Differences from vanilla

Everything on this page applies only while CrewSwap is active: a multiplayer campaign round, Ironman off, and a matching game version. (A different LuaCs build only logs a warning; see Troubleshooting.) When CrewSwap is inactive (no campaign, Ironman, or a version mismatch), the game plays as vanilla. The exceptions:

• the 20-backup count (see Saving and backups), which applies whenever CrewSwap is loaded on a matching game version, even when it is inactive;
• the !crewswap chat commands, which are handled whenever CrewSwap is loaded, except on a version mismatch (see Chat);
• during an integrity lockdown, the save safeguards described in Troubleshooting: the server is held in the lobby and saves still keep CrewSwap’s data.

With nobody switching, a CrewSwap campaign plays almost exactly like vanilla. Most of the differences below only show up once players start moving between characters, or when crew die.

Switching and control

• Players can take control of Free crew members by clicking their row in the crew list (Playing). Vanilla only allows this through the cheat-flagged control command, which also damages the save.
• Switching gives no free rename and never moves money between characters.
• Player bodies are AI-capable characters. Vanilla spawns players’ characters as plain characters with no AI, so a body a player left would just stand there. CrewSwap spawns every campaign crew body with an AI that is paused while a player drives it. Two side effects:
  • Attacks made by players aren’t written to the server’s attack log the way vanilla logs player attacks.
  • Nearby bots react to an attack on a player’s body the way they react to an attack on a bot.
• Your idle character is crew. While you play someone else, your own character is a bot for the round. It gets mission XP and round-end talent effects as bots do. An admin with the vanilla permission to manage bot talents can edit its talents like a bot’s.

Round start, joining and leaving

• With home protection off, players start each round in the character they last played, if it’s Free, instead of always in their own character.
• Disconnecting hands the body back to the AI right away. Vanilla leaves a disconnected player’s body frozen, then kills it after a timeout. With CrewSwap the character keeps working.
• Rejoining puts you back in the character you last played (protection off) or your own character, if Free. Vanilla returns you only to a body you still control.
• New players can switch only after their first spawn in the campaign.

Death

• Death effects go to the character that died, not to whoever was driving it. In vanilla, permanent death and the skill penalty are keyed on the player driving the body. With CrewSwap they apply to the character itself, whether that’s a bot, your own character, or another player’s. (The “Retain Experience” talent effect is switched off instead; see Money and XP.)
• A death never makes you a spectator. You can switch to another Free crew member straight away.
• A borrowed body stays in the world when vanilla respawns you (outside Permadeath). It isn’t despawned along with you.
• Dead crew members come back (outside Permadeath). Vanilla deletes every dead bot at round end, for good. CrewSwap keeps them and brings them back as bots at the start of the next round, with health reset and orders cleared:
  • after a saved round end they also take vanilla’s usual death penalty to skills. After a level transition their items are in the duffel bag left where they died. After a save-and-quit they keep them.
  • after an unsaved round end there is no skill penalty.
  • Fired crew are still removed as in vanilla.
• The round doesn’t end while someone could switch in. Vanilla ends the round shortly after every player is dead or down. CrewSwap holds it open for up to 2 minutes while Free crew remain, and announces this in chat at the start, with 30 seconds left, and at the end. If nobody switches in, the round ends as vanilla would.

Permadeath

• Every crew death is permanent, including the death of a player’s own character that the AI was running while its owner played someone else. Vanilla only applies permanent death through the player driving the body.
• A permanently dead player’s character’s wallet goes to the campaign bank at the moment of death.
• A player whose own character is permanently dead makes the next crew member they take (one that isn’t another player’s character) their new character.
• The vanilla “take over a bot” request is handled as a CrewSwap switch for crew already in the world. Hiring or bench take-overs from that prompt reach vanilla only once the player’s own character is permanently dead (or when the player has no character in this campaign yet). Otherwise CrewSwap refuses them, because vanilla would discard the player’s living character.

Money and XP

• Every character has their own wallet, bots included. Vanilla only keeps wallets for players’ characters, so a bot’s money is lost. CrewSwap saves bots’ wallets and salary settings with the campaign.
• Bots’ money follows the save. A round that ends without saving gives bots back their last saved wallets, as it does for players’ characters.
• Mission pay goes to the character each player is playing when the round ends.
  • On save-and-quit it goes to the players’ own characters instead, because they’re restored before the pay is handed out on that path.
• The “Retain Experience” talent effect is off (RetainExperienceForNewCharacter). Vanilla saves the XP of whatever body a player drives when it dies, and gives it to that player’s next new character. With switching, that would hand a bot’s XP to the player’s own character. While CrewSwap is active nothing is saved, and any XP saved for this from before reads as zero. A character always keeps its own XP.

Saving and backups

• Before every save, every player goes back into their own character, and borrowed characters stay bots. The save is therefore always in the shape vanilla expects.
• Integrity check before writing. If a save would lose or duplicate a crew member, CrewSwap refuses to write it, reloads the last good save, and holds the server in the lobby until an admin runs !crewswap check. See Troubleshooting.
• 20 rolling save backups instead of 3. Unlike everything else on this page, this applies to every campaign on the server whenever CrewSwap is loaded on a matching game version, including Ironman and non-campaign sessions where CrewSwap is otherwise inactive.
• Extra data in the save. CrewSwap adds crewswap_* attributes to each character and a <CrewSwap> element to the campaign. Vanilla ignores them. It also writes a <campaign>_CrewSwap.xml recovery file next to the save.

Chat

• !crewswap commands (the word !crewswap on its own or followed by a space) never appear in public chat (Admin commands), except when CrewSwap is off because of a version mismatch: then its commands aren’t loaded.
• CrewSwap shows short [CrewSwap] chat lines: switch confirmations (shown by your own client) and denials, the 2-minute countdown, settings changes, integrity alarms and lobby notices, and notices when it is off or your client can’t switch.