Characterising a DPS Race: The concept of a DPS race is simple with two main factors: Damage per second output (either to ship HP, shield, armour or components) and survivability (health, armour, ability to put out fires and repair etc). This concept has a significant impact on how groups allocate manpower and crew ships for the most effective arrangement in combat. It is important to note that player manpower is the most valuable resource in game, and it is expected that most groups will inevitably find ways to cover the funding to maintain the most effective use of this resource. This section will use the Anvil Paladin and the RSI Polaris as examples to illustrate that there is no incentive to fully man multi-crew ships in Star Citizen and look at the threat of NPC crew members in escalating this issue. Part A - The Problem - Anvil Paladin(s) The Paladin is a gunship with 4 x size 4 and 4 x size 5 weapons. It has a maximum crew size of 4; one pilot and three gunners controlling the central turret and the two side turrets. One of the gunners controls the quad size 5 remote turret, and the other two control the left and right remote turrets with dual size 4 guns. It is worth noting that the Pilot is able to take control of both the left and right remote turrets when those stations are not crewed (albeit with less effectiveness), but for illustrative purposes only manned remote turrets will count towards the ship’s DPS in this analysis. From an objective standpoint the most effective arrangement to win a DPS race is two Paladins with 2 crew instead of one fully crewed Paladin. Not only do two Paladins put out more DPS and have more combined survivability to wear down, but they also have the benefit of being able to attack from two angles and split incoming fire from enemies. Furthermore, two Paladins are able to get more firepower on target consistently and maintain a better defensive structure, as each pilot only has to position for one turret, and the ships can be flown to create overlapping fields of fire (figure 2.1, 2.2). Figure 2.1 (LEFT): A single, fully crewed Paladin can only hit targets with 2 x size 4s and 4 x size 5s from the sides and is only able to get all guns on a target directly in front or to the rear of the ship. Figure 2.2 (RIGHT): Two Paladins at a z-axis offset are able to hit targets from almost any angle with 8 x size 5s. Part B - The Problem – RSI Polaris In this example, the Polaris is a capital class multi-crew vessel with space for 13 players. 1 pilot, 1 co-pilot, 1 captain, 7 turret gunners, an engineer and a pilot for a ship in the hangar. However, the turrets have an uneven distribution of firepower, and most of the ships damage output can be operated by 3 people (dual size 6 gunner also controlling torpedos and 2 x quad size 4 turret gunners). In a configuration of a pilot, 3 gunners and an engineer you are able to crew two Polaris and one ship in a hangar and again achieve more firepower and double the survivability with all the benefits of spreading firepower between two ships compared to bringing one Polaris fully crewed. You are also able to saturate a target with twice the torpedos in a single barrage. Part C - The Problem Escalates with NPC Crew A highly requested feature from many multi-crew ship owners; NPC crew has the potential to create an unhealthy meta of hordes of large ships crewed by a minimal number of players that smothers any attempt to fully crew ships and be effective. The intent is nice, with the idea of enabling solo players or small groups to fill gaps in their ship in the game without relying on other players. However, any tool a solo player or small group can use, a larger group can use as well. Even if NPCs are less efficient and effective than players, as long as an NPC crew member can shoot a turret and occasionally hit a target the benefit of bringing n ships with mediocre gunners outweighs the benefits of having 1 ship with n players. A good example of this is the Aegis Hammerhead. The Hammerhead has 8 critical slots for a pilot, 6 gunners and an engineer. By replacing only the turret gunners with NPCs a group is now able to field 4 hammerheads albeit with reduced turret accuracy/output. With an NPC engineer as well this goes up to 8 hammerheads. Mediocre gunners do not compensate for the drastic increase in overall firepower and survivability, or the positioning advantages of a group of ships over a single ship. Part D - Potential and In-development Solutions A key part to solving this issue is in reducing the disparity in the firepower given to different positions on a ship that share the same role. The first and easier solution is to give stations different roles so that an equal DPS comparison is irrelevant. The second solution is to up-gun and/or down-size stations that share the same purpose, with consideration to how effective that station is at applying the DPS potential it has (e.g. firing angles). Consider the example used in this section – the Anvil Paladin. A side turret gunner currently shares the same purpose as the top turret gunner, but with less effective firing angles and a third of the DPS. Using the first option, if the stations were changed to be effective against different targets, where the top turret is effective against large targets only, but the side turrets were effective against fighters, then the DPS cannot be functionally compared. Using the second solution, the top turret could be down-sized to use 2 x size 5 weapons instead of 4, and the two side turrets could be up-gunned to fire 2 x size 5 weapons instead of 2 x size 4s. Remove the ability for the pilot to control the side turrets and now every gunner feels significant. It is worth noting this still gives the top gunner a little more effective DPS based on the firing angles, but in this case would offer a lot more parity. This would also reduce the effectiveness of running 2 duo crewed Paladins, as a single fully crewed paladin would offer more firepower (6 x size 5 vs 4 x size 5) and if a crew member was engaged with damage control a fully crewed Paladin would still be able to maintain mobility and a level of firepower equal to that of 2 duo crewed Paladins. An example of good firepower distribution is the RSI Perseus, with both large ship-to-ship weapon stations controlling the same level of firepower, and the smaller turrets having a different purpose of fending off incoming ordnance and fighters (albeit suffering from the ineffectiveness of turrets against fighters problem). The only station that still faces some issue is the pilot, where being able to control the torpedoes and the top defensive remote turret makes dedicated crew for these positions less relevant. A second part of this issue is in balancing ship DPS per person for ships with similar roles. Using the Anvil Paladin and the Constellation Andromeda as an example (both are medium gunships); the Andromeda has 4 x size 5 weapons operated by the pilot, meaning the four players in a Paladin with 4 x size 5 weapons and 4 x size 4 weapons could be better utilised in 4 x Andromedas with a total of 16 x size 5 weapons. In this example the issue could be solved by a combined approach of making turreted weapons significantly more effective in their role than pilot-controlled weapons and by redistributing firepower on the unbalanced ship(s). It is worth noting that any turret related improvements would have to be significant enough to offset the benefits of n number of ships versus a ship with n number of crew though. With more ships come the benefits of group tactics (positioning, tag teaming, flanking, splitting fire, covering each other's blind spots etc), more combined ordnance and more combined shield and hull health. Feel free to suggest any more potential solutions! I love Star Citizen and I want to see it continue to improve and grow. These ideas are shared with the intent to try and inspire thought in a positive direction. I do think that a lot of consideration needs to be made earlier rather than later to plan out a healthy balance in game. Even if some mechanics are not in-game yet, many of them can be either modelled, considered and scrutinised to try and ensure a good trajectory. Please feel free to criticise any part of this write-up, but if you do, please also include what you think a better solution would be. PS. I know this topic has already been discussed in one form or another, but my goal is to keep the discussion going, keep it fresh in the minds of the devs that read these posts, and potentially offer up new and useful ideas.