Captain Loadout Presets

[Wundsalz]

One of the major reasons why the Lobbies of Icarus last as long as they do are picky pilots who need time to convince their crew to bring a viable crew-loadout. Lobbies are occasionally prolonged a lot by that one guy who is neither responsive to voice- nor to text chat including pms. Sometimes these issues are language related as a player might outright not understand the requests made by the captain; Other unresponsive players might be tabed out of the game and miss a ship change and then there are those who struggle with the UI and think they have adjusted their equipment but didn't do so as they hit the back button instead of the customization complete button after changing their loadout.
I think all of these issues can be addressed by introducing a system which fulfills two requirements: 1.) Provide the captain with a more powerful and intuitive way to communicate their loadout suggestion than text- or voice chat and 2.) Make players actively disagree with loadout suggestions rather than actively agree like they have to now (by manually adjusting their loadouts in the crew menu).

Here's a concept for a system which fulfills these requirements:
- Let pilots to define crew-loadout presets for their ship builds (which can be set in the ship-building-menu). Ideally a short description for the role can be set here as well.
- If a player joins the crew, let him see a pop-up with up to 4 options: the suggested crew loadouts and a "join with own loadout" button.
- If a player picks a pre-set loadout, remove that option from the selection pop-up.
- If a player leaves the match add the role he selected to the pop-up menu again.
- Allow players to repick their role
- If a player adjusts their loadout in the crew-loadout menu add the role he selected to the pop-up menu again if 3 or more tools have been changed. This allows minor, matchspecific adjustments.
- If the captain changes the ship, let the crew re-select their loadout from the pop-up menu.
- If a player doesn't select an option from the pop-up menu within a given time span (20-30s?) select the option which is closest to the players current loadout and has not been taken by another player yet.
- Allow captains to remove crew-loadout options from the pop-up menu. This is to deal with players who have chosen the "join with own loadout"-option
- infrom the crew about loadout changes in text-chat

[Hoja Lateralus]

I actually think that experienced player do this subconciously, without any UI for it and, what is more important, it would make the game even more confusing for the new players.

[Wundsalz]

What's confusing about "Your captain want you to bring one of these 3 loadouts. Pick one!"? Currently new players need to be explained in detail what to bring... I stoped counting how often I've recited "pick greased rounds please, the ammunition with the 3 bullet-icon." or "No you've still got your mallet, chem, extingusiher loadout. Please make sure to hit the customization complete button after adjusting your loadout to save them".

[Tanya Phenole]

This idea is amasing , Wundz!
It would also make the communication with crew easier for starting pilots.

[HamsterIV]

Just playing devils advocate here, but what about the troll who insists his crew bring complete garbage then abandons the ship mid game?

[Omniraptor]

Well, ideally the matchmaking system takes care of that. troll would get punished automatically for quitting mid-game, and their hapless teammates would not get punished for losing because their team now has less players.

It's all things that should be coded in, I posted a link about it in the compromises thread.

[Hoja Lateralus]

What's confusing about "Your captain want you to bring one of these 3 loadouts. Pick one!"?

Potentially nothing, but a complete greenhorn could see that this way:
"Okay, I joined some match and I'm in a crew. Um, what's that. Er... I don't know, I will choose this (total random). Why my equipment is changed (every match)? What are those tools/ammunition?"

It's a really strange issue for me, because I personally didn't have much problems with learning the game, but I see more and more people that do. I think this problem may be solved through better (mandatory) tutorials and/or feedback from experienced players. I've already posted about it - clans should have (better) tools to help unexperienced players.

[Captain Smollett]

One of the major reasons why the Lobbies of Icarus last as long as they do are picky pilots who need time to convince their crew to bring a viable crew-loadout. Lobbies are occasionally prolonged a lot by that one guy who is neither responsive to voice- nor to text chat including pms. Sometimes these issues are language related as a player might outright not understand the requests made by the captain; Other unresponsive players might be tabed out of the game and miss a ship change and then there are those who struggle with the UI and think they have adjusted their equipment but didn't do so as they hit the back button instead of the customization complete button after changing their loadout.

This is the major issue that prevents lobbies from starting expeditiously.  I'm not certain this is the exact solution but some way for the pilot to set or communicate the tool loadouts to his crew is necessary.

[Neithrantulre]

Why not an unskippable intro video that runs the first time you run the game and gives you an overview of how the UI works?