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Steve 66 - Ship Crew Numbers

SHIP CREW STRENGTHS/NUMBERS

Has anyone ever done any work on or seen published ‘Crew Sizes’ for various ship classes? Both Eve novels mention ship crew throughout, from 6-man frigate teams to very large capital ship compliments.

Having read these and various chronicles it would seem to infer that both non-Capsuler and some Capsuler ships have people manning them.

In addition, we come across corpses and survivors all the time when missioning, plexing etc.

Just an interest point really, as it would be nice to know how many hundreds, thousands or even tens-of-thousands of poor souls I have sent to oblivion in a blazing ball of flame with my extremely inadequate PvP performances as I have managed to slip away in a capsule or woken up in a shiny new body...

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10 answers

  • 1

bambule [ Editor ]

Well, here's another idea:

My own RP approach towards this subject is that there is NO crew onboard ANY ships, no matter the size. All ships are solo operated vessels (i.e. ONE pod with only YOU inside), aside from automated systems regulating themselves and keeping the ship operative and functional.

A crew I never get to see, let alone interact with, just doesn't make sense to me. So I just skip this part and make it up this way for myself.

Maybe you find this inspiring. :)

Cheers! O7

P.S.: Btw, I got myself a dry pod. I'm still hooked up to my ship with some finger thick wires, but at least I can eat, drink and smoke now. ;)

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  • 1

davis_48

Maybe there are windows and lights on ships because they were origanlly made for non-capuleers, such as NPC traders and police, but the ship designs were never changed to suit capsuleers exclusively. In other words, we are flying they're ships, they're not flying ours.

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  • 0

ibob

For what it's worth; EVEMON list crew member numbers in the detailed ship descriptions, got to scroll down a bit to see it. And I do not know where this info comes from.

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aragaer
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I checked data dump and found there is maxPassengers attribute. For Tempest: 129|1000||maxPassengers|Specifies the maximum numbers of passengers that the ship can have The only ships that don’t have this attribute, are those released after Jump Freighters.

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  • 0

fluffy

There are chronicles discussing capsulers ships having crew. One of them i recall specifically dealing with a crew member sabotaging the guns of the ship and the capsuler interrogating him upon the details. Which if a recall was done to avenge the death of a mining colony that was blown up in order to get some item for the pilots mission. This one in particular, Lost Stars http://www.eveonline.com/background/potw/default.asp?cid=28-06-10, deals with recovering the bodies of dead crew members. Capsulers are often portrayed as being quite detatched from everday people such as their crew and appear quite heartless.

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matt_12
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no point getting too attached to your crew if your the only one guarenteed to survive in combat.

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  • 0

darinas [ Moderator ]

Why should the crew be excluded from having access to a medical clone?

I wrote a comment on this blog post from Evoganda about how I feel the system should be working. But there are many sources of info that indicate the crew all die permanently, so maybe my ideas are just wishes to avoid the guilt of losing several thousand employees every time I lose a ship?

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matt_12
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cheap for payroll though ^^^ :)

aragaer
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Crew gets into escape capsules and ejects. Those unfortunate enough die permanently. That is written in a comment before yours in that very blog.

Medical clones are expensive for those little people.

harlock
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And some can’t use clones, I think there was something about beeing “capable” of consciousness transfert…

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  • 0

todd ayumbhara [ Editor ]

Prime Fiction (The Burning Life Novel) specifically states that, at the very least, Battleships have a crew, as one character was saved by the non-capsuleer crew of a BS he attacked.

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  • 0

harlock [ Editor ]

Maybe there are windows and lights (are they really windows and lights BTW ?) because it's a game and you want your ships to look great. They could also make the flat and black and square because you don't care about design in space since there is no air to slow you down.

You shouldn't be able to hear anything too BTW ^^

As far as I am concerned (having only played the game), I didn't see anything making me think there would be any crew at all in those ships.

Since you have the ability to self destruct your ship, or let it go alone in the dark... I don't think CCP would want you to be able to mass murder innocents crew members !

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  • 0

draco

First of all, it says in a few places throughout the game and literature that Capsuleers are a priveliged upper class basically. Not everyone has access to cloning.

Secondly, it doesn't need to make any more sense why a pilot would be the only one in the pod. It could be an easier, more fluid way to communicate with the ships systems. Its a fact that a mind can move and react faster than physical limbs. A voice could be synthesized through a ships communications systems to relay commands to a human crew. Not that it necessarily relates to this game, but the Navigators in the Dune series are suspended in some sort of fluid and have their "voice" come through a speaker, if I remember correctly. And their ships most certainly had human crew or passengers.

Finally, it would seem to me that having a Capital class ship completely under the control of one mind would be quite taxing and complicated. To make sure ammo is loaded, operate intricate repair systems on yourself or other ships, control up to 5 or 10 separate drones, monitor incoming damage, analyze incoming data about enemy or friendly ships, etc. Even for a well studied pilot, the human mind can only handle so many tasks at the same time. Obviously, the tech is highly advanced and its reasonable to assume even the humans have evolved to some degree, but this is a hugely daunting task.

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  • 0

qorthas [ Editor ]

well, knowing how ships work from seeing the incarna trailer - that one person controls the entire ship with his thoughts, from his pod, enveloped in protective liquids - there would be no need for any crew members. everything is controlled instantly from the mind of the pilot. with this kind of ships, there is no need for crew members, or space to move around inside the ship. check out the trailer here.

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sarah_41
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If this were the case, there would be no need for windows and lights on the ships. The pilot would not need to move around the ship if everything was controlled by his thoughts.

darinas
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Without a crew, how do you return to base when you have a mechanical failure in the engines in mid-space? You can never replace humans with machines completely, otherwise there’d be no reason to have humans!

qorthas
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exactly sarah, it doesnt make sense having windows in such a ship. however, the method i mentioned is far superior to having crew members.

qorthas
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and DarinaS, this is the very distant future, i would imagine everything other than the “will” of the ship being run by machines. and yes, in a future as distant as eve is, machines would easily be able to execute any manual work, that crew members would have done. if there’s a mechanical failure, there are machines to fix it. and no, with such machines, there would be no reason for humans to live, other than our own will to live, which is exactly why we would keep on living. these machines are not “beings” with souls, willing to work for us. they are man made, made to serve man.

qorthas
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having advanced machines aiding you with everything doesn’t mean they have advanced AI, or any AI at all. the thing about “no reason to have humans” is nonsense. we are, because we have the will to live, and evolve, etc. advanced machines would not change that fact one bit. in this world, you can’t even die. you simply wake up in your clone. with such technology, simple ship-maintenance machines are simple creations.

steve 66
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Thank you for the answers people and the discussion it seems to have promoted. Obviously different schools of thought on this. Personally I am of the opinion that we the ‘Capsuleer’s’ do in fact control all aspects of ship life and activity. However at the same time, as pointed out, we are indeed ‘Human’ and I feel that no matter how much we evolve, we will aways want some others of our own kind around.There will also be some tasks that will always be better off being done by humans I expect.

Lastly… Thank you for the link Aragaer

qorthas
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yeah ok, a good answer :)
personally, i’d rather be in a ship with no one else but me, and machines carrying out my will. for human relations, i’d dock up ^^

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  • 0

aragaer [ Editor ]

Everything larger then a frigate always have a crew. A lot of chronicles are about crewmembers of a pod ship.

http://www.ninveah.com/p/project-athena.html - here you can find a PDF document with great details of all ship hulls (and some RP-only variations as well) which also lists crew sizes for each hull. However, these are not for pod ships. Still as a guideline there are several hundreds of crewmembers on a cruiser-sized ship and several thousands on a battleship.

It should also be noted that most of the crew actually ejects when ships is taking real damage.

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qorthas
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all the info on those ships is fan made. now i dont wanna seem better knowing, because i havent read any eve chronicles, but is it not possible that the different explanations on ships doesnt match? as in, some chronicles mismatching the rest of the eve lore. i just dont see the point in the pilot being encased as he is in the incarna trailer, if the ship is run regularly with crew members. it’s like, either no one is encased, or everyone is (everyone being the pilot, with no crew). it doesnt make sense having one person encased, if there’s a crew.

qorthas
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it would make sense to me that even in capital class ships, everything is ran out of the mind of the pilot, with everything else being automated and run electronically by machines. this is the very distant future, after all. you cannot even die in this universe.

aragaer
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Official chronicles are definitely not fan made. These ship descriptions are semi-official as well. There were also really old eve blueprints with numbers of people for some battleships.

While the pilot is closed in his pod and can directly control everything, he still needs some job done by his mortal crew. While you don’t need to know who reacts to your commands – your crew or some complex electronics, there IS crew on your ship. And that official. And we, capsuleers, are that arrogant of our own crew that we even forget about having it at all.

qorthas
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it doesnt make sense handing out orders from a pod, giving up the ability to move around freely and talk, when talking is practically as fast as “thinking” the orders, when there’s a crew on the ship anyway. being confined to a pod is not worth it, when you just just as well be one of them. that’s why it only makes sense being in a pod, if there are no human crew on the ship. and why does he need the work done by a mortal crew? humans tire out, machines do not. they are not as reliable as machines, when they can think for themselves. there is no reason for a human crew in the distant future.

qorthas
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i’m not saying that it’s a lie, that there should be a crew on a ship. im saying it doesnt make sense compared to the rest of the game universe, and that CCP are ignoring certain facts of the world they created, making a world with ships that doesnt need crew, but then making chronicles about crew members anyway. im not arguing who’s right in here, im saying that, in a few cases, CCP arent true to their own game.

jez
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The pod, as far as I’m concerned, completely replaces the command structure of the ship, giving orders at the speed of thought. While things like firing and aiming of weapons are handled by non-human means, there’s a large crew for maintenance and the general running of the ship that can’t be automated.

qorthas
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why is everyone insisting on having a human crew? in all regards, having machines instead of a live crew is much more reliable, and overall better. in, lets say, 1000 years, don’t you think technology has evolved far beyond simple machines to run and maintain the ship? in this time line, humans have even become immortal.

aragaer
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I do agree that ships don’t need any crew other then technical staff that is located on stations and checks your ship/resupplies it when you dock. However it is official that our ships have crew. It’s just capsuleer mentality that treats crew as a part of a complex machinery. Also, AFAIK, fighter “drones” are actually manned interceptors.

qorthas
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yeah, fighter drones are manned, which i think is weird when they are listed as “drones”. anyway, it’s just contradictory having the pilot in a pod, giving up so much by being confined in a liquid filled pod, when he could just have handed out orders verbally. as i said, a pilot in a pod mixed with a live crew; it doesnt make sense. except if having his clone synchronized requires him to be plugged into a system, which is a little price to pay, to stay immortal. i guess it could make sense, being in a pod…

aragaer
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It seems my yesterday answer got lost to internet failing on my side. Anyway, I was about to say that pod technology is not actually about controlling your ship, you can control it with verbal commands as well. The benefit of capsule is the perception since you can clearly ‘see’ and ‘hear’ things which you wouldn’t able to fully percieve without pod. It shuts off your own perceptions and nothing interfers with your ability to feel your ship and its surroundings.

qorthas
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yeah, good point. and thinking an order is a wee bit faster than saying it ^^

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