You could just go to evelopedia and search for crew but....
1) You are right, it is expensive. Then again we are insanely rich. The story, "Khadrea" tells us that six million Amamake credits at current exchange rates amounts to 3,600 ISK. So you can hire a lot of people and pay them well (or their families should they die) for what is less than pocket change to capsuleers.

2) Capsule only eliminates bridge crew. You will still need mechanics, engineers, people working on the guns (one chronicle -All these lives are fit to ruin - had a crewman sabotaging the turret loading mechanisms resulting in the ships destruction), monitoring the powerplant (fission/fusion/graviton/antimatter reactors), engine maintenance and so on. Even frigates tend to have one or two crewmen on top of the capsuleer, altough they can be operated just by a capsuleer if needed. The bigger the ship, the more crew it will need. Carriers for example would need extra people to maintain the fighters, and titans would need people to maintain the doomsday weapon, the jump bridge systems and host of other things on such a massive ship.

3) The reason capsuleer ships are superior is because we control the ship alone, and we generally can afford superior quality modules for our ships.

In game mechanics =/= lore. I don't understand why people seem to think this, in many other MMO's as well. In-universe, ships have a crew, altough it is not reflected ingame. It's up to you of course to ignore them if you will, don't matter to me none.

Nikotium; If you want to write fan-fiction, or roleplay, then you need to know the world you're writing about. I'm all for imagination, but when you're playing with someone elses universe, well, you should play by the rules and guidelines they have set. Again, you're free to imagine your ship however you like, but I think most people would expect you to acknowledge certain things as fact if you try to roleplay with them, or have them understand a story you've written. Just my 2c.

Lore and fiction-writing: I will never, ever criticize someone for expressing their creativity and thinking outside the box when given a rigid set of rules to follow in order to conform to "lore" of a game. Eve, however, has a general lore background that seems open-ended and promotes exploration of the fictional universe. It is silly of us to assume that the lore is "illogical" or "logical" based on our own interpretations of it. Religious crusades have killed people for less! The fact is, Eve is played by people from many different countries, each with their own cultural and personal ideas of "logical" and "illogical". Our own history, as it has been pointed out before, is riddled with plotholes and misinterpretations. History is written by the victors, and in this case, CCP is the victor because they literally own the universe that we participate in.

So what I say is: Write your stories however you feel it should be. Not everyone will always agree with your interpretation of it, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that YOU enjoyed writing and sharing it. Personally, I enjoy reading different perspectives on game lore.

Anyway, I have to end it soon. Running out of characters. This was just all my opinion. See you in game!

CCP own the IP, but not our keyboards - and as mentioned, anything we write cannot break lore, because we do not write lore, we write fan fiction.

I was under the impression that Capsuleer-piloted ships had no crew. That due to the connections in the pod, they essentially were the ship, and didn't require anyone else.

If I am wrong, please correct me, as I'm planning some Eve fiction. Thanks.

The question is, is it even possible to vent a (whole) ship?

The question is, is it even possible to vent a (whole) ship?

The question is, is it even possible to vent a (whole) ship?

I'd think so. What is the most efficient way to put out a large fire on a spaceship? By venting the atmosphere. Normally you would seal the bulkheads in the immediate area that needs to be extinguished, but what is to stop an egger from keeping all doors open and venting all compartments? I'd like to think our control on shipsystems is hardcoded and -wired, thus extremely hard to disrupt by an outside force - but I suppose not entirely impossible.

imagine what you want, not what everybody else wants you to imagine. All i have seen so far is theories and suggestions really.

I always assumed that there is no crew present on any other ship other than carriers, unless you actually choose to keep people. Reason being: to have any kind of crew on a ship which is inevitably going to be destroyed would be INSANELY expensive. So the only crew are the people which you purchase off the market. Carriers specifically because they have fighters which do have people to pilot them. The other reason i think this way, is that when doing missions our ships are vastly superior to the staffed ships, and the justification for our superior power is the connection between captain and ship. A staffed ship will take longer to react and does not work as fluently as capsuleers. This results in far poorer accuracy, lock time, speed, and tank. So the reason we never see any interaction between a crew is because there is non.

To us a million isk is nothing though to a mortal it would be more isk than they could ever of dreamed of. I've not yet read any of the books (waiting eagerly for one to come in the post) though I speculate the costs involved in perspective to what a capsuleer actually makes from a single trit trade would be insignificant in comparison

And, herein lies one of the problems writers of EVE Fan fiction face.

Capsuleers are hard to write because in the face of adversity, they can buy a planet and have exotic dancers feed them for the rest of their days.

It's kinda hard for anyone to relate to someone who access to that level of living, and to be sympathetic towards them.

Would you be prepared to sit down in a bar and listen to the whimsical mumerings of a millionaire in real life? Especially if they began to complain and moan about how bad their life is...you might even take a few moments to reach for the nearest door...and slam their face into it.

No different than 'interview with a vampire', where the lead (Pitt) is whining throughout the entire film and the audience is just thinking 'man, if I was that unhappy, I'd just wait for the sun to come up'.

AK

Capsuleers would likely not sit down in a bar with anyone but, other capsuleers or perhaps the most trusted (senior) members of their crew.

I want to thank everyone so far for your responses. As an aspiring writer, I'm trying to get a real feel for the psychology of capsuleers, particularly their coping methods for dealing with immortality, death of non capsuleers and being in the almost continuous state of war and conflict.

The problem I have always had with this line of reasoning is that your essence is the pattern.. Whether an exact copy or not, it is an individual set of parameters that complete a whole personality. It is "your" personality. Whether imprinted upon a machine, a clone, or some other memetic storage medium, without degredation it is you..

There is no substantive difference, the experience, which is all we really are, remains the same.

The only way to insure your own consciousness to truly survive intact is to have a direct transfer old body to new body, much like in the old man's war books.

The concept of personality transfer when going from one self to a clone is not dealt with in EVE fiction / lore.

The transneural burning scanner utilizes a combination of magnetic resonance imaging and emission tomography to quickly acquire a detailed scan of the brain down to the quantum level. In order to have a complete and accurate map of the brain and retain the all memories and personality, the scan must record the position of every atom.