Quintet is a
free 5 person 'crew' game available on
Steam or
directly from their website. 5 different people will work together to control the same ship, each one operating different systems on board the ship. Each role is vitally important to the survival of the ship and often compliment each other, meaning a single bad crew member, or lack of communication, can cause catastrophe.
Ships can be flown by 1-5 people, although you have to 'buy' the game for 3 crew ships. 4 and 5 crew ships require at least two crew to be flown effectively but 1-3 crew ships can quite easily be managed by a single player. The more crew a ship requires the larger and more powerful it will obviously be, with single crew ships essentially being fighters and 5 crew ships being Capital Ships.
The ships, their crew compliment and their 'relative class'
1 Crew - Solo - Fighter
2 Crew - Duo - Corvette
3 Crew - Trio - Frigate
4 Crew - Quartet - Cruiser
5 Crew - Quintet - Capital Ship
The five roles available on a 5 Crew Capital Ship are;
Captain - The Captain's role is to not only be a good leader, but a good communicator. Good communication will lead to a successful mission. If a crew member is getting out of line, the Captain can eject them, and when all else fails, there is always the self-destruct button.
Helm - Driving a ship through three dimensions is not for the weak of heart. Flying is not only about dodging asteroids and other ships. The Helm operator needs to get the ship in position so Tactical, Engineering and Science officers can do their jobs optimally.
Tactical - Tactical controls the weapons. It's their job to lock on a target, fire and blow stuff up. Choose that right moment to unleash the most powerful cannon. Additionally, they can calibrate the beam frequency to penetrate enemy shields.
Engineering - They may not get all the glory, but the Engineer is the one who actually gives more power to the shields. Additionally, they can hack an enemy to drop their shields, weapons or engines or boost an ally. The Engineer is the only person who can repair the ship's hull.
Science - The Science officer is the ship's special effects guru. They can tractor beam (push or pull) a friend or foe. Teleport the ship into its weapons range or make a quick escape even through an asteroid. They can also scan an enemy ship to detect their hull strength and shield frequency.
Some of the smaller ships may have certain roles entirely missing, meaning they are not capable of performing that roles functions, such as a 1 Crew Fighter having no Science position, meaning it cannot scan enemy ships shields to determine the correct frequency for the weapons.
I'm looking to fly the Capital Ship HMS/USS Utterly Mad, if we have enough people it would even be possible to fly it with a supporting fleet of smaller ships. Alternatively we could hold an Utterly Mad Free For All and just kill each other to get some practice in for flying together.
Now if you think you'd prefer a specific role to try out first then just say, but we'll likely be swapping roles around occasionally to find out who does best where and also to allow some variety, also to allow everyone to learn what specific roles do and how they're best used. I'd advise anyone who wants to play Captain or Helm to be able to coordinate things pretty well, since you'll be dictating how effective the rest of the ship can be. Engineering is probably the easier position to play out of all of them. Tactical and Science need to be able to work together, Science will scan enemy shields to detect their frequency, Tactical has to set any lasers to the same frequency as the enemy shields and they'll pass right through. Science is a little more difficult than Tactical since they have go keep an eye on our own shields and see if anyone else has shot through our shields and then change their frequency.
It probably sounds a little more complicated than it really is, but I got the hang of flying solo and working on a Captial Ship in about half an hour.