Suggestion: Crew Deaths from and System Damage during combat + Surrender option

[An Ning]

Allow me to preface by saying I enjoy the combat in the game.

Now with that out of the way, there have been a number of times that I have jumped away from combat having taken massive amounts of damage (same for enemy ships, too), and I can't help thinking: "Man it's fortunate you can't take damage to systems"....but that... actually sounds kinda cool, in a way...

 

The actual suggestion: System damage in combat
Say there was a chat box on the lower right for crew updates... and in combat, when your ship takes hull damage, there is a chance for a system -like main thrusters, maneuvering thrusters, targeting, weapons, navigation - to go offline for 3 seconds to multiple minutes depending on how heavy the damage is and how much actual armor your craft has in its build (with ships that have no armor or light armor-to-volume ratio in the design being impacted more heavily than ships with a lot of armor-to-volume-ratio in the design).

I think it would be incredibly interesting to be in a fight and see "Our engines took damage! Thrusters at 50%!", or, "That blast knocked out navigation! We need 60 seconds to get our jump drives back online!". Similarly, I'd be just elated to see, "Captain! Weapons reports we knocked out their engines! They're a sitting duck!"

 

Suggestion second part: Crew Deaths in combat
In a similar vein, I'd like to see crew able to die when the hull takes damage. I'd like my ship to limp into a system heavily damaged and running on a skeleton crew, having to take on new recruits. Something that makes taking that earlier damage meaningful, even in a small way. The notification of, "Hull breach! We just lost some crewmen!", or "That blast took out some of our gunners!", or even, "Captain, we're losing too many people, get us out of here!", would add just that much more to combat.

 

Suggestion part 3: Option to Surrender
I'd also like some way of trying to admit defeat in a fight (against human ships, of course). A way of broadcasting a surrender signal that might be accepted if you pay them off with money/cargo, might result in you being sent to the nearest system with your crew but no ship, or might result in a double-cross where they take your money and kill you anyways. I just think even being able to have that option would add more to the flavor of the game itself: Not all fights are to the death, you can try to run, or surrender to save a good ship and crew -and the NPC ships can do the same.

 

Anyways.. those are my suggestions.

Edited March 2, 2023 by An Ning

[Zergash]

Damage to Crew would also be interesting to have specialised / inhumane weapons that are designed to leave the ship more or less intact, but kill the crew, making it easier to take over the ship via boarding.

[Kamo]

The Crew Deaths mechanic is very interesting, because the whole crew system was originally made about getting them and losing them, but since we never lose them since crew deaths was never implemented, we're stuck with a formality that end in always having ships 200% ready, and crew leveling having almost no impact 🤔. Also, a suggestion: heavily damaged ships losing Morale (like, 1% for every 1% of hull missing below 50%) because the crew is thinking about abandoning that ship that is blowing up in their face while they're trying to make it work.

It could be mitigated by excess crew quarters space (which'd indicate how luxurious and abundant the ship's amenities is), and Security crew and systems, and mutinies could function like boarding instead of instantly losing control of the ship, causing more crew damage as chunks of the original crew turns into boarders and dies.

Also, Boarding needs a revamp, with maybe ways to board without having to cripple a ship to inoperability (to a point where the main difficulty of the ordeal is to save the ship from being destroyed before boarding is finished). Dock boarding needs to be a thing, and maybe shuttles with rarities and balanced between higher boarder amount and higher hull integrity threshold or that kind of thing.