Over the last few months with the Thargoid War ongoing, I took it upon myself to help create a better multicrew experience for anyone looking to participate from the far reaches of the galaxy- for two reasons:
- Allow some form of participation from afar and for explorers.
- Fighters are, in my opinion, the most fun gameplay and I want to share that experience (Fdev please spend a day or two on making CQC better thanks). I personally enjoy flying fighters most in VR too.
I wanted to take a little bit to help share my builds for this, as well as notes and tips I've commonly had to share with my riders and gunners that helped to make a more streamlined and enjoyable experience, in the hopes that you all too give it a go to try to create these sorts of experiences for others. It has been well worth it, according to the people I've had in my multicrew sessions over the last many months.
Multicrew Connection Stability
First and foremost, thankfully, I seem to have a relatively stable Multicrew experience- so says folks from the opposite side of the world who hop into my ship using Telepresence in Combat Zone instances that I have created myself (Being the first one in them) as well as instances created by others (Joining others in their combat zone instances).
My stable connection allows me this opportunity to deliver on enjoyable Multicrew experiences whenever I can, but I understand that not everyone has stable connections and can create these experiences. Please communicate with your pilot when you are seeing lag or issues and let them know if there are any problems at all so that they are made aware of it– even if those issues may not be their fault if they are not hosting the P2P Combat Zone Instance. At least the pilot will know then that the instance they are in is faulty.
The Builds I Use:
Alliance Crusader – AX – Two Guardian Lance Fighters –
Type-10 Defender – AX – Two Guardian Lance Fighters –
In order to make these builds work, it is important to note that the only turreted weapons are those I expect gunners to use and that I have created the gunner spot to be useful and fun in these situations.
I also prefer the Guardian Lance Fighters because they are easier to use for newer pilots, even if you're only landing occasional shots, and they're like having a detached Grade 1 Guardian Gauss Cannon flying around with you. They're really really good. It's also good practice for any pilot to get used to the Guardian Gauss Cannons.
For Pilots and Multicrew Ship Owners:
First, when people jump in, give them a hardy "o7" in Crew/Team chat.
In order to set yourself open to Telepresence, make sure you are in "Open" gameplay (so there are more people able to see you available) and select "Find Telepresence Crew" in your social tab, followed by the activity you are doing.
To help streamline the Gunner experience:
- Set the first firegroup of your ship to be only the weapons/utilities you want your gunner to use. This makes it so that when a gunner pops in they will immediately be at the first firegroup and have those weapons and utilities available.
- If you do not want your gunner having access to utilities (such as heatsinks/field neutralizer), on your right-hand panel (under Ship tab) ensure that Gunner Access is set to "Limited". You can only set this while in Multi-crew and will not see this option otherwise.
- Make sure your gunner has their hotkeys set!!! You will have to tell them this specifically. Multicrew uses a separate set of hotkeys that must be set in order to work at all. These include "Mode Toggle" to go into the Gunner 360 view while seated as a gunner, as well as primary/secondary fire.
To help streamline the Fighter experience:
- As the pilot, you will need to communicate frequently to your fighters via text. Note that your fighters may have a chat bug that make it difficult to see you've written anything, so be patient and feel free to type things multiple times in a nice manor if needed.
- When you urgently need to dock to repair and rearm, tell your Fighters in crew chat to "Destroy themselves purposefully so you can dock". They can do this simply by flying at full speed into any wall, flying through caustic clouds, or angering a scout.
- In an extremely urgent situation, you can force fighter pilots back into your cockpit by turning on your FSD for a moment. This will allow you to more easily kill off the fighters yourself as they become non-piloted at this time and are only going to drift to you to easily kill off to dock.
- Enable landing gear to prevent your multicrew from going into fighters when needed. It may make you slower, but preventing your crew from taking out a fighter when you are attempting to dock is important.
- Accept death will happen. Your fighter pilots will occasionally not be coordinating with you, such as destroying themselves when you need to urgently dock. Ensure that you've taken care of any necessary things before taking on multicrew (turn in non-AX Bounties, turn in data, etc).
- DO NOT use AI crew pilots, and do not bring your AI crewmates with you, since they take up a multi-crew seat. While issues with this were slightly addressed, in many cases using AI fighter pilots will still cause instances to lag uncontrollably among other issues. Human-piloted fighters do not cause this issue. Though rarely, someone with a bad connection may be causing noticeable issues, that is on them the same way it would be if that player was actually in your instance.
Basic Knowledge when joining a Multicrew:
To find and join a session, go to the third Social tab and select "Join Another Ship". There you will see the activities possible, as well as a "+" sign if there is an available ship to join. Multiple "+" signs will appear if there are many ships available. If nothing is available, you can refresh this page by exiting it and going back in, and just checking it every now and then.
When you are a Multicrew Fighter Pilot:
- Check chat occasionally. Your chat may be bugged and cause you to not see messages coming from your team, so make sure you are keeping tabs on what your pilot is saying.
- Keep an eye on your pilot's main ship. If they are in a dire situation where they should dock at a nearby station during an AX combat zone that has one, destroy off your fighter to let them dock.
- When Thargon Swarms are in an AX Conflict Zone, they will prioritize you. This is good practice for you to get used to orbiting the interceptor properly and avoiding damage, but if anything, flying far and baiting the swarm away from your pilot's ship is still very useful if you see them on you but are not great at avoiding them yet.
- Your fighter will die off many times. It's okay, don't worry about it. Your pilot will most likely not care, especially if there is a station nearby to restock anyways. These are very expendable fighters and are a good opportunity for anyone to use to help ease them into gameplay.
- It seems that Thargoid Interceptors do not react the same to Fighters as they do Ships with certain mechanics. They do not seem to even fire off their shutdown pulse field if pilot ships are cold while fighters are not. This might mean that you are able to fire on an interceptor at all times, even to take down the shield, and you will be less likely to be targeted by Caustic Missiles from the interceptor as well. Note that these are just my experiences both as a fighter pilot and watching my crew members fly fighters, but it's interesting to note.
To destroy your fighter off quickly when you have to, you have a number of options:
- Smash at full speed into a rock or the station.
- Fly through any caustic clouds.
- Attack a scout and let it destroy you.
- Overheat your weapons to an extreme amount. Note that you cannot enable Silent Running while in a fighter.
When you are a Multicrew Gunner:
I understand that this may not be the most fun gameplay when your pilot has not created a ship for it, but I have at least tried to make it interesting by putting decent weapons on my ships specifically for gunners to control. The view you get while gunning is incredible though, and something to truly take in during combat.
- Ensure that your multicrew hotkeys are set! You can find these at the bottom of the Ship Controls hotkeys. An image is posted earlier in this page.
- By default, "Tab" should take you into the gunner view after you have assigned yourself to the Gunner seat. In this drone view of the outside of the ship, you get a 360 degree camera and can fire most weapons with uncommon behavior (some weapons can shoot through your own ship, even though you're firing on the opposite side of where the turret might be).
- Check chat occasionally. Your chat may be bugged and cause you to not see messages coming from your team, so make sure you are keeping tabs on what your pilot is saying.
- Check your firegroups on the right hand side to know what fire groups to be using. Sometimes your pilot may not have set these correctly, but please understand that if you make changes to them, it WILL make permanent changes to the firegroup for your pilot, so please let them know you are doing so and only if absolutely necessary to function.
Multicrew Payout:
It is important to note that Multicrew bounty payout is based on your personal Combat Rank.
Elite Combat Rank will earn about 75% of the bounty earned by the ship- a literal duplicate of the money that is also going to the pilot.
Novice Rank will only earn about 5% of the bounty earned by the ship- Still a literal duplicate of the money that is going to the pilot but obviously not a way to speedrun a newer player to riches.
Get your personal Combat Rank up to earn more from Multicrew bounty payouts, but also focus more on the Multicrew Experience as an experience, and not necessarily a way to make money, especially at lower combat ranks. It is really just enjoyable (in my opinion) to fly around fighters endlessly and good practice for your own combat gameplay.
I probably missed something since I put this together in like 30 minutes, so feel free to add things below. Again, I understand not everyone has amazing experiences with multicrew, and is generally looked at in a pretty sour taste due to many connection issues. Please try to leave those comments out as it is in each individual's perspective how this sort of gameplay ends up working for them. For me, it's amazing, and I'd like more people to help share these amazing experiences if they are able to without connection issues sparking up like I have thankfully been lucky with.
Hope this helps someone.
o7 peeps
