to put forward on a 10ftc thread.

 

[CrashMan054]

IIRC, the NPC slots you get from your extra packages are "free" in the sense that they're basically your alts. However, while you don't have to pay them wages, you still have to physically pay for the package to get the character slot. The regular NPCs you can hire all require wages to be paid, but you don't have to have an extra game package to use them.

This would be a good question for one of the subscribers to put forward on a 10ftc thread.

Do standalone ships come with NPCs, or is it just packages?