Capital Ship Crew Size problem.

[Mamatried]

Now when we look at almost any ship, we see crew listed with a number, and a number of gunners (specified part of the first number) and a number for skeleton crew with the difficulty increase.

I decided to use the stats for the gladiator class found here, the stats overall is irrelevant in this case, only the crew size number is relevant to this.

http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4827&sid=9fa4786891d1bbe21257d7480c2e1472

-From the stats listed.
Crew: 1,255; Skeleton 70 (+5)

Now my problem comes when a crew is larger than the skeleton number but much lower than a standard crew.

In the case of the gladiator here, 150 total from a boarding party taking over the ship.

This is 2x the skeleton, which only lists a +5 difficulty increase.

How would the rules or house rules deal with this?

A crew larger than skeleton, but much much lower than standard

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

Don't forget that standard crew is probably for three shifts, on the large, capital ships.

if you divide by 3 the standard crew, does that help?

[Mamatried]

[ZzaphodD]

A lot of ships stats just make no sense or lack internal coherency.
In this case, flying a ship with about 6% of the official crew number is just +5 harder?
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My Biggest Beard Retard award goes to: The Admiral of course..

[MrNexx]

[Mamatried]

[garhkal]

[Mamatried]

I was about to go through where and what is needed as of crew on a capital ship of any size really.

We need a bridge crew, to me this includes helm, sensors, navigation, communications, shields and at least some gunnery.

then comes engineering and "engines" really, with enough crew to at least monitor power etc.

Lastly if needed is gunners.

All other personnel I would argue are "surplus"

From the looks of things a star destroyer seems to have about two dozen people on the bridge, this including the crew in the "pits" and helm as well as officers.

I would not allow for a mere two dozen to fully operate a star destroyer, but add a "small" engineering crew, and depending on automatization and weapon systems used this could be enough people.

making this in the 50s maybe 60s for operating a destroyer, it sounds like very little, but seeing we have seen ships operated and piloted by crews much smaller I dare say we are talking about giving a role to the crew rather than having the crew to fill a role.

If we look to out own earth navies, the royal navy springs to mind. Look at the warships and their 200-300 even 400+ size crews.
It is fairly obvious that the ships can be sailed with little or no difficulties with about a handful of people, as it was not uncommon to give 3-5 men a small ship to bring ashore if "captured" by the brits.
Now such a crew could not fight, but could do most other things fully.

Add a gun crew, with size depending on the number of guns and this is now all you need, and I dare say this is much under a mere skeleton compliment.

To me a skeleton compliment is capable of both piloting and gunnery on a ship, and to me this indicates a possible full automatization of all weapon systems and most likely operated by the 2-X gunners in the bridge weapons pit, though at cost of fire control.

So I am beginning to think perhaps a 50-150 crew is enough for about 95& of all capital ships in the game, and mayne only double this for the super star destroyers.

As it is said, many jobs on board are taken by crew slots, but are actually not needed to simply fly and fight, cooks beng one, maybe some of the service techs, and other non combat roles.

How many would realistically be just enough to actually operate the craft "fully" as in gunning, shields, sensors and coms as well as politing.

I would say for Imperial Star destroyer maybe as much as 24, but more than 12, and this would to me only give a difficulty rating to gunnery tasks, or in gam terms reducing fire control down to 0D.

There is I think a presidence for "a" guns being bridge controlled with a sacrifice to fire control

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

[Dredwulf60]

I think the primary effect of having enough crew to basically function (skeleton crew) but not coming near the optimal would be seen over time.

The skeleton crew operates the ship. (adding more on a shift rotation is the first expansion beyond skeleton)
Additional crew beyond that helps to maintain the ship and assists the main crew.
You have more crew beyond that who actually maintain the crew.

If it's a large enough you may need crew to maintain the crew that maintains the crew that maintains the crew that operates the ship.

Consider a large ship that has a dentist on board.
That dentist is not necessary at all for the functioning of the ship.
But he helps look after the well-being of the people on the ship who are.

And someone looks after that dentist's needs.

So if a ship was functioning without a full crew you would see a gradual erosion of efficiency. The longer the duration the greater the effects on the operation of the ship.

Steal a ship with a skeleton crew...but don't plan on taking her on a long voyage or your skeleton crew will be over-worked, under-fed, with the ship missing its regular maintenance...and some might develop....TOOTH DECAY!

My question is; does a crew list include or exclude droids.
ie if the ship lists 300 crew, is it reasonable to assume that 100 or more of them might be droids, or does the 300 assume that all droid-capable duties are already being done by droids?

[Mamatried]

[Whill]

There could be a dental emergency, like a combat wound that knocks out teeth.
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[Mamatried]

[Raven Redstar]

[ZzaphodD]

Ah, I know!!
It union regulations!
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My Biggest Beard Retard award goes to: The Admiral of course..