The problem with crew salary

[Duncan Idaho]

I would like to have a discussion about the crew salary system, and specifically the burden this places upon the player to grind.

 

One of the beauties of this kind of game is that the freeform sandbox style allows you to vary your playstyle based on mood. One day I might be in the mood for some mindless asteroid blasting, the next I would rather go guns blazing against the nearest pirate scourge, or I might want to go wandering through barren sectors in the hope of finding some caches or just enjoy the sights. Unfortunately as you progress you end up with an ever-increasing horde of personnel that need to be paid, so rather than taking off in a little scout to explore the stars I have to constantly worry about my dwindling bank balance. I feel bound to keep grinding away at trade routes or roid farming in order to buy myself a few hours of freedom, which, while terrifyingly realistic, does not make for particularly fun play IMO.

 

In the name of fun I would advocate for increasing the up-front costs of personnel and removing the salary aspect entirely. This would remove the metaphorical yoke around our necks and really increase the feeling of freedom. Does anyone else share this opinion?

 

 

[SadisticSweety]

I don't know, I get your point, but it's really easy to make money. You can always make some money killing pirates, or a lot of it by getting one good cargo haul. Stealing some diamonds? lol. I guess it also depends the amount of crew you have. I feel the salary makes us all have to do something, in your own way of course, to keep going.

[cy414]

it can feel a bit punitive at times i agree.

a system where crew pay was x% of current funds if you have less than 250k in the bank, rather than a set amount would make things a lot easier for people who just want to roam aimlessly for a while.

[eltanan]

Additionally, the game continues to charge you money to pay crew who are in other sectors, who aren't even loaded, and aren't even DOING anything because they don't exist until you go back there.  And yet, you have to keep paying for them, which is grossly unfair.  Another reason to NEVER bother building a station.  You can't take it with you, and you'll be paying for it FOREVER regardless of WHAT you do.

[SageThe13th]

This is one of things that balances out large ships though by representing the burden of their massive upkeep cost.  Other games that don't have systems like this make it hilariously easy to own and maintain large ships and it's really unbalanced.

[Duncan Idaho]

I would respond that it is much better then to increase the upfront costs. This accomplishes what you say but simultaneously gives players something to work towards and removes the maintenance grind. I maintain that it is horribly detrimental to the fun factor of games to force players to grind just to stay where they are. Sure, force them to grind to advance, but don't cause their achievements to decay away because they choose to take some time out and explore other parts of the game.

[cy414]

This accomplishes what you say but simultaneously gives players something to work towards and removes the maintenance grind.

thats why i suggested that if you have less than 250k that crew pay only be a % of what you have. since at that point you could go off and do whatever you want at any time and not end up sliding backwards.

since its not difficult to make 3 or 4 million an hour once your fleet is established.

[Duncan Idaho]

This accomplishes what you say but simultaneously gives players something to work towards and removes the maintenance grind.

thats why i suggested that if you have less than 250k that crew pay only be a % of what you have. since at that point you could go off and do whatever you want at any time and not end up sliding backwards.

since its not difficult to make 3 or 4 million an hour once your fleet is established.

 

I'm not too happy with this idea. Firstly it doesn't remove the backsliding if you have more than 250k in the bank, it will instead simply feel like a punishment for having a fat wallet. It's also perhaps a bit too complex a solution where a much more simple one exists - namely increasing the upfront cost while removing the salary entirely.

[cy414]

i figured the crew pay system fills the role of preventing people breaking the economy by building up ludicrous funds that they can manipulate everything with.

as happens on mmo games.

 

also, you wont be backsliding with what i said. temporarily inconvenienced from progressing when you want to do something again, sure, but nothing about it will force you to sell off or scuttle ships & stations due to crew costs.

 

and even then, the loot you could/would pick up from casually wondering the galaxy for a few days wound likely by worth millions

[Duncan Idaho]

i figured the crew pay system fills the role of preventing people breaking the economy by building up ludicrous funds that they can manipulate everything with.

as happens on mmo games.

 

also, you wont be backsliding with what i said. temporarily inconvenienced from progressing when you want to do something again, sure, but nothing about it will force you to sell off or scuttle ships & stations due to crew costs.

 

and even then, the loot you could/would pick up from casually wondering the galaxy for a few days wound likely by worth millions

 

Accumulating ludicrous amounts of money is one of the most fun parts of the game for me. Perhaps this is all moot because presumably there will end up being lots of passive ways to make money, e.g. setting your ships to defend friendly sectors, mine and of course player factories. Then the game will be ensuring that your profits are larger than your costs, and this drives your expansion. In this context I am fine with crew costs. However as it stands we have to manually accrue money which causes us to trend towards a single multi-purpose megaship rather than lots of specialized ships.

[DivineEvil]

Crew payment is just the best way to limit your progression in an obvious, easy to manage form. The only thing about it what bothers me, is that there's no a convenient way to see how much you actually pay overall and for what - when payment is cleared, you just shown when you'll need to pay the next time, not how much.

 

Otherwise I'm absolutely fine with the values, frequency and morale effects. I would never serve on the spaceship for free, unless the whole ship is mine to begin with, and I would not perform well when the employer doesn't pay me for it. Without current crew pay system, anyone would be able to grind or buy resources and build enormous ship from the step one, or to command a perpetually-growing fleet without any drawbacks.

 

Revenues themselves are not in any way constraining. If you can't handle paying salaries for your spacemen, then you don't deserve their services. The only way you can get drained is if you do absolutely nothing to earn money on purpose. The fact that you need to pay to crews doing nothing in unloaded sectors is a problem of unloaded sectors, not of crew salary. If there's something to do, is to take a look at some systems and see if the amount of crew they require is valid; the best example is Solar Panels, that require obscene amount of Mechanics to maintain - this makes player-driven Solar Power Plants ridiculously hard to setup, but even then it doesn't hangs up on the salaries, but on the raw number of people you'll have to hire from everywhere.

[Duncan Idaho]

I would say that a transparent, up-front cost is a far more obvious and easy-to-manage form of limiting progression. You don't have to ask whether the benefit of hiring this guy is worth the extra grind you are burdened with to maintain their salary, you don't have to ask this nebulous question as to whether it will ultimately be worth buying this guy. You just say, I want more ships and now I can afford to have them, done. This is much more *fun* - it's not about realism. 

[MrVorgra]

If you can't afford to pay your crew then your doing it wrong.

[Duncan Idaho]

If you can't afford to pay your crew then your doing it wrong.

 

You misunderstand me. It's not that I can't afford to pay my crew, I just feel the whole mechanic places a psychological burden on the player that discourages doing activities that don't yield a profit. Every moment that you are not actively engaged in a profit-generating activity is a moment that *costs you money*. If you're not getting ahead you're falling behind - you can never just take some time off.

 

At the moment the burden is rather small. It is not hard to generate exorbitant amounts of money in a short amount of time by trading such that the salaries are trivial. However it is not going to stay that way, obviously. The dev has already discussed nerfing trade routes in the next patch. Even so, if ultimately the salary remains a trivial expense I have then to ask what is the point in keeping it?

[SageThe13th]

It's not about realism.  It's about balance.  If I pay 10 million to get a ship in the first place and then it costs me almost nothing to maintain it.  Then the next time I have 10 million I just buy a second ship and soon I have a massive fleet of large ships.  If then, say the ships only cost 8 million but are much more expensive to maintain then my only concern is not whether or not I have another 8 mil to blow on a new ship, but also what it's going to cost me to maintain that ship in addition to the one I already own.  At a certain point owning to many large ships all at once puts me at risk of not being able to make money fast enough to keep the crews.  Which, is the only thing keeping me stock piling massive ships.

 

As for your "problem" just stock pile credits before doing things that aren't going to make you money.  I've done this multiple times when I wanted to chart sectors and not get distracted by anything.  It's pretty easy to get myself enough money to pay the crew for a solid 12 hours or more.  And you know what?  I actually ending up with more money than I started with because I was charting sectors and finding those large asteroids that you can claim and sell huge sums of credits.  You have to be trying really hard to not be making any money at whatever the heck you are doing.

[Namuras]

1. Get a trademodule of highish tier

2. build a cheap throwaway freighter with decent hold

3. find amazing traderoute with 100%+ profit

4. run it

5. ???

6. profit

[Xsinx]

Kill pirates/xsotan, destoy their wrecks with your guns when you are done, sell all white/grey/useless upgrades and turrets to vendor... Rince and repeat... If you stuggle for money doing this, you are doing something wrong.

[DivineEvil]

You misunderstand me. It's not that I can't afford to pay my crew, I just feel the whole mechanic places a psychological burden on the player that discourages doing activities that don't yield a profit. Every moment that you are not actively engaged in a profit-generating activity is a moment that *costs you money*. If you're not getting ahead you're falling behind - you can never just take some time off.

Time off to do what?

Mining earns profit.

Salvaging earns profit.

Trading earns profit.

Fighting earns profit.

Exploring earns profit...

 

Again, the only way you won't earn anything is if you're deliberately avoiding it. Or AFK. Or felt asleep on the keyboard.

[skullcowboy60]

Give it some time. I am sure at some point a mod will show up allowing you to press gang slaves you buy into crewman. Low morale would probably be an issue but at least you won't have to pay them.

[Duncan Idaho]

It's not about realism.  It's about balance.  If I pay 10 million to get a ship in the first place and then it costs me almost nothing to maintain it.  Then the next time I have 10 million I just buy a second ship and soon I have a massive fleet of large ships.  If then, say the ships only cost 8 million but are much more expensive to maintain then my only concern is not whether or not I have another 8 mil to blow on a new ship, but also what it's going to cost me to maintain that ship in addition to the one I already own.  At a certain point owning to many large ships all at once puts me at risk of not being able to make money fast enough to keep the crews.  Which, is the only thing keeping me stock piling massive ships.

 

I've played virtually every space game out there: XBTF, X-tension, X2, X3, X3TF, X3AP, X-Rebirth, Eve-online, Freelancer, Unending Galaxy, Space Engineers, No Man's Sky, Kerbal Space Program, Empyrion, Elite Dangerous, Frontier Elite II, Rebel Galaxy, Void Destroyer II, SPAZ, SPAZ2, Starpoint Gemini II, the list goes on. I don't think any of those games have crew salary systems! Why? Because it's an unnecessary mechanic that brings nothing to the game while detracting from the fun. There's nothing worse in a game about building an empire than being rushed because of some arbitrary countdown siphoning your hard earned money away.

 

I just don't see what's wrong with having lots of ships. Why should this be discouraged? With an up-front cost only system there's still a cost involved as you have to build the damned things and replace them if they get destroyed. But you don't get punished for having a nice fleet. As it stands the game drives players to have one-size-fits-all battlewagons, stifling creativity and limiting playstyle.

[SageThe13th]

Last I checked this was about acquiring Avorion.  You can't even claim sectors what makes you think this a game about building a space empire?

[Duncan Idaho]

Last I checked this was about acquiring Avorion.  You can't even claim sectors what makes you think this a game about building a space empire?

 

Que? Avorion is just a resource; in that sense the game is about acquiring iron. The game is a space sandbox that supports fleets and player-owned factories. These are the ingredients of a space empire. Who cares whose name is attached to the sector? In the X games I used to build all my factories in pirate sectors that I liberated, long before they introduced the ability to formally claim sectors.

[AstroOwl]

Last I checked this was about acquiring Avorion.  You can't even claim sectors what makes you think this a game about building a space empire?

 

 

 

Clear similarities with X3 makes me think that.

Strategic mode implemented into the game even during early access makes me think that.

Possibility to create factories which sustain you with goods makes me think that.

 

Inability to formally label a sector with your name changes absolutely nothing. Well, example of X3 already have been mentioned above.

 

And avorion is just a best resource for shipbuilding residing in most dangerous space - and nothing more. It's like saying Space Engineers is a game about acquiring Platinum, or Elder Scrolls is a game about acquiring set of daedric armor, or Warcraft3 is a game about acquiring Minotaurs/griffin riders. Well, you get the point.

 

P.S. i am against removing crew salary, at least in the current state.

 

P.P.S re-read my own message, realized it might seem rude. If so, excuse me, that was not my intention. Thing is, there are a lot of things pointing towards the idea of making muiltiple ships, forming if not an empire, but something like corporation, shifting towards strategic play as you progress through the game or want to fufill large-scale tasks.

[SageThe13th]

Looking back at it, my previous argument was misguided.  Avorion will clearly have updates in the future that will flesh out fleet control and player factions making empire building much more achievable.  In fact, I'm looking forward to it.

 

That other games don't have a particular mechanic is not a proper argument for the removal of that mechanic in Avorion.

[Duncan Idaho]

Ultimately I expect that there will be passive income sources so the goal is not to grind up money to buy a few hours of freedom from drudgery but instead to maintain a sufficiently large passive income to offset the passive expenses of the fleet. This is not unreasonable actually because it encourages the player to build. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.