Ship Crews - Officers?

Before we start lets just make this clear. The vast majority of ships we fly in Eve do have crews, they can number in the thousands and in the lore they can influence how a ship performs. Read here for an example where a pissed off crew member sabotages a capsuleers battleship as he's ratting (presumably he hates carebears and was sick and tired of the level 4 mission grinding and just wanted to end it all!).

A couple of weeks ago I mused about the NeX store and what else it could offer (just before CCP told us ship skins were on the way!). At that time I was thinking fireworks, whilst Mat Westthorpe aka Siesmic Stan suggested another idea - Officers.

Many bloggers have suggested having customisable crews for your ships over the years. Basically they could work like rig slots and enhance performance of the ship and its systems. They could also bring a new element to the ecconomic side of the game. Hiring and firing crew could be srs bizniz. Saving stranded crew from wrecks could give a purpose to those new Star Wars shi... I mean Sisters of Eve ships we've got access to now. Loot the wreck, salvage the wreck scoop up the escape pods and rescue crew members! It all should be optional, they should work like implants, boosters or rigs. You don't have to have them if you don't want to.

So taking Mat's idea forward, what could we have?

Well all ships should come with a standard crew (as they do now). However, at the NeX store you can buy (hire) officers. These can be placed into the slots on a ship like modules and moved around between ships. They can also be sold on the open market. No real difference in P-T-W than buying Plex, selling on the market and then buying boosters or implant sets. Perhaps they have a timer? Last 12 weeks like insurance and then they bugger off?

Officers could come in three flavours - Fresh of the Academy, Experienced and Veteran. Each being progressively more expensive but giving better bonuses. A few ideas for the slots:-


Weapons Officer - "Fire all the things!"

Caldari - Orders his 'special sauce' to be loaded into the missile fuel tanks - 3%/5%/8% increased flight speed for missiles.
Gallente - Has a very expensive monocle, even more expensive than Japanese designer jeans, for increased targetting - 3%/5%/8% improved falloff for hybrid weapons.
Amarr - Has a barbed whip for encouraging the slaves turning the wheel to do it faster - 1%/2%/3% increased tracking for energy turrets.
Minmatar - Passes a few bottles of beer to the gunnary crew, its like pool, you always shoot better after a couple of cold ones - 3%/5%/8% improved optimal range for projectile weapons.

Chief Engineer - "I canny do eet Captain. I dooont have the poo-er!"

Caldari - 'Set an intercept course!' (or for Caldari Militia ships "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!") = 1%/3%/5% bonus to warp speed
Gallente - 'Fly me closer, I want to hit them with my blasters!' = 1%/3%/5% bonus to MWD speed
Amarr - 'At least leave us some juice to fire the damn guns!' = -5%/-10%/-15% capacitor need for AB
Minmatar - 'Talwars! Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!' = -3%/-5%/-10% to MWD sig radius debuff

Chief Mechanic - "Shiny!"

Caldari - Can use a lump hammer to make a bit more space in your missile tubes = 1/2/3 additional missiles per reload.
Gallente - Has a bit of spare plating laying around which he can weld to your drones = 5%/10%/15% extra drone HP.
Minmatar - Uses ice-packs from the beer cooler in engineering to cool hot modules = 3%/5%/10% reduction to heat damage from overloading.
Amarr - Diverts power from life support, you don't really need those crew on deck 4 really, they are mostly slaves = 1%/3%/5% increase in capacitor capacity.

Tactical Officer - "Shields are down Captain!"

Caldari - Divert power to shields! = 1%/3%/5% increase in shield HP
Gallente - Weld faster! Weld Faster!!! = 1%/3%/5% increase in armour repair amount
Minmatar - Has a massive roll of duct tape for plugging holes in your ship = 3%/6%/10% increase in structure HP (real men hull tank btw!)
Amarr - Increases the ships armour through the power of prayer = 1%/3%/5% increase in armour HP 

Executive Officer - "I'll grow a beard, that will make me look more like a Commander."

The XO is the most expensive officer and does nothing on his own. But he increases the boost of any same-race officers below him. So you need to think about your officers. Mix and matching different races means you can pick which boosts you want. But if you take five the same, you're XO will mean they are a lot more effective.

Now what if some pirate ships dropped rare 'Hero' officers. Very rare and gave an even better boost? May be even split bonuses between the races as they do with the ships? For example a Blood Raider hero officer could give the same bonus as the Amarrian and the Matari officers but 50% of each. So a Blood Raider Tactical Officer could give 5% structure and 2.5% armour HP bonuses.

A lot of ways this could be done. However, is this an extra string to Eve's bow, or is it heading down the dreaded P-T-W path?