Launching system / landing system almost done; crew system?

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spiritplumber
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Launching system / landing system almost done; crew system?

Post by spiritplumber »

I'm basically happy with launching & landing now (a few cosmetic bugs, but the logic works great).

Next, crew system....

* How do we deal with pilots/gunners?
* What other personnel should be available?
* How do you hire, pay and fire crew?
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Post by Spaceman Spiff »

Why don't you make sonething like a minimum crew you need to fly a ship (fly a ship :? ), if you don't have it, you can't launch. And for every section or turret you need two or three extra crewmen. So you just have to hire the crewmen as a number... So you don't need different types of crewmen...
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I could offer ideas if I knew more about what canon constraints there are. The turrets in Privateer did nothing for the player and I think it would be perfect if, instead of *buying autotracking enhancements* we just *hired gunners*. Same result, but with a more friendly face. Uhm... what am I talking about? Autotracking is something we buy for guns, not for turrets, right? Never mind, okay, so let's just say you can buy a turret but it behaves like in Privateer (no auto mode) until you hire a gunner for it.
In JJFFE each model of ship has a crew number, and you have to hire that many crew members in order to fly it. That's what Spiff was suggesting, if I understand correctly. How did Armada deal with crewing?
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Post by spiritplumber »

Armada ignored crewing altogether... right now there is a "crew" panel to hire people. People as of now do the same job that upgrades can do, but:

- cannot be sold, if you fire them you don't get any money back
- cannot be damaged, instead, there's a chance that they will die when you take hull hits
- must be paid every time you land at a base, or they'll leave

Crew take up passenger space -- for example, the Tarsus would have 2 passenger space by default, 1 of which is taken by you (this needs to be still implemented), the Broadsword 5 or 6.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Allright, well, you don't "buy" crew (like you buy slaves), but hire them at a rate of pay (X amounts of credits per trip), so it makes sense that they cannot be "sold". Not sure that they should die when you take hull hits; I would suppose that when the hull is breached there's decompression and everybody dies, including the player. That's just my mental model, tho.
As for passenger space, I agree except for turret gunners. Turret gunners take space in the turrets, which space is already reserved for gun operators, and otherwise goes to waste.
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Post by Spaceman Spiff »

chuck_starchaser wrote: In JJFFE each model of ship has a crew number, and you have to hire that many crew members in order to fly it. That's what Spiff was suggesting, if I understand correctly. How did Armada deal with crewing?
yup, thats waht I meant. But instead of having one crew number having several. One minimum to fly the ship and some highre crew numbers to use turrets and stuff. When the crew number falls under an certain level (by an attack or something) you would also loose working turrets...
One could simply place a crewguy in the local bar wich opens a crew window where you can hire, see how many crewmen you have and how many you need nad how many you gotta pay them for the next ride...
Funny extra: crewmen could quite service as soon as your ship is damaged...

I "stole" this crewmen idea from an old german trade simulation called "The Patrician". It's abandonware now and you can find it at the underdogs, if you are interested...
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Spaceman Spiff wrote:
chuck_starchaser wrote: In JJFFE each model of ship has a crew number, and you have to hire that many crew members in order to fly it. That's what Spiff was suggesting, if I understand correctly.
yup, thats waht I meant. But instead of having one crew number having several. One minimum to fly the ship and some highre crew numbers to use turrets and stuff.
That's a good idea. Indeed, a minimum crew for ship flight, and turret operators and maybe other functions are optional.
When the crew number falls under an certain level (by an attack or something) you would also loose working turrets...
I think if a turret is destroyed, the gunner manning it would die, but not otherwise.
One could simply place a crewguy in the local bar wich opens a crew window where you can hire, see how many crewmen you have and how many you need nad how many you gotta pay them for the next ride...
Good stuff. In fact, a ship's minimum crew might include a crewing advisor, or give it a title like 'ship officer' or whatever, whom you meet at your ship's bar and can advise you on crewing priorities.
Funny extra: crewmen could quite service as soon as your ship is damaged...
That seems to me an unnecessary complication, in that a turret gunner has no motivation to abandon the job in the middle of a fight. Survival of the ship is in his own interest. Also, as I've said many times before, there's a general issue with all such ideas as possible negative consequences arising from ship damage: They do very little for gameplay because, if you're taking damage, it means you're not doing too well in the first place, which means that the fight is a little too much for your skill levels and ship type and upgrades. Why throw gasoline into the fire by making your ship less responsive, power less available, your heat signature more visible, or your crew mutinish? All that any of these things would do is reduce your time to live from 20 seconds to 10, or even 5. So much for all the effort coding such consequences.
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Post by Spaceman Spiff »

This was a misunderstanding. I meant, as soon as you alnd somewhere, part of the crew could quite service because of the damage of you ship. And you won't be able to hire the full crew until the ship is repaired again. (Cause nobody would like to do service on a wrack... ). This would take capships part of their overwelming (spelling?) advantages. It wouldn't be sificient to pay the crew all the time, the player would also have to look for the status of the ship. No "oh, my ship might be a mess but with one cargorun fom New Deroit to New Constantinople I'll earn enaoug money to reapair it and make a plus... so I'll do it anyway..." This wouldn't work. The player would have to go back to his centurion or whatever and earn is money on the conventional way...
Why throw gasoline into the fire by making your ship less responsive, power less available, your heat signature more visible, or your crew mutinish? All that any of these things would do is reduce your time to live from 20 seconds to 10, or even 5. So much for all the effort coding such consequences.
I see this as you do...
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Post by spiritplumber »

Sounds a bt too hard to code for my modest skills :(

Working on AI for a bit now, since it's also needed for GG.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Yeah, those movies that JC posted were quite explicit... Isn't there a way to just remove AI's ability to use lateral thrusters? I remember reading a thread in the VS features request forum, where someone was complaining about AI's in VS doing the same thing, and hellcat acknowledging that the player should be able to do the same thing, but not being able to due to lack of keybindings. But the thing is, those (invisible) lateral thrusters were put into the VS engine to be able to justify the (atmospheric) flight model of WC. But WC did not attempt to justify its (stupid, certainly) flight model in any way, shape or form, and WC ships don't have lateral thrusters, and therefore cannot fly sideways, keybindings or not. To emulate the (stupid) flight model of WC, which I'm reluctantly for, we'd need to deny the AI's direct access to those lateral thrusters. I'm not sure where to look for it in the code, but there must be some function calls, deep in the AI code, that read along the lines of "turn_left_thruster(ON/OFF)" or something.
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Post by klauss »

Actually, what happens on those videos is not usage of lateral thrusters, but incorrect prioritization of units in the new heterogeneous physics queue.

Visible units should always be hiven a somewhat high priority, but somehow they aren't. Thus, you see the results of lesser simulation accuracy.

I think the algorithm used to prioritize units should be revised - and it would fix at least that huge issue showed on those videos.

About negating lateral thrusters and shelton to AI for WC - I'm all for it.
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Post by spiritplumber »

Which is why I put "space drag" there....


How about turning off the queue depending on the frame rate?
My Moral Code:
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- Rules were made for people, not the other way around.
- Don't deceive. Real life is complicated enough.
- If all else fails, smash stuff.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

Random ideas for crew management:

>> Capital ships should require 'generic crew' people. They would also require officers, in an amount depending upon the ship class, to operate. Obviously, officers are both rare in the civillian world, an expensive. You could also have an officer pilot a capital ship for you, which would allow fleets of more than one capital ship. Officers could also be limited to what they can command by rank. A green Lieutenant isn't going to have what it takes to pilot a Paradigm, after all.

>> Turrets should not -require- gunners, the autotracking could handle it, BUT gunners should have a defenite edge on a computer.

>> If you hire a pilot and your craft allows a second seat for a copilot, you should be able to 'autopilot' through asteroid feilds - the copilot could pilot the ship through them for you.

>> Wingmen should be managed using the same system. Having them as a mission doesn't make any sense. At all.

>> You should be able to assign wingmen to ships within your fleet. Sure, some may come with a ship, but what happens if you get a better one? ;)

>> Pay methods: I see three payment models for employees that you hire, and some employees might take one over the other, or only two, or only one, or any combination thereof:

a steady, weekly pay
a per-mission 'combat pay'
an up front (an large) contract signing amount

Employees that sign a contract would be paid for a certain amount of missions (obviously a large amount, and usually at a slight 'discount' to what a per-mission combat pay would be)

>> As a ship can run with an overdrawn engine, a capital ship should be allowed to work with a minimal 'skeleton' crew, however, the effectiveness and availablity of systems would be compromised by this.

Just some thoughts.
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