It is clear to me after watching streamers and those in the SC community dog on the concept of NPC crew, that many do not understand how fundamental this feature will be to the existence of the PU. I keep hearing people say that larger ships should force player crew and that they don’t believe NPC crew should be implemented. They say that those of us wanting to solo our Polaris’s are just “anti-social”. Every time I hear this statement, it’s clear to me how unrealistic people are about this issue. The problem is that the vast majority of ships in the game (pretty much anything that isn’t a fighter or a starter) are going to be off limits to players who don’t have a large org full of people who work the same hours and have the same interests as them. When I come home from work after a long day and want to spend a few hours flying that Polaris I grinded months in game for, my ability to play is going to be entirely dependent on being able to find 5-10 people willing to drop what they are doing to crew my ship for me for the next two hours. If I do manage to find those players, my entire play session is going to be controlled by those players. Their interests, what they like to do, what hours they are able to play, what roles they are willing to fill, etc. What if they don’t want to explore caves? What if they don’t want to rock mine? What if they don’t want to sail around exploring and not seeing any action? What if they get bored and leave? What if they have to pick up the kids? My entire play session is now dependent on those 5-10 people. I can’t just enjoy my ship that I worked hard for in game. The solution from many is that we should just not own these ships. That we should be cut off from these ships because we are antisocial pieces of turd. That’s literally the solution being purposed. So, I should be stuck in a Prospector forever because I don’t want to have to rely on getting 5 trustworthy people together every single time I play, and deal with all the hassle required with coordinating them, keeping them focused, etc. Folks, that’s not a solution. That is a game killer. Nobody wants to be gated behind single seater ships forever. And not everyone has the time, social skills, or org to be able to realistically achieve forced player crews. Many of us nerds are here because we love Star Trek, and Star Wars. We want to captain those big ships. We want something to work towards in game. There’s no point in doing any of that, if those ships are once a year activities, and the rest of the year nothing more than hangar decorations because the logistics behind operating one are so astronomical that nobody can realistically use them other than a few times a year for big org events. This is a game. Not real life. Forcing player crews is going to get tedious. What’s going to happen is that these big ships will not be used often, if ever. And then only by the streamers with large followings, or the biggest orgs. Everyone else will be left out. Most of the people against NPC crews are fighter jocks, who don’t own large ships so they don’t care, nor would want their beloved loot being threatened by large ships able to defend themselves. Or streamers/mega org CEOs with hundreds of followers. The problem is that alienates 75 percent of the player base. It’s not a solution. This game will not function without NPC crew.