How Many Navy Pilots Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb?

[jawillroy]

Or more to the point, how many of them are trained enough to do it well?

That is, just how skilled are Navy pilots and ship's boaters IYTU?

IIRC, High Guard puts the average skill level at 2. But I also know how hard it is to roll up a decent Navy starship or boat pilot both in LBB1 and LBB5.

A recent experiment with a random character generator gave me, out of 100 navy characters rolled, NONE with more than Pilot-1 or Ship's Boat-1. Gunners, too, tended to be at skill 1:

5 starship pilots, skill level 1
9 ship's boat pilots, skill level 1
28 gunners, 1 at skill 3, 8 at skill 2, all the others skill 1.
Only 6 had both ship's boat and gunnery skill; of these, all were skill level 1 apart from one with gunnery 2.

Now, if any of these were PC characters trying for these skills, there would have been a higher incidence of them. But by how much?

It's not a major issue if High Guard is the combat system used - but with LBB2, pilot skill can make a difference, and gunnery skill can make a huge difference in the ability of otherwise similar fleets to defeat each other. The availability of great pilots might have an effect on the kind of fleet a world constructs: Do you have a vast navy crewed by tyros, with a small core of elite ships? Do you have a small navy of powerful ships with crack crews, with your lesser crews aboard transports, patrol ships, and desks?

 

[pendragonman]

So I take it you randomized which table the skill was rolled on also? The easy way to fix this is to bias your randomizer towards the tables with the skills your trying to achieve, then run your 100 character experiment again.

 

[samuelvss]

Random naval generation

I believe you'd be using the random LBB1 character generator, like SignalGK's at http://www.signalgk.com/cgi-bin/ctcg.p


That does not allow you to pick the tables you roll from.
You could examine the character generation sequence, and see how the table decision would increase your chance of getting pilot, and extrapolate from there. o:

In the Navy, not that many pilots are needed, really. If you did LBB5, you could s presumably get many more chance to get pilot skill.

 

[jawillroy]

The randomizer I had on hand did randomize tables. Can you recommend a character generator that allows you to pick the tables?

I'm sure it would make a difference: all rolls on the second tables might produce more fighter pilots...

 

[Border Reiver]

Flight School Graduates automatically have Pilot-1 with a 4+ chance of a further Pilot-1, Ships Boat-1 and Navigation-1 for a 1 year assignment. That seems pretty decent for a pilot before they even see a ship.

 

[jawillroy]

True, but then, that's going with High Guard, and you're not taking into account how hard it is for most characters to get into, and pass, flight school. The pilots are still pretty exclusive!

 

[pendragonman]

The randomizer I had on hand did randomize tables. Can you recommend a character generator that allows you to pick the tables?

I'm sure it would make a difference: all rolls on the second tables might produce more fighter pilots...

Easy-cheesy way to do this is an excel program. Some nice if-then elses and away you go.

 

[jawillroy]

Easy-cheesy way to do this is an excel program. Some nice if-then elses and away you go.

Well.

I could just roll'em by hand, too... ^_-

 

[minipainter]

I'm not sure that 100 randomly generated characters using the basic gen system is enough of a sampling. Or even a good way to determin it.

Most imperial pilots are going to be reasonably good IMTU because I am assuming 100 candidates per fighter and only those who get through flight school would be put anywhere near a fighter and by the time they reach the end of the first term after school I would expect at least level 2 in pilot and 1 or 2 levels in gunnery. But I am going from a MT base here and havent actualy run any tests

 

[CosmicGamer]

How many light bulbs can a pilot screw in at the same time?

One of the character generators I've seen had a minimum and maximum # of terms you could set. Did the one you used? What were your settings?

I agree with those indicating that their are many flaws with the character generator because of how it randomly selects tables instead of concentrating on one.

The characteristics are generated randomly too and may not be well suited for Navy Life, commission, promotion and such. A character like that should have selected a different profession and could throw off your statistics.

I don't know much about all the different Navy ships in Traveller and their crews but in one post someone indicated up to 25,000 people on a warship! A small escort ship might have a crew of 8 or so. Average that out. What I'm getting at here is how many Navy personnel are Pilots vs Gunners, Technicians, and so on.

Possibly the ships that are just patrolling have less skilled personnel than the ships that are going in to combat an enemy. There may be many more ships just patrolling the borders and for pirates than actively fighting and those pilots and crew wouldn't be trained or gain experience as often.

So what % of them should be Level 1, level 2, level 3? It could differ depending on which version of Traveller you play and how much conflict there is in that period. It could differ just on your universe and how peaceful it is or how rampant piracy is. It's a very subjective # and I won't even hazard an opinion. I mention it to give you something to think about.

IMO, Most enlisted would be in the same field their entire career unless shortages require them to diversify. The Government/Military does not like to waist it's money retraining personnel. Enlisted also would have a high rate of attrition - are not in the service for as long picking up skills. Officers and higher ranked enlisted would get some cross training but only a minimum amount - it's the people under them that do the work.

For your character creator to allow you to pick tables it then becomes little better than a manual process because every time you gain a skill it stops to wait for you to pick a table. I would think most people make their character generators to enable them to quickly create NPC's not for creating their characters or for statistical analysis.

You mention generating 100 characters but only hint at skills for less than half What happened to the rest?

EDIT:
I just thought of this too. A spacecraft pilot doesn't need a lot of skill. Do you dogfight with a spaceship like you do a fighter? Do you fly at ground level hugging the terrain like you might in a fixed wing aircraft? Are you performing multiple functions like monitoring sensors, working the Comm, Navigating, and operating the guns at the same time and hence need more pilot skill since you still need to fly but are only spending a fraction of your time concentrating on it and it has to be more instinctive? So maybe the question should not be How Many Navy Pilots Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb? but How many light bulbs can a pilot screw in at the same time?

 

[Spinward Scout]

How Many Navy Pilots Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb?

One

It only takes one Navy Pilot to pick up the squawk and call a tech. But the rest will either be giving him a hard time or high-fiving him for it.

 

[Border Reiver]

True, but then, that's going with High Guard, and you're not taking into account how hard it is for most characters to get into, and pass, flight school. The pilots are still pretty exclusive!

Aren't they everywhere, especially Navy. Cream of the crop gets to be a flyboy.

 

[pendragonman]

Well.

I could just roll'em by hand, too... ^_-

Yes, but rolling them by hand will take waaaay longer. And if you can't be bothered to do ten minutes of cheap programming to be able to generate thousands of results in another five minutes, then you should probably go ahead and roll them by hand.

 

[jawillroy]

Yes, but rolling them by hand will take waaaay longer. And if you can't be bothered to do ten minutes of cheap programming to be able to generate thousands of results in another five minutes, then you should probably go ahead and roll them by hand.

Oh, don't be that way. You just caught me at the end of the workday, and I couldn't stand the computers anymore. Yeah, I oughtta program something.

 

[atpollard]

Ship's Boat Skill in LBB1 Navy

A statistical analysis for the sake of discussion.

ENLISTMENT GROUP 1 (no bonus):
Using CT LBB1, 1000 candidates arrive at a recruiting office wanting to be Navy Pilots when they grow up. With an 8+ to enlist (assume no bonuses), 417 successfully enlist (15/36 x 1000) and 97 more are drafted (1/6 x 583) for a total starting class of 514. [51.4% of those attempting to enter the navy get in.]

FIRST TERM GROUP 1 (no bonus):
Of the 514 members of the starting class, 86 die and 428 survive. All 428 recruits roll twice on the Service Skills Table and 71 roll ShipsBoat-1 on the first roll. Of the 71, 12 will roll ShipsBoat-1 on their second roll as well. Of the 357 who did not roll ShipsBoat-1 on the first roll, 60 will roll ShipsBoat-1 on the second roll. At the end of 1 Term, 12 recruits have ShipsBoat-2, 119 recruits have ShipsBoat-1, 297 recruits have no ShipsBoat skill and 86 recruits are dead.
In addition to these initial skills, 71 of the 428 surviving recruits will be Commissioned and receive another roll on the Service Skills Table (12 will gain another level in ShipsBoat) and 178 of the 428 surviving recruits will be Promoted and receive another roll on the Service Skills Table (30 will gain another level in ShipsBoat).

When the dust settles at the end of Term 1, roughly 37% of the surviving recruits have some Ship’s Boat Skill with 1 surviving recruit at ShipsBoat-3, 24 surviving recruits at ShipsBoat-2 (5.6%), 134 surviving recruits at ShipsBoat-1 (31%), and 269 surviving recruits with no ShipsBoat skill.

EACH ADDITIONAL TERM GROUP 1 (no bonus):
All 428 men attempt to reenlist, but 119 fail reenlistment and 309 reenlist (72%). Of those who reenlist, 51 die and 258 survive and receive another roll on the Service Skills Table (43 will gain another level in ShipsBoat). Of the 214 enlisted men who reenlist and survive, 36 will be Commissioned and receive another roll on the Service Skills Table (6 will gain another level in ShipsBoat). Of the 258 men who reenlist and survive, 93 will be Promoted and receive another roll on the Service Skills Table (16 will gain another level in ShipsBoat).

When the dust settles at the end of another Term, the 258 two-term survivors will receive 65 ShipsBoat skills between them – roughly a 25% chance for each survivor to receive the ShipsBoat skill that term.

 

[atpollard]

ENLISTMENT GROUP 2 – ‘OFFICER MATERIAL’ (Int 8+ and Edu 9+):
Using CT LBB1, 1000 superior candidates arrive at a recruiting office wanting to be Navy Pilots when they grow up. With an 5+ to enlist (+3 bonus), 833 successfully enlist and 28 more are drafted for a total starting class of 861. [86.1% of those attempting to enter the navy get in.]

FIRST TERM GROUP 2 – ‘OFFICER MATERIAL’ (Int 8+ and Edu 9+):
Of the 861 members of the starting class, 24 die and 837 survive. All 837 recruits roll twice on the Advanced Education Table (Ed 8+) and 140 roll Pilot-1 on the first roll. Of the 140, 23 will roll Pilot-1 on their second roll as well. Of the 697 who did not roll Pilot-1 on the first roll, 116 will roll Pilot -1 on the second roll.
In addition to the initial skills, 140 of the 837 surviving recruits will be Commissioned and receive another roll on the Advanced Education Table (23 will gain another level in Pilot) and 488 of the 837 surviving recruits will be Promoted and receive another roll on the Advanced Education Table (81 will gain another level in Pilot).

When the dust settles at the end of Term 1, roughly 39% of the surviving recruits have some Pilot Skill with 3 surviving recruits at Pilot-3, 50 surviving recruits at Pilot-2 (6%), 274 surviving recruits at Pilot-1 (33%), and 510 surviving recruits with no Pilot skill.

EACH ADDITIONAL TERM GROUP 2 – ‘OFFICER MATERIAL’ (Int 8+ and Edu 9+):
All 837 men attempt to reenlist, but 232 fail reenlistment and 605 reenlist (72%). Of those who reenlist, 17 die and 588 survive and receive another roll on the Advanced Education Table (98 will gain another level in Pilot). Of the 490 enlisted men who reenlist and survive, 82 will be Commissioned and receive another roll on the Advanced Education Table (14 will gain another level in Pilot). Of the 588 men who reenlist and survive, 343 will be Promoted and receive another roll on the Advanced Education Table (57 will gain another level in Pilot).

When the dust settles at the end of another Term, the 588 two-term survivors will receive 169 Pilot skills between them – roughly a 29% chance for each survivor to receive the Pilot skill that term.

 

[atpollard]

As a quick side note, the odds above are the same for any other skill on the LBB1 Navy skill lists ... it applies to Navy Gunners and Navy Engineers just as well as it does to Navy Pilots.

 

[pendragonman]

As a quick side note, the odds above are the same for any other skill on the LBB1 Navy skill lists ... it applies to Navy Gunners and Navy Engineers just as well as it does to Navy Pilots.

Just playing the ratios I see. Well put. Clearly, when using a weighted chart choice you can get what you need to fill out your fighter wing or your Patrol Cruiser Squadron.

 

[aramis]

As a quick side note, the odds above are the same for any other skill on the LBB1 Navy skill lists ... it applies to Navy Gunners and Navy Engineers just as well as it does to Navy Pilots.

Any other skill that only appears once in a given career, that is... Certain skills appear on multiple tables, and a few CT skills appear more, eg: Army Gun Combat results are twice the rate.

 

[atpollard]

Any other skill that only appears once in a given career, that is... Certain skills appear on multiple tables, and a few CT skills appear more, eg: Army Gun Combat results are twice the rate.

The specific results that I listed are accurate for the LBB1 Navy only. Other careers would have different Enlistment, Survival, Commission, Promotion and Re-Enlistment values and bonuses which would change the odds of getting a skill.

Within the LBB1 Navy, only Gunnery and Engineering appear on more than one table. This will not change the chances of getting the skill on purpose (a character actively seeking to become a Gunner or Engineer) but will increase the chances of a character accidentially getting that skill (like trying for 'Pilot' or 'Electronics' and rolling 'Engineering' instead).

The purpose of the statistical exercise was to show the chances of getting PILOT or SHIP'S BOAT when actively seeking those skills as opposed to the random character generation odds. Random rolls on random tables will yield a vast majority of even long-term characters with skills of 1 or 2. Concentrating all skill rolls on a single table will yield up to skill-3 in the initial term and a 1 in 4 or better chance of increasing that skill each term.