wingman & wingman & crew

[zbyszanna]

In the wcu there are wingmen. They are of two kinds:
1. bought in the commodity exchange and set free by dropping them into space (more like your own crew).
2. hired at mission computer in the wingman mission (more like an escort).

If there is a dedicated wingman manager, which approach would be better? Which would be more realistic?
1. buy a ship, hire a wingman - assign wingman to the ship
2. hire wingman and he comes with his own ship (not transferable).
3. mixup of 1 and 2 - hire wingman - he comes with/without his ship, then you can buy him another ship.

Should wingmen have option to fly at your side, or rather stay in the hangar?


If there is a dedicated crew manager, which approach would be better? Which would be more realistic?
1. Hire whole crew, then just restock missing crew members.
2. Hire any single crew member (much like cargo), assign them mannualy to the proper seat (with possibility to buy more than one person, for example full crew).
3. Solution 1 or 2, but wingmen are also counted as crew?

[Wendy]

Make it a multiplayer game -- MMORPG -- And let the Newbies and JAFO's fill out the slots on the crews. Then the whole point becomes moot.

MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
JAFO = Just Another "Freaking" Observer

That aside, traditionally, when there were real privateers, the captain and first mate did the hiring for a vessel.

Hire crew as you can afford them and assign them slots.

Pilot: Ace - 1,500 cr.
Pilot: Good - 1,000 cr.
Pilot: Cannon Fodder - 500 cr.

Gunner: Ace - 1,000 cr.
Gunner: Good - 666 cr.
Gunner: Cannon Fodder - 333 cr.

Wingmen:
By definition, they are pilots that fly on your wing as protection when you go into battle. Never leave your wingman was for the protection of BOTH pilots. The wingman kept the bad guys off the tail of the person going in for the kill.

In the game they are ships with guns that dog it out with the enemy in the game.

Secondary ships/vessels in the days of yesteryear:
Secondary vessels were prizes of war captured by the mother ship, or secondary SMALLER vessels purchased and either carried or towed by the mother ship, then released when the time for action came.

With that in mind, hiring a wingman that comes with his own ship is like recruiting Mercenaries. They're good as long as they're paid and paid well. They do get rather expensive, though.

In the wcu there are wingmen. They are of two kinds:
1. bought in the commodity exchange and set free by dropping them into space (more like your own crew).
2. hired at mission computer in the wingman mission (more like an escort).

If there is a dedicated wingman manager, which approach would be better? Which would be more realistic?
1. buy a ship, hire a wingman - assign wingman to the ship

This is probably the best, though this would be the most involved.
Hiring crew to fill the slots in your ships would be easiest, but then the question of the crewman's responsibility comes up. You would hire or buy crewmen as Gunners and Pilots.
If you get lost in the details, you wind up with a code monster.
There was a game demo I got once that was like that, you looked over the possibilities of a list of people for a mission, each had a specialty. Then you planned the mission and sent them on it. They either completed the mission or not. Some returned and some not. I got bored with it fast, but some people are born planners and generals. They live for this shiz.
I'd rather just buy the best I could afford in the exchange. Say my Galaxy has three seats, two turret and one pilot. With the auto-aiming mounts, four, two turrets, one gunner and me, the pilot.

There are two active AI's in the game. Auto and Manned.
Manned is much more accurate than the auto.
If you hire out the slot, your auto aim gets much better. I like this idea. However, this comes with a cash penalty. Each time you land and take off you get billed for the crew. The crew is 1/10 the cost of hiring a wingman with his or her own ship. You cannot take off with the crew if you do not have enough to land with your crew.

Crew CAN be killed if you take enough damage in Real Life. So you have to plan for that bit of realism, too.

2. hire wingman and he comes with his own ship (not transferable).

This is just like hiring the wingmen out of the mission computer, something I am loath to do. I found that I can get through a tough mission without cheats and with out wingmen by landing, doing repairs and taking off again. Much less expensive.

3. mixup of 1 and 2 - hire wingman - he comes with/without his ship, then you can buy him another ship.

This is going to be rather convoluted to code. I'd either "hire" crewmen or ships and leave it at that. If you have the ships, hire crewmen for them. But you have to pay for them each time you land. The interesting part comes if you purchase Galaxies. This also opens up other possibilities for cargo. Purchasing "Manned and Unmanned" ships. Manned ships are part of your fleet. Unmanned ships are cargo to be bought, sold and traded.

Manned ships cost you for each seat as well as docking and storage.
500 per seat and 50 for the bird, each time you lift off. Galaxies and Orions have 4 seats. A Tarsus, depending on configuration, has two or four seats. Heavy and medium Fighters and Bombers have up to two seats. Light fighters and interceptors have one seat.

Should wingmen have option to fly at your side, or rather stay in the hangar?

Why? If you hired a wingman, unless you're going out on a surprise attack, another form of mission you can add to the mission computers, you hired protection. They fly escort. By definition, they fly on your wing.

If there is a dedicated crew manager, which approach would be better? Which would be more realistic?
1. Hire whole crew, then just restock missing crew members.
2. Hire any single crew member (much like cargo), assign them mannualy to the proper seat (with possibility to buy more than one person, for example full crew).
3. Solution 1 or 2, but wingmen are also counted as crew?

Wingmen are wingmen. It gets too involved otherwise. 3 should be out of the question for now.

Hire either whole crews, or individuals.
Class them as:
A: Ship Crews
- 1: Drayman Crew.
- 2: Galaxy Crew.
- 3: Orion Crew.
- 4: Tarsus Crew.

B: Individual Crew Members
1 - Pilot
- - - Ace
- - - Good
- - - Cannon Fodder

2 - Gunner / Bombardier.
- - - Ace
- - - Good
- - - Cannon Fodder

W.

[spiritplumber]

HEYA... the plan at the moment for vegastrike (I think) is indeed to have crew.... "buyable" in a specific place and paid at each landing. Crew will work like upgrades. So far we will have


* mechanics: improve your repair rating, same as repair droid, but do a better job

* pilots: these both man your turrets and man your cargo fighters. if you don't have enough, your turrets will use the default crappy AI, or not fire at all; and if you eject a ship it will just float in space.

internally, engine wise, crew members will work more or less like upgrades with a recurring cost rather than a one time cost. Having them work like upgrades makes it possible to easily have skill levels for them. Nothing about the cost is final, although my proposal is that they be paid 1*launch fee + X*jump fee , due at each landing. This also makes it easy to implement "special" crewmembers that give your ship a special aility and are acquired thru plot, although transfering them between ships might be a bit tricky. See Skies of Arcadia for what I mean.

Any thoughts on other crew member positions? (a navigator could increase your radar rating to 3 letting you find jump points, for example, or an engineer improve your reactor recharge rate and give you a bit of extra speed as seen in star trek?)

Ships will have crew slots (they already have upgrade slots and hangar slots -- btw, a starship using up both cargo and hangar space is INTENTIONAL).

Part of the reason why we want to do crew this way is that in case the Wing Commander Pioneer project fails, the whole thing can be moved to the Vegastrike engine easily.


so... anyone did anything plot wise? i personally am still on break, sorry -- midterms to study for mostly.