After thinking more about this system and discussing it with TP, I have decided to simplify my original officer system proposal.
Let's say that the game at hand is going to be something like Diablo in space. If ship upgrades are the equivalent of weapons and armor, than the officers are the equivalent (more or less) of the character's attributes. Just as a character's attributes will affect the chance of hitting, damage done, armor class, etc., so the individual crew members skills will affect the efficiency of ship systems.
The following are proposed changes to the original proposal:
Officer selection will be carried out at the beginning of the game, in the "character creation" phase, so to speak. The player will have the choice of a number of officers for each position, each with different strengths and weaknesses. These officers will remain with the player for the remainder of the game.
Each player will have the same choice of officers—since there will be no releasing, hiring or trading of officers, overlap is not a problem. And, since the same officers will be available to each player, it should not be too difficulty to make anywhere from five to ten officers for each position. Even with only five officers for each position, there would be enough combinations to play one game each day with a different combination for eight and a half years.
I had originally thought of having each officer gain a level as the captain (player) gains a level, but TP came up with a better idea. With each level, the player would gain a number of "officer points" to spend on improving the various officers.
Using this system, there are two options for using officer points. One option would be to have a one-to-one relationship between officer points and officer levels. In other words, each point you spent on an officer would raise that officer one level. This would allow the player to concentrate on particular areas at the expense of others, and level progression would continue at the same rate throughout the game.
Another option would be to have officer levels cost an increasing number of officer points the higher the level. In other words, officer level 2 (officers would start at level 1) would cost 1 officer point, officer level 3 would cost 2 points, etc. This would make higher levels more difficult to achieve, and would likely lead to a more even progression of officer levels, with higher levels coming at a greater cost.
I'd like to revisit the crew members I introduced in the original officer system proposal, and discuss them in a bit more detail. I will not repeat the background information here.
The above information obviously makes a lot of assumptions about game mechanics. The system should be flexible enough to be adapted to the final game mechanics, whatever they may be. The numbers given above are just rough figures, and may be adjusted as necessary.
Submitted by Suho1004