Has anyone figured out crew numbers yet?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

I would have to disagree for L/XL on crew. If we pull from modern day ships, cargo container ship has a crew of ~30, while the USS Iowa (since destroyers are X's battleships) has a crew of ~2,800. There are a lot more things to do on a combat ship, while cargo is relatively automated.

That is based on a huge number of assumptions that may not apply in this case. We are talking about a mostly fictional setting, not the real world. In the context of X4, the crew are not present for the role/roles you seem to think they are. I believe you are using false equivalence logic trying to equate current real world sea going vessels with the space faring vessels of the X-Series.

Yes - modern Panamax and similar cargo vessels may have relatively small crew complements for their size but the same can not be said about Cruise ships. In the X4, the distinction between ship types is more vague but that does not make the designs illogical. Smaller crew complements on military ships versus civilian ships actually makes more sense in the context of space craft - smaller crews means lower risk of life, smaller demands for supplies, and more room for weapon systems and supporting equipment.

I think you proved his point on the differing crew sizes between the ship roles. It was a good parallel pointing to modern cargo ships. The last bit about more space for more equipment seems to grasp at straws and makes little sense. If that was the case why wouldn't that also apply for industrial/cargo as well? Nonsense.

You obviously miss the point that military ships have notionally higher power demands, then there is also the loss-of-life consideration which does not apply to the civilian case since the expected risk-to-life is lower. Higher power demands would notionally mean larger power plants and more ducting/shielding.

As for proving their point - nope, not even close. Modern sea going cargo ships is anything but a good comparison case - one ship has to operate in the vacuum of space the other in a relatively tame atmospheric surface based environment.

The only people grasping at straws are those that keep complaining about the relative ship designs in X4 and using irrelevant and spurious arguments by cherry picking real world examples that seem to support their position.

Scale wise, the real world case of military submarines is a prime real world example that blows the "crew/cubic metre" scale argument out of the water - submarines operate with quite a compact crew per cubic metre ratio, certainly more coompact than any ship in X4. At the other end of the scale, there are many potential reasons why larger ships might have smaller crew complements, but when you compare like for like with-in the context of X4 things are actually consistent and logical.

TL;DR The simple fact of the matter is that the ship design and general approaches in X4 do not map on to current real world vessels in any meaningful sense. That does not mean the approach taken by Egosoft wrt ship designs is inconsistent or nonsensical, it is anything but that. Egosoft have issues with various areas of X4 but their overall approach to crew complements is not one of them.

[StormMagi]

I think at this point we have to agree to disagree. For one, in my post that went missing (I don't feel like going back and redoing all those layouts for size/volume in X4 at this point) did have a note that the model scale of L/XL class ships was off compared to the S/M class ships by anywhere from 2-4x which will contribute to this issue. And two, at this point the only way we will get a lore friendly response is if Egosoft responds here or decides to go into that aspect in the Encyclopedia. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if they went back to X:R style crew for L/XL ships and made life simpler.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

the model scale of L/XL class ships was off compared to the S/M class ships by anywhere from 2-4x which will contribute to this issue.

How do you figure that? Just because a ship is bigger does not automatically mean the crew complement is bigger, that is an erroneous position.

You can not compare the crew complement of S/M size vessels directly with L/XL size vessels. There are too many other differences to make the comparison even close to being valid. First and foremost being that ALL L/XL size vessels can carry at least 40 of the S sized vessels to start with.

S/M class vessels in general are essentially the short range shuttle end of the spectrum while L/XL craft are at the capital ship end of the spectrum - There really is no stepping stones in between and there is no logical reason for there to be either. If your argument is based solely on assumptions about cargo volume and ship capacity then you are ignoring a legacy point that ship volumes have rarely if ever been fully reprensetative of their capabilities - or have you forgotten that in X2/X3 there was cargo space tuning? If cargo compression was a thing in X2/X3 then there is no good reason for the same to apply in X4 - there could be your lore based reasoning in a nutshell, no need for the developers to get involved.

[StormMagi]

the model scale of L/XL class ships was off compared to the S/M class ships by anywhere from 2-4x which will contribute to this issue.

How do you figure that? Just because a ship is bigger does not automatically mean the crew complement is bigger, that is an erroneous position.

You can not compare the crew complement of S/M size vessels directly with L/XL size vessels. There are too many other differences to make the comparison even close to being valid. First and foremost being that ALL L/XL size vessels can carry at least 40 of the S sized vessels to start with.

S/M class vessels in general are essentially the short range shuttle end of the spectrum while L/XL craft are at the capital ship end of the spectrum - There really is no stepping stones in between and there is no logical reason for there to be either. If your argument is based solely on assumptions about cargo volume and ship capacity then you are ignoring a legacy point that ship volumes have rarely if ever been fully reprensetative of their capabilities - or have you forgotten that in X2/X3 there was cargo space tuning? If cargo compression was a thing in X2/X3 then there is no good reason for the same to apply in X4 - there could be your lore based reasoning in a nutshell, no need for the developers to get involved.

I wasn't implying that at all and, as I said, I don't feel like pulling together all the details again at this point. We are so far off topic I am just dropping this thread.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

the model scale of L/XL class ships was off compared to the S/M class ships by anywhere from 2-4x which will contribute to this issue.

How do you figure that? Just because a ship is bigger does not automatically mean the crew complement is bigger, that is an erroneous position.

You can not compare the crew complement of S/M size vessels directly with L/XL size vessels. There are too many other differences to make the comparison even close to being valid. First and foremost being that ALL L/XL size vessels can carry at least 40 of the S sized vessels to start with.

S/M class vessels in general are essentially the short range shuttle end of the spectrum while L/XL craft are at the capital ship end of the spectrum - There really is no stepping stones in between and there is no logical reason for there to be either. If your argument is based solely on assumptions about cargo volume and ship capacity then you are ignoring a legacy point that ship volumes have rarely if ever been fully reprensetative of their capabilities - or have you forgotten that in X2/X3 there was cargo space tuning? If cargo compression was a thing in X2/X3 then there is no good reason for the same to apply in X4 - there could be your lore based reasoning in a nutshell, no need for the developers to get involved.

I wasn't implying that at all and, as I said, I don't feel like pulling together all the details again at this point. We are so far off topic I am just dropping this thread.

Not really off-topic, the fundamental basis for your complaints about crew and crew numbers are flawed.

It is worth perhaps noting that as of V2.0, I observed at least one of my M size Transports repairing it's own hull (courtesy of the service crew it was carrying) during a cycle of flying to a dock, docking, doing some stuff, then launching again. This would seem to indicate that (at least) some bugs/issues regarding crew performance have been addressed. It also debunks the theory from the OP that service crew driven own-ship repairs are tied to repair drones.

[caltrop]

Also, if Paranid ships have total crew numbers divisible by 3 (like their habitats) they are much happier ^_^

[Mixxik]

Hi. Does anybody know why in players wharf is not enought crew to hire for my shipbuilds. Lets say I am ordering 5 Cerberus in row , 2 of them get full crew, but another 3 dont get full crew exept pilot. Even if i order full crew at the building. Any help would be nice

[StormMagi]

Hi. Does anybody know why in players wharf is not enought crew to hire for my shipbuilds. Lets say I am ordering 5 Cerberus in row , 2 of them get full crew, but another 3 dont get full crew exept pilot. Even if i order full crew at the building. Any help would be nice

You would have better luck starting a new thread with your problem. Most likely there weren't enough crew at your shipyard to fulfill the order.

Not really off-topic, the fundamental basis for your complaints about crew and crew numbers are flawed.

It is worth perhaps noting that as of V2.0, I observed at least one of my M size Transports repairing it's own hull (courtesy of the service crew it was carrying) during a cycle of flying to a dock, docking, doing some stuff, then launching again. This would seem to indicate that (at least) some bugs/issues regarding crew performance have been addressed. It also debunks the theory from the OP that service crew driven own-ship repairs are tied to repair drones.

Again, I said I am going to agree to disagree with your logic and just leave it at that. As for actually seeing some repair from crew without drones, that is good news.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

As for actually seeing some repair from crew without drones, that is good news.

And as pointed out by pref and myself several times this was the case even pre-2.0 despite your assertions to the contrary, all 2.0 did is adjust some bugs around the repair mechanics.