What about the crew (part two)

Two more capital ship sims:

Star Trek Bridge Commander definitely deserves a mention here: the slow, heavy movement gives the feel of a capital ship even though this is essentially a very simple mission-based combat sim. In addition this is very much a Star Trek capital ship: combining immense weapon power and other high-tech with vulnerability (computers emitting smoke and sparks at the tiniest blow); also many of the combat sequences in the films and Next Gen TV series do feel very consistent with combat in STBC. Interaction with crew is particularly good here; there's a real sense of actually ordering people and teams to carry out work; each character has a tiny amount of autonomy (the First Officer raises shields when you are attacked; helm and tactical stations carry out their own combat maneuvers; engineering starts prioritising repair works etc.) Combat is particularly immersive - as the action unfolds crew members are constantly calling out status and damage reports for your own ship or the target. Outside combat the game is much more limited. Crew are fixed - there's a disappointing mission when your tactical officer is replaced by a Klingon. Hoping to see braver, riskier or even suicidal tactics I was disappointed as combat remained unchanged apart from a slightly dodgy Klingon accent (I don't remember any Scottish Klingons, although I suppose lots of planets have a North). I played this game with a Game Commander voice recognition set - if you try this, don't use the packaged command set, search for the better, fan-produced file on the Net.

Homeworld: conjures up the feeling of commanding a capital ship and fleet (although no crew element apart from background radio chatter) Much of the immersion comes from the attention to graphical detail - supply ships and fighters dock smoothly with motherships and maneuver to avoid collision with each other as they enter formation.

So what I'd like is to hire crewmembers from Frontier to man the Homeworld ships, interact with them through the Bridge Commander interface and watch them live and work as in Battlecruiser. I don't ask for much...

What about the crew?

I've played a number of space sims looking for a way to live out the space-opera experience (think Star Trek, or even better David Weber's Honor Harrington series). I'm not hugely interested in mission-based fighter sims, however many wingmen you get - what I'd like is to be able to captain a large, complex capital ship, to be able to make both military and non-military decisions, and to manage crew dynamics. My search so far:

Frontier series: allow you to interview, hire and fire crewmembers who have names and faces; they occasionally quit of their own accord; the offer of work on one bulletin board may correspond to a missing persons or wanted notice elsewhere. However we're only usually talking about three to seven crew; and apart from remove the chocks at take-off they don't seem to do all that much. This is also not really a capital ship game as in the Elite universe the small one-ship import-export entrepeneur is king (think Only Fools and Horses in space) however Frontier is the only game that gets ship choice right: it's not about working your way up to the biggest, fastest, blingiest ship with the most weapon ports, it's about specialization and the right sized hull - that enormous cargo-hauler is great for profitable trading routes or exploration, but will be too slow for a high-speed parcel courier or an assassin overtaking his marks in hyperspace. The equipment you need e.g. cabins for a passenger ship, takes up so much of the hull space that you can't afford to be a generalist.

Battlecruiser series: larger crew complement, varied roles, crewmembers actually seem to do their jobs, move around the ship and come on and off duty. The ship feels like a capital ship, particularly as you can scramble fighters and shuttles to deal with some situations. However only bridge crew and fighter pilots have any names or personality and they are fixed - you clone them if they die; other crew members can be hired at space stations but are just numbers.

Both series were let down by bugs and other issues around release. BC should have been closer to what I was looking for but FFE was in fact much more enjoyable and immersive despite the bugs.