[feedback] - A way to do mass crew transfer without new UI

[photomankc]

I had an idea last night to maybe make crew transfer slightly less painful. What if we could group the crew like wings? Highlight the crew you want to group, right click the crew member that is going to be "Senior Lead, Squad Leader" or whatever, assign them to that member. Now if you comm the senior lead and tell him to work somewhere else, his subordinate crew goes with him. Then you don't have to change a lot other than the grouping done now which is terrible anyway Crew->Full Crew List->Service Crew->Apprentice->[Crew member]. Just list the crew all under service crew sorted by rank, same for marines. Grouped crew shows up at top of the list like the wings do in property.

This would allow mass crew transfer without a huge change to the UI and the overall method of communication to accommodate it as well as help keep groups of well trained crew available in blocks, which would help with organizing, transporting, and maintaining good boarding teams.

Just a thought.

[Mr.Killer]

hahahaha, then you never had 90 marines taken over a ship, and how the ..... do I get them all back!

[pref]

I find this a bit over complicated.

And implementing a single window with a crew list, skills and a checkbox for selection is not a huge UI change by any means.
Perhaps with an option to select all/marines/service crew/none.

[Lazerius]

I like the idea of creating a ‘boarding team’ setup like a fleet, and this team always fights together in boarding ops, and transfers between ships as a team.

If there’s not enough room for the whole squad to all be on a captured ship, the leader + most experienced marines go on the boarding op. Then neither team can go on another op until the teams are regrouped, or a group is disbanded and created as a new squad.

Single click transfer by using a ‘regoup’ Button with either team, sending them back to regroup, or else transfer each half to a new ship could be possibilities.

Also, it would be nice if there was a barracks module for stations (letting you house them) and training modules, to let troops earn 1-2 stars before they start going on boarding ops.

[pref]

I like the idea of creating a ‘boarding team’ setup like a fleet, and this team always fights together in boarding ops, and transfers between ships as a team.

Also, it would be nice if there was a barracks module for stations (letting you house them) and training modules, to let troops earn 1-2 stars before they start going on boarding ops.

That's really insufficient, as normally one would have marines around with higher skills so selecting them based on skill values is really important.

The training module would be nice for higher skill training, but probably costs more dev time. The first 1-2 stars the marines will get during their first op in most cases.

[Lazerius]

I like the idea of creating a ‘boarding team’ setup like a fleet, and this team always fights together in boarding ops, and transfers between ships as a team.

Also, it would be nice if there was a barracks module for stations (letting you house them) and training modules, to let troops earn 1-2 stars before they start going on boarding ops.

That's really insufficient, as normally one would have marines around with higher skills so selecting them based on skill values is really important.

The training module would be nice for higher skill training, but probably costs more dev time. The first 1-2 stars the marines will get during their first op in most cases.

So don’t put 100 marines in 1 group?

IRL, US marines don’t have 1 Sergaent to 99 grunts either.

If you want to train 50 0-star grunts, you put them under their 3 star squad leader. Problem solved.

Your alternative means you’re picking 50 marines to go on the boarding op every single time. How exactly is that more efficient?

[pref]

So don’t put 100 marines in 1 group?

IRL, US marines don’t have 1 Sergaent to 99 grunts either.

If you want to train 50 0-star grunts, you put them under their 3 star squad leader. Problem solved.

Your alternative means you’re picking 50 marines to go on the boarding op every single time. How exactly is that more efficient?

What?

I want to transfer and keep crew with higher skills quite often. Skill changes are not the same for every NPC.
No idea what you mean with your post.

I don't even need NPC groups, don't see any benefit there that would make my life easier - it just adds some unnecessary complication.

[photomankc]

Well, obviously everyone will have different preferences but I don't see this as significantly complicated. Highlight select the crew and right-click on the lead to assign. Then the current 'comm the crew member and send them elsewhere mechanism still works as before and the subs go with him. Mass crew transfer, and way better than current comm 20 individual crew and tell them to move. Checking a bunch of individual crew checkboxes is more clicks if you want to move more than a couple. A check all that are X level would be helpful there as mentioned.

I personally would like a way to keep better trained crew together, but there are plenty of ways to skin any cat so if EgoSoft introduce checkboxes and transfer button I happy with that too. I don't care what they do specifically as long as I can move them in other than 1-by-1 fashion. I mention this way only because all the underlying mechanics are already there in the game just applied to ships rather than crew.