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[Kaleigh Doyle]

Yeah, sorry about that guys. I could swear I read it somewhere, but I spent all night reading up and I can't find anything to support that. What I can attest to is that there are neural implants needed to utilize capsules, but not much else.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Yeah, sorry about that guys. I could swear I read it somewhere, but I spent all night reading up and I can't find anything to support that. What I can attest to is that there are neural implants needed to utilize capsules, but not much else.

I didn't find that either, but I did find this and it has some information dealing with the topic:

The Capsule and the Clone

Specific point of interest:

pods saw some use among those select few able to handle the intense nausea, hallucinations and general mental instability engendered by prolonged occupancy.

Kinda lends credence to the fact that the greatest inaccuracy is that we contend our pilots never leave their pods.

Another bit of info that's a bit off-topic, but may be something people forget:

The Jovians had held the official patent on the technology since releasing it to the Caldari

Caldari had it first.


Also, I've been finding over time that the Jove are complete assholes. Did you know that they directly assisted Sansha in his True Slave program?

[Seriphyn]

Let us just say that I consider Chrons, PF and other source just as much an opinion as yours or mine. If my character doesn't notice any crew, they might just as well be not there. In the past our own PF stated that the world was flat, and that the sun revolved around the earth. And woe to those challenging RL PF!

In short, if I don't see evidence for crew, and see evidence for a lack of crew, I might consider playing it like I don't have crew, and in a makebelieve world like EVE, if enough players get convinced there is no crew, there won't be, since large parts of the world do reside just in our imaginations. The only NPC that regularly speaks to me is Scotty the docking manager.

Some things we need to handwave, but I'm just wondering if its not easier to assume few or no crew which should reduce the need for handwaving. I wouldn't want to answer a question like: 'how much do you pay your crew', or 'can you give me a manifest of your officers'

Additionally, the fact that I can build a ship without spending a single isk (except for the blueprint) sort of suggest to me that the crew salaries are definitely not included anywhere.

Of course, I wouldn't want to force my views on anyone and deny their crew as well, so I would probably explain them that I have had my battleships especially slave-rigged to require only a minimal crew.

Your ships have crews.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Your ships have crews.

I would contend that this is hotly contested. There is nowhere in the PF that this is shown, and the links that are constantly shown are ship schematics that... don't exist anymore. A news article written by a roleplayer for the news thing, and various anecdotal things of that nature.

It's great that the schematics from back in beta and early EVE show that, but that information isn't available anywhere save for the places people saved it, as CCP doesn't even acknowledge or talk about it. Without CCP handing down a direct judgement -- which they are not going to do -- this will remain contested and people will play it as they choose to.

The Roleplaying Community hasn't come to an agreement on the fact that the crews even exist, much less whether or not the ships would be capable of having useful escape pods that would save any/all of the crew.

So just making the blanket statement of "Your ships have crews" I think is a bit misleading.

[Ciarente]

I've always seen this to indicate that ships have crews, as well as this and here.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Don't get me wrong, I would attest that they have crews, but those are even inconclusive. The first one is disjointed and makes... very little sense seeming more like a nightmare than like an actual story about life on a ship as a crewman. The second and third don't actually take place on the ship itself in any way, though imply it.

And that is the rub. There's a lot of implication of it, but no actual "The ships have crews, here are their loadouts" besides some old documents that have been out-dated for almost eight years, and are unlikely to be updated because they have no value, mechanics-wise.

[orange]

Out of Character we all know ships have crews.

Should totally create a ships have crew sticky.

Now, if a character has moved to the point where he/she does not consider any baseline humans to matter, they may not count the humans as crew, but rather fuel.  Those closer to a baseline mindset will look on in horror at the character who essentially ignores the very presence of crew.

[Casiella]

Lilith, one could just as easily point out that there's no reason for CCP to keep making the point since it's been clear for 8 years.

And who contends capsuleers never leave their pods? That's contradicted in so much PF, I can't imagine still holding on to that. Some individuals may prefer staying in there, but that's not quite the same.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Lilith, one could just as easily point out that there's no reason for CCP to keep making the point since it's been clear for 8 years.

Sigh, ok, point being missed here, lemme try again.

And that is the rub. There's a lot of implication of it, but no actual "The ships have crews, here are their loadouts" besides some old documents that have been out-dated for almost eight years, and are unlikely to be updated because they have no value, mechanics-wise.

Look, here's the point: It's going to remain hotly contested because people are going to keep arguing the point because the documents used as reference that "make it clear" have been hidden from public eye for 8 years and only still remain in circulation because some random player saved it, not CCP. It continues to be contested because CCP doesn't care. CCP doesn't care because it doesn't fucking matter. It's so inane and irrelevant that the fact that it becomes argued at all is mindboggling.

What difference does it make? Why do we bother to argue about it? If someone doesn't want to have ship crews, they don't have ship crews. Big deal. Why does anyone care? If you want to have ship crews, you get to have ship crews. Hooray! Good for you.

In the grand scheme, and this is relevant because CCP has taken the same tact, it doesn't make one iota of difference.

And who contends capsuleers never leave their pods? That's contradicted in so much PF, I can't imagine still holding on to that. Some individuals may prefer staying in there, but that's not quite the same.

Uhm, did you read the OP?

In my mind, the form of a capsuleer that has been active for longer than a year or so would start to "suffer" from the things you see in alot of the fiction (or at least what I have read) where the Capsuleer grows apart from his/her humanity to a point where being out of the pod is an annoying need

[Kaleigh Doyle]

I think the point is, who cares?

A  capsuleer having a crew is about as relevant as the color of Sansha Kuvakei's underwear. It's an opportunity for personal character development and evolution. A character could technically run a ship without a crew and risk maintinence problems, he could fill it with clowns, or giant pincer robots. What he/she decides to do with it is their choice.

It's funny how obsessive people get with proving this point to others.

[Casiella]

The larger point, as I see it, is Lilith's contention that PF is opinion, not in-universe fact. (And sorry for things I missed, still on my first cup of coffee, my bad. )

However, CCP has had recent Chrons on this matter. Cia linked two just from last year, for example, not to mention the OOC quotes from CCP employees in the thread. So CCP's "opinion", if one cares to use that term, has been made quite clear, and it doesn't solely date from beta.

The philosophical point I mentioned above, however, presents a much larger issue, and one I can't quite handle this early...

[Saxon Hawke]

Many years ago I was a young officer candidate. I had a shiny pip on my uniform collar and a cool black beret that signified I had achieved the physical fitness test requirements to be called a Ranger. I was instructed in many areas including weapons handling, land navigation, military protocol and courtesy and as part of the program took a class called Foundations of Leadership.

In this class we were instructed in classical military thinking and decision making. Military thinking is essentially based on objectives. As in, "we need to take such and such position," or "we need to deliver X supplies to this location."

In determining how to achieve and objective, you determine your resources. Manpower is one of those resources and is factored into the equation. One of the most frightening things for me as an 18-year-old was to look at a mission objective and to be asked to determine the "acceptable loss" of resources. That means how many bullets, vehicles, rations and soldiers would it be okay to lose to obtain the objective.

I found it very difficult to accept the loss of any lives to obtain an objective, but I had a very understanding Captain who explained to me that soldiers accept that possibility when they agree to serve, but that they put their trust in their leadership not to put them in harm's way without justification. That trust was a sacred understanding that went back to the earliest organized armies, he said, and realizing that the men who serve under you are your most valuable resource is the first step to becoming a good officer. I guess that has always stuck with me and influences Saxon's view of his ships' crews.

Of course, history is full of leaders with no regard for the men under them. Napoleon's army froze on the Russian frontier trying to achieve his objective to conquer Europe and anyone who has seen the movie Braveheart can remember William the Longshanks' remarks that dead conscripts don't have to be paid.

If real life officers can be found along the spectrum, why wouldn't we expect to see pod pilots do the same?

One could also note that all human "cargo" loaded aboard an Eve ship is classified as livestock. If you think of scientists, tourists, janitors and exotic dancers as livestock, why would you hold your crew in any higher regard.

[Merdaneth]

Your ships have crews.

Yup, and they are immortal, because no matter how many wrecks I see, I never see a crew body drifting in space. Just the bodies of capsuleers who's pod has been breached. They always escape in cloaked escape capsules it seems. With drives that can warp away from bubbles apparently, even make their way home from wormholes.

What I'm trying to point out that for me there are no game mechanics that indicate the existence of any crew, and many game mechanics that indicate there is no crew in ships. My suspension of disbelief would suffer a lot less if they eliminated or extremely reduced the suggested crew sizes.

If I plonk down a POS in 0.0 or some wormhole, gather some minerals and build an Apoc, a magically trained crew appears? And if I repackage the Apoc and activate it in the nearest station, a new crew magically appears to crew it? And if I take down the POS, that thousands of trained crew are magically transported through the bubble camps, wormholes or whatever by Interbus to the neares station and appear there? Is the price of the crew included in the price of the POS? Does each ship building array come with free set of tens fo thousands of trained crew? Do you know how much volume a couple of thousand of trained crew would occupy. What gives?

Also, if trained crew is apparently so non-specific that any crew can operate any starship and that you never notice any differences in crew, than it would make sense to automate such tasks. In fact, I fully believe many tasks in EVE are completely automated. If I really had scientists do research jobs for me, or people manning my factories, they surely would have listened to me saying that they should continue researching as long as they still have blueprints, datacores and whatnot, and not do one invention job for 3 hours and then sit on their ass until I can make contact with them again, tjeez, lazy bastards! In other words, its much easier these are standardized automated processes not requiring any crew.

Let's not speak about the amount of food, crew quarters and whatnot needed. If I could convert my Apoc to a hauling or mining apoc, and wouldn't need 1 year of food and other stuff for 5000 heads, I would have almost the cargo capacity of a Freighter! I mean, I wouldn't fit any weapons etc, so ditch all the gunnery crew, feck the tactical and the scanning crew, get rid of the EW crew and the nanite managers.

Simple believing that there are thousands of crew standing to crew a ship by some idiot who can baits in Amarr and just lost his 5th ship of the day is just too much for me. Their burials are included in the base insurance premium (the one you get for free)?

Also, my apologies of uninentionally hijacking this thread by using the crew example in a previous argument.

[Casiella]

I have seen CCP Ginger (I think, or someone else from the storyline team) also note that the lack of an IG mechanic reflecting our crews bothers that whole team.

* Casiella toddles off to poke Hjalti about it.

[Hamish Grayson]

never mind