Weapon ops crew member...

[DaveK]

If you have one crew seat on military I'm with you - a 2 seater fighter; if you go for more seats to be able to keep civilian size crews then all you seem to be wanting is a better frame with souped up equipment and weapons and full crew - it's already there and is called a StarMaster. If Mil frames are too unattractive at present then they need some advantages, but pile everything on and you simply replace one inequality with another. Though not having cargo bays would put them at a disadvantage for making money and a smallish fuel tank would make then unsuitable for exploring

If you had one crew seat and the ability for the crewman to swap from ship to ship with you, would that solve it for you?

[49rTbird]

I would just love to send my crew on a short well earned vacation while I fly an E-voch then go back to my (lol) flying brick.

[Nubarus]

If you had one crew seat and the ability for the crewman to swap from ship to ship with you, would that solve it for you?

Yes, 1 crew seat is what I seek in a military frame as the most logical fix, as I said before in this thread, and engineer just doesn't have the room to move around and fix stuff in a military ship, but having a weapon ops crew member in a 2 seater would be awsome.
Then I also don't feel so alone in my ship.

I really would like the ability to send crew on payed vacation if you pick a ship that has less room so you can keep your loyal trusted experienced crew for future use.

[DaveK]

I would vote for that!

(plus freebie military only weapons (but only at a highish) rank :P:P:P:P)

[DaveK]

Dave S

- Cargo Hauler for making $$ (It would be awesome if one civ frame, like the Mammoth could hold more than 5 cargo, then people would gravitate to it)

Slow, not very agile, but heavy armour, lots of missile slots (well 8 anyway) and room for shield boosters, generators etc and extra cargo bays - would 7 be enough? too much to ask for? :P

perhaps we could trade equipment points for cargo bays!

[Nubarus]

That's not a bad idea since a cargo hauler doesn't need that many equipment slots anyway.

If it has a hyperdrive, a self repair, shield booster and recharcher it's pretty much got all it needs.

[Dave S]

That would give it a cargo-hauler mix...lots of storage and the ability to run, but light on the combatives. You would make more money, but the safety risks add up. Risks equate to more fun! So on a few frames, have fewer equipment slots and hardpoints but and equivalent extra number of cargo bays.

Add a big engine and you have yourself a blockade runner:)

[DaveK]

Add a big engine and you have yourself a blockade runner

:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P

I do hope that Vice is looking in

[DaveK]

Hi

I've just been catching up on other threads and found this:

Test build 1.252 is ready for download and its focus is some experimental changes to military frames:

- Military frames now have significantly greater primary weapon energy reserves.
- Military frames can now have up to eight equipment components.
- Military frames now have one cargo bay slot.

Please test these changes and gauge them in comparison with civilian frames. With the additions, the only advantage civilian frames will have over military frames will be crew (and several of the key benefits provided by crew are already included on military frames at the same or higher levels via specs/default technology, plus this is also done in consideration of past discussions/debates on maintaining crew rotations: keeping the player active in hiring/managing crew, role advantages/differences, requirement to transition from civilian to military, etc) and higher potential cargo capacity.

Also keep in mind that in the last update (1.228), military frames were given a 25% increase in armor, putting them above civilian frames of similar size and weight (example: a Chimera has around a 20% armor advantage over a Starmaster).

The additional benefits above should help give military frames significant advantages in combat roles as requested by players.

A key point I also want to make is the reasoning behind why I went with a full 8 equipment slots, rather than just 6 or 7. Requests have indicated that some players would like to use military ships for 'awacs'/support roles and to do that effectively, they would need to be able to install a constructor and/or defensive equipment in addition to their other preferred equipment items. That puts the design at a minimum of 6 or 7 needed slots. With the addition of a cargo bay, the option to recover minimal cargo from destroyed ships and/or mining becomes available, introducing a need for a mining/tractor beam and as a result, another equipment slot. So with 8, military frames can be fully configured for a variety of roles useful in combat, either PvP/CvC or PvE battles.

To utilize these new options for military ships, either buy a new one or rebuild your current military ship in any shipyard and the new specs will be applied to it automatically.

No crew, but the other goodies are significant! Once again it must be said (as many many have done before) . . . the support that Vice gives to his creation is superlative!

I'm now definitely going to try a military career as well as my secret life as an explorer! Actually it's only secret because I'm still trying to work out out to use trilateration properly!

Thinks . . . How long before the civilians start to moan about military frames being too hard to get because you have to do hundreds and thousands of military missions before you get the rank to get one blah de blah de blah!

As a dedicated civilian thus far, I think that the changes Vice has made will potentially help to improve the balance. My new target is to earn a top class military frame to go with the Explorer/Trader StarMaster. It will be interesting to see how much experience I need to get a military frame that makes a noticeable difference over the equivalent civilian frame

I'm looking forward to seeing how the Evochron elite respond to the changes!

[Maarschalk]

Wow....now the military frames are becoming intresting....LOL....Nice.....

[Dave S]

Its a whole new game now! I look forward to seeing how things change in MP.

Here's to Vice...keeping it lively!

[hank]

I agree with adding the 1 crew on the larger military ships. In EM I flew a Shrike and Chimera all the time and thought it strange a fairly large ship like those would not have a 2nd crew (weapons officer).
The smaller ships imho would not have the room for a 2nd crew. I just bought EL, and hopefully I can earn enough this week to head over to a conflict zone and see what I can afford to buy.

GL HF

[Vice]

Wow, that might be a record, a 5+ year old necro of a thread. This was a spring 2011 discussion. Since that time and through an expansion, numerous updates, and an all-new Evochron game, civilian crew can be kept on standby and the military frames have weapon energy reserves meeting or exceeding civilian crew capability.

[hank]

Oops. Sorry. I got to that thread via search and did not pay attention ... actually was reading stuff in the "Spoiler" thread and thought I was there.

Guess I earned a slap down. Thanks for the game (EL) ... I just bought it this last weekend.

I'll quit posting for a while and fly.

[Vice]

You're welcome to post If you have a subject like that more related to its own topic rather than the OP of a very old thread, feel free to start a new thread for it on its own.