Quick question for Steve on crew numbers

[Capt.Hunter]

OK, I can't remember, but is there a suggested figure in Spacedock for the minimum crew required to run a ship effectively? I don't mean using a lash-up autosystem like Scotty rigged in STIII, but the number of people it would take to operate a ship at normal performance. Voyager stated a figure back in The 37's when some of the crew were thinking about leaving. I'm planning (thanks to the Voyager PDF by Volker Maiwald over on the Narrator's Board) a campaign where a Sovereign-Class ship gets itself lost in the Gamma Quad. They need such a powerful ship to make it home in one piece (I also have other reasons...) but I want to have quite a lot of the NPC crew get wiped out in the initial journey so that they don't seem to have limitless personnel available. The other option (if this is too bloodthirsty ) is to say that the ship was on a shakedown cruise with only a skeleton crew aboard anyway.

Any suggestions for the minimum crew to run a starship (eg: 25% of normal crew)?

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"Captain Hunter, you are clearly outgunned. I suggest you surrender your vessel": Romulan Commander Terev, Imperial Warbird Senex

"Cmdr.Terev, you clearly have no idea we're carrying quantum torpedoes. I suggest you duck!": Capt.Matt Hunter, USS Tempest

[Phantom]

25% would be the lowest you would want to go I think. 25% of the crew of a Soverign-class leaves only about 250 crew...I would think that 250 crew members could run a ship of that size, but not very effiently. Remember the Voyager crew was able to replace its dead SF members with what was left of the Maquis crew. By the sound of it you won't have that option so I wouldn't go below 25%.

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In the Praetors Name!

[Steve Long]

I never provided a specific "absolute minimum crew" number. The Skeleton Crew Table (page 88) has a figure for "10% or lower," so the way I see it you could go at least that low.

I would rather not set any absolute minima, since I'd prefer to let Narrators decide that for themselves. Some may want to run a ST III-type game where a very small crew uses automation to keep its ship running, for example.

I'd say that to run a capital ship without significant automation, you'd probably need at least 20% of the crew complement, and at that point not only would you suffer penalties for ship operation, but crewmembers would get burned out pretty quickly from doing a lot of extra duty.

Steve Long

[spyone]

Voyager left DS9 with 141 crew and one passenger(Paris), and one crewmember off the ship(Tuvok). I have read elsewhere that her designed crew is 139.
I'll quote the Delta Blues review of "The 37s":
We learn that there are 152 people currently serving on the ship, and that it can't operate with fewer than 100.

I assume what was meant in theis context was long-term service without starbases for help with repairs.

Hope this helps some.

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You're a Starfleet Officer. "Weird" is part of the job.

[Capt.Hunter]

Thanks for the info! The Skeleton Crew table is the sort of thing I was looking for. I'm thinking that a goodly number of personnel on a fully-crewed Sovereign would be junior personnel specializing in different but related fields. As there is some overlap in Starfleet training, the ship could do without, say, a botanist and get a general biologist to look at any interesting plants they find. My point is, it can't really take 855 people to run the basics of the ship (helm, weapons/security, operations, medical and engineering). A lot of SF personnel on larger vessels are dedicated to specific tasks within those parameters, not all of which are going to be absolutely vital all the time. Sure, a replicator repair guy/gal is useful to have around, but do the replicators really fail that often?

The times when the lack of crew will become apparent are, of course, when the ship needs vital repairs in a hurry and there aren't enough engineers to do the job...

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"Captain Hunter, you are clearly outgunned. I suggest you surrender your vessel": Romulan Commander Terev, Imperial Warbird Senex

"Cmdr.Terev, you clearly have no idea we're carrying quantum torpedoes. I suggest you duck!": Capt.Matt Hunter, USS Tempest

[tonyg]

There is also the fact that while many of these ships have a crew compliment of 900 people, many of those are scientists and other specilalists who are not really involved in the operation of the ship itself, per se.

While you can certainly operate the ship without these specilialists, your not going to get much info from the labs. Where on not this is important depends on just why the ship is running on minimum crew.

[Phantom]

Under normal cruise circumstances you are right, it dosen't take 855 personel to run the ship. What you have to remember is that everyone on the ship has a battle station, therefore you need as close to a full crew compliment as you can to fight the ship properly. Those 855 crewmen are damage control, emerg. medical personnel, etc. So, if the ship runs into trouble then you should impose penalties on the operation of a ship that is running at 20-25% of crew. Just because a crewman may have the specialty of ships botanist, doesn't mean that he is not important in the running of the ship in dire situations.



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In the Praetors Name!

[Capt.Hunter]

Having checked out the Skeleton Crew table last night, I'm now going with a crew at 40% strength (350 personnel). This allows for each department to have 40-60 personnel total, so around 14-20 per shift and they pull double-duty where necessary. Finally decided to go with the ship having this crew number due to being on a shakedown at the time of its impromptu journey. As Steve's table states, negative modifiers may not always need to be applied - for example, in combat, the Tactical systems work at the behest of the Tac Officer alone - this isn't the days of Kirk where they had personnel manning "phaser control stations". The only time negative mods come in (-3 penalty in this case) is where large numbers of crew are needed to work together (ie: major repairs). All part of the fun (I'm trying to get right what Voyager messed up, in that a ship stranded without Starbase support should have real supply and maintenance problems - and unlike Voyager, a Sovereign can't land on planets to drydock...)

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"Captain Hunter, you are clearly outgunned. I suggest you surrender your vessel": Romulan Commander Terev, Imperial Warbird Senex

"Cmdr.Terev, you clearly have no idea we're carrying quantum torpedoes. I suggest you duck!": Capt.Matt Hunter, USS Tempest

[Steve Long]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">All part of the fun (I'm trying to get right what Voyager messed up, in that a ship stranded without Starbase support should have real supply and maintenance problems - and unlike Voyager, a Sovereign can't land on planets to drydock...)</font>

When Don releases his VOYAGER RPG material, it will include a bunch of new/expanded rules I wrote covering repair/maintenance problems, supply problems, crew health/morale problems, and other such things that are right along these lines. They're written for the basic rules, but 'port over to Spacedock pretty much as-is, or with but minor changes in numbers.

Steve Long

[Lancer]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Steve Long:
When Don releases his VOYAGER RPG material, it will include a bunch of new/expanded rules I wrote covering repair/maintenance problems, supply problems, crew health/morale problems, and other such things that are right along these lines. They're written for the basic rules, but 'port over to Spacedock pretty much as-is, or with but minor changes in numbers.

Steve Long</font>

Steve, the part about morale problems, would that be applicable for prolonged stresses apart from being stranded on the other side of the galaxy?
I was thinking about the Dominion War. Morale problems could be an important factor on a ship on more or less permanent front-line duty.
Maintenance problems could come up as well if your supply lines are cut off by enemy forces.

If my line of thought is not totaly off target what do you think of putting these rules under the Icon Links or a similar category of TrekRPG.Net

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"To seek, to strive, to find and not to yield" - Alfred Tennyson

[Steve Long]

There are unquestionably many situations other than "stranded in the Delta Quadrant" where morale rules could apply, and the Dominion War is definitely one of them.

If, for example, I were running a DW-based campaign, I'd establish some sort of "rating" system to reflect how well one's side was doing. The rating would establish a general morale modifier, which could then be altered by specific circumstances, and so forth.

This isn't a bad idea for something to cover in the Dominion War Companion. I'll give it some thought. Thanx!

Steve Long

[Cybrludite]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Steve Long:
When Don releases his VOYAGER RPG material, it will include a bunch of new/expanded rules I wrote covering repair/maintenance problems, supply problems, crew health/morale problems, and other such things that are right along these lines. They're written for the basic rules, but 'port over to Spacedock pretty much as-is, or with but minor changes in numbers.

Steve Long</font>

Bugger. Now I'll have to actually get that one, despite being of the opinion that Voyager is "Not Scottish". I'm currently thinking of running a game set during the DW, but with Star Fleet morale being much more like that of the humans during the Antwar in John Steakley's "Armor". And, yes, Star Fleet would be as unprepared for the Dominion as the human government in "Armor" was.

Jon



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If not for physics & law enforcement, I'd be unstoppable!