Idea: Crew management - Crew Hotel

[Good Wizard]

I just want to test this idea, what other people think about it:

The problem: For example I have (in early mid game) a M-miner with an experienced crew, not only the pilot, the service crew too has gained a lot of experience. Now I want to buy a L-miner, and sell the M-miner. But selling a ship 'sells' the crew too. So I transfer the crew to the L-miner before selling the M-miner. This works fine, but...

The idea: Let us build a new module on our stations, a 'Crew Hotel'. The Crew Hotel can only house crew members (including marines and service personnel), and in terms of gaining experience they count as 'landed and waiting', i.e. no gain. So technically it is sort of a big ship 'landed' on the station, but it cannot 'undock', it needs no pilot and it can be empty, and it cannot be sold like a ship, obviously. Also it has big but limited capacity, it needs food and water, and the personell there will NOT count to the work force.

So - going back to the example above: Instead of the need to have the L-miner (plus at least one pilot) BEFORE transferring the crew, I could land at an equipment dock with the M-miner, hiring one crew member, fly to my station, promote the newbie crew member to captain and transfer the experienced crew to the Crew Hotel, where they wait until I have the L-miner, to be transferred. The newbie captain can then handle the selling of the M-miner, while my experienced crew is 'stored' at the Crew Hotel.

The example is a bit clumsy, and it can be done without the Crew Hotel. I just think that it would be natural to have a quarter for crew currently not assigned to a ship, which is not possible now. Since you need to build it and supply it it would be not a 'cheat module'. The interface to this could work like a 'ship', only fixed in its location. The crew list in the personal view (where you see your captains on your ships) could just list the people there, and looking at its 'information' in map view could be exactly like a ship, only that there is no pilot, and you just see the list of crew members , their names and the experience.

What do you think about a feature like this?

[Socratatus]

I just want to test this idea, what other people think about it:

The problem: For example I have (in early mid game) a M-miner with an experienced crew, not only the pilot, the service crew too has gained a lot of experience. Now I want to buy a L-miner, and sell the M-miner. But selling a ship 'sells' the crew too. So I transfer the crew to the L-miner before selling the M-miner. This works fine, but...

The idea: Let us build a new module on our stations, a 'Crew Hotel'. The Crew Hotel can only house crew members (including marines and service personnel), and in terms of gaining experience they count as 'landed and waiting', i.e. no gain. So technically it is sort of a big ship 'landed' on the station, but it cannot 'undock', it needs no pilot and it can be empty, and it cannot be sold like a ship, obviously. Also it has big but limited capacity, it needs food and water, and the personell there will NOT count to the work force.

So - going back to the example above: Instead of the need to have the L-miner (plus at least one pilot) BEFORE transferring the crew, I could land at an equipment dock with the M-miner, hiring one crew member, fly to my station, promote the newbie crew member to captain and transfer the experienced crew to the Crew Hotel, where they wait until I have the L-miner, to be transferred. The newbie captain can then handle the selling of the M-miner, while my experienced crew is 'stored' at the Crew Hotel.

The example is a bit clumsy, and it can be done without the Crew Hotel. I just think that it would be natural to have a quarter for crew currently not assigned to a ship, which is not possible now. Since you need to build it and supply it it would be not a 'cheat module'. The interface to this could work like a 'ship', only fixed in its location. The crew list in the personal view (where you see your captains on your ships) could just list the people there, and looking at its 'information' in map view could be exactly like a ship, only that there is no pilot, and you just see the list of crew members , their names and the experience.

What do you think about a feature like this?

I think it's a decent idea. I could even imagine hotels like this in general on stations which pops up a roster of people that might be hirable/dealable. Even better if we could visit the Hotel and actually see them wandering around, resting, gambling like in the Bar, just bigger and more of them.

[grapedog]

I think the resources to do it could be better spent elsewhere, but I like the idea as I've run into it myself. If I am getting rid of ships or stations, I essentially have to buy a ship to house them in until I find them a job elsewhere. Service crew I don't worry much about, but pilots and managers I won't recycle... I'll fine them a temp home somewhere.

I think a better idea, and possibly more easy to implement, would be to just "add a room" to the PHQ. Essentially give the PHQ the ability to store "passengers" like ships can. Like the PHQ could house 50 passengers.

[abisha1980]

I think the resources to do it could be better spent elsewhere, but I like the idea as I've run into it myself. If I am getting rid of ships or stations, I essentially have to buy a ship to house them in until I find them a job elsewhere. Service crew I don't worry much about, but pilots and managers I won't recycle... I'll fine them a temp home somewhere.

I think a better idea, and possibly more easy to implement, would be to just "add a room" to the PHQ. Essentially give the PHQ the ability to store "passengers" like ships can. Like the PHQ could house 50 passengers.

likely the most easy and best solution.

[mr.WHO]

I'd prefere this as a functional room in PHQ - the place is a ghost town inhabited by Boron in a Jar and that Baldy from Brazzers.

[magitsu]

So basically similar than the X3 marine training?

Engineering, Hacking and Mechanical skills can all be improved at training facilities which are typically the same stations where they can be hired: Military Outposts, Military Bases, or Marine Training Barracks, but also at Trading Stations and Stock Exchanges. Training duration, cost, and effectiveness is the same everywhere. Training these skills is expensive and varies between 20,000Cr to 500,000Cr per course and will take anywhere from a few minutes to several days. The training cost and duration depend on whether a Quick, a Normal or an Advanced training course is selected, and on the skill level the marine has when he starts training. The number of skill points gained in the training is random, but depends on whether a Quick, Normal, or Advanced course is chosen. The formulas (see: forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=362077) for the duration of training a single skill are as follows, where all divisions are truncating (i.e., rounding down to an integer):

Course Skill increase (random) Formula: time in minutes with starting skill level S
Quick 5–9 5 + (S / 5 + 1)^2
Normal 15–27 15 + (S / 5 + 1)^2 + (S / 5 + 3)^2 + (S / 5 + 5)^2
Advanced 25–45 25 + (S / 5 + 1)^2 + (S / 5 + 3)^2 + (S / 5 + 5)^2 +(S / 5 + 7)^2 + (S / 5 + 9)^2
Training "All skills" takes as long as the three separate courses for each trainable skill would take combined, plus 20% longer. The fastest training is achieved by training each skill individually with Quick courses, but this also requires the most player attention...

https://x3.solasistim.net/index.php/Marines/

[Raptor34]

As a workaround. Aux ships and builders have space for hundreds of crew. I use those as secure storage.

[Good Wizard]

As a workaround. Aux ships and builders have space for hundreds of crew. I use those as secure storage.

Well yes - this is what I use later in the game, at the start I fiddle around like in my example above. Here a list of possible ships:

While Asgard, Erlking and Raptor are the ships with a lot of personnel, they are not really usable for this purpose.

The Atlas E Resupplier - 258 - a bit expensive, has better uses, but possible. (Old Atlas Model has only 247)
The Shuyaku Vanguard Trader is a good possibility, it is not very expensive, can be moved if necessary and has 225 personnel.
Builders have all 219 personnel, but probably have a better use later in the game.

Near the start of the game one could also use a M ship, the Baldric has 22 personnel, there are M warships, but they have a better use and are more expensive.

All numbers taken from Roguey's X4 site.

So I would recommend the Shuyaku Vanguard, should be quite easy to buy, and costs around 5 Mio Credits.

But still - a build able module for stations would be nice