HG crew rounding carification

[Matt123]

I'm playing with writing a shipbuilder (again ). Which always brings up interesting little issues.

HG for several crew types refers to x per 100 tons or x per 1000 tons. The meaning of this may be more "obvious" in the states, but in NZ this could mean per full 1000 tons or per 1000 tons or part there-of.

Meaning for example, service crew on a 10,300 ton ship could equal 30 (at a rate of 3 per 1000 tons), 33 (at 3 per 1000 ton or part there-of) or 31 (round 10,300 up to 11,000, then 11000 / 1000 * 3).

or another example, a ship with JD, MD & PP summing to 1000.2 tons, could equate to 10 Engineers (at 1 per 100tons) or 11 (at 1 per 100 tons or part there-of).

Thoughts ?

 

[Matt123]

Just to add to this, the Service crew split as detailed in Don's errata needs a polish.

Book 5 states 2 per 1000 tons, a ship of 10, 501 ton gets 22 (assuming 10501 / 1000 * 2 rounded up), or 3 per 1000tons if there are no ships troops getting 32 ((assuming 10501 / 1000 * 3 rounded up).

The errata states;
Service crew, 2 per 1000 ton, giving 22 (again using 10501 ship tons)
Security troops 1 per 1000 ton, giving 11, total 33 rather than 32.

Better might be;
Service crew, 2 per 1000 tons of ship or 3 per 1000 tons of ship if there are no ships troops, one third of which are ship security.

 

[Carlobrand]

You know, I'm not sure. The working assumption is, once you get up above a thousand tons, the ship size is in increments of thousands of tons and rounding crew up or down isn't an issue. That's what all the canon examples do. However, there are a lot of players who finesse the size for one reason or another, ending up with something that falls in between. To the best of my knowledge, no one's ever handed down a ruling as to whether you round up or round down or what.

 

[Matt123]

I seem to have lost editing privileges on my own posts...

A correction on my example, in bold.

Meaning for example, service crew on a 10,300 ton ship could equal 30 (at a rate of 3 per 1000 tons), 33 (at 3 per 1000 ton or part there-of) or 31 (10,300/ 1000 * 3 = 30.3 rounded up).

Edit: I still have it on my last post it seems. A bit odd.

 

[Cryton]

I seem to have lost editing privileges on my own posts...

A correction on my example, in bold.



Edit: I still have it on my last post it seems. A bit odd.

Due to issues dealing with actions detrimental to the community, Edits must be made within 24 hrs, or they can not be done. After that point you need to send a Mod or our good Admin a link to the post and corrections you wish done.

~ Rich

 

[Matt123]

Due to issues dealing with actions detrimental to the community, Edits must be made within 24 hrs, or they can not be done. After that point you need to send a Mod or our good Admin a link to the post and corrections you wish done.

~ Rich

Ahh, ok I wasn't aware of that. There is always an idiot about.

 

[rancke]

You know, I'm not sure. The working assumption is, once you get up above a thousand tons, the ship size is in increments of thousands of tons and rounding crew up or down isn't an issue. That's what all the canon examples do. However, there are a lot of players who finesse the size for one reason or another, ending up with something that falls in between. To the best of my knowledge, no one's ever handed down a ruling as to whether you round up or round down or what.

One pertinent question is why the rules say what they say. Do they reflect an Imperial regulation that requires specific manning levels and result in not getting clearance to leave the starport unless you have them? Then the Imperial regulations may have the same ambiguity and don't actually apply outside the Imperium. Or do they reflect the average manning level used in the trade? Then some companies may try to lowball the figures and others may be inclined to include extras. Or is it a combination? I.e. regs require at least one astrogator, but it's common practice to carry more than one. Or does the Great Bird of the Galaxy swallow every ship that takes off without the proper crew?


Hans

 

[Timerover51]

For civilian ships, I cannot see the crew size varying with ship size at all. In the Real World, a cargo ship of 1500 tons is going to have about the same size crew at one of 40.000 tons, as long as the engine set up is about the same.

For military ships, you need enough crew for 3 watches on the bridge and engine room, with an extra watch stander or two for each, plus your gunners and specialized crew. Your galley is running 24 hours a day, so needs to be staffed according. I budget one galley crewman per 25 persons on board.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

timerover, I think the variation usually occurs because you get more of something in those extra dTons. It might be passengers, or gunmounts, or it might be a more complicated and larger engine(s). You're right that doesn't always mean more crew in a particular specialty, and HG has different rules depending on what gets larger.

I think there's also some consideration for "more miles of wiring/fiber" = more people to maintain/fix. Again, it doesn't translate directly (i.e., isn't always true), so it might look weird in some cases.

Primarily, it's the only simple way to establish crew requirements, without getting into the same level of detail as FF&S.

Oh! And, don't forget that once you start including the OTU in there, you have the Vilani attitudes coming into play. (And, yes, I think a lot of those were simply to handwave away some of the possible complaints. )

 

[Timerover51]

timerover, I think the variation usually occurs because you get more of something in those extra dTons. It might be passengers, or gunmounts, or it might be a more complicated and larger engine(s). You're right that doesn't always mean more crew in a particular specialty, and HG has different rules depending on what gets larger.

I think there's also some consideration for "more miles of wiring/fiber" = more people to maintain/fix. Again, it doesn't translate directly (i.e., isn't always true), so it might look weird in some cases.

Primarily, it's the only simple way to establish crew requirements, without getting into the same level of detail as FF&S.

Oh! And, don't forget that once you start including the OTU in there, you have the Vilani attitudes coming into play. (And, yes, I think a lot of those were simply to handwave away some of the possible complaints. )

Ah, again it appears that I am hideously incorrect on trying to make any correspondence between the Real World and the rules.

 

[Vladika]

I have always looked to rounding up. For example in CT you need 1 engineer each 35 tons of drives. In HG it's 1 for each 100 tons of drives.

My thinking is that for drives less than maximum tonnage the engineer(s) are not working very hard. At full tonnage they are quite busy. An extra few tons aren't going to overly fatigue them, especially with a large engineering section. (One guy working 110-125 tons might not fare so well.)

Same thought process for other departments (Crew and Troops). Normally I'd round it to where it made sense BUT with the "rules warriors" out there I err on the safe side and design for the extra one or more personnel.

I would hate to show up for a tournament and find a key ship in my fleet disallowed due to "a few tons short for those missing crew". Yes, I've designed ships that tight before, and NOT "rules cheats" 19,999 toners. WFT! 19,999... that's 20k if there is any common sense in the gaming world.

 

[snrdg082102]

Howdy all,

This post is what I've observed reverse engineering designs published in various Traveller sources and members of the one of the TUs.

I use the standard rounding rule, design sequence instructions and/or examples to come up with the answer. If an example or instruction calculates to the fourth decimal place thats where I round. Of course I have had to be flexible when reversing designs found in canon source material and shared by Traveller members.

If the digit is 4 or less the the digit changes to zero depending on where the rounding occurs:

Round 524.25751 to the nearest one hundredth = 524.26
Round 524.25751 to the nearest tenth = 524.3
Round 524.25751 to the nearest whole number (ones position) = 524
Round 524.25751 to the nearest tens = 520
Round 524.25751 to the nearest hundreds = 500
Round 524.25751 to the nearest thousands = 1,000

However, having served aboard four submarines, one surface ship, and five shore bases I found more often than not the actual manning levels didn't match the Standard Operating and Regulation Manual (SORM). More often than not the number of warm bodies was short.

Which is why I also calculate crew by rounding the numbers down.

During the calculations for Engineering I also break the crew down by jump drive, maneuver drive, and power plant since they are in my opinion three separate systems like the different weapons in the Gunnery section.

However, when I share a design the Engineering crew count will be according to the rules presented in Books 2 and 5.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

Snrdog, thanks for the informative post. One thing I've sometimes encountered in trying to reverse engineer stuff is to not only make sure you round correctly but sometimes you may need to also make sure you do calcs step by step like you would do if doing a hand calc, which may ential rounding at most every step along the way. Although I'm not sure about CT, I know that this helped me a great deal in trying to reverse engineer stuff in GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars, where I was able to match up alot of stuff by rounding each step of the calcs, rather than doing a relatively long calc as one step in a spreadsheet.

 

[Vladika]

Howdy all,

During the calculations for Engineering I also break the crew down by jump drive, maneuver drive, and power plant since they are in my opinion three separate systems like the different weapons in the Gunnery section.

Would you really have three engineers on a 200dt ship with all A drives from book 2? Or three on a small ship by book 5 rules of, say, 30-40 tonnes of total drives?

 

[snrdg082102]

Afternoon PST PFVA63,

Hi,

Snrdog, thanks for the informative post. One thing I've sometimes encountered in trying to reverse engineer stuff is to not only make sure you round correctly but sometimes you may need to also make sure you do calcs step by step like you would do if doing a hand calc, which may ential rounding at most every step along the way. Although I'm not sure about CT, I know that this helped me a great deal in trying to reverse engineer stuff in GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars, where I was able to match up alot of stuff by rounding each step of the calcs, rather than doing a relatively long calc as one step in a spreadsheet.

Very true about rounding at every step and the GURPS Vehicle, GT: Starships, and GT Interstellar Wars often does so.

Depends on who is doing the designing on how the rounding goes.

You're welcome, I'm glad my comment was informative.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello Valdika,

Would you really have three engineers on a 200dt ship with all A drives from book 2? Or three on a small ship by book 5 rules of, say, 30-40 tonnes of total drives?

Sorry that mud was clearer than the explanation of how I calculate crew.

No, the math for the engineer rule doesn't support having any engineers at all on a 200 ton hull with a Type A J-Drive, Type A M-Drive, and Type A PP.

I would calculate the crew requirements using CT Book 2 rules as follows:

Per page 16 hulls >= 200 tons must have one engineer (min engineering skill 1) per 35 tons of drives and power plant.



Hull 200 dtons, Type A J-1 drive = 10 tons, Type A M-1 drive = 1 ton, and Type A PP-1 = 4 tons:

round((10 + 1 + 4)/35,0) =
round(11 +4)/35,0) =
round(15/35,0) = round(0.4286) = 0

Snrdog method

Type A J-1 drive = round(10 tons/35,0) = round(0.2857,0) = 0
Type A M-1 drive = round(1 ton/35,0) = round(0.0286,0) = 0
Type A PP-1 = round(4 tons/35,0) = round(0.1143,0) = 0

Of course I might either have a fully qualified engineer or a character filling two crew positions say Pilot/Engineer.

Here is another example:

Type F J-Drive = 35 tons
Type F M-Drive = 11 tons
Type F PP = 19 tons

Components Total: 35 + 11 + 19 = 46 + 19 = 55 tons

Book 2 Engineering Compliment = round(55/35,0) = round(1.5714,0) = 2

Snrdog Method
Type F J-Drive = round(35/35,0) = round(1,0) = 1
Type F M-Drive = round(11/35,0) = round(0.3143,0) = 0
Type F PP = round(19/35,0) = round(0.5429,0) = 1
Engineering Compliment = 2

Rounding the PP calculation down would have engineering down to one.

A Type L M-drive which is 21 tons should have round(21/35,0) = round(0.6,0) =1 engineer assigned.

The same methods would be used for Book 5 HG with the exception that the requirement is 1 engineer per 100 tons of PP, J-Drive and/or M-Drive.

 

[Vladika]

Hi Tom

Let's see if I understand your method.

2000dt Starship J1 M1 PP1

J1 2% 2000= 40dt ergo, no engineer
M1 2% 2000= 40dt ergo, no engineer
PP1 1% 2000= 20dt ergo, no engineer

By HG book 5 it would require one engineer per 100dt of total drives= 1 engineer.

One parsec from home and ready to jump and...opps... But, we have a manual and a tool kit in the ships locker...

Not ragging on you, seriously, just finding a bit of dark humor in there while life support slowly fails.

 

[snrdg082102]

Late afternoon PST Vladika,

Hi Tom

Let's see if I understand your method.

2000dt Starship J1 M1 PP1

J1 2% 2000= 40dt ergo, no engineer
M1 2% 2000= 40dt ergo, no engineer
PP1 1% 2000= 20dt ergo, no engineer

By HG book 5 it would require one engineer per 100dt of total drives= 1 engineer.

One parsec from home and ready to jump and...opps... But, we have a manual and a tool kit in the ships locker...

Not ragging on you, seriously, just finding a bit of dark humor in there while life support slowly fails.

Yep, the math part is right and I appear to have left out using my common sense. In the above situation I would go with the (J-Drive tons + M-drive tons + PP tons) x .01 or use the 1 engineer per 35 tons for the jump drive since the vessel is a starship.

You have hard copy manuals onboard , what are you nuts that stuff and the fix-it program are on the computer. Have the computer program the maintenance bot. We do have a maintenance bot don't we?

You have a right to rag on me if I'm not making much sense or being unclear. Of course how I'm being ragged on is what makes the difference. In this case my nose is not out of joint and I don't take any offense.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Ah, again it appears that I am hideously incorrect on trying to make any correspondence between the Real World and the rules.

Heh. It's sorta like an old paranormal show - some things just can't be explained. o:

This post is what I've observed reverse engineering designs published in various Traveller sources and members of the one of the TUs.

Ack! You should know you can't do that! Who knows what results you'll get!

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello Fritz_Brown,

Ack! You should know you can't do that! Who knows what results you'll get!

Well, I really hope I get the same results and if that doesn't work I get a hammer which usually makes them fit.