quote:Original post by CaptainJester
To summarize, your intuition gives you a feeling, but you don''t know if they are lying about their skills or about not being a criminal, etc...

EDIT: ps. I like the idea of not knowing exactly what you are getting, but I think it should be balanced by the player''s experience within the game and he will get better at hiring the right people, eventually.

Wow! This is a great idea! Actually, rather than a seperate stat (unless I can use it for something else), the player’s "experience" level could more accurately tell them whether or not the person is a good bet. There would always be a margin for error, but it would go down the more experience the player had. (I also like the intuition stat, and may use that if I can find other uses in game for it, like with trade deals & such).

Another mutation of this idea: experience by society / culture. It might add flavor to modify experience at taking a risk based on whether or not you’ve interacted with the crewman’s culture. (Meaning you may not necessarily know if an alien is lying unless you’ve had experience).

quote:Original post by Silvermyst
Definitely go for the gamble approach.

Like Bishop_pass mentioned, applicants could have licensed degrees, or maybe a recommendation from a renowned officer. Of course, licenses can be forged, recommendations could be false. You might be able to enlist the help of a specialize crewmember who has learned all about forgeries (useless trait while traveling through the galaxy, but priceless when trying to get new members on your team). You might have a crewmember who knows all the latest gossip, and who might just know that that new crewmember is lying when he says he flew with captain X.

Yes, these are good ideas, too, and could be applied to other things the player has to gamble on (like cargo, or parts, or information).

quote:
Perhaps your setting allows for some alien being that can actually read minds to a certain degree. Again, this being would be valuable when scanning applicants, not so valuable when trying to fight off pirates in space.

Hah, a “Captain, I sense something” Deanna Troi style empath! I like it, and it would add yet another cool character type, especially if the psi character could be used elsewhere.

So at one level or another, you’re basically buying resources that help minimize the risk...

quote:Original post by Ronin_54
how many crewmembers are we talking about?

Not exactly sure, yet, but the idea is that you’re mostly worried about senior people that get promoted as you go up in rank. Junior crew are a bit more generic, so even if you have a crew of 1000 you only worry about n out of 1000.

I see n as anywhere from 15 to 50. But this is another area of debate, as my friend thinks you should be able to acquire as many as you desire to manage. Still not sure about this, yet, and a lot depends on how interesting it is to futz with them, and how many times you have to continuously do it. The more you do, the less crew you should have to manage.


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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
I think Ronin_54''s question is key.

I''ll add to that: How much time and effort is the player going to spend on managing personnel as opposed to other activities?

Hmmm... this is a toughie. Initial selection should be fast, say 2-10 minutes when you dock. The “interview” process should be lightening quick, because it’s not really interesting (in depth).

What will take more time is the quirks and events that arise from the crew you’ve acquired. This should be at least 20% of the gameplay. So that initial selection time has potentially serious effects.

quote:
How many choices will the player typically have when looking to hire someone?

I haven’t worked this out. Easiest approach is the “BBS” shopping list idea: Candidate name, contract cost, skills, and any special notes. Select and “buy,” just like equipment.

Each station might have different list boards, like “ex-military” or “academy” or “freelancers.”

Vague options I can think of per each candidate might be:
* history – generates a brief psuedo-history
* investigate – pay cash to verify candiate info
* put on retainer – pay to save a candidate that you like for X months

and (?)
* place an ad – pay to increase chance that someone with skills you want will pop up (probably by day, which is also a time cost that you pay to sit around doing nothing while waiting for someone to show up)

quote:
How easy is it to remove or change crews? Are there any performance penalties for making a change (think shifting around members of a sports team - temporarily increased inefficiency)?

Crewmembers can be dismissed at any time, but they still take up resources until you get to a suitable base / colony. There’s no penalty for swapping them.

quote:
Does developing detailed info about each crew member fit with the overall vision of the game? Are the crew simple and disposable tokens or does the game include them in detailed interaction (speech, away missions, whatever)?

I see them as relatively simple stat modifiers and resource users at one level. Interaction will probably be limited to placing them at stations; sending them on abstract assignments (away missions where they disappear and occassionally report); and dealing with the situations and events that they attract / generate / influence. No speech or character interaction, unfortunately.

Thanks JSwing, excellent clarifying questions!





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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote:Original post by kseh
There was this one game Fast Food Tycoon...

Thanks for the example, it gives me some ideas. I like the idea that the quickest way to determine a character''s worth is to eventually look at your balance sheet.

quote:
Only thing is, after you have a pile of restraunts you feel like you''re being micromanaged to death when things like this come up.

Yeah, I think the way to do this and keep it viable is a management pyramid. You start out managing everybody, then promoting people who automatically add their own staff, from say "local, regional, divisional" levels on up. But you''re always only managing the same number of people, hiring or replacing them as needed.


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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote:Original post by superpig
Perhaps linking the histories into what the player has discovered. For example, if you come across a ship that has crashed due to (after inspection) engine failure, and later come across the person who claims to have served aboard that ship as chief engineer...

LOL! I like this, though I think it''s a bit more intricate than I was going for. Although, maybe I could tie the generation of certain major events (like a rousing success or disaster) to events. Let me think about this!


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Just waiting for the mothership...

I wasn't going to post anything here, because I figured I wouldn't be able to really add anything. Well, I've been thinking and I may have come up with something. In the RPG's, cursed items suck, and hurt the player for a bit, but they aren't permanent. On top of this, they are a penalty for the player having done something stupid, i.e. using a magic item without finding out what it is, first.

In the example for the spacer crew, I would give the clues as has been suggested already, but for each one, allow the player to fire/relieve from duty/whatever the crewman and take over themselves in that position. Think of a naval vessel in present day. If the Captain decides the guy at the helm is drunk, and no one else is available, what's he going to do? He's going to kick the hell out of the guy and drive the boat himself.

To keep this from being "abused", you could hard code a limit to what the player could do themselves and actually make the player put forth effort to do it. I could see (for example) a player being able to work helm and communications at the same time, barring problems reaching consoles and such. You might decide this is too much. Maybe to be effective, they can only do one. Whatever. It's your game.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is it presents a way for the player who PAYS ATTENTION to see the problem early and correct it before something bad happens. By making it more effort you will make sure they want to hire someone as soon as possible.

Edited by - ShadeStorm on February 12, 2002 7:02:25 AM