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[goduranus]

It might seems like a trivial point at first, but imagine what the job description would he player post to hire crewmen after his fleet pulls into port:

Starship crew wanted, experienced in heavy machinery operation and maintenance
Job risks:
Pirates
Rogue AI
Hostile factions
Hazardous terrain
Starvation due to logistical mismanagement

What attracts him to the job?
Could it be adventure? Space adventure may be fun for the adventurer, who has this big viewscren on the bridge, but for the average crewmen, serving on a ship would be like a blue collar factory job, flicking levers and watching indicator lights with cleaning and maintenance at the end of the shift.

Could it be patriotism? While factions crewmen may feel a sense of duty to defend their country or fight for their faction's ideals, the player's embodies no idealism and hasn't been around long enough to establish a military tradition.

Could the player run recruitment like a gang? Maybe, but a gang is a commercial enterprise, the business keeps the recruits coming. But what if the player is a combat oriented, who doesn't do much in terms of business?

Basically, being on a space adventure warship seems like a lot of risk and not a lot of reward, so why would anyone sign up?

[Igncom1]

Dangerous freedom vs safe serfdom I would suppose.

If you live on one of the luddic worlds, and aren't a luddite that's got to be a harsh life. Even if the only cybermods you have is a pacemaker the luddites might just try to murder you.

Many of the biggest worlds have very active organised crime syndicates that push out thousands of illegal harvested organs every month, all are likely harvested from the lower dredges of society.

Many of the worlds are effectively ruled by dictatorships, like in the Persean League and Sindrian Diktat. Other worlds are corporate hell holes like in the Tri-Tachyon. With religious fanatics throughout the Hegemony and Luddic Church who are always causing trouble. With the minor powers frequently suffering from raids, starvation and very unstable governments of thugs, terrorists and who even known what else.

Life in the sector is kinda awful for the average person. Learning a skill to join up with a fleet would basically be the ticket to freedom. If very dangerous. But there lies the ability to rise above your station of birth. You either sign up with a faction or go freelance and try to make it big.

[Linnis]

Dangerous freedom vs safe serfdom I would suppose.
...

Life in the sector is kinda awful for the average person. Learning a skill to join up with a fleet would basically be the ticket to freedom. If very dangerous. But there lies the ability to rise above your station of birth. You either sign up with a faction or go freelance and try to make it big.

Wouldn't it be the opposite where crew are treated like slaves when they can be sold and bought. They have no say if say, you left a thousand of them in an derelict station for however long.

Lore wise, I think as long a person is not born on a dying world left stranded by the collapse they should do pretty good. It's just that crew is cheap cuz people can reproduce while ships numbers are dwindling.

Or perhaps lifer is so harsh on most worlds that life in ships are significantly better, just with an added risk of dying of starvation Cuzz your fleet admiral is a dumbass.

[Igncom1]

The game is abstract when it comes to crew. You could be buying slaves or you could be simply hiring work contracts, with people leaving and joining the fleet whenever you go to a port. It's hard to say.

[Megas]

The game says so.  Why is not relevant because the crew is not real.  The game creates crew or other data when and where they are needed.

[Linnis]

REDACTED has fooled us again!

[Ranakastrasz]

Ah, so we have an AI crew, uploaded into the ship, rather than physical crew members walking around.
Makes sense.

XD

But in all seriousness, no idea whether they are supposed to be normal crew, slaves under the effects of some kind of mind control (because seriously, using slaves to run your ship feels like a terrible idea unless they actually want to do it) or somewhere inbetween.

[CrashToDesktop]

I return!

From the sounds of the sector as it currently stands, life on a planet or station doesn't sound exceedingly cushy or very conducive to a long life.  You've got organized crime on half the civilized locations more than willing to borrow a pair of lung or your heart from you without a second thought.  There are millions of refugees crammed into every corner of some stations, most likely barely able to scrap out an existence.  Every single one of the governments in the sector seem militarized and geared for war at any second in this unstable, dangerous and isolated corner of the galaxy.

Life on a space ship, while dangerous in it's own right, doesn't sound too bad.  You've more or less got guaranteed meals every day, a bed, and people to socialize with.  You also hold a valuable position as the member of the crew of a vessel whether it be the cook, a gunner, or a bridge crew officer.  Overall, you're probably going to be a lot more safe as a mariner than living on a station or planetside.  Sure, there's a chance you'll get stranded on an exploration mission or die in combat, but that certainly seems like a more interesting way to die than having your heart harvested.

[Seth]

As some folks already mentioned, we're talking about harsh, dystopian reality here, where people supposed to sell themselves for anything to get chunk of credits. I don't think horribly dying on the ship in space is worst outcome of their lives. Well, they can even consider it lucky to serve under more or less caring space commander, as myself, since I tend to roll with Hardened Shields, Blast Doors and Recovery Shuttles whenever I can.

[Tomn]

If history is any judge?  "It's a living."

You don't need an amazing, life-changing reason to go to space (or the sea, for that matter).  If you have the skillset, it's a worse job than some but better than many.  If you're looking for a job and a position on a ship opens up, what the hell, why not?  It's room and board and pay.  How much do you really want out of life, anyways?  The strangeness of life on a ship is just a new normal to get used to, that's all, and you learn to build a life around it, same as you do for every other job.  And if for whatever reason you started out with the appropriate skillsets, you may not necessarily have a lot of choice in the matter - shipboard skills aren't always transferable one-to-one with shoreside skills, and some people find it difficult to adjust to the less structured nature of landbound life after they've spent a while on a ship.  If you grew up as a spacer in a spacer family, you could well find yourself falling into the job because it's what you know, and no better reason than that.

[SpacePoliticianAndaZealot]

It seems pretty straightforward to me, adventure and a more appealing alternative to on-world drudgery. Some people are obviously spacer persons I guess 

Considering that every crewman/officer you hire is, in fact, a mercenary this is the most likely explanation.

[TheEndstoneGolem]

I guess you can kinda compare it to joining irl military.
The chance to progress to higher commanding/political levels or just to better yourself physically/mentally.

Or the chance to end up commanding a massive **** off fleet with 69 carriers, 420 onslaughts and 1738 Cruisers, Destroyers and Frigates and finally take down the overlord scum of the Hegemony and then move onto secret-not-so-secret stuck-up Tri-Tachyon. Then crush all pirates and imprison all independent people and take over the whole sector and then... yeah may have gone a bit far with this but cba to delete it.

Basically the chance to progress in sector life as much of it relies on large scale combat.

[Drokkath]

Naturally I've found spaceships much safer place to live in than anywhere else because you can control where it goes and keep it away from danger unless you fly to a danger. Speaking from my point of view as a sole pilot-captain here because I don't usually want any other living sentient(s) on my ship other than robust robots/drones for crew, no AI cores in them because that would make them even more of a risk and hassle to me as far as ingame story and lore of mine goes.

To be brutally honest, I haven't given much thought to what crew's motives, thoughts, agendas, wants and needs are because I like machines more than people and that's because I find people usually untrustworthy in the grander scheme of things, especially in SS' lore. Heck I'd probably trust the redacteds a lot more first to get a job done and then some than trust a ship full of human crew. I mean the sector is in such a chaotic mess that it would be enough to feed power to all four Chaos Gods and rip a new Eye of Terror in the middle of it all while the redacteds around it would still peacefully mind their own ancient business.

[FreedomFighter]

This thread escalating into something heresy.

[Kirschbra]

Speaking of crew... Alex, I miss the crew experience levels, is that something you plan on bringing back, why did you scrap that?