Window-shopping for Officers

[spike]

If you have a full complement of Officers, the Officer button in the Palace is greyed out. This means you can't tell what kind of Officer is lurking there, especially if the original Rumour has gone.

It would be nice to be able to "window-shop" - press your nose up against the glass and see what kind of Officer is available. If you like the look of her, you can show one of the incumbent Officers the way to the airlock, to make room for a superior model.

In game mechanics terms, move the check for too-many-officers back to the Recruit button on the individual Officer's details screen, rather than checking at the point the Officer button is displayed on the Palace screen. Or wherever Officers wait, if that's not just at Palaces.

[oldalchemist]

I'm for that!

I'd rather be able to fire an officer planetside anyway. Firing a dude in deep space seems really harsh.

"First Mate Turdlip, I'm beginning redundancy proceedings against you. You'll be spaced after we reach orbit."
"Couldn't I just get off here, sir? The spice hall is crap, but they do have air down here...and some very nice large hats."
"Nice large hats, eh? Sorry, T.L., your button is greyed out."

[ehkamp]

+1 on window shopping for officers

oldalchemist: ROFL!

[Slide87]

Ghghgh oR also a red button that opens a hole in the floor,simpson's Burns style xD however, +1 to idea it would be nice....^^

[Cory Trese]

The officer who is dismissed has a shuttle pick them up. I'm certain these Captains are familiar with the deep space passenger mission? Ship to Ship Crew transfer happens all the time it seems.

Training and Dismissing officers in Deep Space is a memory management and performance issue.

[HateSolstice]

While we're on the subject of officers, another change I'd like to suggest would be giving each officer more of a role on the ship. For example, I'd like to see the First Mate do more than complain I attacked/completed a mission that involved Independants, or that I'm low on Water-Fuel/Luxury Rations.

To go even further, I'd like to use the Military Officer as another example. Perhaps give him the ability to unlock specific ship upgrades, allow us to buy ammo at Star Docks that normally allow players to, etc. As it is now, he seems to do nothing for the player. I know it says he provides a bonus in combat, but honestly I have not noticed any difference in combat.

These are all just examples, but I think you can see where I'm going with this.

[Cory Trese]

More needs to be done first to alert the player about the bonuses provided by the officers currently.

If you have not noticed the bonuses you might just not be playing on a high enough difficulty level for them to make huge difference. A lot depends on your Captain -- the Officers function as skill multipliers.

I did a rough count -- each officer has between 8 and 12 skill mod values in the engine.

[HateSolstice]

Oh I see. This I was not aware of. I've been playing mostly on normal(up until yesterday), so I'll dink around with it more on my next game. I did have a military officer on demanding that was doing very well. Sadly, he died to a friggin' merchant ship. In his Cutlass Class ship loaded for bear. I was rather confused. XD

[jamobey]

HateSolstice
Sometimes I think bounty hunters appear to you as merchants. I forget what stat affects your ability to detect them. Keep reading the forums - almost every aspect of the game that you think isn't working usually turns out to be crazy complex and has an underlying rationale. In the case of officers, I think the stats of the planet you pick them up on determines some of their stats, and I think they also get better the longer they serve with you.

As for getting wrecked by a merchant (maybe a hostile disguised as a merchant)... Your ship replacement parts also have differing values. Maybe you had some of that Javat tin-foil plating for armor.

[Cory Trese]

jamobey -- Officers get better with time because the Captain is getting XP, but right now they are not better based on the planet they are recruited on

I am planning to make Officers "more RPG" by giving them names, Factions, levels and stats.

Then I think we can start making them really rock!

[Kelvin Zero]

By giving Officers Factions, do you mean they would have a faction they feel loyal to? I have a few times when I will do things against my original faction's wishes. Does that mean my officers could have problems with my orders? If I have officers from different factions and those factions are at war, will I need a high intimidate to keep them in line?

[Cory Trese]

Kelvin -- good questions. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the topic.

[spike]

Officers must be totally loyal to their Captain or be fired/spaced. They need to put any Faction or other loyalty behind them when they sign on.

The only exception I could see to this is if they are the same Faction as the Captain and there was an implicit agreement to follow that Faction's interests.

Worst case, an Officer should threaten to resign, and then maybe resign. They should never act disloyally.

Though if the Captain is working against the Officer's Faction interests might increase the risks of an Officer-led Mutiny. Which would not be fun.

My overall personal feeling is that this would be too complicated. It's hard enough dealing with external opponents while keeping the regular crew in line.

[Cory Trese]

Those are well reasoned points, all. I think the argument is very strong for keeping Officers 100% loyal to the Captain. It makes the universe and they're only in a profit-sharing agreements (well, soon-to-be once we have a bank!) with the Captain. And they travel with him, not with the Ship or the Crew.

So at this point that means I see Officers as having:

- HP
- Skills (2 Each, 1 Major 1 Minor)
- Special Abilities
- Image
- Level
- Portrait
- Name
- Home Planet

[jamobey]

If the officers are actual named characters, then I don't see why some might be more loyal to their home faction than others. You might take on a Steel Song military officer and he might kick ass in a fight, but maybe his bumps go down if you work against Steel Song (even if you're flying under another faction's flag). Certain political officers might be deep cover agents, etc. I'm not sure if what Cory is cooking up can accommodate that. Just a thought...

Cory - you mentioned unique items/artifacts before as well - are they in the pipeline? Not to be greedy, and I'm stoked about the game as-is. I'm just excited about this development in particular.

I can't wait to be driving around the galaxy hunting the best officers and equipment. And big, fancy hats.

-J