expanded crew mechanics

[velvet skiff]

Crew at the moment feel, kind of like a secondary concern. My take on that is that the most danger they experience is injury when boarding derelicts. My idea, put them in more danger.

Combat is now a BIG danger for your crew. Any and all shots that hit the pressure vessel have RNG chances of piercing it, causing decompression and chances of injuring/killing crew members. Dead crew members are just dead. Injured crewmembers now can still fulfill their roles to a lesser extent depending on extent of injury. If you kill or injure the entire crew of a vessel, it becomes a derelict. You can now choose multiple crew members to send across to derelicts. Ones already in the rings have an RNG chance of having crew members still alive in them. These crew members may want to join your crew, or go back to EP, but in any case you get a reward for their rescue alongside the derelict on your return to EP. Disabled enemy vessels can be boarded like any other derelict, but now with the danger of surviving enemy crew putting up a fight. Any surviving crew members and any boarding crew members have a roll off with a stat relating to crew on crew combat. Even if you capture the vessel, there's still a chance of having your crew members injured/killed during boarding actions. Remember it only takes 1 person to actually commandere the vessel. Enemy crew may also try to sabotage their own vessel, killing everyone aboard if successful. EP or BBY will have a large reward for the delivery of any captured G4A vessels or ships.

Crew members would also be able to branch out from their job. All crew members can do the other jobs to a small degree alongside their main profession. They can have chances to go back to school or take time off to learn a bit about other professions, though they won't be able to do it as well as their main job. They can also have a random stat at a decent level. Maybe your geologist also pursues electrical engineering as a hobby. This would be especially important during early game or If crew members get taken out of action during a dive.

Finally to really carry across the whole "space is hard" thematic of the game, provisions and state of repair of crew habitats would be tracked, affecting morale, chance of injury, or even leading to death in the case of unexpected decompressions or life support failures do to damage. Keeping a safe living environment aboard your ship is crucial for keeping your crew in a state of effectiveness.

There would also be new tuning options for crew responses. As a service you can spend money on training sessions to keep your crew vigilant and responsive in times of emergency. For instance, a well trained crew knows to suit up when in high risk situations, leading to little to no change in crew effectiveness if the pressure vessel gets blown out. Preparedness would be tracked by crew member, meaning that maybe that one idiot who never pays attention during training sessions gets what's coming when he's not prepared for the cabin to go vaccou.