Marines should act like service crew

[Falcrack]

When marines aren't busy boarding ships, I think they should contribute to the overall ship skill level, just like service crew.

What it the point to assigning certain crew as marines? So they are available to be sent on boarding missions. But why not allow them to contribute to ship skill level when not being sent over on pods?

[flywlyx]

Separating the service crew and marine seems unnecessary since they won't be fulfilling the same role simultaneously.

[stooper88]

I can honestly say I'm a boarding addict. When staffing my ships with new crew, I always select a 100% marine complement in order to "boost" their initial boarding skill.

However, immediately after disembarking, I convert every ship to set their crews to 100% service crew. Indeed, I think many players keep all their crews set to 100% service crew whenever not actively performing a boarding operation. This allows the ships to perform more effectively while also raising the crew morale and engineering skill.

I guess it's arguable that this makes the distinction between marines and service crew very "artificial" as players are trained to game the system as above. However, there are apparently Yaki pirates which can and do attempt to board ships. I'm not sure if they will only target NPC ships or if they also actively target player owned ships. If so, then it could be argued that having permanently assigned marines serves as a defense.

[LameFox]

Yaki board empty ships. There's no reason to ever have permanent marines.

I think right now the only thing that having them separate actually does is to make boarding NPCs easier. IIRC service crew don't contribute much to defence.

[Raptor34]

Considering you can train crew to be 5 stars in everything, the current marine/service crew distinction does feel very artificial.
Like IRL the distinction exists because it's very rare you get a genius who is good at everything, so you don't want your crayon eaters to mess with your high tech radars. But in game this isn't reflected at all. So, what exactly are your marines doing while you're being pounded by Xenon heavy weapons?
Combat engineers exists too btw, you'll also assume you need those to like hack enemy doors or whatever while boarding, those guys should also repair your ship or handle whatever stuff just as well when under fire.

In the future, so X5 more or less, ship crew should have tendency(?) or whatever you call it, that thing where you learn some skills faster than other skills. That way you can have all crew do all things, but because the individual crew themselves learn say shooting a gun better while sucking at learning engineering and vice versa, you'll get a more natural distinction between marine and service crew. As is in X4, every crew you hire is basically a genius who can learn everything well. And this interchangeability is what causes this issue in the first place.

[Nanook]

...
I guess it's arguable that this makes the distinction between marines and service crew very "artificial" as players are trained to game the system as above....

Actually, no, it doesn't. For dedicated boarding marines, I hand pick them off wharves, eq. docks and shipyards. They have high initial boarding skills and as little as no engineering skill. When they're not on an active boarding op, they get to serve as service crew, which builds up their morale, improving their overall boarding skills.

For my traders, and especially my miners, I always buy/hire service crew because they initially have higher engineering skills than the bought marines. Same goes for my builder ships when I eventually acquire them.

So for me, at least, there's a huge distinction between service crew and marines. The latter can temporarily serve as the former, but not vice versa.

I'm also a big "boarding addict."

Considering you can train crew to be 5 stars in everything, the current marine/service crew distinction does feel very artificial...

While you can do that eventually much, much later in the game, for most players and most of the game, that's not really a valid consideration. When you buy crew from a wharf/shipyard/eq. dock, choosing marines gives a crew that has a high starting boarding value, while choosing service crew gives higher starting engineering value. They come 'presorted'. If you just had generic crew, it forces the player to manually sort out those best in each occupation. And the roll of the die could give you all engineers when you really wanted marines, leading to another one of those 'very popular' RNG save-scumming minigames.

[Raptor34]

Considering you can train crew to be 5 stars in everything, the current marine/service crew distinction does feel very artificial...

While you can do that eventually much, much later in the game, for most players and most of the game, that's not really a valid consideration. When you buy crew from a wharf/shipyard/eq. dock, choosing marines gives a crew that has a high starting boarding value, while choosing service crew gives higher starting engineering value. They come 'presorted'. If you just had generic crew, it forces the player to manually sort out those best in each occupation. And the roll of the die could give you all engineers when you really wanted marines, leading to another one of those 'very popular' RNG save-scumming minigames.

Perhaps, but that does mean you can have them automatically act as the appropriate type of crew and get natural distinction between them then.
And training engineering isn't really late game. You can start doing it as soon as you get a CV and basically start mass printing high engineering/morale crew. Which unless you put artificial restrictions on yourself, you'll do it regardless because you want your marines to repair your new ship.

Which coming back to it means the current distinction is basically just busywork for players, and ultimately doesn't actually mean much. So there isn't really a reason to have 2 separate crew types.

What I propose is that all crew can do all tasks, and instead split them into 2 types of crew instead which instead of restricting what skills apply when, instead acts as a safety net so you don't just accidentally send off all your crew to go board.
So like you'll have universal crew which are used for anything. Service crew which hard locks them to your ship.
For defense, frankly there is no reason service crew shouldn't contribute to defense. 10 guy with guns is no better than one engineer opening the air locks.

[Nanook]

Considering you can train crew to be 5 stars in everything, the current marine/service crew distinction does feel very artificial...

While you can do that eventually much, much later in the game, for most players and most of the game, that's not really a valid consideration. When you buy crew from a wharf/shipyard/eq. dock, choosing marines gives a crew that has a high starting boarding value, while choosing service crew gives higher starting engineering value. They come 'presorted'. If you just had generic crew, it forces the player to manually sort out those best in each occupation. And the roll of the die could give you all engineers when you really wanted marines, leading to another one of those 'very popular' RNG save-scumming minigames.

Perhaps, but that does mean you can have them automatically act as the appropriate type of crew and get natural distinction between them then.
And training engineering isn't really late game. You can start doing it as soon as you get a CV and basically start mass printing high engineering/morale crew. Which unless you put artificial restrictions on yourself, you'll do it regardless because you want your marines to repair your new ship....

I never said that. What I referred to was your statement of training crew to five stars in everything.

For defense, frankly there is no reason service crew shouldn't contribute to defense. 10 guy with guns is no better than one engineer opening the air locks.

Which is what most players currently do, by switching service crew to marine duty as needed. It's just that, as I pointed out earlier, the main reason for the distinction is so the player can acquire crew with the appropriate skill levels instead of having to train them all up from 'scratch', as it were. And no, I would never want any of my crew 'locked to the ship'.

[jlehtone]

For defense, frankly there is no reason service crew shouldn't contribute to defense. 10 guy with guns is no better than one engineer opening the air locks.

First, there is no "defense" as long as no NPC faction even attempts to board our vessels. Hence the work allocation in our vessels lack that part altogether.

Second, the service crew of NPC ships does contribute to the defense. Not much, but more than 0.

As for the air locks ... the attackers surely have suits and magnetic shoes. What do the naked Teladi pirate engineers have?

[stooper88]

...
I guess it's arguable that this makes the distinction between marines and service crew very "artificial" as players are trained to game the system as above....

Actually, no, it doesn't. For dedicated boarding marines, I hand pick them off wharves, eq. docks and shipyards. They have high initial boarding skills and as little as no engineering skill. When they're not on an active boarding op, they get to serve as service crew, which builds up their morale, improving their overall boarding skills.

For my traders, and especially my miners, I always buy/hire service crew because they initially have higher engineering skills than the bought marines. Same goes for my builder ships when I eventually acquire them.

So for me, at least, there's a huge distinction between service crew and marines. The latter can temporarily serve as the former, but not vice versa.

I'm also a big "boarding addict."

I agree that there IS a difference when recruiting new crew, hence yes there's a purpose in initially choosing one or the other. However, I find that engineering skill is so much easier to acquire that there's almost no advantage to hiring service crew instead of always hiring marines and converting them. As you said, marines can serve as service crew but not the other way around.

When I capture new ships, I never have them repaired at stations. Instead, I allow the new crew to handle the repairs themselves. Although this takes some time and does not bring the ship hull to full 100% strength, it's very effective for quickly raising engineering skills. Coupled with the natural gains from trading and especially mining, I'm never concerned about insufficient engineering skills. All of my non-military ships very quickly become staffed by able crewmen and inevitably specialists. This is without any additional effort or action on my part. Likewise, I allow service crew to handle the repairs on military ships (unless in very dire need) and achieve generally the same results.

Although I have also leveraged builder ships to help train new crew, I've gradually moved away from bothering to do so. The only exception is for new captains and station managers so that their morale will be "pre-elevated". I don't bother to take the same trouble for marines or regular service crew.

Hence, I largely look upon ship crew as "universal" service crew/marines that are interchanged as needed.

Yaki board empty ships. There's no reason to ever have permanent marines.

I think right now the only thing that having them separate actually does is to make boarding NPCs easier. IIRC service crew don't contribute much to defence.

Thanks for the clarification regarding the Yaki. As for NPC ships, I think I'd have to agree that it would be terrible if all their crews were 100% marines. However, I do have to say that my experience with service crews has involved many, many unbalanced occasions whereby service crew hordes somehow became overpowered. I personally think there's a bug in the RNG. But although service crew should not be consequential, they most definitely can be grievous, again due to broken RNG.

I suppose ES could just simplify things and have the boarding mechanics operate strictly on the boarding skills of each crew member, whether service or marine.

[Raptor34]

While you can do that eventually much, much later in the game, for most players and most of the game, that's not really a valid consideration. When you buy crew from a wharf/shipyard/eq. dock, choosing marines gives a crew that has a high starting boarding value, while choosing service crew gives higher starting engineering value. They come 'presorted'. If you just had generic crew, it forces the player to manually sort out those best in each occupation. And the roll of the die could give you all engineers when you really wanted marines, leading to another one of those 'very popular' RNG save-scumming minigames.

Perhaps, but that does mean you can have them automatically act as the appropriate type of crew and get natural distinction between them then.
And training engineering isn't really late game. You can start doing it as soon as you get a CV and basically start mass printing high engineering/morale crew. Which unless you put artificial restrictions on yourself, you'll do it regardless because you want your marines to repair your new ship....

I never said that. What I referred to was your statement of training crew to five stars in everything.

For defense, frankly there is no reason service crew shouldn't contribute to defense. 10 guy with guns is no better than one engineer opening the air locks.

Which is what most players currently do, by switching service crew to marine duty as needed. It's just that, as I pointed out earlier, the main reason for the distinction is so the player can acquire crew with the appropriate skill levels instead of having to train them all up from 'scratch', as it were. And no, I would never want any of my crew 'locked to the ship'.

I mean lock as in you don't go boarding and discover all your engineers are gone, not like lock them permaneantly.

For defense, frankly there is no reason service crew shouldn't contribute to defense. 10 guy with guns is no better than one engineer opening the air locks.

First, there is no "defense" as long as no NPC faction even attempts to board our vessels. Hence the work allocation in our vessels lack that part altogether.

Second, the service crew of NPC ships does contribute to the defense. Not much, but more than 0.

As for the air locks ... the attackers surely have suits and magnetic shoes. What do the naked Teladi pirate engineers have?

Overloading the circuits.

[vvvvvvvv]

Instead of the proposal, how about being able to assign people to multiple roles.

I.e. whoever want there to be no overlap can keep groups separate, and whoever wants them to overlap, can assign suitable people to both repair and boarding.

Because there's no reason for marines to contribute to engineering by default. As their main activity is standing in corridors looking menacing. And it clearly requires their full attention.

[Nanook]

...
I mean lock as in you don't go boarding and discover all your engineers are gone, not like lock them permaneantly....

None of my dedicated boarding ships ever have dedicated service crew. I keep one or two such crew as pilots, one for my ship and one for the newly captured ship. When the boarding op is complete, I assign one as the pilot and then transfer service crew from one of my traders or miners to do the repairs. Thus both my marines and my service crew train up much faster. And my marines are immediately available for a new boarding op. For me, this is the most efficient way to manage my crews.

[StoneLegionYT]

I always thought it was strange, but honestly if you ever watched Enterprise, This exact sort of thing happen where the marines hardly did any kind of ship operations. Not saying it makes a lot of sense people can be trained to do both or at least help out.

[jlehtone]

Generally, I don't use the ships that I board. Marines out ASAP, and a captain from somewhere. Then ship flies to heap of such ships, to wait me being bothered enough to re-equip (some of) them.

More than once I've transferred my Marines to a Builder ship, only to notice after station completes that I forgot to turn them into engineers. Maybe next time.

[azaghal]

What if the marines would instead boost the ship combat performance (maybe it should be restricted to turrets and drones) based on their level, and have this activity also improve their boarding skill. This would turn the boarding skill into more of a "combat" skill instead. This could further be expanded in some shape or form to affecting combat performance when they pilot fighters as well, allowing to introduce faster piloting progression for civilian captains (because piloting on its own would become a bit less relevant for combat), thus letting player more easily get their hands on pilots that can do more advanced trading/mining operations instead of having to resort to stations as skill loopholes.

Otherwise... Introducing proactive ship boarding by NPC factions would add at least some kind of depth to the whole balancing act between marines and service crew on the ship. Funny enough - when I first started playing X4 I always made sure to hire both service crew and marines, expecting that pirate NPCs will actively try to board my ships.

Best regards,
Branko

[flywlyx]

It's just that, as I pointed out earlier, the main reason for the distinction is so the player can acquire crew with the appropriate skill levels instead of having to train them all up from 'scratch', as it were. And no, I would never want any of my crew 'locked to the ship'.

Then it should only apply when players are recruiting crew. The problem is that this designation is useless in most situations but still requires extra player input during those scenarios.

[Nanook]

...
Then it should only apply when players are recruiting crew. The problem is that this designation is useless in most situations but still requires extra player input during those scenarios.

I strongly disagree that it is "useless". Just how would you sort and distinguish which crew you want as marines and as service crew if they were one homogeneous mass? Crew currently can be conveniently divided by skill levels using these designations. Without that, how would you do it? I'm honestly confused as to how that might work. You do realize that the crews are chosen by the player to be in those categories, not the game. The game only supplies you with the skill levels and a way to divide them into useful categories.

Or would you just send them all into battle irrespective of their skill levels, sacrificing high level engineering crew to the meat grinder of a boarding op? Or attempting to use marines with no engineering skill as miner or trader crew? It sounds to me like you'd prefer all crew to be generic, with one generic skill to do all tasks, removing all the 'Think' from the whole process.

[flywlyx]

I strongly disagree that it is "useless". Just how would you sort and distinguish which crew you want as marines and as service crew if they were one homogeneous mass? Crew currently can be conveniently divided by skill levels using these designations. Without that, how would you do it? I'm honestly confused as to how that might work. You do realize that the crews are chosen by the player to be in those categories, not the game. The game only supplies you with the skill levels and a way to divide them into useful categories.

It appears you misunderstand the boarding mechanic. Marines are ranked by their marines skill during deployment. Players don't need to worry about the crew designation because the game itself uses marine skill rankings (elite, veteran, rookie) to determine their effectiveness. Therefore, these designations are irrelevant to the player, as a marine's skill level already indicates their combat prowess. There's no situation where knowing a marine's designation provides additional information beyond what their skill rank already conveys.

[vvvvvvvv]

...
Then it should only apply when players are recruiting crew. The problem is that this designation is useless in most situations but still requires extra player input during those scenarios.

I strongly disagree that it is "useless". Just how would you sort and distinguish which crew you want as marines and as service crew if they were one homogeneous mass? Crew currently can be conveniently divided by skill levels using these designations. Without that, how would you do it? I'm honestly confused as to how that might work. You do realize that the crews are chosen by the player to be in those categories, not the game. The game only supplies you with the skill levels and a way to divide them into useful categories.

Or would you just send them all into battle irrespective of their skill levels, sacrificing high level engineering crew to the meat grinder of a boarding op? Or attempting to use marines with no engineering skill as miner or trader crew? It sounds to me like you'd prefer all crew to be generic, with one generic skill to do all tasks, removing all the 'Think' from the whole process.

Above I proposed to assign people to multiple roles. Could be implemented as a list of people with checkboxes. "Marine", "Service", etc. At the moment there are only two roles player can actually use. Basically, there re many ways to go about it. Though for this to work, it would need ability to mass select and mass reassign people. Like you'd need to shift/ctrl select people then send them to a role. Even without multi-role, that would be QoL.