I guess it's the difference between Star Trek style stuff, EVE style stuff, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime/Guns of Icarus style stuff and Starwars style stuff.
In Star Trek, there's probably heaps of stuff to do on those consoles in front of them. Something like an order of "shields to full" might mean juggling the amount of power from reactors/capacitors, taking that power away from weapons and engines (making other's jobs harder), routing it through working power conduits that can and do fail all the time, and distributing the energy to where the captain "actually meant" when he said that (you probably don't have enough power to actually have FULL shielding everywhere anyway), and keep juggling all that into shields that might not be in perfect working order as weapons and engines and scanning and engineering are all doing their thing too. Teamwork and understanding of the resources available, as well as efficient ways of getting the blathering-idiot-in-charge's orders completed between you all, without wrecking the ship like you would if you *actually* did what he said to do. But no one wants to be the red shirt that cleans chicken soup dispenser nozzles.
In EVE, there's stockmarkets, investments, factions and stuff. And being a jerk over comms. All very valuable stuff to do, regardless of combat.
In LiaDS/GoI, there's only so much you can do at once. But you need to do everything. So your other crew members are absolutely vital for the working of your ship. They shield while you steer. They steer while you shoot. Teamwork is necessary and built into the ship design (and game concept).
In Starwars, there's boardgames and cardgames. It's recognized that the turret gunner will usually be so goddamned bored outside of combat that including other types of entertainment on the ship is actually necessary for your survival. Take Han and Chewie and the Millennium Falcon. They're all about playing sabaac, gambling on pointless stuff, and whatever that holo-game chess thing was. You could have an auto-turret, a droid navigator/repairer or a robot-fighter helper ship, but people are better at stuff like that (especially when it's all custom bodgy stuff they're working with). And it gives you someone to play cards against when you're bored too. Elite: Dangerous seems to take more after Starwars than it does other multicrew concepts. But there's no boardgames or cardgames included yet.
If people are genuinely better at stuff aboard a ship, so it feels worthwhile being there, it might work. Like 1.5x-3x as good as basic ship functioning. But right now, there's an auto-everything function for virtually all the things another crew member could do (kinda necessary because all ships are currently 1 man enterprises). Conducting station, system or sector wide high credit cardgame tournaments might be a necessity if extra crew are really just tagging along for lols (and would make for some fun lore on how people died/got rich/ended up with prices on their head, and would make pottering about the universe seem far more swag). It would also give you as the pilot of a single-person vessel all those options too. Sure, repair shields 3x faster by hitting stuff with a wrench. But you won't be steering while you do it.
It's actually completely in character with Elite's lore, old and new. Both bounties placed due to gambling debts and "theft", as well as people dying because they're afk or "doing technical stuff" instead of flying the ship. So that's what they need. Gambling. Because as we all know, even the most boring thing on earth is made better if you can gamble on it or gamble while doing it. It also gives reasons for going places. Tiny station with little traffic, no decent commodity prices or tech and no police presence to save you from the pirates? Perfect place to hold the next underground poker tournament.
Kinda sounds fun to be a crew member then. Sure, the captain is an ace pilot, trader and has an elite rating, but you've got half the system's credits in your pocket after the last tournament. That's why they're out for your blood. You're too damn good at what you do.
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Topic: Elite - Dangerous (Read 51974 times)