Crew Size vs morale

[knarfling]

I am curious about crew size and morale. I have noticed that the larger my crew is, the lower the morale is. I have tried raising the intimidate skill, but it does not seem to have any effect.

Is there a limit to morale based on crew size? Or am I just not raising intimidate enough?

For example, if I buy a ship with a crew of 73, I cannot seem to get morale above 7, even when I make a killing with trading and an intimidate skill of 15. If I go back to an earlier ship with a crew of 40, I my morale stays at 10. Switching back and forth doesn't seem to change morale, but I am sure the port authorities will start getting upset.

[sgtcookie]

1. Morale is ship specific

2. There seems to be a cap at spice hall morale boost

[absimiliard]

Crew morale is also impacted by how your fights and missions go. So if you beat another ship in battle you will (generally, indep ships being a possible exception) gain a morale-boost. Same thing for succeeding at a contract. Conversely losing a fight, or surrendering, and failing a contract can lower morale.

Is it possible some of these effects have been involved in what you're seeing?

-abs

{edit} sgtcookie: the Spice Hall doesn't seem to ever be able to raise morale above a 7. {/edit}

[knarfling]

That may be it. The only fights I have been in have been when independent pirates attack. (Haven't yet met any aliens with this captain, yet.)

I am playing an explorer, so I have trade permits with all factions. When a faction pirate attacks, I usually surrender. Because I have the trade permit, they don't search the ship and they don't steal anything. Does that still cause a morale drop?

Also, I gained all my rep from selling "restricted" goods and records. I haven't accepted any missions at all. But I haven't rejected any, either. I found that there was always a chance that rep will go down with another faction, even when I think I am working against independents. So I haven't gotten any bonuses for completed mission, but I also haven't gotten docked for failed missions or for working against independents.

Crew morale does drop to 6 or even 5 if I get slaughtered on a planet more than 3 or 4 times in a row, but the spice hall will let me get back up to 7. But even when I have a string of successful harvest/exploring trips, I never get above 7 when I have a large crew. With a small crew it is easy to stay at 10 using these techniques.

I should also point out that I ditched the first officer. I really needed the political officer to keep me from selling during embargoes. The Scout is also a must. So my choices were the first officer or a mechanic. The mechanic saves me more money. What can I say? I'll bet I could go up to 8 or 9 morale if I kept the first officer, but Old TurdLip is hard to keep around.

[TANKtr0n]

If you get a Political Officer onboard, sometimes they will uncover info about the "Independents" you are working for... like that they are actually terrorits working for/against one of the Houses/Syndicates. Voila! Negative reputation. It 'toasts' almost too quick to catch.

[Cory Trese]

You can length that Toast under Options. It qualifies as a Crew Morale Toast. The option is called "long crew morale toasts" or something like that.

we are working on a log system that can be used to replace toasts. not done yet

[TANKtr0n]

Logs would be great. I keep looking for a log of toasts for some reason; I guess I'm a latent psychic and subconsciously knew it was coming and I'm just waiting for the inevitable update...

Can we also have an option to toast in the Android notification bar rather than a flash across the screen or is that not possible with the way it's written? Sometimes I find it annoying when the toast is covering text on screen I'm trying to read, like Exchange prices or Contract info.

[knarfling]

I thought those toasts only showed up after the mission was completed. Kind of like "By the way. You realize that those 'independent' agents were actually Cadar spies in disguise, right? I told you that you should have bought a pardon when you were at -3 reputation. But no. You wouldn't listen to me. Then the warship wanted to search you and you wouldn't let them. It was only going to be a few weeks in jail with a loss of 30K. Now we are at -11 and you can't buy a pardon."

But that still doesn't answer the question. Does NOT taking any contracts hurt your morale? Or are you only penalized/rewarded once you accept a contract?

And what about surrendering? If you surrender to a pirate of a faction where you have a trade permit, and they don't search or steal, does that still give you a small drop in morale? I started watching that, but did not see any drops. At least not a full point.

[Cory Trese]

You are only penalized/rewarded once you accept a contract. Void, Expire or Fail cause a risk of morale loss.

Defeat in combat, fighting for no gain or winning over friendly ships can all cause a test for a drop in morale. intimidation and STR play a major roll here.