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

Author Topic: Pilot Crew  (Read 2661 times)

senor

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Pilot Crew
« on: February 12, 2015, 02:28:45 PM »

Quick suggestion for a separate crew type for fighter and bomber wings, obviously called "Pilots".  Thematically i think it makes more sense rather than pulling Joe Schmoe from capital ship engine maintenance to go fly a Talon and dogfight against enemy craft.  I would also prefer it to having to choose what crew experience i want them taking away from my larger ships.  Obviously it would be great if Pilot crew gained XP like ship crew, but maybe only while piloting fighter and bomber craft?  or perhaps they have some simulators or training sorties they do behind the scenes?
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Cosmitz

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Re: Pilot Crew
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2015, 03:56:03 PM »

Just a little note, you can control which crew goes where in a shape when you set the ships in the fleet window. 1st gets the best crew and so on and so on. Often you'd set freighters to be last to get all the green crew.

But yes, i do agree pilots should be separate from crew.
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Vind

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Re: Pilot Crew
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2015, 09:28:00 PM »

Considering staggering pilots losses from fighters usage - pilots better be cheap than standard crew. Some clones or robots or something else to pilot fightercraft. Using wasp wings will drain crew very quickly - too bad old system with drones was scrapped towards crew for all fighter types. Crew for constantly destroyed fighter craft makes no sense as it is effectively prohibits fighter usage because of big crew losses. And this doesnt explain how crew from destroyed fighter teleports into new repaired at carrier fighter. I say remake fighter craft into experience-less drone craft with carrier experience affecting performance of launched drones.
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xenoargh

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Re: Pilot Crew
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2015, 09:43:46 PM »

I really think Wasps should be one bigger tender, with no guns or perhaps just a single PD Laser, that controls 6 drones with moderate roam radius and slow regen, personally.

That would totally fit the concept; you save crew by having some cruddy robots go fight for you.  Too bad 1-fighter Wings aren't a thing, and it'd take an AI flag that I don't think exists atm.  I'd certainly pay lots of Logistics for a two-pack with 12 drones, though.
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senor

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Re: Pilot Crew
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2015, 02:48:56 AM »

@Cosmitz:  Yea i know i can set the order to determine what quality crew they get, and im fine with that.  it just bugs me that im using crew, really.

@Vind:  I dont recall getting "staggering losses" unless you're flying talons and wasps into a real blender of gunfire.  Even then you'll run out of spare fighters, saving you from losing too many men.  Besides crew are cheap to buy green and it's not difficult to get them trained up a bit outside of fighters, especially with the crew XP skill.

I really think Wasps should be one bigger tender, with no guns or perhaps just a single PD Laser, that controls 6 drones with moderate roam radius and slow regen, personally.

That would totally fit the concept; you save crew by having some cruddy robots go fight for you.  Too bad 1-fighter Wings aren't a thing, and it'd take an AI flag that I don't think exists atm.  I'd certainly pay lots of Logistics for a two-pack with 12 drones, though.

i actually like this idea for a ship, sounds cool.  Though i think it already exists in the Shepherd frigate.
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Aeson

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Re: Pilot Crew
« Reply #5 on: February 13, 2015, 02:51:16 AM »

I really think Wasps should be one bigger tender, with no guns or perhaps just a single PD Laser, that controls 6 drones with moderate roam radius and slow regen, personally.
What you describe isn't that much different from a Shepherd. If fighters can use ship systems, you could try implementing a 2 fighter wing with drones and get more or less the same thing, though given that fighters and drones appear to be roughly the same size (especially Wasps and drones), I would tend to find a fighter-sized drone tender to be a bit out of place.

Considering staggering pilots losses from fighters usage - pilots better be cheap than standard crew. Some clones or robots or something else to pilot fightercraft. Using wasp wings will drain crew very quickly - too bad old system with drones was scrapped towards crew for all fighter types. Crew for constantly destroyed fighter craft makes no sense as it is effectively prohibits fighter usage because of big crew losses. And this doesnt explain how crew from destroyed fighter teleports into new repaired at carrier fighter. I say remake fighter craft into experience-less drone craft with carrier experience affecting performance of launched drones.
1. Green crew is already dirt cheap, and I don't think that crew experience matters that much for fighters except in determining the number of replacement craft.

2. In my experience, the crew losses are not significantly more serious than a primarily frigate or frigate/destroyer fleet would suffer, though this could be down to fighter/ship choices and luck. I feel that you're exaggerating the degree to which the crew losses make fighter usage prohibitively expensive. Each fighter lost is maybe one or two crewmen lost, tops, and you only get (fighter wing's CR rating)/(per-fighter CR cost to deploy) fighters in each fight, so the absolute worst you can do if you lose an entire fighter wing is something like 40 crew (Piranha or Gladius Wing, 100% CR); if you're looking at more normal CR values, then the maximum possible crew loss is more like that of a frigate or a lightly-crewed destroyer, and all this is assuming that that bug that made it so that excess crew wasn't hurt by ship losses is no longer in effect; if that bug is still in effect, then fighters might be unable to cost you more than maybe 6 crew per battle even if the entire wing goes down.

3. There's nothing that says that pilots from destroyed fighters teleport to the carriers to pilot the next fighter that launches. Carriers tend to have plenty of crew capacity, and presumably one of the people over the minimum complement gets shoved into the next available fighter. If you're running minimum crew levels, well, it's not like the game seems to track crew levels during the battle, anyways; even if your Medusa goes down to 1% health, it still has its start-of-battle combat readiness (less whatever CR it lost due to deployment time), if I'm not mistaken, which indicates that as far as the game is concerned the Medusa is still as fully crewed by as elite a crew as it was at the start of the fight, even if after the battle you discover that you lost all 30 of your elite crewmen and that Medusa was the only ship that took any damage.
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Vind

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Re: Pilot Crew
« Reply #6 on: February 13, 2015, 03:08:01 AM »

Crew is cheap yes but only while you are in system and can buy it. Exploring with fighters in not an option as you cant stockpile enough crew for many-many losses from careless fighters who ignores all hazards around and happily fly into enemy fire lines. It is not cost issue i have with - it is crew drain Without Any chance for player to fix it as fighters is AI controlled. Fighters just love to collect enemy missiles, bombs, heavy ordnance and blow up while maneuvering around. Compare crew losses in fleet with 2-4 fighter wings and fleet with frigates instead of fighters. Fighters essentially useful only in populated systems with crew supply.
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TrashMan

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Re: Pilot Crew
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2015, 04:51:03 AM »

Thought:
Destroyed fighter has a CHANCE to loose the pilot. Otherwise they eject and are rescued after (or during) battle.

A Search and Rescue ship in your fleet could reduce fighter pilot losses (by reducing death chance) and global crew loss.
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Thaago

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Re: Pilot Crew
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2015, 07:26:19 AM »

Crew is cheap yes but only while you are in system and can buy it. Exploring with fighters in not an option as you cant stockpile enough crew for many-many losses from careless fighters who ignores all hazards around and happily fly into enemy fire lines. It is not cost issue i have with - it is crew drain Without Any chance for player to fix it as fighters is AI controlled. Fighters just love to collect enemy missiles, bombs, heavy ordnance and blow up while maneuvering around. Compare crew losses in fleet with 2-4 fighter wings and fleet with frigates instead of fighters. Fighters essentially useful only in populated systems with crew supply.

I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. Even in a real meatgrinder fight crew loss from fighters is only a few dozen. The fleet can easily have an extra couple hundred people without even springing for extra ships. Sure you can't do more than 5 deadly fleet battles, but...

Compare that to the supplies needed to get the CR back on those fighters! Good luck packing enough supplies to get through more than say 3 meatgrinder fights, even if your carriers are stuffed full to the brim.
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