Crew Cost Too High

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

PvP 2 US server Great Britain player. Since there is no competition with the alliances as they are, the group I play with have been either spending hours searching for PvP action or having to do missions. An issue I have noticed when doing the latter is when I have to hire crew almost all of my gold reward from the mission goes to the hirings. Crew costs just a bit too much especially for a player that only plays a few hours when he has the time. Now, I am not saying crews should be dirt cheap. I am only suggesting lowering their cost slightly or increase gold rewards for missions slightly. 

[Fluffy Fishy]

Its been set high as a counter measure to people spamming first rates, The main problem with things as they are is it creates a huge issue with boarding, where you might easily lose half your crew. Its also fairly historical that over a lifetime of a ship its crew and maintenance would amount to around 80-90% of its cost. Sadly the game as a whole doesn't play very well for those who don't have long solid stretches of time to invest, to me its the heaviest down point off the game as a whole. On the upside its easy to roll in cash right now thanks to the broken economy, cap yourself an LGV and do a bit of trading and within an hour or two its very easy to make a million gold.

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

5 minutes ago, Fluffy Fishy said:

Its been set high as a counter measure to people spamming first rates, The main problem with things as they are is it creates a huge issue with boarding, where you might easily lose half your crew. Its also fairly historical that over a lifetime of a ship its crew and maintenance would amount to around 80-90% of its cost. Sadly the game as a whole doesn't play very well for those who don't have long solid stretches of time to invest, to me its the heaviest down point off the game as a whole. On the upside its easy to roll in cash right now thanks to the broken economy, cap yourself an LGV and do a bit of trading and within an hour or two its very easy to make a million gold.

Granted yes it easy to make capital. I have two LGVs and will go after contraband ships. Still the cost of crews feels slightly off. Maybe setting different costs between the rates would help. It just comes down to spending the majority of my time doing tedious delivery missions or hitting trade ships rather than going out and attacking targets.

[Liq]

doctor perk + medkits

[William Death]

41 minutes ago, Liquicity said:

doctor perk + medkits

Exactly, crew is dirt cheap to maintain then...so hire yourself a good ship's physician and buy him some medical supplies and go on about your fighting Captain!  I used to struggle with the cost of crew too while trying to make money off of missions, then I started doing this with almost every ship I sail, and I have no problem with crew cost now, and can even make some money doing missions if I want to practice new tactics (demasting, stern camping, etc). 

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

27 minutes ago, Cpt.{NPG}WillisPVP2 said:

Exactly, crew is dirt cheap to maintain then...so hire yourself a good ship's physician and buy him some medical supplies and go on about your fighting Captain!  I used to struggle with the cost of crew too while trying to make money off of missions, then I started doing this with almost every ship I sail, and I have no problem with crew cost now, and can even make some money doing missions if I want to practice new tactics (demasting, stern camping, etc). 

I will definitely give it a try. Still this should not be the only option or means to keep crews reasonably managable. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

1 hour ago, Liquicity said:

doctor perk + medkits

Yep best thing in the world and on PvP2 it's not hard to find ports that sale medkits still so you can buy them.  Something you don't find on PvP1.  That was a bitch being Rear Admiral with a basic cutter and no crew to man any ship bigger than a light ship the other day.

The other thing is watch your stern and try not to brawl when you are low on armor. If it's a ship that traditionally carries carros back off as they tend to do a lot of crew damage.  If your into boarding Press Gang works now but make sure you board with more crew to limit your own crew lost.

[William Death]

1 hour ago, PolishMartyr said:

I will definitely give it a try. Still this should not be the only option or means to keep crews reasonably managable. 

I used to feel the same way, but now that I have gotten better about managing armor and avoiding taking too many rakes, its not that bad. I can do a Rear Admiral fleet mission and suffer less than 100 casualties on my Victory, that means only a few guys need replacement at the end of the fight with doctor perk (a few guys died, most just got cut up and taken out of the fight for a bit). 

Also, avoid sailing fir or bermuda cedar built ships into heavy broadside-to-broadside combat, they drop crew like nobody's business. If you do plan to fight in one of those ships, you have to be really careful to bounce each broadside and manage bow and stern rakes. Don't misunderstand me here-I LOVE my cedar ships-but you really have to watch that crew count in those ships.

[Stilgar]

IMHO, crew cost is just fine: loss of a ship or surrendering a ship should hurt to some extent. And indeed there are plenty (if not too many) ways to reduce costs of the crew (doctor perk and widely-available medkits are most obvious ones).

[Liq]

9 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Something you don't find on PvP1.

not true actually, i keep buying up large medkits (150 crew) at 6k each in our capital, got 1800 of them by now

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Liquicity said:

not true actually, i keep buying up large medkits (150 crew) at 6k each in our capital, got 1800 of them by now

and that is why you can't find them lol