Mithfindel
Aseyakone
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Posted - 2010.03.01 21:29:00 -
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I do believe that during one of the Alliance tournament, the ISD reporters (ISD = CCP volunteer helpers) "interviewed" a crewmember on a Purifier-class stealth bomber. If that is not "Prime Fiction" enough, then the Empyrean Age novel does also show at least two capsuleers with crew - a Sarumite whose name I can't remember with a Prophecy and then Jamyl Sarum's Abaddon (which was mentioned to lose its crew when the superweapon jury rigged on it slightly malfunctioned when aunt Jamyl fried some Minmatar). The way I understood it was that the Abaddon lost most of its survivability with the crew, but Jamyl kept it for appearance, since the rest of the Minmatar were in a full rout, anyway. Naturally, most of the ships can "be fit" with passenger cabins to carry more people on board, the only limit is that people cannot enter Planck bubbles (cargo compression facilities, i.e. containers).
Of course, the book does also give an example - the only one known to the characters - of a ship with no crew. I understand that it was a one-off science vessel class built to study the EVE gate. For that purpose, it could not have a crew, because the electromagnetic interference radiating from the gate would kill most crews not protected by a capsule, and the gains for the project greatly outweighted the costs of building a completely automatized ship - the cost, of course, is that (my interpretation) the said ship likely couldn't be serviced anywhere else except the yards it was built on, or someone with the know-how. And if something that the automated systems cannot deal with breaks down, the pod pilot must climb out of his pod and repair it himself (which must be terribly practical if it happens in combat, as the ship will be a sitting duck without the capsuleer).
Then, why do capsuleers require skills to operate ships and modules? There are two very common interpretations of this: First one is that the skills would represent a kind of a license test to operate the systems. The other and more satisfactory explanation is that the capsuleer must be able to wire his brain to command the systems, since systems activation happens over the neural interface. That's why cadets fresh from the academy know just by just the basic maneuvers, targeting, firing basic weapons and warping. Without the capability to neurally operate the systems that are expressly built to be neurally operated the capabilities of the ship would be likely completely lost. Technically, there could be some fallback systems, but if you're expecting to actually need your systems, for example a weapon, you won't like it if your gun crews need to operate their weapons by eyesight or secondary systems. Very likely the capsule-integrated command and control systems are built with failsafes to reject equipment that the capsuleer's brain cannot operate, possibly to prevent brain damage. And before someone says that the pod doesn't have failsafes - oh boy, CONCORD tracks capsuleer crimes by a backdoor in the pod. It's good to remember that the pod is Jovian technology (=magic). The other empires use it, but don't necessarily understand it. Ishukone has built a lot - from a Jovian BPO.
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