Multi-crew in my nearly 8 years of playing this game has never been truly effective outside of the Hurricane/Old Redeemer for a few patches. I always hear "Nobody want's to multicrew because everyone wants to be a pilot". I disagree. Hardly anyone want's to multicrew because it's not nearly as fun/effective as it should be. I recognize CIG's many attempts to balance this over the years but I think what it boils down to is crew needs different tools than pilots. A capacitor buff just isn't going to cut it. As a light fighter pilot mainly I'm begging you CIG, make getting in your ships with other people the best/most fun thing you can do in this game. TURRETS: Probably the largest issue at the moment regarding Multicrew is the effectiveness of anyone but the Pilot. In combat the current combat rolls turrets feel more like a "Watch the Pilot have all the fun" than "I'm doing my part!" This IMO as mentioned before is because of Pilots and Turrets having the same tools as each other, but why is this the case? Turrets should have unique and special weapons that allow them to do things that pilots can't, at ranges the pilots can't. The "standard turrets weapons" should look more like the below stats. I do understand that a few ships fall outside of this bubble (hurricane, Scorp) but almost all interior multicrew ships do. CURRENT RANGE: No Effect | +1000 Very Low Damage | 1000-800 Low Damage | 800-600 Medium Damage | 600-0 BALANCED RANGE: Low/No Damage | 3000-2200 Med Damage | 2200-1750 High Damage | 1750-1250 Very High Damage | 1250-0 It should be EXTREMELY clear when you're getting targeted by a turret (when it's balanced), and pilots should not to be able to ignore them. Think about the feedback you get when you're being missiled. The only turrets that are semi-scary at the moment are PDC's and NPC turrets that cheat (Aim bot + Infinite Capacitor) TURRET WEAPON IDEAS: - Higher Velocity Lasers (Would be a amazing start) - Beam Weapons - Charge Up Rail Gun Weapons effective in Precision Mode (maybe even make this a secondary on the turrets like a mode switch) - Laser Gatlings - Ballistic Cannons similar to the Polaris Chin Gun I understand that flak is coming and that's a great addiction, but I do believe we need to increase the scope of effectiveness when it comes to turrets in general. Being in (especial a Cap ship) Multicrew ship should feel like home base. If someone gets close without a plan they should need to pay the price when these turrets are manned. Why shouldn't the most OP thing in the game be getting in a a ship with your friends and owning? Lastly, to make the ship's Idris Front Gun more balanced, why not redesign it so it's fixed with a solo pilot and gimballed with a co-pilot? This still allows the pilot to use it but then gives the opportunity to create a better multi-crew experience. MULTICREW SHIELDS: Capital ships especially have way WAY too fast regen. I personally would trade this for x2 or even x2.5 of the current health they have and make the regen SLOW. 10-15 mins (for cap ships) outside of combat. Make them feel like a proper boss battle where taking the shields down actually matters. Capital ships will have to choose if they want to stay engaged potentially risking component damage or if they need to temporarily retreat to recoop shields. For larger ships like the Hammer Head it could be 3-5 mins and scale down for Connies and then all the way down to light fighters would have regen as we have it today but with turrets buffed they would feel squishier. From there Engineers could maybe "work" on the shields to get them back faster, but I'd argue outside of PvP there are extremely common natural pause points between combat so these change would really only effect PvP unless PvE becomes much more effective. ENGINEERING: I have no idea what engineering holds, but personally based on the test CIG showed off last year in AC I am very worried it will make multicrew less fun overall in the long run. Engineering should be dynamic, good engineers should sway fights. Who will be your engineers? Probably your turret gunners, or at least they will supplement when repairs when damage is really heavy. Turrets, pdcs, shield emitters, ect. should be able to be destroyed by enemies and repaired mid combat. I'd hope there's a way an engineer can balance shields mid fight (without losing shields) by redirecting them. My main question is: Is it fun? Are you guys who are designing it having a blast? Does it make you want to do it again tomorrow? Making it harder for solo's to fly capital ships might be a goal of engineering, but fun should be #1 imo. MULTICREW POSITIONS: Here's a few ideas for fun multicrew positions, not that all of these would fit every ship. But the idea is make getting on a ship with other people feel fun and effective. Pilots shouldn't have every tool to their disposal. 1) Radar Station | Get's a long range scanner (50KM-100KM maybe) where you get clues for minables, salvage, ships and loot by sending out pings. (Still leaving room for specialized scanning ships that should see details from farther away) 2) PDC Station | A 3D overview of the ship highlighting incoming missiles, torps, ships and lets you the player select and prioritize them. IMO you should only be able to target ships from this position. PDC's shouldn't be able to target ships otherwise and should only shoot incoming missiles, torps, and bombs. 3) Shield Balancing Station | Mentioned above, a station that allows a co-pilot or maybe and engineer to balance shields on the fly in combat. 4) Torp Station | Let players TVI control torps in 1 at a time on the Polaris only. Give that ship something special for a dedicated seat. Also we're not likely to get more than 5 cap ships by 1.0 if we're lucky, so why not make each capital ship unique and balanced to compliment each other? 5) Bomber Station | Ever play HellDivers? Let a co-pilot only precision control bombs as they drop in, and even detonate early if desired. 6) Refueling Station (for Capital Ships) | Let us at least manually refuel light fighters on our capital ships mid combat, I think this was mentioned as planned in the Liberator Q&A but refueling from any cap ship should a thing. Even if you have to buy a commodity and it must be on the cargo grid or you have to hook it up manually. CONCLUSION: Multicrew needs to be 10x more fun than it is today. I realize some of these ideas would take significant time to implement and if they don't work for the vision you're creating then fine. Just make steps in these directions. Multicrew needs some seriously love and if this game is going to be an MMO then it needs to be one of the most fun things you can do in the game. Thanks for reading!