as much as id like to be able to hand pick my crew in this game, there are simply too many people on my ship, with most of them being robots. However, i propose that we be able to pick our 'officers' to the crew. Officers can be captains of NPC ships with random attributes, or bonuses, or specifically defined bonuses that players would have to kill higher rank npcs to gain. for example:

Drannik Automaton: research +.5%
repair cost -2%

OR Drannik Automaton: 2 random bonuses, where each automaton captured is different.

there would be one officer slot per ship size increase, so scouts will get one, and collosal galaxy destroyers will get 30. bonuses can range from set bonuses to percentage bonuses to help varying levels of players. Players can recieve a 'first mate' when starting that will help give them some basic bonus to their racial ability (for example im inergon, i assume that i'm the captain of my ship, and i would have an inergon first mate, who can give me +1% to my racial bonus (so plus 11% energy)). HOWEVER, only one first mate can be equipped at a time, so if you change races, then you will recieve a new first mate, but keep the old one and have to choose, so if you are konqul (+2% to attack) and switch to drannik, (whose first mate would give +4% npc attack) i would still be able to have a konqul first mate, but i would not be able to equip a drannik first mate. For races that have timers, there would be 10% reduction on the timer if the player chooses to have their first mate be of the changed race (so genetaar, mylarai, and taltherian would have a 10% decrease on their timer)

if you havent seen where ive been getting the numbers from, first mates give you 10% of your racial ability, so

Aerlen: +3% defense
Human: +1% xp
Inergon: +1% energy
Konqul: +2% attack
Sillixx: +1% deck space
Vygoid: +2% research
Drannik: +4% NPC attack
Genetarr: -10% timer on ability
Lazuli: +5% Hull
Taltherian: -10% timer on ability
Zolazin: +4% cloak
Mylarai: -10% timer on ability

Officers can be gained through missions or NPC drops. they can be set as random drops in new missions, and they can be captains of disabled NPC ships. they would be stored in the cargo/brig and can be sold just like an artifact for a measly sum of credits (like an artifact, except instead of being sold to a pawn shop, theyre sold into slavery). the more difficult the NPC is to bring down, the better the officer would be. there is ALWAYS a guarentee that a helper on an elite NPC will recieve the officer, however it dosnt have to be someone who locked into the NPC.

+1

well, I like this idea but i dont at the same time. i mean the idea of officers is a cool idea and all, but to make them other ship captains seems a little strange. like i like everything else youve got going for ya. like you can find an officer from missions and stuff and you can get a bonus. but they should be just like crew. Like a Konqual tactical officer or something. idk the other NCP ships just seems a lil odd to me.

dont quite get what your saying, could you summerize it real quick, i dont really understand.
Are you saying that every time your ship size gets up enough you get an added bonus

pretty much as a quick summery, you get one officer slot and once officer (the first mate) when you start. for each size up of the ship you get an extra officer slot. officers can be gained from npcs or as a random drop in missions, much like the tesseract containers from disrupting the shipments.

officers will give either percentage bonuses or flat bonuses, based on how difficult they are to obtain. like, an officer gained from a flamehawk would give a bonus 100 attack or so, while an officer gained from korteth would give 2% to attack. you can potentially get up to 30 officers if you can get a collosal galaxy destroyer. If you dont want an officer you get, they work as an artifact (as in theyre in the cargo, and can be sold as an artifact).

+1

rereading this makes me have a new thought about this. i like where you were going with the officer being able to take over a disabled NPC ship, but it should be only for a limited time and have the same standards of invading a planet. it should still have a chance of failing just like invading or other things do

its a very random drop to capture an officer from a ship if its common, uncommon, or rare. a .5% chance for common, 1% for uncommon, and 2% for rare. that way high levels arnt bogged down with a ton of captured officers. also, if the abilities are randomly set, then players will always be trying to collect officers through NPCs to try to get something better, or a better combination of abilities. randomized mission officers will be similar. you have a 5-6% chance to gain an officer through a mission. that way if you get one you really are happy. these officers will be about as good as an officer gained from a rare or elite ship.

ah, the more i hear about this idea the more i like it. at first i was a wee bit confused, but if theyre like interchangable artifacts for your ship, im all for it. now all we need is Dan The Man to add it to the game.

lol yeah, hopefully. someday im gonna make a list of everything id like to see put into the game thats already been suggested... but im glad you guys are on board with this idea! if you guys have any suggestions id love to hear em!

this would also take care of class hybridization that i heard some players wanted.

+1 to the bonuses, I love the idea of getting to take NPC crew members, and maybe an officer bonus would be cool too, but maybe like set 10 and one right hand man, the right hand man gets double for bonus the rest give a normal one, when you start out you can only use you race as officer, but as you interact with others you can add different races even NPCs!

By size increase, do you mean Dreadnaught>Heavy Dreadnaught or Battleship>Dreadnaught?

yes. bigger ships need more crew. scouts wouldnt need as many officers to manage their crew because theyre small. where as a colossal galaxy destroyer would need quite a few.

he's asking is it based on class (scout, frigate, battleship, etc) or sub-class (light frigate, frigate, heavy frigate)? (i think)

it would be based on subclass. lol, sorry. i didnt understand the initial questino.



there are 30 subclasses in between scout and collosal galaxy destroyer. lol, so creating a perfect officer crew would be quite an undertaking.

Instead of more crew, how about crew training?
Much like research, your crew "gets better" at their position.

Engineers can crank out more energy faster.
Tactical officers know the week spots on ships to give more damage.
Helmsmen can manuver the ship quicker and more proficiently adding more defence.
Scientists can utilise the added deck space for larger research projects adding more RP per hour.

wouldnt that fit in perfectly with Terrorize's research tree though? alot of people said it would be over powered and useless because people would gain the percentage increases around the same time everyone else gained the nullification increases. i thought it was a great idea, but sadly we couldnt get any ccers to sign off on it. so thats why i resurrected this thread. with only 30 options to give percentage based inccreases to your ship, you need to specify what you want and specialize your ship, instead of getting a percentage increase on everything.

I'd say you get random crew from npcs and some missions give crew but that you either higher them or release them like prisoners and get some rank points. Just a thought.

Plus one, I do like this idea. We need some more varity in ship builds/ options..

I like the idea but I don't think the bonuses would need to be tied exactly to racial bonuses although it would be nice if they generally made some sense and that is about the easiest way to do it.

What about on top of this being able to install governors on planets? The advantages could be anything from + def% to a bonus in any or all types of production, cloak etc.

I think you'd need this sort of thing to help combat increasingly stronger ships.