Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Author Topic: Crew Morale and Specialization  (Read 519 times)

Terethall

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 157
    • View Profile
Crew Morale and Specialization
« on: September 19, 2019, 07:21:25 PM »

This has probably been suggested a million times, but...

I've been thinking I'd love some kind of morale mechanic for my crew. If I lose a fight and run, or prey on weaker fleets, I don't think my men would respect me as much as if I won against larger fleets and fought defensively. Also, I think they might get *** if I eject half of them in the middle of a neutron star system because I picked up extra crew from a derelict but didn't feel like paying their salaries for the rest of my exploration circuit. Or if I hire a bunch of crew and then turn around and blow up the station I hired them from. Or if I keep them right around a skeleton crew level because I'm a cheap bastard, so they never get to take any R&R because they have to work 12 hour shifts to keep their ship combat ready. Obviously they already leave if I don't pay them, but I'd like the ability to pay them more and increase their loyalty, so they'd stick with me through the hard times. Seems like morale could get involved in all these places.

Of course, if I embarrassed myself as a fleet commander and my crew no longer respected me, I could fix it by firing them all and rehiring a new crew, but that's already expensive due to existing systems in the game. I know Starsector used to have more detailed crew mechanics and simplified them (crew experience) but they feel oversimplified and commoditized. But I feel like morale could be abstracted and be a good way to provide feedback to the player choices above.

Secondarily, some more distinctions between crew types would go a long way -- for a game where the item types are divided between supplies and food, ore and transplutonic ore and metal and transplutonic metal, luxury and domestic goods, etc. for all space crew to be a single undifferentiated item seems a little weird. Why not fighter pilots, mechanics, and bridge crew? Pilots might cost a lot more salary and be rare because they have an incredibly crappy job. But maybe I just want some kind of impossible HR management sim in my space WWII gunboat game and I'm weird...
Logged

sziklamester

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 9
  • A Lone Tenno
    • View Profile
Re: Crew Morale and Specialization
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2019, 03:20:20 PM »

Actually Like this idea and it would be nice to have more specialization options and a deeper crew dynamics. Personally think rank up a crew and reach the elite status with them would be nice also would be nice to have five-ten types of crew also more type of soldiers. Not tested the ground combat yet in the game but something similar would be nice what have in master of orion 2.

I guess the devs wanted more fluid gameplay that's why this is simplified otherwise it would be more harder to achieve something. I personally would not mind because I like the harder games. Also promoting crew members into officers would be nice too like they reached enough experience or you just need officers for your ship so it will be given an option to hire some as officer.
Logged