Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

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Caribou89
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Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Caribou89 » Mon, 29. May 23, 05:37

I'm really curious about the Service Crew levels and how they effect each function. I can't find any documentation that covers this.

The tooltip will say that Engineering improves repair speed and response time, as well as "ship operations". However it isn't clear exactly what these bonuses are, what they mean. What is the default repair speed, what is the max repair speed. Is response time the time before it repairs after it takes damage, what's the min/max of that? General ship improvements is also incredibly vague, is that a passive bonus to acceleration? Top speed? Or is it hardpoint function only, where they can turn faster etc.

I find the other jobs to be rather straight forward, pilot gets better formations and commands, morale makes pilots and marines not give up so easily, management increases the range of traders and miners, and boarding makes it more likely to succeed a boarding operation with as few casualties as possible. But service crew is so vague!

Am I alone? Are others also confused? Does there exist an X-Guru?

Alan Phipps
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 29. May 23, 10:34

There are some opinions here. Apparently they can really help with mining efficiency.
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A5PECT
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by A5PECT » Mon, 29. May 23, 19:47

It would be nice to finally get some kind of explicit, official description of what service crew affects and how. All of the questions raised in the thread Alan linked have yet to be answered by the game or the devs, and it's been that way since the game released so many years ago.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step in figuring out how to make it worse.

ajime
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by ajime » Tue, 30. May 23, 18:27

A5PECT wrote:
Mon, 29. May 23, 19:47
It would be nice to finally get some kind of explicit, official description of what service crew affects and how. All of the questions raised in the thread Alan linked have yet to be answered by the game or the devs, and it's been that way since the game released so many years ago.
there is one in steam.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/392160/d ... 271370121/

Alan Phipps
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 30. May 23, 21:27

Interesting that the Steam thread doesn't mention the benefit of good crew to mining.
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TheDeliveryMan
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by TheDeliveryMan » Tue, 30. May 23, 21:49

That Steam thread is almost 4 years old, there have been a lot of changes since then.

xrogaan
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by xrogaan » Tue, 30. May 23, 22:39

Beyond repairs, and then replacing the captain, I don't know crew have any use. It's a mechanic that has never really been explained.

Caribou89
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Caribou89 » Wed, 31. May 23, 01:29

I take it then that no one has delved into the data to see if they can't find any code regarding service crew?

I'm quite surprised considering how mods exists to make them level up quicker, implying that their higher level variants are certainly more desirable, but then for what reason?

Nanook
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Nanook » Wed, 31. May 23, 02:27

If you assign marines, for example, to be crew members, their morale can increase, benefiting their marine skills. Same for pilots. More directly, crew members on mining ships increase both morale and engineering, which does increase mining efficiency. And that's especially important for mining silicon, which can be a slow process with a low level crew.
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KalisaFox
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by KalisaFox » Wed, 31. May 23, 19:27

wonder if they have any benifit with construction ships or traders then, I know construction is amazing at leveling them but i dont think they provide any real bonus there.
from my understanding its strictly bonuses to mining and repair speed, nothing really else, unless im mistaken.

Gimbutz
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Gimbutz » Thu, 1. Jun 23, 11:43

I can't go into detail since this isn't my field of expertise, but apart from boosting repairs, Service Crew is factored into the overall skill of the ship. The pilot is more important than the crew, but bad crew can drag down a good pilot. This combined skill of the ship then influences basically everything it does, from boost usage to the speed of drone launches.

A5PECT
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by A5PECT » Thu, 1. Jun 23, 20:28

Thank you for shedding some light on it. But if service crew really do impact ship performance so universally, the extreme lack of explanation is even more concerning.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step in figuring out how to make it worse.

xrogaan
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by xrogaan » Fri, 2. Jun 23, 01:32

Gimbutz wrote:
Thu, 1. Jun 23, 11:43
I can't go into detail since this isn't my field of expertise, but apart from boosting repairs, Service Crew is factored into the overall skill of the ship. The pilot is more important than the crew, but bad crew can drag down a good pilot. This combined skill of the ship then influences basically everything it does, from boost usage to the speed of drone launches.
Does the speed at which turrets rotate, aim and fire also part of it? Seeing that people report that miner ships mine faster with an experienced crew, I would expect that corvette would fight better with an experienced crew too.

Eagle_Four
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Eagle_Four » Fri, 2. Jun 23, 05:36

What I wonder is, what use are marines on board the ships, in relation to the service crew, apart from boarding? New ships are usually delivered with 50% marines. Isn't it better to have 100% service crew? So why are all ships manned with so many marines, although the AI does not board ships and therefore protection against boarding is pointless.

I have now converted the marines to service crew on all ships except those I use for boarding. I left a few marines stationed on the warships, but only for immersion.

And then the other question, do 100% service crew have a benefit or is 50% enough ? Is there an upper limit to where the service crew still has a benefit?

Questions over questions.

Repli
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Repli » Fri, 2. Jun 23, 06:21

Hey,
do not know about any caps or numbers for efficiency. But why do you have 50/50 on new ships? You can move the slider which personnel you would like to have? Anyway, even on my ships for boarding I switch the marines to service crew between operations, so they get skill for repairing ships faster :) Until now it is indeed pointless to have marines on ships you do not use for boarding.

TheDeliveryMan
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by TheDeliveryMan » Fri, 2. Jun 23, 08:13

Eagle_Four wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 05:36
What I wonder is, what use are marines on board the ships, in relation to the service crew, apart from boarding? New ships are usually delivered with 50% marines. Isn't it better to have 100% service crew? So why are all ships manned with so many marines, although the AI does not board ships and therefore protection against boarding is pointless.

I have now converted the marines to service crew on all ships except those I use for boarding. I left a few marines stationed on the warships, but only for immersion.

And then the other question, do 100% service crew have a benefit or is 50% enough ? Is there an upper limit to where the service crew still has a benefit?

Questions over questions.
As of vanilla 6.0 player properties are no boarding targets, so there is zero benefit of having marines on your ships. They may even lose moral when idling, but I'm not sure about this. Servive crew improves ship performance, gain skills and usually also gain morale. My rule of thump is to always fill my ships to 100% with cheap (about 10k each) service crew, they become better over time.

Nanook
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Nanook » Fri, 2. Jun 23, 10:21

TheDeliveryMan wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 08:13
...
As of vanilla 6.0 player properties are no boarding targets, so there is zero benefit of having marines on your ships....
Not quite true. If you change the marines to service crew, they'll gain morale as well as engineering skills. The increase in morale then contributes to their marine skills when they change back to marines. I like to keep my marines occupied at crew tasks when they're not in a boarding op.
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TheDeliveryMan
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by TheDeliveryMan » Fri, 2. Jun 23, 11:02

Nanook wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 10:21
TheDeliveryMan wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 08:13
...
As of vanilla 6.0 player properties are no boarding targets, so there is zero benefit of having marines on your ships....
Not quite true.
I think we have a slight misunderstanding here. I fully agree with your following statement:
Nanook wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 10:21
If you change the marines to service crew, they'll gain morale as well as engineering skills. The increase in morale then contributes to their marine skills when they change back to marines. I like to keep my marines occupied at crew tasks when they're not in a boarding op.
Idle marines are useless, so I always have them working as service crew. Only during boarding ops I have them actually assigned as marines.

Eagle_Four
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Eagle_Four » Fri, 2. Jun 23, 11:09

Nanook wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 10:21
TheDeliveryMan wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 08:13
...
As of vanilla 6.0 player properties are no boarding targets, so there is zero benefit of having marines on your ships....
Not quite true. If you change the marines to service crew, they'll gain morale as well as engineering skills.
And that is why the marines have no use. Morale grows with time as a Marine as well as a service crew.
But as a service crew, they have a right to exist.
As far as I know, the player properties were never in X4 boarding target of the AI, so even before 6.0. The Ai never board other ships.

What happened to the good old pirates who boarded other ships?
Too bad that in X4 this is not implemented, then the marines would also serve a purpose.
If the player can board, other factions should be able to as well.
That would be one thing I would like to see in V7.0.

Repli
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Re: Service Crew Statistics, Do they exist?

Post by Repli » Fri, 2. Jun 23, 11:13

Eagle_Four wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 11:09
Nanook wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 10:21
TheDeliveryMan wrote:
Fri, 2. Jun 23, 08:13
...
As of vanilla 6.0 player properties are no boarding targets, so there is zero benefit of having marines on your ships....
Not quite true. If you change the marines to service crew, they'll gain morale as well as engineering skills.
And that is why the marines have no use. Morale grows with time as a Marine as well as a service crew.
But as a service crew, they have a right to exist.
As far as I know, the player properties were never in X4 boarding target of the AI, so even before 6.0. The Ai never board other ships.

What happened to the good old pirates who boarded other ships?
Too bad that in X4 this is not implemented, then the marines would also serve a purpose.
If the player can board, other factions should be able to as well.
That would be one thing I would like to see in V7.0.
This was one of my hopes for ToA already :) I am still hoping for more possibilities regarding piracy, for all participants/inhabitants of the universe.

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