Skill and training Feedback

[Scoob]

One of the things I liked about the previous crew levels was that while I might get only a one or possibly two star Pilot if I bought an M-Class ship - I'm thinking Mining ships here specifically - I'd generally get a three star Pilot when I bought one of the L-Class ships. This as great as I could buy ample M-Class miners to feed my station's needs - they generally didn't have to go far. But I could assign my L-Class ships to Advanced Automine, so they'd roam a couple of sectors. Considering the extra investment cost - approx 8x that of an M-Class mining ship, it felt fair that they got a better Pilot enabling Advanced Mining.

In my 3.0 Beta 9 Start I did this, bought a Magnetar (IIRC) got a three Star captain and set him Advanced Automining. Nice. In my 3.0 + SV star, I just got to the point where I can afford an L-Class Mining ship, bought one, and got a one Star captain - only good for Sector mining - no better than the M-Class ships.

I've been playing for over 10 hours in this save, and while I've bought some 1 Star seminars, I've neither seen for purchase or found any better seminars. There might have been one available from a mission, but it wasn't a mission I wanted to do.

I think "buy a cheap ship, get a cheap Pilot" is fair, however when buying an expensive ship, getting a pilot that's fit for the job would be welcome.

Just my opinion. Pilots level so darn slowly when doing things like trading or mining that even after 100+ hours I've had two star Pilots that've never levelled up to enable Advanced Automining. Grinding available mission just for the Seminars also isn't fun for me, I just want to build my empire - missions are mostly an early-game thing for me, I'm past that stage.

Note: this game I hired three M-Class Miners, gave them seminars to get them to two stars each. I then set them Sector Mining hoping they'd level up. Over 10 hours later, they are all still two stars. I was hoping to gain a better Captain so I could assign them to an L-Class Mining ship, but I may end up poaching the first Combat pilot that hits three stars.

Scoob.

[birdtable]

This may help "short term" ,....
viewtopic.php?f=181&t=423579

[abisha1980]

This may help "short term" ,....
viewtopic.php?f=181&t=423579

Mods are useless in game do to ventures

[tomchk]

I agree with Scoob and others that extremely expensive ships should come with more experienced pilots on average. It feels unimmersive otherwise.

[Gregorovitch]

Just don't expect easy linear progress from one star to five, or to be able to completely skip this progression just by having large amounts of cash, as this is completely contrary to how experience progression is intended to work, and indeed works in many, if not most, games.

I feel I have to take issue with that because it is not how it works in most games. In most games progression is balanced against a power curve, not a brick wall, and rate of progress is affected directly from a mixture of normal play and specific decisions when options are available to choose from. Just to give two examples from different types of games:

* In Stellaris the player will have a fleet size limit based on a number of factors relating to empire progress. It's a soft cap, it can be exceeded at a significant and exponentially increasing cost penalty. But the player can invest in a number of things to accelerate the raising of this cap so that they remain competitive or even get ahead of the game's power curve with respect to fleet power.

* In Wasteland 3 there are hard skill checks for things like opening locks or defusing bombs/mines, you need a certain number of skill points in lockpick to open a specific lock for instance. The game increases the challenge level of the locks as the game progresses, the player decides the rate at which they allocate available skill points to lockpick as their characters level up.

The problem here is that there is a brick wall introduced that prevents players from doing what they absolutely must do, now, with no means of circumventing this brick wall or removing it. You absolutely have to have 3* pilots available in quantity in this game for miners and traders or you cannot run your stations under current game rules. This supply must be adequate and reliable.

This was a problem in both X3 and in pre-3.0 X4 but there were solutions available:

* In X3 you set up (using CLS IIRC) a training circuit for new pilots round a ring of say half a dozen stations early game. This provided an ample supply of sufficiently experienced pilots for universal traders and other needs.

* In pre-3.0 X4 you couldn't do this, or anything like it, so the only solution was to save scum individual ship purchases for 3* pilots which was a step backwards and a serious PITA but at least it was a solution.

From this thread I learn that this solution is no longer available in 3.0, something I've noticed myself in my 10-12 of 3.0/Split play so far with the 30 or so ships I've bought, and no alternative solution has been put in it's place. For me this renders the game unplayable and I will have to put it down again unless and until the issue is resolved satisfactorily. In particular:

* The game does not have centralized crew management system to support 100's and 1000's of staff. That number cannot be reasonably be managed on an individual basis even if detailed reports and status updates were readily available (which of course they are not). The UI simply does not support the kind of thing people are talking about having to do in this thread. Nobody has the time or patience for that kind of drudgery, this is a game not work.

* The primary resource for leveling up crew cannot be tied to missions rewards because I certainly, but I suspect also many other players, typically do very few missions except perhaps very early game because they offer very little if any entertainment value compared to building and developing stations and assembling large fleets with which to smite my foes.

My bottom line is this:

When I need 12 new traders for my stations, as is frequently the case, I need them now and they have to have 3* pilots or they won't work. One way is if I can simply buy them quickly and easily in bulk when I need them. But I do not mind if I have a mechanism under my control, essentially some kind of centralised training resource (I don't care how expensive it is), that I can put in place at the beginning of the game with which I can make absolutely certain that those 12 3* pilots are ready and waiting when I need them. In addition to that I need a proper management information system dedicated to HR in game I can use to track throughput of training programs as well as on the job progression, get an overview of current skill levels and conduct mass transfers quickly and easily where necessary.

I would describe this requirement as mandatory, non-negotiable.

[pref]

I could imagine some training ships, with modest crew capacity and at least some survival capabilities.
They would have to patrol enemy sectors for a longer period of time for each star, manual orders or crew transfer would cancel any potential skill increase which all the crew would get when the time expires. That way they would need some defence but it still could be automated.
And also miners that sell/mine much less and only train piloting up to 3 combined stars.

Each should manage ordering new personnel, perhaps when the command is issued there could be 2 params that can control time/stars and number of trainees.

Might take less effort then a training facility, but that would be a nice solution too.

Either way it should be possible to train to 3 stars within a couple hours and also 5 stars within a game day or two.
If it has a predictable rate then it can be balanced and possibly the rate altered based on empire size etc.

[TonyEvans]

Isn't the focus of a sandbox to allow players to choose their own path?

I get that Devs don't want players using credits to solve all their games' problems, but I feel it should also be left up to the player to choose their solution.

I've got more than enough credits to buy a hundred Destroyers fully fitted with each race's best tech. Which I could then use to wipe out each race. I'm instead choosing to build my own supply stations, to build my own production stations, to build my own ships with and build my fleet 1 Behemoth (or, now, Split Destroyer) at a time. It'll be a long, slow and painful journey, but that's what I'm choosing to do. With that in mind, I want nothing-to-little to do with the micro-tediousness of individual skilling. I'm a galactic war-profiteering Emperor. I have to personally train every individual captain with magic space books? When I could instead use my vast resources and conquered space to create Academies that'll train my crews to do exactly what I "conscripted" them to do?

All sarcasms aside, open the world up for us a bit. I have thousands and thousands of hired Crew. Most of my large ships have hundreds. I don't find it wholly feasible for players to become the best end-game by doing early-game stuff indefinitely.

Edit: As a middle-ground option
Let us build crew-training academies
BUT
The "managers" that would otherwise train new hires? Those can be skill-book related. Trained skills maxing out at (Trainer level - 1).
Different trainers add different Ware consumption.

Piloting: Engine components, Drone Components
Engineering: Various mid-grade wares (Hull Parts, Smart Chips, Microchips, etc, things that would otherwise go into a ship so those crew can expend them and better understand them to effect repairs)
Boarding: Weapons-related things such as Weapon Components, Turret Components, etc
Management: Credits, starting off with 1m for 1Star, 10m for 2 star, 50m for 3 star and 100m for 4 Star. 5 star being gained once a person is actually managing a station.

Morale I'm not totally sure about, but I'd say it could be leveled once the aforementioned skills have leveled up. Once a crewmember is trained and confident in what they're doing, their morale increases. Makes sense?

Put in place limits how many academy modules can be built like we have for the Venture dock. Max 1, 2, 3. Whatever would be fine. An "Academy Housing" special module that slowly populates at maybe 1/4th the rate of regular Habitation modules. Only the best of space-grown sheeple should get into the Academy, and adds a balancing mechanic that is independent of Credits. Time. The bane of all things.

[Neloth23]

I see a lot of great suggestions and arguments here, so my apologies if I repeat a few things that have been posted (I have only 1 star in writing).

Apart from the tedium it introduces, the other problem with the current system is that judging by the game files, it seems that low level pilots possess a downgraded AI, notably in combat. For instance low level pilots will have a delay before firing their missiles or using the destroyer batteries compared to high-level ones. Not only is it frustrating from a gameplay perspective, but it also makes little sense immersion wise. Giving command of a destroyer to someone unable to distinguish the stern from the bow of their own ship poses a certain number of safety issues...

I think it has been suggested on the Devnet thread, but why not establish a system of bonuses linked to the level of pilots instead of the current restrictions?

For instance, a level 0 pilot would suffer no penalty regarding its AI during combat and could auto trade normally. But a 5 star pilot/trader could have a bonus to the damage of his weapons or a random chance to unlock discounts during trades for example.

Or very skilled pilots could become some sort of fleet commanders to us, able to command squadrons of fighters/traders and give bonuses to their subordinates depending on their rank.

The idea would be that any basic crewmember would be a true professional (which IMHO would make much more sense in universe than the current approach), but that it could be worth it to train them to become the best of the best.

As it has been said before, the training should not rely on seminars only as it would be too tedious. A training academy and the direct recruitment of high level crew in bars could be good ideas.

The important idea is to give us a real incentive to invest in our crew, instead of downgrading the AI and forcing tedious micromanagement. I think it would be a much more interesting and fun approach.

3.0 made a lot of steps in the right direction, so I hope this will also be the case for this human ressources system in time.

[TonyEvans]

Just don't expect easy linear progress from one star to five, or to be able to completely skip this progression just by having large amounts of cash, as this is completely contrary to how experience progression is intended to work, and indeed works in many, if not most, games.

When I need 12 new traders for my stations, as is frequently the case, I need them now and they have to have 3* pilots or they won't work.

Actually, station trader skills would dictate the range of the Trade/Mining ships at that point. But, the rest of your post (and I read all of it) I wholly agree with. Well written with perfect examples.

[LameFox]

The ability to overwhelm via numbers is a good point. I hadn't really thought about it because it's such a boring play style to me—and hurts performance to boot—but in that light it seems pointless to leave out a more elegant resource-based* solution to crew training. Or if we're really intended to take circuitous route to training, then that suggests drastic combat rebalance is needed to prevent overwhelming numbers from being viable, or drastic economic rebalance is needed to keep us from accumulating the wealth to do it. Perhaps all three wouldn't hurt.

*strictly speaking, spamming ships is not entirely credit based even if you only spend credits on them.

[hannihanagarth]

When I need 12 new traders for my stations, as is frequently the case, I need them now and they have to have 3* pilots or they won't work. One way is if I can simply buy them quickly and easily in bulk when I need them. But I do not mind if I have a mechanism under my control, essentially some kind of centralised training resource (I don't care how expensive it is), that I can put in place at the beginning of the game with which I can make absolutely certain that those 12 3* pilots are ready and waiting when I need them. In addition to that I need a proper management information system dedicated to HR in game I can use to track throughput of training programs as well as on the job progression, get an overview of current skill levels and conduct mass transfers quickly and easily where necessary.

I would describe this requirement as mandatory, non-negotiable.

This is an argument like I have rarely seen one.

I have owned more than five Billion Credits in every X Game ( and I own all ). I started playing foundations a few days ago and I'm pretty sure I will sooner or later arrive at a point where I need to confront this problem as well.

Since I suspect that quite a lot of X players strive for the Endgame, I believe Gregorovitch is right. Emphasis on
"I would describe this requirement as mandatory, non-negotiable."

But this is part of a larger problem :
The X Games never were particularly good at "End game content", but this was never really a problem of having too much money and too few things to do -
it was simply a UX problem. It was not possible to properly manage vast amounts of ships, stations, loadouts, crews ( and basically everything else).
I know it is not a nice thing to say, but it has to be said and you have to acknowledge the problem :
You need to get better at building an Interface, that is capable of handling how lots of players* are playing your game.

P.S: *assumption of course, are any statistics regarding this availlable ? Like how many Players own 100/1.000/more ships/stations etc. ?
I also ask myself how many players refrain from playing that end game stage because it was quite tedious.

[Gregorovitch]

Actually, station trader skills would dictate the range of the Trade/Mining ships at that point. But, the rest of your post (and I read all of it) I wholly agree with. Well written with perfect examples.

Perhaps I have misunderstood some of the rules for station ships, please correct me if this is so.

My understanding is that station traders run as auto-traders and therefore require 3* pilots or they won't work. I think I tried allocating less skilled pilots to stations previously and they did absolutely nothing since the station managers couldn't assign them with <3*

Station miners are different by my undertstanding, they can be assigned as sector miners even with zero skill and this can work out OK but only if the station happens to be in sector that also contains asteroid fields and gas clouds providing all the raw materials the station will need. Since most stations will require pretty much all raw resources in some measure as they expand product range this is rarely if ever the case in my experience. Furthermore the stations need to be placed in specific locations to cover the big consumers, the warfs and shipyards etc. In practical terms I think this means you need miners to travel at least up to two sectors to harvest raw materials for them.

[dtpsprt]

It's surely annoying to get only rookies as pilots, or any other specialty of course.
I think that X Rebirth had it right, that you could get fairly experienced crew in the stations.
What would be even better, cause nobody wants to be going around in stations, to create a "Job Centre" or "Employment Office" in Shipyards and Warfs, where the player can choose personnel for the ships with price depending on the skills and remove the Mandatory Pilot command. The ships, of course can not move without one (unless it is the player him/herself). More Real Life looking don't you think?

P.S. About buying Traders or Miners in batches (12? or even more) I'm not quite sure anybody will do this (and halt down the production of a race, not to mention the economy) if "randomness" and the limit of skills is written off.

[Matthew94]

My understanding is that station traders run as auto-traders and therefore require 3* pilots or they won't work. I think I tried allocating less skilled pilots to stations previously and they did absolutely nothing since the station managers couldn't assign them with <3*

I personally haven't noticed this.
When SV came out I built about 13 stations in Matrix #9 and they're all making cash even with the current pilot apocalypse.
I'm not entirely sure how it works but I always assumed trading distance was based on the station manager.
Hopefully someone with more knowledge can settle this issue.

By the way your large post earlier in the thread was great, I completely agree.

[Matthew94]

It's surely annoying to get only rookies as pilots, or any other specialty of course.
I think that X Rebirth had it right, that you could get fairly experienced crew in the stations.

Hiring staff is one of the very few things that X: R does better.

1. You could see all staff available in a sector and get their skill levels somewhat quickly by using keyboard commands (maybe you need a mod to get them to tell you their skills, I can't remember).
It was still too slow having to check every single potential crew member but it's much faster than in X4.

2. Crew transfer was done via mini-transport ships which simplified things a lot more.
When building stations, it's tiring having to get a transport ship to dock at each station one at a time to supply stations with managers.
If the automatic crew transport ships came back it would speed things up a lot.

[Buzz2005]

stations dont care about traders skills, everything is based on the manager, so running stations is absolutely the same as before this change

[Raevyan]

I am several hours into the new update. After 10min of playtime I bought 10M miners and set them to Sector Automine. All were about 1 Star Pilots, didn’t see any higher Star pilots since the update. I also bought 2 scouts and set them to explore a sector.

All of them did their job for about ~12 hours (real time play) and NONE of them gained any skill in Piloting. I‘d say this is not working at all or xp needed is ridiculous high and xp gained super low. Same for trade ships that I manually give trade orders...

[radcapricorn]

All of them did their job for about ~12 hours (real time play) and NONE of them gained any skill in Piloting. I‘d say this is not working at all or xp needed is ridiculous high and xp gained super low. Same for trade ships that I manually give trade orders...

They absolutely do level up piloting, and management. Few hours in I was able to swap out the two S miner pilots that I hired at the beginning, and make them Distribute Wares in freighters.

I think the general (intended?) idea now is to either:
- have lots of Service Crew, which does gain stars reasonably fast, and then turn them into pilots with the help of seminars
- have pilots do lots of fighting

But, while latter is situational, former is excruciatingly painful with the current UI, as there are no easy ways to check who's ready for promotion, nor there is a way to mass-promote, and in general the UI is working against you (too many actions that are busy work). Even with as few as six ships, checking on all of them every hour is just ridiculous. I can't imagine what'll it be when I'm done exploring the plots and start growing my asset pool...

[Axeface]

I've been playing a bit getting a feel for the new no skilled crew paradigm, I think making skilled crew harder to obtain has definately made them feel more precious. This is a really good thing. Plus, less ship spam is needed, it should be VERY hard for players to amass a huge amount of ships and this helps with that. I'm starting to swing around to this change (as long as levelling works, I've had some captains for a very long time, doing loads of trades that havent levelled, but you tell me it works now).

Egosoft, could you allow our crew to have a chance to survive ship destruction with escape pods? We'd need a new menu and list for unassigned crew. They dont need to physically 'be' anywhere, just have a timer for assigning them implying that they are travelling? There is even potential here for a new rescue stranded crew mission? (Escape pod didnt work/ran out of fuel).

[Matthew94]

I think making skilled crew harder to obtain has definately made them feel more precious. This is a really good thing. Plus, less ship spam is needed

If anything, more spam is needed given that most of your fleets will be at 1 star and the enemies will almost certainly be not.

If you're playing OOS with equal fleets, you're probably going to lose unless you teleport in and handle every battle yourself which just negates the whole point of OOS combat.