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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?  (Read 10470 times)

nomadic_leader

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phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« on: December 27, 2015, 03:22:25 PM »

The game is really challenging and presents the new player with many intimidating stats, so I suggest this as a way to increase up-front clarity.

This term "skeleton crew" in Starsector is not what it means in standard English. Usually a skeleton crew provides only the most basic functionality, i.e a condition that is less than the normal or optimal.1,2,3 For example, the crew needed just to pilot a new ship from the shipyard to the buyer without engaging in combat or anything fancy. Apologies if I'm mistaken here.

So to get the ship's full functionality, you'd have to add more crew.

But in starsector skeleton crew is the ship's full functionality, and adding more crew, up to the maximum crew, provides no increase in functionality.

As a result, the term in-game conveys misapprehension to the new player, because it alters the meaning of an established phrase. I suggest replacing the stat "Skeleton crew required" with "Base Complement" or something like that.

Also, since additional crew provide no benefit, it might be wise to rename the stat "Maximum crew" to "Passenger capacity" and split up the two numbers.

Sources:
1. My memory
2. Survey of online dictionaries and wikipedia
3.Google survey of the phrase's use on public domain sources from gutenberg.org; mostly histories of specific ships.

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Megas

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2015, 03:45:51 PM »

It is an artifact from the 0.5 days when skeleton crew meant that.  If you have less than skeleton crew, it was non-combat-ready, and it could not be deployed.  Back then, when CR did not exist, non-combat ships were either captured or sabotaged if the enemy destroyed all combat-ready ships.

Additional crew is a cushion for when you either lose crew in combat or if you acquire a new ship and need your excess crew to use it.  Excess crew is also good for absorbing experience from battles to become more elite crew.
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ChaseBears

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2015, 03:54:28 PM »

i agree that the term should be changed.

Crew Requirement
Required Crew

I don't think Passenger Capacity is as good as Maximum Crew.  Splitting up the numbers makes it so you cant see the crew-# increase at a glance.

'Life Support' might be most accurate, but it is not as immediately clear as Maximum Crew.

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Dabor

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2015, 03:55:05 PM »

Just change "Skeleton crew" to "Minimum crew" or "Required crew."

Ships in Starsector require NO skeleton crews. A mothballed ship can be dragged around with you without needing people to staff it. Correct me I'm wrong on this, but I actually think it's possible to fly around with 0 crew. You just can't go into combat.
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Weltall

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2015, 03:55:17 PM »

Hearing "Skeleton Crew", since that term is used a lot, instantly bring to mind that this is the number of crew member the ship needs to work. Hearing though "Base Complement", confuses me a bit, making me wonder what that could mean. If the term was "Crew Complement" or "Base Crew Complement", it would bring to mind that it talks about the crew, so even if I did not know the naval term I would understand it is about the crew.

Same for "Passenger Capacity". When I hear that, I imagine that even normal civilians can board the ship, acting as mere passengers. Sure in civilian and crew transport ships it might make sense, but for the rest wouldn't it make sense if it was "Crew Capacity".

As for additional crew providing no benefit, I think you are wrong here. In battle crew member die, be it from rough battles o from fighters not making it back. The moment these crew members die, the ships become understrength. Maybe in small battles it is ok to go out with just the base crew needed, but that is only in the beginning. Sooner or later, taking just enough crew to go for battle, is just not an option.
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nomadic_leader

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2015, 06:09:25 PM »

Hearing "Skeleton Crew", since that term is used a lot, instantly bring to mind that this is the number of crew member the ship needs to work.

All the people who play starsector are used to it, but since that isn't what skeleton crew means in English, it's like having an item in the game called apple that's actually a pear.

The English meaning of skeleton crew is for situations like what starsector calls 'mothballed' or something. A small amount of people for abnormal situations just to keep it moving.

Come to think of it, mothball is also misused in starsector. Mothball usually means the ship is parked somewhere. Not scrap, but totally inactive. When we put ships in storage on a planet, that is mothballing. Not flying around with you.

I know spare crew are useful, but until they replace a dead crew, they are serving as nothing more than passengers. They are not improving the performance of the ship until then. In a car even though all 5 people inside it have drivers licenses, there is only one driver. The rest are  passengers. Also other personnel types such as marines and hypothetical modded crew types cannot serve as crew, it is better that the stat is called passenger capacity. Related question: Are crew losses actually calculated during battle, or not until afterwards?


Anyway, why misuse all these phrases when there are existing english phrases that better describe the thing or action? Using the existing ones correctly will make the game easier to understand for newbies. So:

Current SS phrase          Change to
Skeleton CrewCrew Complement
MothballSkeleton Crew (should require a handful of crew or none for hi-tech ships)
Store shipMothball
Maximum CrewPassenger capacity
(change to show just the 'extra' berths on the ship)


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Weltall

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #6 on: December 27, 2015, 06:34:27 PM »

I know spare crew are useful, but until they replace a dead crew, they are serving as nothing more than passengers. They are not improving the performance of the ship until then. In a car even though all 5 people inside it have drivers licenses, there is only one driver. The rest are  passengers. Also other personnel types such as marines and hypothetical modded crew types cannot serve as crew, it is better that the stat is called passenger capacity. Related question: Are crew losses actually calculated during battle, or not until afterwards?

I want to say I have no idea what terms they use in the army, but spare crew are backup crew, no? If you ask one of the rest of the people in the car, what are you "He will answer "I am a passenger right now". If you ask a spare crew member, I just can't imagine him answering "I am a passenger right now". But indeed Marines are more of a passenger, since they are just infantry, so they can be considered passengers, since they can in no way help with the ship operation. But with that said, if we are being literal, like Marines can be considered passengers, crew member can't be considered passengers. They are part of the crew and thus if the description said "Passenger capacity", it would be the max capacity of the ship minus the Crew complement.
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ChaseBears

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #7 on: December 27, 2015, 10:14:23 PM »

Traditionally, the advantage of huge crews lies primarily in damage control. They can more effectively combat fires and effect repairs.  Marines could do this too.

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Weltall

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #8 on: December 27, 2015, 10:30:47 PM »

I am only talking how they can't be used as crew replacement in game, not in real life. But still be it they are just passengers or they could be used, it still would make stats complicated to have passenger capacity, since crew is not counter in the passengers. Especially if the reserve crew is considered passengers, the stats would end up all confusing.

I also still feel Crew Complement is something that a lot of people would not understand, until they looked it up or play a bit to see how it changes. Of course my first language is not English, so I am not sure if people that have English as their first language would know this as a common term, or at least as common as skeleton crew.
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RawCode

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #9 on: December 27, 2015, 10:44:29 PM »

skeleton crew is OK and clearly state, that this is absolute minimum (skeleton) for running ship smooth.
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Weltall

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #10 on: December 27, 2015, 10:57:00 PM »

skeleton crew is OK and clearly state, that this is absolute minimum (skeleton) for running ship smooth.

I think the smooth is what it does not mean. I am sure skeleton crew is what is needed for the ship to move, but I doubt having just enough people to run a ship is enough to make the ship battle ready. Well except if they can use cloning ninjutsu XD
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Mudanzas Valencia

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #11 on: December 28, 2015, 06:39:22 AM »

agreed, an aircraft carrier with a skeleton crew would not be able to launch fighters, a destroyer would not be able to operate guns (very well). Skeleton crew is basically, the amount of crew required to make sure the ship doesn't hit something while coasting along or just catch on fire. in contrast, in SS skeleton crew means "minimum crew for maximum efficiency"

"crew complement" might work better for that
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Inventor Raccoon

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #12 on: December 28, 2015, 09:43:21 AM »

I agree with changing "skeleton crew" to "required crew", but nothing else. "Passengers" isn't really a thing, since you cannot have people just tagging on, everyone is either a crewman, an extra waiting for their shift, or a marine.
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TrashMan

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #13 on: December 28, 2015, 02:06:50 PM »

How about having more crew = faster repairs and CR recovery?
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Achataeon

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Re: phrase "Skeleton crew" is misused, remove it mabye?
« Reply #14 on: December 29, 2015, 07:10:42 AM »

What if you actually tied the whole CR regen rate to the amount of crew you had? Having maximum crew onboard a ship would give it 100% CR regen, but having only skeleton crew would give you around 10% CR regen. The percentage would affect the actual CR recovery per day stat of the ship.

Therefore, a ship with full crew capacity (or passenger capacity) would have the full CR recovery per day stat of the ship, and a half-filled ship would only have half the CR recovery per day.
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