That definitely sounds interesting, though I'm not quite sure how you would implement it. Would you have each character run the risk/reward rolls and other regular parts of chargen, or would you create a new mechanism, a sort of greater-scale risk/reward for the whole ship to simulate when it gets into battles and such? Similarly, would promotion rolls, medals etc. also follow the established rules for individual chargen, or something different to account for the fact these characters are all connected by a single ship?
You just need a domain of ships and such "doing things".
You can look at it as much as a "fleet" simulator as a crew sim, as the crew is necessary to man the fleet. But it's the fleet "doing the work".
For example, it's not as if "Able Spacehand Rick Rogers" WANTED to go to the Fleet Action over Tobia 6, he just happened to be there.
The modern navy does "stuff" all day, every day, every month, every year...stuff we who are not-in-the-navy don't hear much about. They're constantly running operations.
Spacehand Rogers can get a note in his jacket for participating in Operation Redbird on the INS DD Hedgehog, a joint exercise between fleet elements and local SDB squadrons. Something that's not conflict related at all, but because of a commendation rewarded during the operation, he gets a promotion. Or a transfer to a combat unit. Or, who knows what.
Another way to look at it is an engine that fleshes out the rolls during extended CharGen. Something that just fills out the narrative. But you can have triggering events.
Spachehand Rogers rolled to get a promotion. By being promoted, he was not just bumped up in rank, he was moved to another position and responsibility. Now there's a gap that the Navy needs to fill. Similarly, Rogers needs to find someplace to go (or maybe he doesn't get the promotion, or maybe he has to wait). The die roll kind of subsumes all of those details (i.e. he missed his promotion roll, he didn't get promoted not because he wasn't capable, but because there was no job for him this year).
So, it could be "as simple" as that.
Start with a Navy, come up with a mechanism of assigning ranks to broad positions (i.e. Engineer Mate can be an E2-E4, or something). Populate them with characters (assigning proper skills as necessary). Then, perhaps on a quarterly basis, start rolling dice. Some folks muster out, some get promoted, folks get transferred to fill spots.
Be interesting to see where the dice show us there are gaps to be filled. Let ships go understaffed for a spell, but if we find there's a gap, perhaps start tossing some DMs on to folks to promote in to them.
It could be an interesting exercise, even without fleet motion.
My vision was how to handle combat losses. Deal with field promotions, such like that. Where do you get a 400 fresh crew to staff a new starship. What were they doing before?
