Seems like the most obvious solution is:
- Use computer model OR character skill ... whichever is HIGHER.
Now, such an interpretation means that you
stop adding computer model and skills together (which changes the LBB2 and LBB5 systems a bit), but ultimately that isn't really a problem for ship to ship combat. What happens is that higher computer models wind up applying a "floor" for the +/- DM factors, meaning that you need increasingly higher skills to exceed the capacity of the computer models.
In other words, low computer model numbers have a low "floor" which is easy for crew skills to exceed ... while a high computer model number has a high "floor" which is difficult for crew skills to exceed.
So let's take the most obvious examples of the spectrum ... the model/1 and the model/9 ... and game out the differences.
- With a model/1 computer, any crew skill of 2+ exceeds the model/1 computer's input, so crew skills become highly relevant at skill levels 2+ for whatever role those crew are in.
- With a model/9 computer, the crew will need to have a skill of 10+ in order to exceed the model/9 computer's input, so crew skills become substantially irrelevant at skill levels 1-9 (assuming no damage to the computer during combat).
What you wind up with then is a "levelizing of skills through automation" game mechanic dependent upon the sophistication of the computer model involved.
Note that this also means that highly skilled crews become MORE important in smaller ships with lower computer models than they do in high end ships with very high computer models. With more computer sophistication it becomes more of a challenge for the crew's skills to exceed what the computer can do (for them) in a variety of ways relevant to ship to ship combat.
More illustration of the point.
Suppose we had a crew with skills all at level 3 relevant to their station (pilot, gunner) in a combat.
On a ship with a model/1 computer (let's say a Scout/Courier with a model/1bis just for shizzle), this would make a tremendous difference. Instead of using a -1 to be hit due to the computer model, the ship would use a -3 to be hit because of the pilot's skill.
Likewise, instead of using a +1 to hit due to the computer model, the ship would use a +3 to hit because of the gunner's skill.
But on a ship with a model/3 computer ... those pilot-3 and gunnery-3 skills wouldn't make any difference at all, unless the computer gets damaged and has to function as a model/1 or model/2.
Skills such as Ship Tactics could function as a sort of "hybrid" between the two systems.
If Ship Tactics exceeds computer model number, then use Ship Tactics in lieu of computer model number.
If computer model number exceeds Ship Tactics, then use the LBB5 system of Ship Tactics/2-1 (drop fractions) gets added to the computer model number (so Ship Tactics-3 used with a model/4 computer effectively becomes a model/4 computer due to player skill).
The same type of "hybrid" system (if skill>model then do A else B) using the Skill/2-1 system used in LBB5 ship-to-ship combat as a way for crew skills to remain "relevant" even if vastly outclassed by computer model numbers.
So there's 2 different schemes for how to make crew skills more relevant in ship to ship combat that addresses both the low end and high end of the skill and computer model numbers scaling. Note that which scheme is chosen (the OR scheme or the Hybrid scheme) becomes a much more interesting distinction when dealing with a "skills rich" versus "skills sparse" style of character generation.