Small capital ships and crew

[Hastings]

So let us take a few ships, say, a gunboat, a transport and a freighter.

What kind of crew, how many and who and why.

Thoughts?

Real life ship logic should not apply.

Tough question - im assuming a lot smaller crews due to increased computerization and such.

Perhaps about 50 for a gunboat?

Bridge crew, engineers, marines, other optional personnel.

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[Lobster]

Just to put my half a cent in, I have always imagined the RM gunboat being crewed by 12-15 people.

1 Kaptain
3 bridge crew (comms, gunnery, scanners)
1 engineering officer
2 mechanics
4-7 gunnery crew (depending if you want to imagine a person for each gun or having a few of them slaved together)
1 doctor/cook

[Hastings]

Just to put my half a cent in, I have always imagined the RM gunboat being crewed by 12-15 people.

1 Kaptain
3 bridge crew (comms, gunnery, scanners)
1 engineering officer
2 mechanics
4-7 gunnery crew (depending if you want to imagine a person for each gun or having a few of them slaved together)
1 doctor/cook

See I envision most military vessels having marines aboard - boarding actions can be considerably more effective than outright destroying a ship.

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[SeaFalcon]

imo...

Freighter = 1 --> 3
Transport = 3 --> 20 (depending on its size)
gunboat = 2 --> 6 (world of tanks min and max crew)

[Lobster]

See I envision most military vessels having marines aboard - boarding actions can be considerably more effective than outright destroying a ship.

Gunships tend to be rather small...

I find it hard envisioning them with 50 people on-board, unless its for a special mission, such is boarding another ship..

Cruisers and battleships on the other hand.. ye.. I could see permanent detachments of troops on-board

[Vladimir]

Well, Heimdall has 3 figures in cockpit and it's stated somewhere in the infocard that it has a crew of 3 members.

My tanker has a crew of 10 members.

Battleships? Cruisers? I dunno, so i don't focus on it.

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[jxie93]

Freighters would have 10 people max, since they're small and probably don't have much living space.

Gunboats' sizes are just bigger than freighters, but I'd say since they're military oriented they'll need a few extra people for boarding and security. 25 at the most, if the gunboat's primary duties are to transport boarding troops. 10 for a bridge crew and the rest for utilities and maintenance.

I'd imagine transports would be automated and computerised. Also, they'd have to cut living space to carry as much cargo as possible. So just around 20 for them.

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[Agmen of Eladesor]

So let us take a few ships, say, a gunboat, a transport and a freighter.

What kind of crew, how many and who and why.

Thoughts?

Real life ship logic should not apply.

But you have to use some real life ship logic. Firefly and the Serenity were about right for a small freighter. You would have an engineer, a couple of jack of all trades deck hands, someone who knows at least some medicine but that could be cross trained in something else, and the head honcho.

In a gunboat, I wouldn't expect to see more than a maximum crew of 10 - Commanding officer, weapons, navigation, couple of engineers, couple of gunnery mates, and a few general all around techs.

Transports - I'd go with a minimum crew of 15, and that's pushing it. You need multiple engineering shifts, and multiple command shifts - and that presumes that your deck hands and unloading personnel are coming from the stations / planets. It may be a boring job being the number 3 engineer on a transport, but someone has to sit and watch the dials and gauges.

You move up into the passenger liners, and the crew numbers go up drastically. You may still only need 20 people to actually RUN the ship, but you now need a hotel staff.

I would expect to see Marine or troop contingents on anything destroyer sized and larger, with maybe a squad or two on a Dessie, a platoon on a cruiser, and upwards of a whole company on a battlewagon.

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Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.

[ProwlerPC]

Depends some GBs like the Tridente or BHG Heavy Bomber would only have a few crew. Then something like the Ku Explorer that can last for insanely long time away from any station would have a much larger crew comvering several fields of expertise.

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[TheJarl]

I usually RP GB's with 15-20 crewmembers. Transports, that really depends on, for example the Big Dragon might have 40 crewmembers perhaps, but a Gull max. 10. Freighters, very few if any at all, a Rhino can be piloted alone, and can perhaps have like a total of 3 at max, but a RAT might have like 7.

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