Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

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Raptor34
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Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Raptor34 » Tue, 28. Jun 22, 08:48

Currently you essentially need your HQ stuck somewhere, halting all your other terraforming, pay a somewhat cheap fee for crew training. It's pretty non-interactive. Also essentially a black box where you can't see what's happening.

So I'm introducing a Space Academy concept.
This concept would achieve several goals:
1. Introduce a passive drain on most resources.
2. Allows you to see more of your crew flying around training.
3. Doesn't lock your HQ someplace.
4. Allows crew training right from game start, assuming you have the cash.

A. Trainers
Space Academy needs Trainers to train your people of course, just like how shipyards need Ship Traders.
You'll need to assign one Trainer per skill type you want trained.
Trainers would only be able to train their Trainees up to the level of the Trainer, so for instance a Trainer with 1 star in Piloting can only train Trainees up to 1 star in Piloting.
Trainers would also passively gain skill per Trainee trained.

Bonus: You can assign sub-Trainers who can speed up training, though each sub-Trainer can only manage a limited number of crew. All other points are the same as the overall Trainer.

B. Resources
Passive consumption of food, meds, Adv. Electronics, Microchips, Smart Chips and Energy Cells as long as people are training. There would be other specific consumption per type trained.
Resource consumption would be fairly minimal in order to not impact the economy. And to make it cheap enough to be worth it.

C. Station Design
You just need a pier, dock, container storage and you can designate it manually through the Logical Overview as a Space Academy and it'll automatically assign resources. There would be additional modules required for certain training.

D. Specifics
a. Management
Just a basic station would work.
b. Engineering
Same as Management training, but if the station takes damage and repairs are needed, their skill training speed would increase.
You would also need to supply Hull Parts and Claytronics in addition.
c. Boarding
You'll need a new Combat Training Module where Marines are trained.
You'll need to supply Weapon and Shield Components.
d. Piloting
Here's where the real meat would be of course.
For starters you'll need to add a S/M Maint bay as minimum, you'll need to add L and/or XL Maint bays if those ships are also used.
You need to supply Weapon, Engine and Shield Components along with Hull Parts.
Those would be the absolute basics for training new Pilots, but if you want to speed them up, you'll assign ships to the Space Academy too where there'll be a new category called Training Ships.
Training Ships would be docked at the Maint bays, and you'll see Pilot Trainees walk into them and then fly out for practice. The Pilot assigned to the ship when you assign it to the Academy would go into a Holding Room, which you can also visit, they will remain there until you unassign the ship. You cannot give orders to Training Ships except for Return to Base, after returning and the pilot leaves you can then unassign them and then their original Pilot would come back to take control.
Training Ships would fly around the Sector and flight time would give them experience. You can also set them to dock at other stations around the sector, docking would also give them a chunk of experience.
Bonus Academy wide orders:
You can order the Academy to Battle Stations, where they will deploy all military Training Ships to engage targets within range and otherwise defend the station. Any combat that happens here would also speed up training time.
You can also order Trading Training where all civilian Training Ships would deploy and trade EC, food and meds. They would carry out 1-2 trade runs and then receive experience for it. This would have a cooldown of course but you can set them to automatically start up again.
Engineering Trainees would also board any ship larger than S when they go out for flight practice, this would speed up their training too. Any ships that are damaged and comes in for repairs would also boost training.
Management Trainees would also benefit from trades done by Training Ships.
Bonus: If you supply a L/XL ship, your Pilot Trainees can combo with Boarding Trainees to carry out automated Boarding Training which would increase training speed too. The target would be damaged of course but that would help Engineering Trainees improve their skills. This whole thing would actually happen out in space so you could watch it. This also has a cooldown and must be done manually.

E. Misc
Every faction, though perhaps excluding the Yaki and HAT, would have their own Space Academy, you can go on board to hire high level crew or you can pay a fee and have your own crew trained before you setup your own Space Academy.
Though unlike Player Space Academies, Faction ones would be a lot simpler. They'll have all the modules but probably won't have ships flying around to keep ship counts down. Unless computation impact is minimal then it'll be nice to see Training Ships from Factions flying around, gives more life to the Universe.
And of course this would be a passive resource drain.

LameFox
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by LameFox » Tue, 28. Jun 22, 09:10

I tend to agree that something like this would be nice if they insist (and apparently they do) on a skill system tailored to spending hundreds of hours in SETA. Terraforming to build a school is using end game solutions to early and mid game problems. By the time I can do it I have already worked around the need for it, and no new challenge appears in the late game to make me care again.
***modified***

Raptor34
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Raptor34 » Tue, 28. Jun 22, 10:06

You can actually gain access to crew training relatively quick if you already have access to Terraforming, it's requirements aren't actually too heavy. Iirc all you actually need is housing. Bubble cities work for that.
The problem is you can either train crew or terraform, so it's basically blocking you.
Also it's kinda boring tbh.

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oddible
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by oddible » Wed, 29. Jun 22, 01:02

If ya don't like it just install a mod. Learn All The Things is pretty effective.

Raptor34
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Raptor34 » Wed, 29. Jun 22, 07:52

oddible wrote:
Wed, 29. Jun 22, 01:02
If ya don't like it just install a mod. Learn All The Things is pretty effective.
And how does that enrich the game?
Should as well say if you don't like how combat sucks, just install a mod to remove enemies.

Edit: This does remind me though of how annoying it would be late game to go around replacing your pilots. So I suggest you should be able to mass select your ships and just with a right click to do a command which is replace with best pilot available at the Academy. This would switch out the ships' current pilot with the highest ranking one and just put the old one into training.

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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by xWolfzx » Wed, 29. Jun 22, 08:35

I miss how we can pay credits to train marines in X3. And it also help act as a credit sink as well.

Raptor34
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Raptor34 » Wed, 29. Jun 22, 08:49

xWolfzx wrote:
Wed, 29. Jun 22, 08:35
I miss how we can pay credits to train marines in X3. And it also help act as a credit sink as well.
Well, I don't actually think it should be that big a sink. It's actually pretty cheap to get 4 star boarding marines now.
You can get a 100 of them for less than 100 each of weapon and shield components.
But yeah, I envision that 5 star crew will still be ridiculously expensive but 4 star and below would be changed to be much more affordable in direct recruiting.
Also it would be nice if we can also get missions/contracts to train crew for factions too.

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oddible
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by oddible » Thu, 30. Jun 22, 08:42

Raptor34 wrote:
Wed, 29. Jun 22, 07:52

And how does that enrich the game?
Should as well say if you don't like how combat sucks, just install a mod to remove enemies.

Edit: This does remind me though of how annoying it would be late game to go around replacing your pilots. So I suggest you should be able to mass select your ships and just with a right click to do a command which is replace with best pilot available at the Academy. This would switch out the ships' current pilot with the highest ranking one and just put the old one into training.
It doesn't enrich the game, it solves your problem. If you want faster crew levelling, install a mod! It is that simple. Why does everyone selfishly think that the devs should change the game to EXACTLY what YOU want. They provided a modding engine so all the various players can have it exactly the way they want it. You want something, install a mod, game enriched! Personally I like the vanilla crew levelling mechanics. If the devs changed it to be goofy fast or mechanically easy to train like you're asking, I'd install a mod to put it back to the way it is now. It is that simple, I'm not selfish.

Raptor34
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Raptor34 » Thu, 30. Jun 22, 10:02

oddible wrote:
Thu, 30. Jun 22, 08:42
Raptor34 wrote:
Wed, 29. Jun 22, 07:52

And how does that enrich the game?
Should as well say if you don't like how combat sucks, just install a mod to remove enemies.

Edit: This does remind me though of how annoying it would be late game to go around replacing your pilots. So I suggest you should be able to mass select your ships and just with a right click to do a command which is replace with best pilot available at the Academy. This would switch out the ships' current pilot with the highest ranking one and just put the old one into training.
It doesn't enrich the game, it solves your problem. If you want faster crew levelling, install a mod! It is that simple. Why does everyone selfishly think that the devs should change the game to EXACTLY what YOU want. They provided a modding engine so all the various players can have it exactly the way they want it. You want something, install a mod, game enriched! Personally I like the vanilla crew levelling mechanics. If the devs changed it to be goofy fast or mechanically easy to train like you're asking, I'd install a mod to put it back to the way it is now. It is that simple, I'm not selfish.
We already have it. It's called terraforming and it's boring, cheap and easy. Emphasis on boring.
But hey, we shouldn't add salvaging, or boarding, or anything else that this game has either. I mean all those things are just making the game easier after all according to you.

Edit: For example with terraforming I can get 100 4 star pilots in less than 2 hours with less than 400 each of hull parts, engine parts and medical supplies. Same with 4 star marines but those require weapon components and medical supplies instead. So it already is mechanically easy to train. My proposal would automate it but also requires you to actually acquire your own good pilots/marines first. It'll also be more costly overall though that doesn't mean much when it's already dirt cheap.

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Gween
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Gween » Thu, 30. Jun 22, 12:25

oddible wrote:
Thu, 30. Jun 22, 08:42
It doesn't enrich the game, it solves your problem. If you want faster crew levelling, install a mod! It is that simple. Why does everyone selfishly think that the devs should change the game to EXACTLY what YOU want. They provided a modding engine so all the various players can have it exactly the way they want it. You want something, install a mod, game enriched! Personally I like the vanilla crew levelling mechanics. If the devs changed it to be goofy fast or mechanically easy to train like you're asking, I'd install a mod to put it back to the way it is now. It is that simple, I'm not selfish.
This really is a bad argument. The devs themselves agree that the crew leveling system isn't as good and fleshed out as it could be and accusing someone of being selfish for bringing up a rather detailed idea on how to improve the system is just mean and unnecessary!
In fact, if we apply your logic to gaming, then why even make games? Just mod some older game the way you like it!
What do you mean bug fixing? Just install a community patch!

Katorone
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Katorone » Thu, 30. Jun 22, 12:43

Having a skill system that the player can audit would already be an improvement IMO. I'd like the pilot to have a report that displays their improvements. Why is it that a 2 star pilot needs 10 in-game days to reach 2.5 stars and another one gets to 3?

Raptor34
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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Raptor34 » Thu, 30. Jun 22, 13:21

Katorone wrote:
Thu, 30. Jun 22, 12:43
Having a skill system that the player can audit would already be an improvement IMO. I'd like the pilot to have a report that displays their improvements. Why is it that a 2 star pilot needs 10 in-game days to reach 2.5 stars and another one gets to 3?
RNG I think. Iirc someone mentioned that when doing stuff it's a chance to level up by 1/3 of a star instead of an actual experience system. Though iirc there is also a chance of gaining more than that.
Not sure if they have a system where the chances of levelling up goes up with each failed attempt.

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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Katorone » Thu, 30. Jun 22, 13:25

You're right, it's something like that. And as someone who visits this forum, I know this already. But how does someone else? I'm a firm believer that all info needs to be available in game, without needs for wiki or forum searches.

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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by j.harshaw » Mon, 4. Jul 22, 19:10

This is possible now. Put your pilots in situations where they can achieve things on a regular basis. I tend to use trading stations pretty early trading something lots of stations want for decent prices at low volumes (particular ware varies depending on how the market in a particular game develops, though). Always satisfying when they graduate into my free traders or my combat branch. It isn't SETA for 10 minutes to get a 5-star expert, though.

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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by EGO_Aut » Mon, 4. Jul 22, 19:47

j.harshaw wrote:
Mon, 4. Jul 22, 19:10
This is possible now. Put your pilots in situations where they can achieve things on a regular basis. I tend to use trading stations pretty early trading something lots of stations want for decent prices at low volumes (particular ware varies depending on how the market in a particular game develops, though). Always satisfying when they graduate into my free traders or my combat branch. It isn't SETA for 10 minutes to get a 5-star expert, though.

Pre 5.0 i did not get more then 3* pilot skills with trading.
My new game is not so old, i do not think that it is faster now or that they level higher.

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Re: Crew Training shouldn't be locked behind Terraforming or why we should have a Space Academy

Post by Pesanur » Tue, 5. Jul 22, 20:45

Raptor34 wrote:
Tue, 28. Jun 22, 08:48
C. Station Design
You just need a pier, dock, container storage and you can designate it manually through the Logical Overview as a Space Academy and it'll automatically assign resources. There would be additional modules required for certain training.
I think that is best to have some specific modules for training, in the same way that administrative module, one called flight school module and the other called marines training center module, for example.

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