To put it simply, they are near useless and incredibly annoying. Something has to be done about it. Problems: I got all my guys from mid- to end-game planets, and once taken to a forest one, near a gentle star, they could barely kill anything. I don't know if they are scaling anyhow or not, but I dare not take them to more dangerous worlds, as they'd probably get absolutely slaughtered. Ergo: Help in actual combat = bait that can throw rocks at best. When on board your ship (but also on the planets) they CONSTANTLY walk in the way of your cursor and obscure workbenches, containers, and more. Random crew members suddenly deciding to follow you around the ship when they are not even conscripted are INFURIATING. Them quickly running up to you to report fuel capacity or efficiency upgrade, and then leaving is ok. Them hugging you non-stop is absolutely not. Also them getting conscripted out of nowhere. I have no idea when or how it happens. My guess is that they randomly start following you, and get clicked on when you close a container or something. Or maybe when activating teleporter to beam down. There was not a single instance when someone followed me planetside and I was aware that I took them by accident. It was always more of a "wait, is that mine? Yes, yes it is. *beams back*". Another issue is the entire crew crowding around the teleporter. I don't even remember anymore how its bottom half looks like. I presume this is so that everyone is easily found and accessible if you want to take them with you. One: it looks ridiculous. Two: the possibility of crew actually "living" on the ship is utterly lost. Lastly, most of the crew is completely useless outside of the ship, or in general. It would also be nice if all crew members actually did something. Janitors don't do absolutely anything regardless where they are, though in their particular case it's hard to come up with anything. Possible fixes: Suggested multiple times - the ability to equip your crew members with weapons and armour. Would likely fix the problems of them being combat ineffective. Crew members should no longer just follow you on a whim and for no reason. Ever. If they are in front of a container or workbench within your interaction range (or any other player's for that matter), they should not stand still, but move to the side automatically. They also should inhabit the entire ship, not just the teleporter chamber. Walk around, sit in chairs, sleep in beds, etc. In light of the above, to make conscripting more convenient, it could be done through the ship computer's crew tab. On that topic, crew role should be visible without clicking on their profiles. Adding two small icons to the crew tab could make it work: [+] and [-] (interchangeably) for quick conscripting / unconsctipting, and an icon representing their role. Those two small things for every crew member on the list. Conscripted crew should have their field change colour to indicate that they are your active companions (aside from the [+] swapping to [-]). Finally, the crew's usefulness on the ground: Engineers and mechanics could easily be repairing / augmenting your spawnable vehicles when you are on the planet. Medics could actually heal you (let's say once per 30 or 60 seconds, if you are below 50% health). Chemists could provide antitoxins for when you are poisoned or make you immune altogether (toxic rain anyone?). Actually in that case they should make everyone (including themselves) immune, otherwise it serves no purpose. Janitors... well this'll be stupid, but how about their expertise with dust granting the ground team immunity to dust storms' slowing effect? Soldiers (and apparently outlaws, according the the wiki) could simply be capable of equipping bigger guns (2-h as opposed of 1-h for other roles).
Since there is two similar topics, i just copy my post here. First, i think when you crew is on the ship, they must wear clothes from the tailor and holster their weapon for the most times. Hey, it's safezone, noone is trying to kill us! Maybe there must be event when two crewmembers start arguing, then grumpy black symbol pop up (like from you pet) then they take their guns, look at each other, laughs and put it back into holster. Spacetravelling is quite stressfull activity. And stop them from crowding my teleporter. It costs more then they lifetime salary! Second, there must be option in the SAIL crew menu to change armor and vanity clothes for all your dropteam (chemists, soldiers, engeniers...) and weapon for soldiers/outlaws only. Dropteam should wear their armor/vaniy only on surface (since they mostly like mercs and those guys like to look cool on the battlefield). They can get 25-50% debuff in damage so you will be the main dd on the field but so they can still punch good enough. Third, engeneers and mechanicis (fuell capacity / effectiveness guys) should get more job. Like, you can give them order to produce upgrade modules, techcards and other usefull stuff instead of tinkering with ship. Maybe even blueprints and random weapons. Or let them tinker as one of the options. To keep engeniers and mechanics different - mechsnics could tinker with ship (we chose will they tinker with fuel tanks or engines) and engeniers with other stuff or make their effectiveness different - mechanics will do it hurry-scurry (tons of useless stuff) and engeniers will do it slow and steady (once they done - it will be masterpiece at least) Fourth - janitors can find stuff on the ship - pieces of ore, ingots some times, parts of the monsters - you got the idea
Since crew members can't jump very high, I found it easy to confine them to the lower levels of a human ship with lots of gongs and bongos and video games and such to entertain themselves. At least they were out of the way.
Unfortunately I got a chemist that adds jump height, and it seems to affect the crew as well. They can easily jump out of lower levels.
Aaarrrgggh! That just happened to me, too. I lured them all back down, and put in a horizontal hatch blocking their jumps. Since they can't open doors from below, but still think of them as passable, they still try to jump up through the closed hatch. The result is now the entire crew spends most of their time jumping headfirst into the hatch and slamming into it like a game of demented Mario Bros. It really emphasizes how brain-damaged they are to be on this ship!
