EVE Crews: A lore-accurate* API-linked crew simulator

[DeMichael_Crimson]

Well, been a while since I last posted a report… Due to you saying you were working on it, I had logged out and let the app sit for a while… Gotta say you definitely did make some changes to it…

I like the addition of station excursions while docked for off the books non-essential supplies, very cool black-market aspect…

I noticed you also changed the lay-out a little bit as well, nicely done…

I also checked out the ‘Broken Capsule / Captains Quarters’ story text, definitely a walk down memory lane… I spent quite a bit of time exploring that, even climbed into the dark stinky tunnel behind the plate, lol… I found the Eve Ships book in the stack of towels and I think I got pretty close to fixing the Capsule, unfortunately I picked a wrong text option and couldn’t find my way back to it… Needless to say I ended up returning to the ‘Eve Crews’ ship mode to hopefully resolve a small issue…

So yeah, now for the actual report… Somehow one of my Officers is station side and I can’t figure out how to get him back on board ship…

For his location the app shows the System, Constellation, Region and Faction but not the actual station…

That system has 7 stations in it and I logged a session for each station but no luck on finding him… Yeah his department is working fine but it costs extra funds to have him station side…

Obviously some changes were made while I was logged in because all of a sudden some of the crew were shifted to Industrial Ops Department for which I then had to hire an Officer for it…

Anyway, back to missing crew members, seems there was also 2 crew members on Shore Leave, I did pay for the travel service option which would take 2 sessions… However the amount of crew on shore leave kept growing during those 2 sessions.. What started out as 2, ended up being 16… Here’s a screen shot of the Logs, you can see it by starting at the bottom and going up… At the very top the Log shows I discharged 16 crew members…

Other than that, everything seemed to be ok until I decided to clear out about a dozen level 1 Exploration Cosmic Anomaly Combat sites in a system during one session… My T3 Loki Cruiser has large shield booster with double shield boost amps, basically took no damage yet the TDR listed major damage killing one Officer and putting another one in Med Bay for a few sessions… Meanwhile the ship log lists 1 crew casualty…

Now back when that scenario first happened, I though you said it was a rare incident… It’s happened to me 3 times now… Now the first time was during the 'Time Loop / reset issue which put three Officers in Med Bay for a few sessions… The second time was two Officers being sent to Med Bay… However I gotta say it’s very discouraging and annoying to spend time building up Officer’s just to have them quickly eliminated, especially when there’s only 1 crew member killed..

My original intention was to see if the app is allowing Operating Funds to be generated… So now I have no idea if that’s actually happening… The app automatically redistributed crew members into another Department forcing another Officer to be hired, charged extra fees for a Billeted Officer that I can’t locate or recall back to ship, also charged transport fees for shore leave crew which basically quadrupled itself each session… And now another Officer needs to be hired…

Yeah, sorry to say this but after all that I just logged out and closed the app… In a few days I’ll log back in and check some other aspect of it…

Despite the annoying issues, I still like the app… Keep up the good work..

DMC
o7

[Seismic_Stan]

EVE Crews v1.69.75 → v1.69.77 — Community Update

Thanks again to DMC for another detailed report (post #120) — screenshots and log sequences like these make root-causing possible. Every symptom you described traced to a real bug, and this pair of releases addresses all of them.

Fixed in v1.69.75

Shore leave crew multiplying (2 → 16). Confirmed and fixed. When you chartered transport for a cohort, the game copied the crew into the transit run but never removed the originals from shore leave — so when the transport arrived, you got both. Every completed charter doubled the cohort, and the retainer fees doubled with it. Cohorts now board the transport properly: marked IN TRANSIT at dispatch, removed on arrival, restored if you cancel. The fix also repairs transports already in flight on existing saves, and closes two loopholes where ferrying or recalling a cohort mid-charter could duplicate it. Your 16 discharged crew can’t be resurrected, unfortunately — but it won’t happen again.

Officer stranded station-side with no station name. Confirmed and fixed — two bugs stacked. First, station excursions were stamping the dispatch location from a stale value that sometimes held only the system hierarchy (System // Constellation // Region // Faction) instead of the actual station — exactly what your location screen showed. Second, the recall check that should have let you collect him anywhere in the correct system had a comparison flaw that could never match a real station name — which is why visiting all 7 stations found nothing. Both ends are fixed. No save repair needed: dock anywhere in his recorded system and the RECALL button will work. The billet fees you paid, I owe you.

Fixed in v1.69.76 — the TDR overhaul

“Major damage” on a ship that took none, and the officer losses. You were right, and it took your Loki report to expose how wrong the model was. Three things were broken:

First, the TDR scored a session by the total incoming fire across the whole sitting. Twelve anomalies’ worth of fully-repped plinking added up to a bigger number than one genuine near-loss, so long clean sessions read as heavy damage. The TDR now clusters the combat log into separate engagements by timestamp and scores the worst single fight — a dozen tanked sites no longer outranks nearly losing the ship once.

Second, the tank guess. The TDR was inferring your tank purely from hull race — a Loki reads as Minmatar, the guess is low-confidence, and a wrong guess pushed shield boats into “structural breach” territory whenever local rats dealt EM/thermal. It now uses the best signal actually available, in order: the TANK lock on the Bridge ship panel, then a consensus read of your saved fittings for the hull, then race inference as a last resort. Full disclosure on the middle one: ESI doesn’t expose your active loadout — no API for it — so the fittings read only sees fits you’ve saved in the fitting manager. Each report now states which source it used, so you can see exactly how it reached its conclusion. And to make all of that visible in-game rather than buried in a forum post — see v1.69.77 below.

Third, officer risk. The old model rolled every officer independently every “breach” session — with a full command roster that was roughly two-in-three odds of an injury and a death every twenty sessions or so. Not rare, whatever I claimed. Now: officer rolls only trigger on genuinely rough sessions, at most one officer incident per routine combat session, and — the big one — officer deaths are rate-limited. If an officer has died recently, further fatal rolls become critical injuries instead: an extended med bay stay, not a funeral. Ship losses and hull breaches still kill without restriction. Deaths should now feel earned, not random.

And the ledger contradiction — the ship log saying “1 crew casualty” while the TDR reported an officer KIA — is fixed: one unified casualty summary names crew and officer outcomes together.

A note on crew losses that will still happen. Even on a well-managed shield tank, the occasional single crew loss stays in the game, deliberately. The lore position: maintaining shields under sustained fire is dangerous work — power surges, capacitor regulation anomalies, discharge burns. The shields never dropping doesn’t mean nobody got hurt keeping them up. What’s gone is the nonsense: no more mass casualties from absorbed damage, and no officer ever dies to hazard duty.

New in v1.69.77 — Loadout Registration

Since accurate TDRs now depend on the game knowing your tank, that’s been made part of the fiction instead of a settings chore. When you board a new hull, your XO will advise registering the loadout with the SCC as routine launch prep: save the fit in your fitting manager and the registry certifies it automatically at your next docking, or declare the tank type directly with the TANK toggles on the Bridge ship panel. A status line on the ship panel shows where you stand — ● LOADOUT CERTIFIED (green, with the source: SCC registry from your saved fit, or pilot declaration) or ◌ LOADOUT UNREGISTERED (amber, with a guide in the tooltip). Certification is per-hull, so a shield certification from your Loki won’t quietly carry over to an armour boat. Uncertified loadouts still work — the assessors just fall back to guessing from hull doctrine, and as this whole saga demonstrates, guesses cost crew.

Odds and ends

Crew shifted into Industrial Ops / forced officer hire. Working as designed — some hulls mandate specialist departments — but it happened to you silently with a payroll obligation attached, which is the real bug. A proper XO briefing when a mandate first activates, and a softer leaderless penalty, are on the next UX pass.

Charter fee + shore retainer overlapping during transit. Spotted while fixing the duplication bug; left unchanged for now rather than touch the economy in the same release as a crew-count fix. Design decision pending.

The Broken Capsule. Glad the walk down memory lane landed — and yes, the tunnel behind the plate stinks on purpose. As for whether the capsule can actually be fixed: that’s a matter between you and the flight recorder. I’d simply note that it’s a 2013-vintage capsule, and CONCORD salvage law is very clear about managing expectations.

Your original goal — testing Operating Funds generation. Fair point that it was impossible to measure under quadrupling retainers, phantom billet fees, and surprise hires. With all of the above fixed, the ledger should finally sit still long enough to evaluate. If you get the chance to re-run that test on the new build, that data would be very welcome.

[Top tip for revenue generation: send boarding parties to mission site structures to ransack them (but be cautious with rogue drone sites - they can be particularly hazardous).]

Keep the reports coming.

o7

[DeMichael_Crimson]

Wow, that’s a lot of work done, must have done overtime to complete all of that…

Definitely good to know I can now recall my billeted Officer from any station within the system… Thank you very much…

Just wanted to note that while he was billeted in a different system, he was still leading away missions / boarding parties for off the books black market supplies… I think when billeted, Officers should be removed from the drop-down list of available Officers to lead the station excursion party…

@Seismic_Stan

[Top tip for revenue generation: send boarding parties to mission site structures to ransack them (but be cautious with rogue drone sites - they can be particularly hazardous).]

Very nice, does that also include exploration sites?

Speaking of exploration sites, I noticed the TDR doesn’t include loot gained from Deepflow Rifts, granted those are classified as Cosmic Signature combat sites but they also generate high value loot if a Drone Surge isn’t spawned…

Now that you’ve implemented those fixes, I’ll do another 10 sessions to once again track Operating Funds generation… Hopefully no other issues will pop-up so I can verify Operating Funds generation…

Lastly, I’m still working on putting together an all ‘Naval Enlisted Faction Specific’ crew… Even though I have all ‘Faction Specific’ Minmatar Officers, I still have a few conscript and non-Minmatar Naval Enlisted crew members left to change out… Hopefully by the time I present my next report, I’ll have an all Minmatar Naval Enlisted crew operating in my Minmatar ships…

By the way, I noticed while docked in a non Minmatar Faction station, I couldn’t recruit Minmatar Naval Enlisted crew members and while docked in a Concord Faction station, I could only recruit a small amount of Minmatar Naval Enlisted crew members, not sure but I think that also applies to Crew Rotation… Gotta say that definitely makes sense and it gives the app a very cool lifelike reality aspect…

Once again, thanks for the quick reply and work in resolving issues with the app…

DMC
o7

[Seismic_Stan]

Just wanted to note that while he was billeted in a different system, he was still leading away missions / boarding parties for off the books black market supplies… I think when billeted, Officers should be removed from the drop-down list of available Officers to lead the station excursion party…

Yes, I’m starting to suspect some officers are using illegal cloning technology to duplicate themselves. My XO is simultaneously running the ship and one of my colonies, which is either showing off or a bug.

I’m away for a couple of days so there’ll be a bit of a delay before I can address any outstanding issues, but any further feedback is more than welcome.

[Seismic_Stan]

EVE Crews v1.69.78 → v1.69.82 — Follow-up Update

Back from a couple of days away and straight into the backlog. Thanks DMC for post #124 — everything raised there is addressed below, along with a few things playtesting on my side turned up.

One person, one place

The billeted officer moonlighting as an away-team leader (v1.69.80). Confirmed and closed — with a twist. The station excursion and boarding dropdowns were actually already clean: billeted officers structurally can’t appear in them. Where your officer kept picking up work was the colony away-team roster, which deliberately offers billeted officers as leaders but was checking “at current station” with the same broken string comparison that stranded him in the first place — so a system-stamped officer read as local from across the cluster. That check now uses the same station-identity matching as the recall fix.

Auditing that pulled a bigger thread: every leader dropdown in the game rolled its own eligibility filter, and each one missed something. Officers deployed as colony division leads could still lead excursions and boarding parties from a planet away; a detained officer could technically lead a boarding action from a station cell. There’s now a single eligibility rule applied everywhere — not on a mission, not in med bay, not detained, not deployed, not dismissed — so this whole category of “how is he in two places” report should be done.

The self-cloning XO — it was, as suspected, both showing off AND a bug (v1.69.80–81). My XO running the ship and a colony simultaneously turned out to be exactly what the code did: colonial deployment copied the XO and left the original aboard, with no limit and no cost. Rather than break up a working arrangement, it’s now official: remote colonial administration. Your XO administers colonies from the ship over fluid-router relay — the XO card shows a REMOTE ADMIN tag with the count. Three catches: relay capacity scales with Command Rating (one colony at CR-1/2, up to five at CR-7 — an appropriately skilled XO is legitimate automation); each administered colony adds a +10% relay surcharge to XO retention, itemised in the retention log; and at capacity the XO will tell you so and suggest promoting them or hiring a dedicated administrator.

And since the XO is now officially aboard, she’s stopped hailing me from planets she isn’t on — all administrator comms and colony radio chatter distinguish the shipboard relay voice (“the Mendori III relay is showing me a situation developing planetside”) from a genuinely planetside administrator. The colony ticker labels her traffic XO RELAY instead of CA.

Ransacking and exploration

Yes — exploration sites are boardable. Structure detection works off your combat log, and the vocabulary covers typical exploration-site furniture (silos, storage installations, habitation modules and the like). Your rogue drone caution is well-founded and by design: drone structures run double lethality on boarding actions. Ransack accordingly.

Deepflow Rift loot in the TDR — on the list, honestly not in yet. You’re right that rift loot falls into a gap: combat evidence keys on bounties and killmails, peaceful activity credits salvage/mining/hacking, and high-value sig-site loot lands between the two. A TDR evidence line crediting site acquisitions is queued for an upcoming sprint. (Loot only counts toward Operating Funds when sold — the wallet catches it then — but the debrief should still acknowledge the haul.)

Sundries

• Colony crash hotfix (v1.69.78): selecting a colony with a pending administrator-burnout event could white-screen colony mode — my own lava colony found that one. Fixed, plus a guard so a faulty event can never take down the whole view again. Anyone with long-running colonies would have hit it eventually.
• Loadout registration (v1.69.79): saved fits with a single tank module now certify (they previously read as “ambiguous”), the module-name matching was modernised (post-2021 names like plain “Steel Plates” and “Shield Boost Amplifier” weren’t recognised — likely why fittings detection seemed dead for so long), and there’s a ⟳ CHECK REGISTRY button on the ship panel so you don’t need a full session loop after saving a fit. If it declines to certify, the tooltip now tells you exactly why.
• Tooltip polish (v1.69.82): the stray non-standard tooltip on the XO card is gone, and a CSS inheritance quirk that letter-spaced some tooltip text (Cargo Hold most visibly) is fixed app-wide.

For your Operating Funds run

Two ledger notes so your ten sessions read clean: if any of your colonies are administered by your XO, the XO retention line now carries the relay surcharge described above — that’s intentional, not a leak. And the all-Minmatar Naval Enlisted project remains a joy to hear about; the faction-gated recruitment you noticed is working exactly as designed. Fly safe, and keep the reports coming.

o7

[DeMichael_Crimson]

Ok, tried a couple of ‘Off Book’ away missions while docked, unfortunately my Security Chief got busted and was in custody for a few sessions…

Also did some ‘Boarding’ sessions while in space, unfortunately it didn’t go so well…

However I decided to try it again but I couldn’t access any of the structures within the site, specifically a Refinery, Loading Dock and some Habitats… Instead of listing those, the app just kept listing a couple of shipwrecks I had recently destroyed…

I forgot to get a screenshot of what the app was showing, not sure why but I did copy and paste the text into my computer’s notepad…

BOARDING SIGNAL CONFIRMED — STRUCTURE NEUTRALISED
SUBMIT ANOTHER

Hulk sweep — survivor and materiel recovery — FEDERATION HAULER

Hulk sweep — survivor and materiel recovery — MERCENARY COMMANDER

That hulk is coming apart. Get in, sweep for survivors and anything worth taking, and get out before the reactor goes.
SECURITY
Wrecked hull. EVA conditions — internal state unknown.
EST. HAUL
100K–2.5M ISK

3-minute live operation. Decision windows: 30 seconds each. HULK BREACH — EVA conditions, engineering-led. Consumes 1× Hardened EVA Suite.

Requires 1× Hardened EVA Suite (Ship’s Stores) — source via Acquisition Details or recover from boarded structures.

Since I was right next to those wrecks, I’m thinking the ‘Boarding’ options are based on the ship’s location within the site…

Anyway, my question is how do you get the EVA suits and where is the ‘Ship’s Store’ / ‘Acquisition Details’ located in the app?

DMC
o7

[Seismic_Stan]

Hey DMC, I’m glad you’re testing the boarding operations. It’s my new favourite part of EVE Crews. Although I appreciate it needs A LOT of refinement, particularly around how structures are prioritised by the boarding algorithm. I’m working on it.

At present, there are 3 ways you can get the equipment needed for wreck and boarding operations.

Station Operations, when successful, should have a chance to yield the new Hardened EVA Suite and Breaching Drone equipment items. I’ve already made a note that this should be a player choice rather than a random outcome. I’ll change this so you can send your favourite officer out with a shopping list.

Scouring military facilities in deadspace pockets and missions can yield similar equipment. This will remain RNG, but you can tip the scales in your favour by targetting the right structure types.

The third way (and the easiest for testing purposes) is the dev tools menu, which allows you to God Mode the equipment you need.

[Seismic_Stan]

An extra bonus feature for you to try out. There is now a toggle option in settings that enables AI Officer Portraits. Left alone, the backup SVG images will remain, but toggled on and linked to a Google AP, the early results are promising.

[DeMichael_Crimson]

Thanks for the quick reply…

Ok, I think I understand how it works, the Ship’s Stores is actually the loot gained from ‘Off Book’ Away Missions when docked in station…

And the ‘Acquisition Details’ is the text of loot that’s generated after completing the Away Mission / Boarding Party actions..

Now about targeting specific structures at mission / exploration sites while in space, does that mean have the ship located right next to the structures or actually have them target locked?

I’m still working on getting an all Faction Naval Enlisted crew set up, current crew quality ship-wide is 98% Minmatar with 1% Gallente and 1% Caldari, 82% Naval Enlisted with 18% Conscripts…

Also still tracking Operating Funds generation and so far it doesn’t seem to be looking good, course I can’t be sure due to previous expenditures for officer and crew replacements, I’ll keep an eye on it and will post another report after completing Session 100…

DMC
o7

[Seismic_Stan]

@DeMichael_Crimson

Ok, I think I understand how it works, the Ship’s Stores is actually the loot gained from ‘Off Book’ Away Missions when docked in station…

Yes, Ship’s Stores is EVE Crews’ internal inventory system which can be fully interacted with, unlike the capsuleer’s Cargo Hold which is managed by the EVE Online client and is therefore read-only.

From a lore perspective, it’s items that are too trivial for the capsuleer to be directly concerned with. Currently, items in Ship’s Stores can be acquired from Station Operations when docked, Boarding Actions when underway, and the Dev Tool for testing/cheating.

@DeMichael_Crimson

And the ‘Acquisition Details’ is the text of loot that’s generated after completing the Away Mission / Boarding Party actions..

Yes, the Acquisition Details modal window is an area that needs further development. We need to be able to assign specific objectives to the team where currently we just get told what the ‘expected yield’ is.

@DeMichael_Crimson

Now about targeting specific structures at mission / exploration sites while in space, does that mean have the ship located right next to the structures or actually have them target locked?

Sadly, structure proximity and currently locked targets are not detectable by EVE Crews.

The only source of on-grid activity that exists outside the EVE client is the gamelog. So I’ve had to be creative with this by gamifying the submission of gamelogs via the uplink interface.

EVE Crews uses the submitted gamelog information to identify what ships and structures you’ve interacted with by reading the text file and identifying keywords. It’s an imperfect system that is restricted by module interactions that generate log entries. So weapon fire is the guaranteed way to generate a log entry for your target - but it does mean shooting things you might not want to, like wrecks. Some other modules also generate log entries, but I’ve not tested which.

From a lore perspective, I’d love to have mandated webifiers for ship-to-ship boarding, and added nuance to the capsuleer influence of the boarding action with ECM systems and hacking modules, but I have to play the hand we’re dealt.

So a certain amount of RP buy-in is required.

@DeMichael_Crimson

Also still tracking Operating Funds generation and so far it doesn’t seem to be looking good, course I can’t be sure due to previous expenditures for officer and crew replacements, I’ll keep an eye on it and will post another report after completing Session 100…

I accept it’s an ongoing balance issue, and it’s certainly quite tight. My officers have just taken a huge morale hit because I couldn’t afford to pay them, but that was down to me overspending on supporting my Planetary Industry colonies through EVE Crews. PI is currently a bottomless pit of expenditure, and it really should be the other way around.

If you stay ship-focussed, I think a few successful boarding actions onto high-value structures should make it easy enough to balance the books.

I’m starting to sympathise with Mal Reynolds and the Firefly crew. Running a spaceship is expensive.

[DeMichael_Crimson]

Thanks for the quick reply…

That’s too bad structure proximity and locked targets aren’t detected by the app for Boarding parties, some of those structures should be rich in loot, like Docking Platforms, Silos, Refineries, etc…

Anyway, I tried it again and this time it listed a Pirate Cruiser wreck as an intact ship, took 2 attempts for a successful raid which ended up giving me an EVA suit…

I did noticed a small issue for Session 97 completion, the Log shows I docked in Trytedald, Ortner, Heimatar which was the mission site location… My actual docking location was in Rens, Ortner, Heimatar…

Not really a big deal but figured I should report it since the docking location listed in the Log is incorrect…

Other than that, still got a few more sessions left to do to complete 100, that will definitely be a milestone for me…

DMC
o7

[Seismic_Stan]

@DeMichael_Crimson

That’s too bad structure proximity and locked targets aren’t detected by the app for Boarding parties, some of those structures should be rich in loot, like Docking Platforms, Silos, Refineries, etc…

Limitations of EVE’s API, I’m afraid. If you fire a shot off at any of those structures, that should generate a gamelog entry that can be detected by the boarding party uplink. Some of those structures are quite juicy.

I find trying to board ships a bit tricky, but then it’s what you’d expect, really.

Changelog entries arising from your feedback:

· Fix (session log stamped the wrong location — DMC, session 97): the log read ‘docked at Trytedald // Ortner // Heimatar’ (the mission site) when the ship actually docked in Rens. Root cause: the session detector passes the FRESH ESI location it used to detect the dock, but onSessionComplete ignored it and read the app’s own liveNames/liveLocation refs, which poll on a separate ~30s cycle and at the dock transition still held the pre-dock in-space system. Fix: onSessionComplete now takes the detector’s location, and when its solar system differs from the cached ref (i.e. the ref is stale) it forces one fresh, guarded ESI resolve before stamping the log. Note: touches session-close timing — worth a specific look in testing.

· New (loot-rich structure classifications — DMC): Docking Platforms, Refineries, and industrial depots (docking bay, freight bay, ore refinery, reprocessing/processing plant, distribution hub, supply cache) are now classified as a commercial/industrial heist target and yield the plentiful Ship’s Stores loot the cargo-hub profile already grants. Silos and storage nodes (covert_extraction) gain their own loot branch — crafting stock (Coolant Regulators, Power Relay Housings) plus the occasional ration stack — and docked-vessel seizures (vessel_seizure) now drop mixed stores (rations, medkits, an occasional EVA suite). Previously these mission types gave ISK but no stores.

· Known limitation (structure detection, not fixed): boarding candidates are detected only from actual gamelog interactions — weapon fire or a non-destructive module (ECM, web, scram, neut, etc.) logged against the target. ESI does not expose locked targets or proximity, so a structure that is merely nearby or locked but never engaged cannot be detected. To board a Docking Platform / Refinery / Silo, put a shot or a module on it so it appears in the log, and it will now classify richly.

Congrats on closing in on 100 sessions. I’m lagging behind at 79. Maybe you’ll get a telegram from the Gallente President or something.

[Lucius_Gallo]

Hi, I’m back ! I’ve grown fonder of this EVE API tool more and more. As a dedicated roleplay player, it perfectly fills out my imagination of daily life for my ship’s crew. I even rely entirely on it while writing my in-character fiction right now, haha.

Speaking of that, I’ve got a handful of lore suggestions that align closely with EVE’s canonical worldbuilding. However, I know nothing about coding or development work, so I was wondering roughly how technically difficult it would be to implement these lore-related adjustments?I hope you can help me resolve my confusion.

Fly Safe o7

[Seismic_Stan]

Welcome back, Lucius.

It’s really encouraging to read that you’re enjoying EVE Crews. Thank you for taking the time to try it out and let me know.

I would love to hear your suggestions. No coding or development work required from you - that’s what the AI vibecoding does. We’ve just got to do the planning before and testing after. There’s already plenty on the wishlist, but always room for more.

What’s on your wishlist?

[Lucius_Gallo]

Thank you so much for easing my worries!
My first suggestion: would it be possible for the tool to assign different crew sizes based on which empire the ship hull belongs to?

After digging through EVE canon lore, I found there are massive differences in standard crew numbers across the four core factions:
The Gallente Federation has very low volunteer military enlistment, so their vessels rely on maximum automation with the smallest crew requirements.
The Amarr Empire rules vast territories, striking a balance between automation and manpower, resulting in medium-sized crews.
The Caldari State retains a traditional conscription system with an endless supply of personnel, so their ships use less automation and carry medium-to-large crew complements.
The Minmatar Republic has the least advanced automation tech of all four empires, so they rely on far larger crew rosters to compensate.

I’ve compiled standardized crew figures for every ship class below, which you can reference if you plan to adjust crew-related balancing values:

Shuttles
Minimum operating crew: 1~2 (NPC operated) / 0 (Capsuleer piloted)
Maximum comfortable passenger capacity (no cargo loaded): 5~8
Average post-combat survival rate: <5%

Frigates
Minimum operating crew: 2~10 (NPC operated) / 1~3 (Capsuleer piloted)
Maximum comfortable passenger capacity (no cargo loaded): 10~40
Average post-combat survival rate: <5%

Destroyers
Minimum operating crew: 10~30 (NPC operated) / 6~20 (Capsuleer piloted)
Maximum comfortable passenger capacity (no cargo loaded): 40~90
Average post-combat survival rate: <10%

Cruisers
Minimum operating crew: 20~75 (NPC operated) / 10~50 (Capsuleer piloted)
Maximum comfortable passenger capacity (no cargo loaded): 200~700
Average post-combat survival rate: 5~10%

Battlecruisers
Minimum operating crew: 40~170 (NPC operated) / 15~100 (Capsuleer piloted)
Maximum comfortable passenger capacity (no cargo loaded): 300~950
Average post-combat survival rate: 15~30%

Battleships
Minimum operating crew: 200~500 (NPC operated) / 100~300 (Capsuleer piloted)
Maximum comfortable passenger capacity (no cargo loaded): 4000~9500
Average post-combat survival rate: 25~50%

Quick definitions for reference:
Minimum Crew: The bare minimum personnel required to run core ship functions, assuming no extra fitted modules are installed.
Maximum Capacity: The total number of crew the vessel can safely accommodate comfortably, with cargo bays completely empty.

This data was translated and archived on a Chinese EVE forumhttps://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/37088108; unfortunately the original English source website went offline long ago and can no longer be traced. You may need a translator to read the original forum post, and I apologize for any extra hassle this causes you.

I hope you can consider implementing faction-based variable crew sizes using these lore-compliant stats. Thank you again for creating such an amazing tool for us all! o7

[Seismic_Stan]

Hi Lucius.

Unless I am misunderstanding you, you can rest assured, this is already well established. Hull class and faction-specific crew numbers already exist as a foundational element of EVE Crews design.

Each hull class: shuttle, corvette, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, etc… has a base crew complement which is then adjusted based on the factional Crew Doctrine and capsuleer skill.

The crew are assigned to departments according to hull characteristics, with core departments of Engineering, Security, and Medical. Specialist departments are optional unless mandated by hull type; dedicated drone ships need a Flight Deck, Exploration ships need a Science Department, Haulers need Logistics, Miners need Industrial.

In detail:

1. Base crew per hull class (the “NPC-operated full complement”), split by department:

Class	Engineering	Security	Medical	+ Specialists (Ind/Flight/Sci/Log)
Shuttle	2	1	1	—
Corvette	3	1	1	1 / 1 / 1 / 1
Frigate	12	6	5	2 / 3 / 2 / 2
Destroyer	22	10	8	4 / 5 / 4 / 4
Cruiser	80	40	30	15 / 20 / 10 / 10
Battlecruiser	200	100	75	35 / 50 / 25 / 25
Battleship	500	250	200	80 / 150 / 50 / 50
Capital	1,500	750	600	200 / 800 / 150 / 200

2. Faction Crew Doctrine multiplies that base — your empire-automation intuition is exactly the model:

• Gallente ×0.80 (Automation Doctrine), Caldari ×1.10 (Redundancy), Minmatar ×1.15 (Manual Labour), Amarr ×1.20 (Hierarchical).
• Pirate/industrial factions have their own: Guristas ×1.05, Angel Cartel ×1.10, Sansha ×1.25, ORE ×0.90, Triglavian ×0.75, etc.

3. Capsuleer skill reduction — Spaceship Command plus the racial hull-class skill trims the complement from the “NPC-operated” figure toward the “capsuleer-piloted” figure you quoted. (My own Mamba screenshot: a destroyer’s 22/10/8 base engineering/security/medical resolves to the ~10/4/3 I actually fly with, after doctrine + skills.)

What we don’t have is a baked-in passenger mechanic, but certainly one to consider. I’ll come back with more on this one in a separate post.

[Lucius_Gallo]

Thanks for your reply, I think I explained myself a little confusingly earlier. What I actually meant is not differentiating crew numbers by ship size/hull class, but by empire faction to give each race unique base crew capacity.

For instance, with the same maxed pilot skills, a Gallente frigate relies on heavy automation and only needs a tiny engineering staff, say just 1 engineer. Meanwhile a Minmatar frigate has far less automated systems and would require much more crew, for example 3 engineers. That’s the main suggestion I wanted to put forward.

I’ve attached screenshots of the Executioner and Slasher I was piloting at the same skill level 1. You can see both identical-size frigates currently share exactly the same crew capacity. I hope base crew values can be adjusted to create faction differences

Oh! I just saw your latest reply, funny how we sent our messages at the exact same time lol. Now I have a general idea of how it works. I guess I mostly fly frigates so I never noticed these stat differences before. Thanks a lot for explaining everything to me!

[Seismic_Stan]

What you’re experiencing at Frigate level is the fractional human conundrum. It’s been quite a headache at times during early development.

The way the mechanics are set up at the moment, the base frigate crew distribution of 12 Engineering, 6 Security, and 5 Medical then has the racial doctrine applied. In the case of the Executioner (Amarr x1.20) and Slasher (Minmatar x1.15), that difference is going to be less than 1 whole human, so you see no difference. Jump in a Gallente frigate with its x0.8 modifier for automation, and you’ll see a marginal change in crew numbers.

The modifiers have a far greater impact at scale. Once you get to cruiser and up, that difference will translate as whole humans.

The frigate base numbers are reduced by up to 50% by having max Spaceship Command and Hull skills, to represent the efficacy of the capsuleer’s neural link automation.

Of course, we can always tweak those modifiers if there’s a consensus that the lore isn’t accurately represented.

[Lucius_Gallo]

I get it now, so this is just an issue with the math calculations. That being said, the overall crew capacity figures still align well with EVE lore.

@Lucius_Gallo

After digging through EVE canon lore, I found there are massive differences in standard crew numbers across the four core factions:
The Gallente Federation has very low volunteer military enlistment, so their vessels rely on maximum automation with the smallest crew requirements.
The Amarr Empire rules vast territories, striking a balance between automation and manpower, resulting in medium-sized crews.
The Caldari State retains a traditional conscription system with an endless supply of personnel, so their ships use less automation and carry medium-to-large crew complements.
The Minmatar Republic has the least advanced automation tech of all four empires, so they rely on far larger crew rosters to compensate.

There’s a common long-running misconception I’d like to bring up: Amarr ships actually have the second-highest automation level right after Gallente. Even when counting all enslaved crew on board, their total personnel are still fewer than Caldari and Minmatar vessels.
Would it be feasible to adjust Amarr’s multiplier moderately? What’s your thought on this idea?

[Seismic_Stan]

I’d be happy to adjust the modifier if that’s the case. Can you point me to the lore that supports Amarr automation?

Edit: I got Claude on the case, this was the response:

It all sits under one section of the New Eden Crew Guidelines — “Typical Range of Crew Complement by Racial Ship Designs,” and its “Notes.”

The ranking itself (the crux — this is the data that settles it):

• Gallente: Lower-range
• Amarr: Mid-range
• Caldari: Mid- to upper-range
• Minmatar: Upper-range

The single most load-bearing line for Lucius’s point, verbatim: “Amarr ship designs incorporate more automation than many outsiders assume” (New Eden Crew Guidelines) — the note goes on to explain it’s driven by the sheer size and distribution of their fleets, and that automation stays essential even on hulls carrying slave contingents.

The other three faction notes make the rest of the case; rather than paste the whole page, here’s the substance of each so you can quote the exact wording directly from the source (it’s a public wiki, so you’re free to copy the passages into your post):

• Gallente — the note attributes their low crew to reluctant military enlistment plus heavy investment in automation and drones dating from the Caldari-Gallente War, keeping their vessels highly automated to stretch a tight personnel pool.
• Caldari — despite their advanced-tech reputation, the note calls their crewing “old-fashioned”: a highly militarised society and comparatively small fleets meant no pressure from crew shortages, so crew-substitute automation is less evident in their designs.
• Minmatar — excellence in mechanical devices “but less so in automated systems,” so they run large crews; the note says nearly any Minmatar ship seems crowded next to its contemporaries.

To grab the full paragraphs, go to the page and scroll to the “Notes” subsection under “Typical Range of Crew Complement by Racial Ship Designs” — each faction has one short paragraph you can quote wholesale.

One thing worth telling Lucius alongside the quotes: this is the same document his Chinese-forum figures came from (the crew-statistics table matches his numbers line for line), just the English original he thought was lost — so you’re both citing the same canon.

Sources: New Eden Crew Guidelines — EVE RP Wiki, New Eden Crew Guidelines — Backstage Lore Wiki

Changing the Amarr crew doctrine to x0.95. Great stuff, Lucius, thanks for the lead (although I’m doing some more digging because the info on EVE RP wiki lacks authoritative citations and EVE-Inspiracy is a dead link).

Edit: I bumped Amarr to x1.00, because it makes sense to me that the first spaceborne faction should occupy the median, and it was a little odd that no major faction was currently in that range.