I've been doing some overthinking, and imagined a spaceship where there is actually somebody setting the crew's priorities and sometimes giving specific commands like assigning a job, prepare hyperjump, or the draft commands. How would that happen? There could certainly be a captain sitting in one the ship's rooms monitoring a bunch of video screens and issuing orders via intercom. It is also not much of a stretch to pick out one of the crew and decide "This one is the captain." Named after yourself. That crew member could have cybernetics that let them observe the ship and give commands remotely.
Perhaps it was from watching the anime The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye that I considered that a
ship's AI can do all of these things, and wouldn't show up as a physical crew member. Makes a convenient fit in my mind, but Space Haven never makes that out to be a fact of the game. I believe that is for the better, as we are allowed to roleplay as the officer in command of the ship.
Now to recent news. At present, the crew of Space Haven ships conduct their priorities, schedules, jobs, and drafts unquestioningly until they drop unconscious from exhaustion. They never disobey direct orders, rebel, or defect. My kind and benevolent self gives them time each day to rest and mostly recover their energy, but there are several jobs where the guy chronically falling asleep on the spot causes no harm, they just work slow. As of DevBlog #38 that will not always be the case. Environmental conditions and mood/needs issues can cause crew to neglect their tasks, cause accidents, and/or start fights. I consider these excellent additions to the game. Once a ship or two are fully constructed and armed, the game gets pretty easy. At some point, depending on abundance of resources encountered, we can just start flying through systems without stopping for anything, and totally annihilating any pirates in the way. Or we can declare war against everyone and go about collecting all of their crews. Star systems along down the line have no challenge or threat. It's the first several where I have to flee pirates and genuinely worry for resources. These environmental hazards and the opinions of my crew are new levers to present challenges that could become dour, even for fully staffed and armed fleets.
So back to the player. In some situations we'll temporarily lose control of our crew. Omniscience spoiled. Is it their captain, commander, AI, or despot they ignore?
