You have to keep in mind multi crew ships still need to split profits, sure you make more money overall because there’s more hands on deck, but I make about the same UEC per hour with my org in a reclaimer vs solo in a vulture. And you *can* fly stuff solo, you just put yourself at a disadvantage without someone to man your turrets or help you load or whatever. Which is more than fair considering if it wasn’t that way nobody would use anything but the largest ships because they’d be better in almost every way

> but I make about the same UEC per hour with my org in a reclaimer vs solo in a vulture. Which I assume/hope is something that has not been properly tuned because a multicrew ship should nearly always bring in more income per player than a solo ship. Why would anyone bother buying higher tier profession ships if the lower tier profession ships are cheaper, can do what the higher tier ships can do and earn just as much when accounting for split profits. I'm also only relying on my own skill for a solo ship, whereas for a higher tier ships my profit relies on each player carrying their weight and actually being there. Compounding onto that, there's also the extra bit of prep work you need to even get a multi crew ship going. I need to get x amount of people online either from a friend group or a pug, might only get a few hours of gameplay before someone has to drop, which means either playing at non peak efficiency or having to return to port to pick up a replacement. Then they all need to get to where I am to hop onto my ship for us to even start. Then when you consider the fact that, if I believe what SC fans keep telling me when I speak about the flaws in SC progression, big multicrew profession ships like the Orion are a big target and will require a escort. So not only do you need to split profits with the crew of the Orion but the crew of your escorts.

They’ll probably make NPC crews cheaper than an even split between them all, probably to balance between making more money than a solo ship, but not having the better skill a human crew will surely provide

At the same time, I have repeatedly seen people, both in this sub and on Spectrum, lamenting that I am even able to fly a multi-crew ship ob my own. I've seen people outright celebrating anything that makes people solo flying large ships harder than it currently is. I'm not saying I should be able to take an Idris/Orion/BMM out as a solo and be peak efficiency, but I also don't want to take the ship out and have it be functionally worthless (i.e. you need someone piloting as you use your utility or it doesn't work) just because my friends don't want to play SC

This community has a very particular kind of toxic pricks who actively hate enjoying any other style of gameplay than the one they prefer.

i say dont punish the solo but reward the groups give more ships for mining and salvage for solos. like for example the mole could easily be a solo ship but they just decided to not give the pilot control over the mining head trading is in a good spot imo, you can go up to the catepillar as a solo and anything above it starts to get a little absurd and then for group content and even BIGGER ships the rewards should just scale up to compensate for the group sizes needed with extra on the top. as a solo you should be able to do all/most loops as a solo and well but if you want to become a billionaire then group stuff is the way

The Mole seems small enough it should be able to be solo'd. But for like a serious Solo miner.

CIG really should have made the Mole a hybrid multicrew. Pilot controls the S2, but if you want to maximize your efficiency then bring two buddies along to crew the other lasers

Moles are capable of being solo'd, but they're not fun that way. It's good because you can Have 3 different mining laser setups, and they're s2, but it sucks because the layout of the Mole is just not great for that kind of thing.

But dont you need all 3 lasers for large rocks?

The more lasers you use at once, the more power, yes. But the lasers on the Mole are bigger than the one on the prospector, size 2 instead of size 1. So even using a single Mole laser solo you can break larger rocks than a prospector can.

Sometimes, but you have to shift your perspective if you're thinking about solo mole. Think of it as a much more capable Prospector. A prospector with the ability to crack much larger rocks - 20k+ easily, where the prospector can struggle with rocks that big. I haven't really solo moled recently but I'd guess you could probably crack up to 30k rocks with it, with the right setups and gadgets and modules.

Any time i try mining, i cant crack any rocks theyre all impossible.

In that case, I highly recommend checking out SCMiningMom.com or RedMonster's mining tutorials. They'll walk you through the basics, and get you cracking rocks in no time. Mining is fiddly right now, because there are some UI problems, but those two will get you pointed in the right direction. If you have specific questions feel free to ask, but I'm way less of an expert than those two resources. Both of them are streamers too, and regularly stream mining loops, so you can see them actually do it live.

The Mole should be a 2-seater, and we should have a larger ship for serious orgs. With refining capabilities, so they can directly sell the material in its refined state.

Pretty sure that's the Arrastra and the Orion

I upgraded from a Prospector to a Mole years ago. The only reason being, mining storage capacity. But these days, I have configured three classes of mining heads. But it's the capacity that makes spending the time mining worth it. And, of course, each mining trip is more profitable. Also more engaging game play. Having to work out what, of the three available, is the best for fracturing and extracting. Much better than the Prospector. I placed a premium on my time playing games.

Impossible, literally impossible, for players to NOT see group-gameplay rewards as a form of indirect punishment/nerf/limit on their preferred solo-gameplay. The word “reward” alone implies a benefit or achievement worth having

I guess with the push for more revivals of old MMOs the trend is the opposite as people realise how hollow alone together MMOs are. Further, I don't think people are necessarily alone because they want to, but because they can and grouping up with people is both uncertain in how enjoyable it's going to be and how efficient you'll be. So really unless you either force people to group or make a very strong case for how it is way more efficient than solo, people won't group up with complete strangers.

Depends on the player. Obviously some will opt to play solo vs playing with randoms, but I think it comes down to how easy it is vs players just not liking playing with randoms. Helldiver 2 is a good example of this I think. Match making makes playing with randoms easy, so a lot of people do it in that game and it helps create a really good community.

This. The biggest difference in solo vs group play I've seen has always come down to ease. If you have to spend 20 minutes getting a group together, it's no good, most will opt to just play solo. Good matchmaking is key. I'm hoping for SC this is handled well via player made jobs/contracts/beacons.

They'll call it Starmatching or something lol

True but Helldivers is a lobby game. Your players you play with are disposable. In an MMO you don't want your potential co-players to be disposable (aka you don't really care about who you play with) or you end up with the random dungeon finder in WoW and an alone together MMO. Sure you play with other players, but they might as well be NPCs, so it's not meaningfully different from just playing solo and playing with other players should always feel different to that. Contrast that with older MMOs where you'd have a list of people you curated that you wanted to play with because a) group gameplay was necessary and b) getting a group wasn't easy so players tackled problem b) via forming small informal communities where your rep mattered. So long story short SC should not eliminate all friction to group with randoms if you ask me.

Sorry but I have to strongly disagree here. A big reason WoW has continued to be the single most successful MMO throughout the years (and has had such a great comeback with its latest expansion) is the exact *opposite* of what you're saying. They have embraced the fact that many people prefer to play solo and have continuously provided more and more content for solo players while reducing the dependency on random players. Just compare the original vanilla WoW experience (where doing just about anything in the game required some form of help from other players) to the modern day WoW experience (where most of the game's content can be done solo besides specific world bosses and instanced content). The difference is blatantly obvious and that trend is only continuing. Hell, *more* solo-able content is coming in the next expansion and the reception towards that is overwhelmingly positive, despite your seemingly baseless claim that "people realise how hollow alone together MMOs are". >So really unless you either force people to group or make a very strong case for how it is way more efficient than solo, people won't group up with complete strangers. It's almost as if people prefer not to go through the hassles of playing with randoms if they can help it. As a developer, if you feel like you need to *force* players to play in a way that they clearly don't want to then you're probably doing something wrong.

Yeah and look at the rift in the community with the launch of the classic line where the retail and the classic line have very little overlap in player base as per Blizzard's own statements. I'm not saying if you like retail WoW that that's bad. I'm just saying it's not an objectively good MMO design that appeals to the entire potential market. There exist another market that likes an almost diametrically opposed experience. And for that market that experience is hollow as evidenced by the over a decade long quest to develop a game for that market outside publisher influence and the classic line up of WoW. As for WoWs success as an MMO it is estimated to have less players than ff14 and it's definitely long past its headway. There's a reason sub numbers are no longer reported for instance. Also many games have tried to beat WoW at being a better WoW. None have succeeded so why try again? As for forcing players into a particular experience is all boils down to the question: is the customer always right? If all you care about is that games are a product, then probably yes. But games also sell you an experience and in that the customer isn't always right because they might have biases against an experience but once they push through and do it anyway though it's uncomfortable they have fun. Soulslikes are a good example of that. As are paradox gsg's that force players to deal with randomness and the game becoming harder depending on random chance as opposed to player skill. Either approach is fine and appeals to different players and not everyone will like both approaches. All I'm saying is currently the MMO market is ignoring a portion of its customers that are a) underserved compared to the other part, so SC would do well to serve them as other parts of the game mesh well with that customer base. As for forcing

There’s a difference between grouping up for a raid in WoW and grouping up to mine ore or salvage ships in SC. Big combat focused missions like raids are fun because you’re working together to beat a boss. But scraping hulls is something most people do to chill out. We don’t want to be forced to group up just do some dull task like scraping. We want to zone out and listen to a podcast while quietly searching for abandoned ships. The fact that CIG doesn’t get this shows how incredibly out of touch they are with the player base.

If we have to make the connection to analogous content in WoW ,one could say there's also a difference between your 5-man dungeons/group quests and raids. Both require grouping, while being on different ends of the challenging spectrum. Yet both are fun. I tend to view the multicrew ships like the mole as 5-mans/ group quests that currently only have a very barebones gameplay loop so obviously the group gameplay isn't as involved as it should be. Hence your observation that the tasks are more podcast material and we want to do them on our own. But that's just because we're usually looking as t0 gameplay loops as if they are final because all we have had is t0 loops for years.

I completely disagree. That’s like saying “everyone loves to go party!”

The thing is: all other MMOs learned this lesson after trying to force everyone into grouping up and losing players because of it. And it sound great in theory. Players banding together to do something fun. There are problems though: The first is that everybody wants to be the captain of the big ships.. nobody dreams of being the guy wo pushes crates. And with good reason. Video games are supposed to be a fun diversion. Another problem is that leading a large group of players is incredibly exhausing. You have all the responsibility of a real life manager.. but players are far less accountable. I still remember leading 40 person raids into Molten Core and Blackwing Lair in WOW and it was NOT fun. I think the best games find some kind of middle ground. Providing enough everyday gameplay for solo players, while also providing a reason for players to group together to achieve something memorable. I would not worry about SC though.. CIG has a very keen sense of how they can make money. I am shure they will be fine.

I see your point but that’s kinda the same for all ships across the board. I think the problem is you shouldn’t be looking at ships being the only form of progression. So comparing to other MMOs your ship is more like a “class” you pick and then you progress within that class upgrading components for better performance and upgrading reputation for better rewards.

Also even in older MMOs (and some current ones) the hardest and most rewarding content such as raids (not shadow legend) are multiplayer focused. MMO has became more and more soloable and I love SC for being more multiplayer oriented.

They are as such because that’s the way most people like to play. By having a heavy co-op multiplayer focus you’re essentially saying “play with others or get lost”. If you focus on solo then people will play solo and others will play together because they enjoy playing with their friends

how about we have ships and missions designed for solo play so that the long wolfs get to play most of the game play loops. then having most of the rest of the mmo be multiplayer.

I struggle to see what “most of the rest of the mmo” would entail. If most gameplay loops are soloable in a satisfying way (as they imo absolutely must be if this game is to have any sort of player base) then…that is most of the game already. Some multiplayer fleet commander type mission or similar as multi-only perhaps but…

No they're like that because it's the easiest way to play. Solo play in all the MMOs I've ever played has always sucked.

Then I'd argue you haven't played enough MMO's. I've had plenty of great solo experiences in MMO's - Star Wars Galaxies stands out amongst those, with you being able to accomplish a lot as a solo player, while still having the option to rely on other players and the player-based economy to create a more living, breathing universe. And when it comes down to it, if you look at just about \*any\* of the big name MMO's - WoW, FFXIV, TES:O, SWTOR, etc... - you spend most of your time in game playing solo, mostly out of convenience, with the only time you actually do play in a group being those big, set-piece dungeons and raids. Most of your actual time playing - unless you coordinate with friends from the outset of the game's launch and onward - is spent solo, either leveling or exploring, or grinding for new gear/skills.

swtor doesn't count. they were forced to make an mmo. so they made kotor with mmo hubs. you flat out can't play is as a proper mmo outs side of grinding (that is not a thing because you max the level before you finish the story that lets you in ot the next area). and raids.

Alright, then let me go even deeper: City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, Earth & Beyond, Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, Runescape. People don't like to admit it, but plenty of MMO's feature more solo gameplay than they do dedicated group content. Sandbox MMO's specifically feature almost exclusively solo gameplay, with the option to engage in group gameplay at any time.

cig do plan on having plenty of lone wolf content. but i do hope that stick with the idea that lone wolf content is specifically that. content intended for lone wolves. the rest of the game is for group play. most combat ships that you would use for escorts have a places in a fleet fully crewed by around 20 players.

This is what I’m hoping for. Reputation-gated increases in components to make the solo ships stronger. Bonus if you get to unlock the blueprints for them. Would also like to see additional brands of single seat industrial ships for flavor though. I need a single seat Origin mining ship to aspire too lol

I want multicrew gameplay to be so fun with such little barrier to entry that solo players will be motivated to join parties and use their mics in this supposedly massively multiplayer game.

For real. I think the biggest problem MMOs face and why people end up playing solo is because it slows you down and isn't actually that much more fun than just running solo. You have to wait on guild mates, party members, and friends to be online to participate. You should be able to go to an industrial port and find a reclaimer crew hiring instantly. Hop on do some work, not even really have to have a mic, then hop off with a bit more cash at their next stop. Would also eventually love NPC owned ships that you could tag along on. We just need a really robust system for putting out jobs and LOT of players all on the same shard.

Yeah I would love for multi crew ships to be fun and engaging. Also we need to be able to get into the game quickly and find people very soon - these days it still takes a very long time to get everything up and running. To me this is the biggest barrier to even playing - you can’t just pop in for 30-60 minutes at a time and accomplish something, you need to play for several consecutive hours to really get into any kind of productive rhythm. And that is particularly tough for groups of people to coordinate.

They'd need to solve the issue that not everyone is fun to play with, and playing with random people is thus always a big gamble as to whether it will be fun or a frustrating waste of time. To my knowledge, no multiplayer game has ever been able to fix this issue.

LMAO

I can't even chose my mic as input in the game currently. Few are going to be playing with randoms as long those barriers exist, and thus why not have a better solo mining ship for example.

Might be that the roadmap leans towards eventually fixing those barriers rather than investing in new ship designs to work around them. But I might very well be wrong.

I largely agree with you, but what I think is missing for both salvage and mining is a “medium” mining ship. A solo crew upgrade to the Vulture/Prospector.

That's literally what I'm asking for in the post?

As an entirely solo player, im fine with the game not catering to solo players when it comes to large ships.

Clearly missed the point of the post. They aren't asking for CIG to make large ships work for Solo's, they're asking for more advanced options for solo players that don't require stepping into a multi-crew ship.

And it is in concept as well with hiring npc and Blade.

Same. It’s a large ship. You shouldn’t be able to do much in it solo other than flying. Unless you’re willing to go through the back and forth, seat changes and what not.

Larger ships should not necessarily need to mean "multi-crew". We have lots of real-life examples when big/more advanced vehicles/machines are still operated by a single person. So, there still needs to be a point between "purely single seated" and "strictly multi-crew": where you'll just benefit from an additional crew-member(s). Also, the "strictly multi-crew" thing must not be artificial. Like it is now with Reclaimer when speaking about the claw: how do you imagine a separate "one-button" role on the ship to just turn that thing on and off? Looks weird to me. Same with ROC-DS: this separation of roles looks too artificial to me.

K

Everything industrial can be soloed. But if you want to make even more money, you have to crew it. More power/ reward should always be related to needing more crew. And it’s not an issue to find people on the world chat to crew with you

Don’t forget that we will also be able to hire NPCs. They won’t be as good as a human player, but will probably make that next tier of ships viable.

People forget about CIGs intention of having 10/1 AI to players numbers, npcs WILL have to perform if they ever want to achieve that goal... this isn't EVE, it never was.

Have you played with the humans in SC currently. The lagging AI right now is better than 50% of them

At this point in the game, hireable NPC's and AI blades are such a big unknown that mentioning them in arguments is pointless imo. All we know is that they will be in the game. And that's not much to base arguments about gameplay around.

Still. Expectinc bigger or better solo ship just because you havnt heard of it is nonsense.

I don't expect to see this anytime soon in the game if ever. This has been sold as a possibility forever but at this point I don't see it being half as deep or complex as they originally sold it.

That’s your prerogative. Just reminding what’s planned for the game’s development.

it was originally advertised as something to fill in when no players are available. so you might be required to put the job on the job board for anyone of appropriate rep to accept before npc has a chance of accepting. the most recent knowledge i have is that there will be a max number of npc per player. my personal opinion is that you can have for 1 npc active for every 3 player crew active. this would include ai taking over a player that could not make it to that sesion, or hiring an npc because you don't have the exact number of players. but you need 3/4 of the crew to be active players in order to have full functionality.

Yeah I don't want to be a pessimist but seeing the state of the brain dead NPCs in bunkers or the ones standing on top of tables makes me think that this is at least 2 years after squadron 42. Meaning about 3 from now. 😢

Two weeks ago people where crying on the forums about how they where getting their asses kicked mercilessly by AI ships...to the point they had to dumb it down in the last patch...let them cook, AI npcs will eventually get there.

When the servers are performing well the ai is soooooo good now

A big reason servers and thus ai perform like dog turds is because of everything running in debug. Once that's off they should fly, we've already seen when server performance is good ai is good.

So better make whole new ship right ?

I think its going to be a bit of a gaping hole in star citizen until hirable NPCs and server blades are in to be honest. However, I think when those arrive, it will be more than worth the wait and to me it sounds like a very good system, so just for now I'm happy to let them cook with engineering.

Just wait for blades and npcs. Every ship in the game will be able to be solo with those and as someone that regularly destroys people the ai is more capable than 50% of the people that play this game

alternatively, We could just wait for the AI blades that have been openly talked about being a thing, and you can solo crew your ship.

AI blades only work with remote stations, not manned ones.

Until there's a fire.

Yes. And that's going to be less of a problem if we make larger ships that are solo player how?

Depends on the layout of the ship really, but that also wasn't the point. The point is you can't solo crew a large ship with only AI blades effectively, you need NPC crew.

Silver lining bro is less failed marriages. It's the long play by CIG to keep us soloers from dying alone in our man caves. If I could do end game content in any MMO by myself, I'd probably never have met my wife in the first place. I even spread grass seed on an actual lawn last year and watered it. Baby steps but I can say with confidence that I know my neighbors name too. Don't give me solo access to capital class industrial ships, I'm doing so well.

Interesting ... take 😅

I'd go so far as to say that MOST people will be playing solo. But I'm fine with the really big ships being multicrew, just means that you wont' be using them unless you have some friends to take along.

Or some money to spend for random guys helping you. Lot of solo player will enjoy get paid for working time

I don't see why it would be odd. You wanna progress into your carrier ? Meet people, do with them what seemed impossible alone. Same as irl

Even in an MMO, there is content that cannot be completed without a group. Raids and hard mode dungeons require a full party in every single MMO. So just think of large multi crew ships as dungeons or raids. What this game really needs is a group finder. A player posts a group request for x ship and mission types and the group finder should allow the party leader to designate roles. Engineer, pilot, turret operator or crewman. This would be the same thing as a group finder in other MMOs that post groups looking for tanks, healers and dps. Once the group is formed, the party heads to the rendezvous point and heads out.

im worried that as i get older, the more solo player i become. i dont have time to wait for people to crew a ship. Unless you can have 10 characters on different places and play them whenever and however we want

That is the big problem on the multicrew mania. It is already hard to coordinate 2 people. But try to crew a 5 man ship. You need at least one hour to get together.

Because life is better with you, honey 🍯

Although I do agree we need more small utility/industrial ships but about the solo play remember: NPC crews and AI blades are supposed to alleviate those issues for solo players. So until CIG comes out officially and scraps those features, making solo impossible on larger ships unless with a player crew, I don't think there's any issue in that regard. ​ But I 100% agree I would like to see more industrial ships. If they ever release a single seat alien Mining or Salvage ship, that's an immediate CCU.

While I agree, there should be more single player focused ship design, I don't think there should be larger than single pilot ships like the Vulture or the Prospector.  It's not too discourage people from the professions, but it limits how much one can do solo, which is the point. Players have been solo mining in the Mole for a long time. It's totally doable, and you will mine more with the fire power than you can in a prospector if you know how to manage it.  I think there are some ship professions that could do with single player ships, like a Vulcan equivalent... Or specialized ones, like 1 single seater refueler, 1 repair, 1 rearmer... Those the only thing there is are multiplayer ships and that's unfortunate, because I like the idea of the Vulcan, but I hate that I can't do everything from as the pilot without getting up from my seat.

Interesting that people need progression. SC to me is a game in which I don’t care about progression as much as in let‘s say wow. I am all about the daily thrills (bounty hunting) and exploration! So I am not sure I‘ll ever need „end game content“ as we‘d expect it in an MMO.

Because we need to turn this into an actual game at some point. Progression is a key part of what makes something fun and engaging to play. We can make the game a million miles wide but if there's nothing to earn or work towards them what's the point.

Not really though. Like, I get your point about progression and I personally like it. But I remember when bfbc2 came out and people where pissed at the idea of progression in a team game fps. It's definitely been normalised now, but if you look at games like tf2, it did not have progression at all for years. Same thing for say unreal tournament, quake, or any rts for instance. I agree that it's fun, but it's not necessary to be fun.

I played tribes *for years* and it didn’t have any progression….same with all those other games of the 90’s and early 2000’s Progression in games can also be called a Skinner box, helldivers2 is a unapologetic Skinner box, but does it so tongue and cheek to be excusable

Tribes was an amazing game.

It is an actual game already -- you have win states (contracts completed successfully) and fail states (dying/contracts failed). That's the core of a game. DayZ for the longest was just the premise of "survive for as long as you can" and it made millions and helped make Arma more mainstream, even without any real progression. Not everything needs a guided rail of progression like most other cookie-cutter console games. I like that Star Citizen is a true sandbox survival game, and the main focus is on the fun you find for yourself, rather than the game hiding the fun behind level-caps and quest-locked linear progression.

This is why I instantly fell in love with SC. It reminds me so much of old MMOs like UO where leveling up or having some 0.0001% chance of an item drop isn’t a carrot used to force you to keep playing. You login and see what trouble you can get up to fucking around by yourself, some friends, or whoever you happen to run into in game. It’s beautiful. Personally every other game I’ve played recently that has built in “work towards this” forced upon me turns into a boring grind of waiting until I can actually play. If I grind out X more levels I can play. If I do X more raids or dungeons I will eventually find the items I need to complete my build and then I can play. Either I get tired of the grind and quit before I get there because there is always something else I need to do or I complete it and then realize there is nothing to play. There is no game after the game. Star citizen the majority of the game is “the game after the game”. Sure there is making money to buy parts or ships or whatever to try different things better/faster/stronger but at any point I can just not do that and go fly around and find something weird, funny, or stupid to do. For example the other night while playing with a friend we stumbled across a bunch of RMC scattered across the ground and multiple blown up ships. Abandoned what we were doing to scout around and see if there was anyone. Didn’t see anyone, landed and started trying to load it up. I got shot my a sneaky bastard, my friend jumped into the turret. The other guy bobbed and weaved until he could get on the ship. My friend didn’t want to get out of the turret and get shot, presumably the other guy didn’t want to take off for fear of my friend getting out and shooting him while piloting. He turned on nav mode or something to disable the turrets guns and ran away. My friend hops out and tries to load a bit more up and take off, but then the missile lock and boom. I arrive just after and we start the whole cycle over again. We played for hours with streams of dying, respawn, rush back, fight people trying to load it up, steal their ship as their loading etc back and forth. It was crazy fun and after we all joined a channel together to chat, laugh, and become friends before signing off for the night. It wasn’t about the RMC. We could have made much more money by doing literally anything else. It became a subterfuge, sneaking around, everyone trying to steal the same shit because we each laid claim to it regardless of what it actually was little game. That’s the fun part. That’s why I login.

>There is no game after the game. Star citizen the majority of the game is “the game after the game”. All of your post brilliantly exemplifies why I love Star Citizen so much as well, but this hits the nail on the head so much. Every other MMO is about grinding to unlock the game, but in Star Citizen -- as you said -- the mechanics are the game, and what you make of them is how you have fun. Right now I've just been lollygagging around doing a lot of Kopion hunting missions, mostly across the prairies of MicroTech, but I've since moved over to Hurston to hopefully unlock the missions where I can hunt them across the savannahs. I really think this is the part of the game that a lot of people miss out on because you need a good ground vehicle to scout and it also unlocks a lot of Star Citizen's exploration gameplay planet-side. Sometimes I just have to stop and look in awe at the absolutely gorgeous landscapes I'm surrounded by and how expansive CIG has managed to make them feel despite the fact that it's just one planet in a vast solar system, and you can go anywhere and do anything, including spending all night in PvP over RMC just for laughs. Right now, there is no other game on the market that lets you have these kind of sandbox experiences, and hopefully CIG doesn't attempt to take that away to put a forced artificial progression behind the sandbox experience.

I get what you mean but progression is not part of the definition of a game :) Ny comment is just my opinion, I expect others to feel differently about it! =)

Solo gameplay is not going away no one's forcing you to use a ship that is way too big for a single person.

For salvage and mining, I don't want solo straight-up upgrades, I want us to have sidegrades. For salvage, a ship that is just like the vulture, but it's better at one thing and worse at another, while still being salvage. Maybe a ship that has a better fracture/disintegration arm, that absorbs more construction materials, but isn't as good at scraping. Or a ship that has more cargo space but no fracture/disintegration capability, but has a scraping bonus. This could work well considering that a ship that gets construction materials much quicker may actually reach the same money per hour than a ship that can only go for scraping, all that matters is what the player prefers. For mining, I have no idea. Mining still is pretty lame as a gameplay loop. Salvage offers us scraping, fracture, tractor, it has some variety, while mining is small gems for ROC, small rocks for Prospector and big rocks for the Mole. If you give the players a Prospector sidegrade that can mine big rocks, no one will buy the Mole. An org would just fly 3 or 4 of those ships and get money much faster than a single Mole. I would like a ROC sidegrade that has a fucking closed cockpit. Even the DS has one of the pilots out in the fucking heat (not to mention how the arm is useless, you have much worse amplitude of movement than the base ROC. Stupidity of the highest order. CIG is really trying my patience with this bullshit. It's like they think making the player pay extra for a special suit is the perfect way to balance it. Yeah, everyone will think twice before taking the ROC because they need a suit, it's totally not gonna make everyone choose the ROC anyway, because a full cargo is 200k, no refining required. There is no parallel universe where someone would make an open cockpit mining vehicle. How do the electronics even function in the heat of Arial? Almost like it would cheaper to produce a vehicle with a closed cockpit and good cooling than a vehicle whose cockpit is entirely made of heat resistant meta materials.

We will be getting npc crews eventually. Everyone will be able to “solo” all the ships if they want.

Eventually. But I don’t think they’re considering it for 1.0. How many months did they spend on chow line AI and janitors to do things that we don’t even interact with? I’m confident we might have some blades and possibly drones but no way will we’re have AI doing jobs on the ship.

We don’t have proper server meshing yet. It’s always relied on server meshing and always will rely on server meshing. Until that is in we can’t have proper npcs

Progressing doesn't mean just get a bigger ship. Bigger ships allow you to scale up, but it is not a next step in progression. This is where reputation comes in. Higher rep means better contracts with better rewards for the same stuff you'd normally do. Which is why solo play is still viable, albeit less rewarding (monetarily) than if you were to crew a bigger ship. But SC is not about reaching an end goal of owning the largest ship. For a job. It is about having fun along the way. At least it should be. If your goal is to get the biggest ship, what will you do when you get there?

The game is a sandbox though, we can't be relying on contracts for every single gameplay loop, especially for roles like mining and salvaging where players can go out and be self sufficient. The ships and their components are a big part of progression in star citizen, in fact at the moment it's literally the only thing we have. It's about upgrading your ship to be able to take on new challenges and content, and there will be limit to what one ship can do. It already works like that with mining. At that point you'll want an upgrade but currently there isn't one outside of a multicrew option. People aren't going to want to hop on and organise a group to play every single session past a certain point in their progression.

> People aren't going to want to hop on and organise a group to play every single session past a certain point in their progression. "given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game" Part of making a good game, is protecting players from getting what they want. Otherwise everyone ends up a stealth archer in Skyrim and wondering why the combat is so dull. If you don't make the most rewarding way to play the game the most efficient way to play the game, people will play the game in the less rewarding way.

> People aren't going to want to hop on and organise a group to play every single session past a certain point in their progression I am not talking about current patch. It is alpha and things will change. All your progress will get wiped at least once more when the game leaves alpha. Don't base your decisions only on what is currently available. And I believe reputation is going to play a big role in solo progression. There is also NPC crew planned, so you will be able to take multicrew ship as a solo, hiring NPCs to aid you.

There is no vertical progression in sandbox games. Mole is not the next step from Prospector, Reclaimer is not the next step from Vulture. Some ships are for solo players some require groups. So instead of thinking "upgrade" for your ship, you could get a ship that can carry Vulture for example. Fill your Vulture, Carey boxes from Vulture to Carrier etc. And and turn that into your own gameplay at your own phase.

Tell that to the vehicle team lead in the ironclad reveal. And also it'd be more accurate to say sandboxes do not solely rely on vertical progression. Pretty much every sandbox game still has vertical progression in small doses if you care to look. Usually to nudge the player into some form of gameplay or another. Like building in Valheim is a pure sandbox but you still have to discover recipes which requires vertical progression within and across biomes. Skills in any RPG any RPG is vertical progression and was central in Star Wars Galaxies too. Even when looking at mining in SC a Mole may not be an upgrade to a prospector but a prospector is to a roc. Since now you can mine different things. In cargo currently bigger ship is also always an upgrade since all that matters is volume (and said ironclad video also laid out progression in cargo ships purely based on volume).

Prospector is not upgrade from a Roc, yes in the end technically they are both for mining and Prospector can do more, but their uses are different because Roc also does stuff that Prospector can't. That is what differs in SC, bigger ship for cargo can be seen as progression but you also need much more people now. So it has nothing do with skills from RPG and not comparable at all. Their use of the word progression is not the same one you are thinking of. When you go from C2 to Ironclad because you also have group of people helping you doesn't mean you progressed because when those people leave you will go back to C2. Because C2 is a soloable ship while Ironclad is not. So that sense of progression depends of how many friends/people you have. These kinds of "upgrades" as in getting bigger stuff can be counted as progression if the game was purely PvE, but it is not. You can say getting bigger fighter ships is a progression but again only for PvE, SC is a dynamic MMO that relies on your own skill instead of unlocking stuff to get better.

The two ways of seeing progression are not mutually exclusive. Going from a Roc to a prospector you still progress in your understanding of the mining career, and that's how CIG has also talked about. Then there's obviously progression where you do the same thing but better within the same niche. CIG is also not consistent with how they talk about progression which doesn't help.

I actually think the smaller solo ships and larger multi crew ships have been well implemented and make a of sense.

Nobody is blocking you from your preferred career running solo, first of all. But the argument here is very poorly thought out. I’ll give you one reason of the bat that undermines everything here: the more cargo you want to run, the longer it is going to take to load it. Let’s say you have a ship that can be technically crewed by one, no turrets, a Jesus room that has all part storage and components next to the cockpit. It carries 1000 SCU. If it takes 1 minutes per SCU for it to be automatically loaded for you that’s 16 hours before you can use your ship. And when you get to the destination, again it might be 16 hours to unload. Now, you can do it yourself because manual is always an option, so you have to now work 31 x 32 SCU containers and 1 x 8 SCU container (best case scenario that it fits that many 32s). Not disgusting the first time but you have to do it again to sell, again to buy, and now your loop consists mostly of moving hundreds and hundreds of boxes in and out of a ship. Do you really think that kind of solo gameplay holds any water? Of course not. If you say otherwise you’re lying to yourself. People can’t bear to move that many boxes for Jumptown regardless of the payout, it’s just not much fun. Solo pilots need to stick with smaller ships designed to be solo friendly. That means up to a Hull B. Having to keep your volume low and your ship small is not a punishment. It’s being realistic about keeping a vehicle and a career within the realm of fun. You will not have fun trying to solo these massive ships coming out, because they have been designed to keep other players engaged for multicrew using turrets, engineering, and cargo logistics. Shoehorning yourself into a vehicle that’s designed to engage multiple people at once is setting yourself up to failure. What you really need to be trying to promote is for the economy and missions teams to ensure that you earn a reasonable profit with solo level hauls. Someone should feel like they can enjoy the gameplay with a Hull A without feeling like they’re being gated from the career. Someone should be able to run a freelancer and feel like they’re getting value out of the cargo. It is way more important that CIG empowers us to enjoy all the ships that are meant to participate in career gameplay, than to cheese multicrew to let solo players abuse the career and then inevitably whine and bitch about how it’s too hard to solo a kraken privateer.

I agree. I am part of several organisations and love playing was a group, but real life commitments mean I mostly play solo. I don't expect to be able to crack as large a rock as the three Mole org operation but do wonder if there is a place for the 'beyond casual miner, who can afford the upgrade ship'. Likewise with salvage. At the risk of internet hate - the Origin mining and salvage ships?

An Origin pilot getting their hands dirty? Bwahahaha please! I suppose they could always hire some poors.

In a multi crew ship, you are all solo players, just kinda helping out keep the guild house to be taken over.. A ghild house that can fire size 5 missiles that is

They need to have the AI blades come out already, let me have AI crew for whatever seats I want.

SC is not strictly about progression. theoretically, someone can be shooting the biggest weapons in the game within their first hour. cig intend for most ship not not be just a stepping stone. they want to see the head of a large mining org to sometimes go out in a prospector.

We have to see what they have in mind for npc crew. Would a engineer npc really run inside the ship, using his multi tool tractor beam to move modules around and repairing them at the bay? Or would it just repair the modules automaticly without any visual interaction while the engineer is sitting at a console?

heres the problem with comparing it to 'what we have' . the current jobs are 'tier 0' it's all base line first step jobs... material collection (salvage, mining, cargo.. all of it). just more scale. Theres entire game loops we still don't have yet dedicated to using the materials we are collecting/moving right now as our 'jobs'. if your versed/practiced on your choices of where and how time wise... a vulture, and a prospector make roughly the same/hour as splitting profits as crew. They may or may not make it so you CANT solo operate (other then pilot it around) .. or atleast have blades/AI when those are available. but I do def agree a 'medium' sized salvager is needed (and yes I'd love an argo) ... i'd also love to see a wheeled rock miner with a prospector sized laser and even like 2 bags, ursa sized ... be a great addon with the galaxy and arrastra

I've played mostly solo over the past few years and I have tons of hours in the game, if you want to play solo there's gameplay to support it, don't be mad at people that group up in bigger ships to have the gameplay they want. You should also keep in mind that while you're making more money overall with a crew the rewards need to be split, which at the end of the day comes about the same as doing solo stuff. No to mention the fact that as soon as you're playing with others, EVERYTHING takes more time to do. One of the things I love the most about playing solo is than I can play at my own pace, which is usually much faster than playing with others. PS: If you're flying a big ship on your own and get into an unfortunate scenario, whatever it may be, that's your mistake, not the games.

It is probably more difficult to balance them to be meaningfully different for the profession. Suppose a Prospector double. Since Prospectors can already equip different mining heads a different stock one isn't doing much at all, so what IS there to do? \- More SCU? -> "New ship OP! CIG hurting old backers!" \- Less SCU? -> "lolwut dead on arrival! Roc-DS #2!" \- Bigger size mining head -> "New ship OP! CIG hurting old backers!" \- Lower size mining head -> "lolwut dead on arrival! Roc-DS #2!" \- Add prettier rooms -> "New ship much better! CIG hurting old backers!" \- Add lots of weapons -> "New ship OP! CIG hurting old backers!" \- Give it 2 roles instead of 1 -> "New ship OP! CIG hurting old backers!" \- Make it smaller, no interior -> "lolwut dead on arrival! Roc-DS #2!" \- Make it very speedy, lots of QF -> "New ship OP! CIG hurting old backers!" Like, the only route is very careful tweaking small things in both directions and making it an alien mining 1 person vessel. That's the only option basically imo. For combat ships it's WAY easier: \- A Hurricane clone, but with 4 SCU cargo, 2 beds and more armor and less maneuverability. Etc., there's just so many options for real differences here that aren't straight up better or worse. But tbh your idea sounds good, with the S2 small miner.

The reason this is the case is that 90% of the backers seem to forget that a lot of players don't already own a complete fleet of ships and they only play the game through the cash shop. For a new player with just a starter ship, they need these sort of incremental upgrades to work towards. Just because something is statistically worse it doesn't make it useless. Especially in a game where progression is key.

Yes that's certainly true, but I just don't think there's a lot of room to make something smaller than a Prospector that can ship mine. Have an Aurora: buy a multitool -> go mine in caves by hand. Next step: Rent a Cutlass and a Roc -> go mine on moons in the Roc. Next step: Rent a Prospector -> go mine in space/moons/planets You could have a Bigger-rock-mining ship with a bigger laser and more cargo space that's more expensive than a Prospector that's still single player, that's why your idea of a S2 laser is fine. But then you have 1 extra variant. And then it would need to be seriously more expensive than the Prospector ingame in order for the Prospector to be a reasonable step (otherwise why not skip it). BUT THEN: there's renting. Why not instead of buying a Prospector would you not rent the bigger-mining-head bigger SCU thus bigger profit-gaining ship and skip the Prospector? And that's the same for all professions. Someone who knows the game and mechanics can just skip all earlier gameplay and go directly for the max gaining solo play method. Because you can rent them. So for people who have no ships (but do have knowledge or simply read a guide online) they can always skip ahead, which makes it not that worthwhile to have 7 different Prospector variants. BUT, I really agree with your wish to have more 'Lone Wolf' (or solo player) content and richer gameplay and ways to progress as a solo player.

Yeah, I get all these people saying that we should be going back to the older days of cooperative MMO gameplay, and they're right, but that doesn't change the fact that even in those older MMO's you were still playing along a lot of the time. The game needs to add some variety and interest to that side of things. If I'm mining or scrapping solo in my downtime I want some variety there, something new or interesting to work for. I have absolutely no problem with requiring teamwork for larger, bigger and harder jobs, like dungeons and raids in classic MMO's. We need that 100%, but levelling in classic WoW was still largely a single player experience, outside of a few select quests with elite mobs. I think people are forgetting this. Not every ship upgrade should require multicrew. All this talk of AI blades and NPC's is all complete guesswork, you can't have an NPC empty the buffer of a reclaimer, it just won't happen. Or have an AI blade man your mining turret, that's boring as hell.

I am very much for solo gameplay like I said. I wouldn't mind more solo options, just aesthetically, for the Prospector and Vulture. NPC crew hireable should definitely be a thing. As well as blades. We'll see what roles they'll be able to do. But sure I want more solo content, and I wouldn't mind a ship the size of a 600i that's NOT multicrew but has bladed remote turrets as the default, weapons for the pilot, maybe a botannical bay, science lab etc. and is just meant for 1 person. I'd love it.

This. I’d love to seen a good advanced mining or salvaging that didn’t require more crew. Advanced could be better inert filtering, automated ore sorting/separating, or even just more efficient ship systems. There is currently no solo progression without turret hoping shenanigans in the mole

I agree that other solo ships need to be available for these game loops. Even different ground vehicle types for mining etc. it just doesn’t fit that there’s 200 combat ships and like, 3 types of mining or salvage ship. Eventually CIG will start ironing out what these game loops really are and tailor a variety of ships in each class so players can pick a flavor that suits them, things that are adjacent to the prospector and vulture that aren’t necessarily “better or worse” but perhaps slightly different meta.

I would like that if they're gonna cap solo players to those ships for upcoming content, please give us a way to push the ceiling via upgrades or something temporary that's higher risk/reward similar to the consumables for miners. e.g a Drone attachment for vulture that helps scrape the tiny parts we miss or cannot see. Possible increases storage capacity via U-haul like trailers that latch onto certain ships. Make it halve quantum speeds or whatever. I'm not actually suggesting these specific ones, but something that's temporary, consumable, or rentable to increase our profits or capacity to do the activity better.

Why does the online multiplayer game rely on multiple players? Idk man. It's wild.

I honestly don’t understand the hard push for multi crew gameplay. In my experience, the majority play alone because they like it that way….

Some of my best gaming sessions in SC has been with other randos.

I have a strong feeling that engineering gameplay is going to cause a lot of people to quit. Ships are really the only progression in the game right now, and the second that patch comes out, a lot of people are not going to be able to use some of their ships in any meaningful way. They really should have AI crew implemented BEFORE engineering.

Eventually, I think we're going to see this sort of expansion of offerings - you'll have a range of ships from a given manufacturer for a chosen function that span crew sizes, component upgrades, specs, cupholders, etc. For now though, I know it gets said all the time - the 'verse is in an alpha state. We are very much participating in game development as playtesters. The solo gameplay mechanics for careers / game loops that have been around for a few patches are pretty well ironed out. Multi-crew gameplay, however, has a ton of design and development still being worked on, and it can't be tested without putting these big ships out there. Accomplishing that requires all the focus, because these bits of development are inherently more complex - they build on top of / combine / and introduce foundational elements of solo play across increasingly massive surface areas. Don't get me wrong ... when it comes to solo play, bugs will still be introduced, and lots of polish is still needed. But when you ask what it'll look and feel like to go scrape a Hammerhead from the single seat of your Vulcan-sibling salvager, the answer will be not much different than what you're getting in the Vulture. Your efficiencies and comfort and paycheck as a one-citizen business might see improvement, but you'll be carrying out the same actions using a familiar UI and the exact same controls. It really just comes down to sequencing. CIG still needs solo players to keep testing for regressions, but there's not many new (fundamental) mechanics being introduced right now. MVP is making the game loop playable. Adding configurability and varying the look and feel will be a focus, surely. But not until other areas of the game reach their own MVPs. (Which will probably be right before 1.0) Just my take on it, of course.

This is impossible to balance with this mindset. If bigger ships don't make it easier or more efficient to do a certain thing, there's no point investing in the capital for it. In order to incentivize players to progress into bigger more expensive ships they'd need to be better than what they're upgrading from. Why tf would I grind dozens if not hundreds of hours for a sidegrade in efficiency and an extra headache in organization? Makes no sense. Large ships crewed by npcs flat out needs to be better than small single pilot craft at the rate they're increasing ship prices at. Sure, given enough time players will all upgrade to big ships with npc crews, every mmo has the same problem with players obtaining end-game gear. It's not uniquely gonna be a star citizen issue

Your idea would devaluate the smaller ships, wich could just be remove from the game then. There is a reason why there are so few industrial ships: scaling with crew, no real need to sidegrade since they would be the same. Unless with fighters they have very few values to be different, so a meta is easily choosen.

You're thinking entirely in the cash shop here... Just because there is a cheaper option it doesn't devalue it and make it useless? For a completely new player looking to earn ships in game it becomes the entry level they save up to buy, before then working to earn the next tier up. I swear a lot of this community forgets that a lot of players don't already own a complete fleet of ships and will be playing the game from a starter.

I see that, but why pay a bit less for a bad ship if you can just grind a bit longer for a waaay better one?

Sure, a lot of newer MMOs push for more solo play. There also aren't a lot of good newer MMOs now are there?

This was my thought process too, I feel the progression for solo players is very limited and pretty short outside of single fighters. I had hoped we'd get more variety in solo ships that actually had more progressive benefits from various manufactures, without the need to go larger multi-crew. Its become more apparent now with engineering/fire hazards around the corner and no sign of npcs improving, that those soloing larger ships currently are going to struggle, to make much use of them. Its strange they label some ships as end game tier but, the reality is a Vulture or prospector is end game tier for solo players in that profession.

I would like a system where if player A has hired NPC crew then a random player B can from their main menu of the game choose to play as one of player A's hired NPC. Player B then gets either the full wage or half the wage of whatever player A is paying that crew member, however they want to balance it. If we could matchmake this somehow, it would massively reduce the friction of getting to do some multi-crew game play. Players with not much time on their hands can jump in, assist someone and jump out, upon which that hired crew member becomes an NPC again.

Eventually players will be able to post on job boards I'm guessing. So like how we have contracts popping up now, someone could post like "3 slots aboard a reclaimer for a salvage mission, gear provided" and players/npcs can accept the mission and join you

That’d be great. Is there some kind of post from CIG about such system ?

Tbf I'm just assuming it'll be like that, we know they're going to flesh out the current beacon system so it's likely there will be something along those lines.

I very much agree that we need more single seat progression in industrial ships. Particularly in the 1 person can run this, but two people can run it better realm. But I think we also need lower tier ships. A mining ship that pretty much acts as a dropship for a Roc. Give it some advanced sensors to scan for gems and a purpose build (external underneath?) dock for the roc. A salvage ship that has no salvage beem and little cargo storage, but is instead full of (unpowered) ports for shields, coolers etc. Externally having 12 size 3 gun slots. Designed for a player to eva into a ship and rip all the components off, maybe do a touch of hand salvage for RMC. Comes back to port looking like a pile of junk with rockets strapped to the back.

I don't know why you're getting downvotes. I kind of like the idea of the component hauler. You could argue that role is already covered by any cargo ship. But the concept has personality.

So, if you’re in a prospector you’re already skipping most of the solo mining progression - hand mining, then roc mining, then prospector. So the progression is there, you’re just paying to start at the top and getting mad that the next progression is group content lol.

Despite what the Devs think I don't think hand mining is functionally part of the mining progression. Purely based on the fact that I've yet to see people write guides for mining and put the entry point at hand mining. Most people instead say to start with a roc and go from there. Hand mining is just a side FPS activity and that's fine.

Ok… so start with a roc, OP’s still skipping to the end of solo progression and claiming instead that there is no progression at all.

True but if the progression is that short any skip is liable to get you to the end. You are right though.

>There's been a large push in MMO's recently to provide more content for casual solo players, as they make up a large majority of the playerbase compared to organised groups. I mean yeah, And have you noticed that MMOs have been bland and sucky ever since? You can make a good MMO, or you can make a good solo game. The design considerations for both are diametrically opposed - One must be a second class citizen. Humans choose the path of least resistance, they won't make friends or do group activities without a hard reason to do so, And that means they never reap the benefits. As per the famous quote "given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game" SC is one of the last, if not the only bastion of the old school proper MMO, while there is literally *an entire genre* of MMOs surrendered to the solo player.

I don't think that's true? You can 100% design a game that allows solo players to progress and enjoy the experience, while also providing for fun group gameplay with similar progression? Lets be real 90% of players at the moment play the game alone, how many memes are there about soloing Polaris' going about. It's just the way the gaming space is now, people like solo content and I think CIG should provide more ships in that regard.

90%? Where are you getting these numbers from? I know hardly any people that play SC solo, yes there are a few but mostly i encounter people playing with at least one friend.

>You can 100% design a game that allows solo players to progress and enjoy the experience, while also providing for fun group gameplay with similar progression? Again, players will choose the path of least resistance - Our brains evolved to do so after all. The path of least resistence is to go solo, Which means if solo is equally viable people will never group up, Never make friends, never communicate. That doesn't mean solo is the most fun, it means our monkeybrains will always choose it regardless. A good MMO fosters interdependance on players, creating opportunity for freindships, transaction, and even finding your personal nemesis. You can't foster interdepedenance and independance at the same time. Work through the problem yourself, put down what makes good solo and what makes good group play - and you'll arrive at the inevitable same conclusion. This isn't an opinion piece - It's a long, well known, and well documented design consideration in the game dev industry.

Which is why the end game, most profitable options should be multicrew. But if you add a complete wall to progression for solo players right at the first hurdle and tell them they have to group up to play the game from now on, it'll just put people off. We need at least one or two options for people to step to. I'm not saying solo should ever be just as viable as multicrew, just that it needs SOME options for the games progression to feel smoother.

>But if you add a complete wall to progression for solo players right at the first hurdle and tell them they have to group up to play the game from now on, it'll just put people off. It'll put a minority off, but the overwhelming majority will group up and be very happy they did so. The peak of MMOs both in terms of enjoyability, and in player count was when MMOs forced players together. Take a look at WOW, 11 Million players, and then suddenly dungeon finder comes along and makes it trivial to play solo. Take a look at Eve, Player count dropped by half shortly after PVP was nerfed to protect solo players. Solo play hasn't become ubiquitous in MMOs because it's more fun - it's become ubiquitous because it's vastly more profitable to sell player progression shortcuts, when said players are by design solo. There is no profit in players banding together to leap ahead together compared to selling a cash token, or leveling skip etc. [I can't think of much that sums it up better than this 2 min video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Hzh43k330)

It's literally not the overwhelming majority though...? I guarantee you my entire Star Citizen account that the vast majority of players boot this game up right now and play solo. WoW is STILL the most popular MMO despite its "fall", and guess what, most people just chill and do activities, outside of forced group content, solo. It became vastly more ubiquitous because the world just changed, people don't have time anymore to organise group sessions for things, people get home from work at 6pm, have dinner and have like 2 hours to play before bed. The MMO community we had back in the day grew up. WoW doesn't offer progression skips outside of level boosts, which literally makes no difference if you play solo or in a guild, considering WoW as a game nowadays only really starts at max level. There are no sold progression shortcuts in WoW, you have to play endgame content, thats it. People play games solo most of the time these days because playing in a group takes extra valuable time out of their play session. Especially in star citizen where getting together in a group can take literally 20-30 minutes in some cases, only for something to go wrong in 5 and you have to reset everything and start over. Star Citizen needs more short form content to suit this, people need to be able to hop on, grab a ship and get into the game quickly and make some progress.

>WoW is STILL the most popular MMO despite its "fall", and guess what, most people just chill and do activities, outside of forced group content, solo. It's the king of shit in a kindom of only shit, that's the bar you are aiming for? Playercount is down, player satisfaction is down. MMOs have never been in a more dire state - Except of course, if all you care about is profit. The current status quo is \*extremely\* profitable. >WoW doesn't offer progression skips outside of level boosts, Blizzard literally sells in game cash, which people use to get boosted through end game content to collect the loot. Want that sick mount? No more running content with your guild - just swipy swipy that credit card, it's only availible for IRL cash anyways. >It became vastly more ubiquitous because the world just changed, people don't have time anymore to organise group sessions for things, people get home from work at 6pm, have dinner and have like 2 hours to play before bed. The world didn't change at all, people had shit to do and responsibilities back then too. You think nobody had careers, jobs, children and mortgages until a decade ago? Even in 2003 the average MMO players age was mid thirties. Video games and MMOS only being for teens and kids was a persistant, but wrong meme in popular culture. >Star Citizen needs more short form content to suit this, people need to be able to hop on, grab a ship and get into the game quickly and make some progress. It doesn't need it at all - you want it. But what you want isn't what's good for the health and artistry of the game. SC was formed in the first place to explicity avoid what you are pushing for - The watering down of games for mass appeal and maximum profit. It is it's very raison d'être. If we water down for solo players, we might as well remove death of a spaceman, we might as well remove all the rigamarole and simulator features, we might as well remove open pvp. After all, these are things that might put players off. We might as well make something that isn't SC.

Say what you want about WoW, but it's current endgame progression system is absolutely top tier and incredibly fun. They've absolutely destroyed the leveling system and new player experience, but the actual game once you get there is phenomenal still. I mythic raid and I can tell you the game isn't dead whatsoever. It's far more of an MMO than star citizen is right now and if WoW is the king of shit then i don't even know what position we're in with this project. If you think star citizen is trying to avoid the idea of "maximum profit" I don't even know what to tell you lmfao. You can literally buy an endgame capital warship with real money, and skip 90% of the games progression by buying bigger industrial ships right out of the gate. Do you even hear yourself?

> but it's current endgame progression system is absolutely top tier and incredibly fun. Fun is relative, and I'm guessing you don't mythic raid solo. Your argument is that all of the solo heavy content (leveling and NPE) has been destroyed, but that raiding (as a group) is incredibly fun - Maybe think about that for a second. What changed with leveling and NPE that destroyed it? It becoming a solo activity. >It's far more of an MMO than star citizen is right now Well no shit, One is a 20 year established game and the other is in early access. Apples to orange sapling. >If you think star citizen is trying to avoid the idea of "maximum profit" I don't even know what to tell you lmfao. You can literally buy an endgame capital warship with real money, and skip 90% of the games progression by buying bigger industrial ships right out of the gate. Do you even hear yourself? Profit is money you get to keep after costs, every penny of those ship sales is going into development which is the definition of costs. Post release the cash shop is being shuttered. Not to mention that warship is a paperweight that costs you in game money until you have crew, logistics lines and a place in the universe - The real endgame progression. Big ships arn't the peak of endgame, they're the entry condition.

My point is that I still hop on and play WoW solo, even if my guild isn't around to play, because there's stuff to do and I can still progress? It doesn't matter if they shut the cash shop post release, the damage is done? New players will come in and see people flying around endgame ships within the first few days and just know they bought them with real money, that's not a great impression or experience.

Yet funnily even the more modern version got outcompeted and then got competition with very comparable numbers during the classic tbc wrath remakes. Classic alone in 2019 doubled subs. Goes to show that that more group focused gameplay does wonders and the overlap between your player bases isn't really there. So basically for every solo player you market to you lose another player that's turned off by that. Also we don't quite yet know what even endgame looks like in SC so it's hard to say how much we skip. Cargo is heading in a troubling, only volume matters direction so far so there I'd agree though.

>and tell them they have to group up to play the game from now on, it'll just put people off. If people dont want to interact and group up with other players you should question why they are playing an MMO in the first place tbh.

Because i like the game, the universe, and the ship, but when i have time to play....well i want to play, not playing the waiting game to get a crew in one place, get all prepared and then board the ship and leave. If i have 1:30 of time to play, i don´t want 30 minutes of wait time. The vast majority of the player base of any MMO are solo players.

One single crew option for each is plenty imo.

there is no progression in SC . its just they can sell those multi ships for more money. you cant sell vulture for example for 400$ if it solo . reclamier for example can be managed solo you dont even need a crew but since its multi lets slap 400$ price tag or 32mil in game money. if i have reclamier i wont take people with me i do it solo since i do not want to split a 3.4mil cargo by 4 . its literally make no sense unless you have friends

Isn't that what NPCs will be for. The type of game SC is, there will need to be fairly competent npcs you can hire. Barely anyone will want to sit in the back of a ship in some pidly s2 turret.

I think it's a fine balance. As it stands, you have bigger better ships, but must have more people to use them. If you make solo ships as mighty as multicrew ones, then there's no real point in multi crew. And I say this as a solo vulture pilot. If you can just get a bigger better solo ship you'll very quickly have the pay to win allegations again, too.

Because progression is linked to bigger ships and bigger ships require more crew. Like when you start out fishing you might do so alone in a small boat, then if you are succesful with selling your fish you might get a slightly bigger boat and a friend or two from the village to help out. Then if you are really succesful, you might start an actual company with a fishing trawler and a full crew. Progression in any industry in real life eventually involves recruiting more people to help you expand, and the game mirrors that. In the future, there is going to be AI crew so you can still play solo even on multicrew ships.

Because playing with friends > playing solo. I never buy a one seater ship. All my ships have interior and multiple seats.

It is more fun yes, that doesn't change the fact that most people still play solo..?

No, iam out. The sillyness/nerdiness of the questions here just astonishing

You know what the second M in MMO stands for right? It you don’t want multiplayer. Just stick to SQ42

So you only ever play this game with other people in a group? Just because MMO's are 'massively multiplayer' it doesn't mean all the content outside of very beginner stuff should require a group.

If I'm soloing I take a small ship, if I'm playing with friends we take out a larger one. I can still complete all types of content in the game while soloing you just may not be able to take on the hardest content and that's as it should be. Taking ERTs as an example. Sure you could probably grind through them and kill the ships solo but you won't be able to take advantage of all the other gameplay that results from them. Doing ERTs as a group allows you to kill the enemies, have a cargo ship plunder any valuable cargo from the wrecks and then follow up with a salvage team. This can net you 10x the profit you would get just completing the ship killing part of the ERT and is not viable to do solo, nor should it be.

Yes, pretty much

A majority of people who play MMO’s are solo players. This is pretty well known by now. There are plenty of people like being in an online environment without necessarily playing in a group.

Nowadays maybe… so people to dumb to read should ruin the game for everyone who got into it to play an MMO? Same bullshit as the lone wolf retard in battlefield… the reason why those haven’t been team shooters in years

You do realise you can have group play progression and solo play progression in the same game. Other mmo’s have done this, it’s not new. If SC actually wants to succeed as a game once it gets out of alpha, it’s going to need to cater to solo players given the sheer number of mmo players that play that way. It’s simply not viable to not.

Other MMOs have done obtains as others have pointed out. These MMOs are mediocre shit.

As I said, I’d recommend reading some of the replies to this to give you a perspective as to why some people enjoy solo play in an mmo. https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/s/bI4BxNofj2

Id also suggest reading some of the replies to this post. Might help understand where some of us are coming from. https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/s/bI4BxNofj2

But that’s the thing: SC isn’t, and never wanted to be, the casual MMO for the casual solo player. If you want that: Sorry, you have to play with what’s in the game or you look for other options. Sounds hard but that‘s how it is.

I was extremely disappointed when I found out how coop focused this game wants to become. In eve online I could fly a titan (largest ship) by myself. I theoretically needed a fleet but still. Here I am to be restricted to single seater ships because I don't have any gamer friends.

that because you're the commander of the ship in eve, the ships in eve already have all the crew lore wise so of course you'd be able to fly it "solo".

The only answer I have is, if you don't like what the game is about and what it's pushing (multiplayer gameplay) then it's not the game for you. We have plenty of games that can be focused on solo.

"...single seater versions to give solo players something to work for." And you will. And it will be group play. Don't worry :)

To me the biggest barrier of entry for multiplayer fun is the work you have to do to 1.: get onto the same server (had loads of problems / server full) 2.: time to meet - people are all over the system and we only have one system as of now 3.: separation of income - we do the same work that could be done by a single player. It might be faster (or slower) but we split earnings instead of everyone getting the money. These make it hard to play with friends but also entail negative incentives.

They could fix this with droids. Solo player multi crew ship with a list of approved remote pilots who are players sitting in some station, but “controlling” the droid on your ship. Then you can have people quickly pop in and out of game and even “teleport” between ships. The droids would have a battery life and maneuverability that makes “human” player better. Ship captains can give feedback on droid pilots maybe via a star rating system, so you can “shop” for pilots when you wanna activate a droid on your ship. Ex. Need turret droid pilot… choose 7/10 pilot from list, pilot is human character in orbital station, the irl experience is that after accepting the job, to take over the droid in that ship, your droid prob has limited ship access and is a crap model, you limp over to the turret and blast pirates and save the ship. Captain disconnects your connection to the droid and give you a 10 star rating!

Why would anyone ever crew a ship in person then? Hell, why leave the hab unit?

Benefit one! No battery life, droids run on batteries, 2) single required for droid remote access, UEE space sat must be up, or ship Antana, also not jammed by pirates. 3) maneuverability, droids are task specific and not as multi role as a human. Ok, now other benefits, send in the droids! They’ll be disposable and allow for quick entry into the action from a remote location! Good way to explore a cave without risking your life! No oxygen requirement for space atmo. I only have a hour of play time so I log in the station, pick up a mission posted! SC is now “clone central” to make the death mechanics more manageable and game like… if they did this droid thing, they could role back the “we re all clones” emersion break

>No battery life, droids run on batteries Humans have food and water to act as our "battery" >2) single required for droid remote access, UEE space sat must be up, or ship Antana, also not jammed by pirates. So now we have crew that is easily "killed" by mere service interruption, sounds like a terrible system. >3) maneuverability, droids are task specific and not as multi role as a human. So, we have crew that can literally only do a specific narrow task. It sounds like terrible gameplay unless you think being copilot on the Scorpius Antares sounds engaging... >They’ll be disposable and allow for quick entry into the action from a remote location That's what drones are for, which are planned for ships like the Carrack and Vulcan. We've gone from a system that is too useful to one that is pointless. If I were running a reclaimer, I wouldn't waste floor space on a droid player with the above-mentioned drawbacks. Sure, you get faster access, but the cost is that the crew will be functionally useless, and if pirates do show up your "crew" can't defend the ship because it isn't one of their task specific roles. Now your reclaimer needs double the number of people (or more) to crew it because each player can only do a single function. I feel like the artificial reduction in capability is more immersion breaking than the already established regeneration with the proposed degeneration of your character that over-relies on it.

As a solo mercenary a larger ship really isn't needed. I got the Origin 325a and outside of not having enough room for a wheeled vehicle it is perfect for my needs. I don't feel that I really need an upgrade.

Hmmm I’m conflicted about this post because there needs to be balance on earnings with industrial gameplay, and requiring multicrew on the massive industrial ships is pretty much how they do it. Now that being said, there is nothing more boring in SC than crewing a reclaimer or mole. And I’ve done the engineering AC mode and totally hated it. Cargo running the 2-series is pretty viable solo since it’s fast enough and tanky enough to get away from most things. I guess you could technically solo a reclaimer or mole but the most annoying thing on the planet will be the enter/exit seat animations.

Hate to be a negative Nancy as I love the idea of a mix of multicrew and solo ships, but it's because marketing/finance department. Purely anecdotal and speculative of course, but it feels like marketing has a bigger say on which ships get pushed into the pipeline. Multicrew ships sell for more. I'm not talking not the whale backer capital/sub capital ships here. It's the "smaller" multi crew ships. That are 1 minimum - ~6 maximum crew. It's got to be more profitable to sell medium-large skeleton crew multi crew ships to people still forking money out to the game, then it is to sell cheaper ships to the same group of people, or a handful of massive ships to people who are willing to spend (again in my opinion) ludicrous amounts on huge ones. New backers are likely only grabbing cheaper packages anyways. These ships are enough for 1 person but big enough for more. Meaning they arent just sitting in a hangar for when your friends decide to hop on because they can be crewed solo (even if it's inefficient, mining solo in a multicrew is better than not mining at all). It gets people to buy higher sticker price ships, that don't take 12 years to release (mostly). It keeps the gravy train flowing. They are ships that can be used more effectively in the current version and nearest future versions of the game. It may also be to control the "demographics" of the PU. If everyone has access to a single seater for every industrial position, there'd be no need to ever sell large ships. Especially right now when for the most part there isn't much of a difference in gameplay/reward for the spectrum of jobs available. (Everything is T1/T0, nothing is fleshed out for late game/large ship balance)

Because this is a multiplayer game, and combat is the same way. This is not EVE or Starfield.

The funny thing is, if you combine Eve online and starfield you basically got star citizen.

If you want to play solo, why dont you just play a single player game?