What the hell do all these people do?

[abomination]

I need a huge tanker for a scenario. Something like a space faring C21st supertanker. Given that modern tankers go up to 500,000 tonnes & you've more more room to manuver in space I decided on a 1,000,000 tonne hull.

Now our 21st century supertanker has a crew of 20 - 30. According to MT I need a crew of over 1300. And that's before I add some fighters to be at high guard during refueling operations. While I see you're gonna need more than 30, there's no way that 1300 people will be employed usefully.

What do 72 bridge crew do with their time? I honestly can't see that you're gonna need to need more than three watches, covering all the bridge positions maybe 18 crew max?

Over 250 command crew?

Has anyone else come up against this? Has anyone got a method for crewing huge vessels?

 

[Spinward Scout]

That is odd - it's not like it's a warship. You're just talking about a tank with a drive strapped on. It's like a giant cargo hold. Robots or automation could help.

 

[veltyen]

I need a huge tanker for a scenario. Something like a space faring C21st supertanker. Given that modern tankers go up to 500,000 tonnes & you've more more room to manuver in space I decided on a 1,000,000 tonne hull.

Now our 21st century supertanker has a crew of 20 - 30. According to MT I need a crew of over 1300. And that's before I add some fighters to be at high guard during refueling operations. While I see you're gonna need more than 30, there's no way that 1300 people will be employed usefully.

What do 72 bridge crew do with their time? I honestly can't see that you're gonna need to need more than three watches, covering all the bridge positions maybe 18 crew max?

Over 250 command crew?

Has anyone else come up against this? Has anyone got a method for crewing huge vessels?

I tend to assume that the crew levels are appropriate for a military vessel.

Therefore for a cargo/tanker vessel I tend to take out the cargo space for the purposes of calculating crew required.

On a MdTon cargo vessel that would still mean having a lot of crew - about the same number of crew as a 200kdTon naval vessel.

The other aspect you might be missing is that in traveller terms a supertanker is only 50 kdTon or so. The largest currently in operation are 380x70x35 for a containment box of 66,500 dTon - far smaller then the Mega dTon vessel you are thinking of.

A million dTon supertanker would be approximately 600m long, 240m wide and have a beam of 120m.

 

[flykiller]

Has anyone got a method for crewing huge vessels?

when determining crew I first subtract any fuel and cargo dtonnage. helps reduce service crew in a rational fashion.

also, hg2 crews are expected to do maintenance and damage control, and they are funded by imperial money, so they are numerous, but in theory any semi-automated ship could be run with a skeleton crew of (say) 30 men. commerce tries to cut costs, so perhaps all large commerce ships are on permanent standard skeleton crew of 30 men.

 

[veltyen]

A million dTon supertanker would be approximately 600m long, 240m wide and have a beam of 120m.

A basic math screwup that has been bugging me.

To keep the same dimensions a supertanker would be 900m x 180m x 90m

 

[far-trader]

when determining crew I first subtract any fuel and cargo dtonnage. helps reduce service crew in a rational fashion.

I will agree some of the crew calcs are out to lunch but crew for cargo space seems reasonable. Unless you intend to hire local dock workers at each world. That's possible but not figured in the rules (well, not most of them, I think T20 has it).

And you absolutely need to figure service crew for fuel too. How do you think it gets from the tanks to the engines? It's all bucket brigade you know...

...ok, I'm kidding about the fuel Of course there might be filters to scrub, especially if you skim. You think the Engineers are gonna do that

 

[BlackBat242]

And you absolutely need to figure service crew for fuel too. How do you think it gets from the tanks to the engines? It's all bucket brigade you know...

That was the "black gang" on coal-powered ships... Stokers, formally.

...ok, I'm kidding about the fuel Of course there might be filters to scrub, especially if you skim. You think the Engineers are gonna do that

The return of the "black gang"!!!

 

[RossWinn]

IIRC, and it has been some time so I will defer if i am wrong, MegaTraveller used control panels or automation that could reduce crew requirements. This was a feature of Other Suns that I thought was brilliant, as opposed to all of the crappy parts of Other Suns.

I think it is completely reasonable to delete fuel and cargo space for the purposes of crew calculation in Traveller. You will still have a larger crew than a modern supertanker, but much smaller than you were postulating.

 

[Patron Zero]

Cheap Labor

This issue of reducing the required crews on non-military starships is where I see the acceptable use of robots in maintenance and support positions.

Not to fully incorporate the variety and scope of droids from the Star Wars universe but more practically the 'basic' drones as depicted in the film, Silent Running. I can see all too many situations where such an engineer 'guided' machine could effect repairs or operate in environments hazardous to humans (and other sentient species).

Unsure if I'd want R2 units replacing engineers but can see the potential assistance such could provide in just day to day starship operations. Perhaps limiting the 'autonomy' of any drone or droid by way of the vessel's computer to support said units, that preventing such from becoming non-player characters rather than their original intention as 'simple' tools.

All the above said, I am a huge fan of Robby from the classic film, Forbidden Planet as well as the combat robots from Ice Pirates, but for practical applications and game balance some 'reasonable' limits must be maintained concerning mechanical sentience.

 

[epicenter00]

I'd go with the above posters - remove cargo and fuel tankage from crew requirements. I'd further slash crew sizes as well. I'm pretty sure the that along with Traveller's love of a "Big Ship" universe (since the LBB era at least), there's also a love old fashioned naval vessels with thousands of crewmen. However, what the system doesn't take into account are civilian vessels.

It can be assumed that a lot of crewmen on naval vessels are kept around as damage control and replacements for crew who are WIA, KIA, as well as more prosaic causes like being ill, being rotated out by command without a replacement being found, and so on - in other words, navy vessels in Traveller have a lot of redundancy. In addition, I suspect that a lot of Traveller naval vessels can do a lot of "underway" repairs - not just temporary repairs.

As mentioned above, most modern container vessels and so on run on a skeleton crew - the bare minimum to safely run the ship. The maintenance staff of civilian vessels in the modern day are mostly "offset" to various ports (similar to how fighter planes and bombers and such vessels only have a bare minimum crew - their maintenance staff - the "ground crew" are displaced to the aircraft carrier or the airbase). When a vessel expects not to be underway for terribly long and points where maintenance can be acquired are reasonably common, a vessel is going to "offset" a lot of its crew to various ports where mechanics and technical staff can look over the ship while it's in port. Naval vessels operate with the assumption that's not the case - so correspondingly have larger crews. To model this, I'd suggest slashing the crew requirements of such a vessel by 50% or even more.

 

[samuelvss]

Unsure if I'd want R2 units replacing engineers but can see the potential assistance such could provide in just day to day starship operations. Perhaps limiting the 'autonomy' of any drone or droid by way of the vessel's computer to support said units, that preventing such from becoming non-player characters rather than their original intention as 'simple' tools.

The cost of GOOD robots (semi-autonomous) is typically in excess of the staterooms that they would replace/save [I'm talking LBB's, but somebody smart can extrapolate to MT for me. I missed the software upgrade.]. A GOOD, with several FAIR (non-autonomous), could slash an engineering crew, though not replace it. There would need to be sufficient humans "in the loop" to supervise the robots. Depending on the numbers involved, the humans give out detailed instructions, in the form of roles, protocols, SOP's, and the like; there's always something the instructions don't cover. [Insert "You watch him, and make sure he doesn't leave" scene form Monty Python here.] Some humans to watch the semi-autonomous robots, some more robots to help the semi-autonomous, slave units at some of the crew stations, and I believe a number of crew functions, specifically engineering, command [the Leadership by Walking Around variety, not the giving orders variety], service, security, medical and maintenance can be slashed to 5 to 10% on the really large crews. I would say the minimum for a section that the rules indicate as "huge" (i.e.: engineering) would be about 8-10. Possible a computer of one size larger is required, and certainly a longer shake-down cruise.

 

[atpollard]

A look at crew requirements for a variety of official ships will show that (eliminating troops and fighter pilots which are more mission dependant cargo than crew for the ship) crews average around 1 person per 100 tons. I would suggest that any large bulk cargo ship could be designed without the bulk cargo (like a Jump Tender) and crewed at 1 person per 100 tons.

The argument for fuel could go either way - somebody needs to repair a fuel leak and perform routine maintainence and inspections, but a J6 fuel tank should not require 6 times the maintainence of a J1 fuel tank.

For a containerized cargo ship, no cargo crew implies that the port is expected to load and unload the cargo - which might restrict the ship to the better starports (no class D or E, and perhaps no class C).

 

[abomination]

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I have some re-calculations to do.

 

[Patron Zero]

Space Truckin'

I have one other most very non-canon option I might offer that I developed IMTU, again not inside of the accepted rules by did work for me.

I allowed for a smaller vessel, say a 100 or 200 ton starship to act as a semi cab of sorts while a specially designed larger hull of 10,000 or more tonnage were the trailer. At first glance that sounds absurd but the idea was first seen in the film Aliens and subsequently in several other sci-fi films over the years.

What I did to achieve this in my game was the play characters vessel being outfitted with an external hull structure referred to as a transport pylon. This modification acts as the connection between the two separate ships allowing the smaller craft to monitor the larger as well as the physical 'docking' of both.

The larger hull contains the jump drives, maneuver drives and other support systems needed for a ship of it's size, the difference being no allotment for crew berthings and other related space being required. The larger ship does have a command deck of a sort, a rudimentary bridge-engineering space used only for monitoring the vessel's status during pre-jump preparations or emergencies.

The smaller craft have upgraded computers to 'interface' with the larger ship's systems so seldom does crew physically 'man' the barge or cargo hull.

I developed the pylon system to expedite player characters from having to purchase dedicated tug or tractor vessels and made opportunities for a pylon equipped vessel to operate as a gypsy cab of sorts in the spacelanes.

 

[Plankowner]

Mongoose seems to address this in their new High Guard (preview available at Mongoose.com). They present a variety of crew levels (with corresponding loss of ability). For a civilian ship not expecting to fight, those reductions are perfectly acceptable. For a Military ship they are not.

The Mongoose HG should be out in the next couple weeks. It looks quite compatible with CT.

I also used to drop cargo and fuel when calculating crew and reduced civilian crews to 1/3 of the military crews. HG was definitely flavored for military vessels and these seemed like reasonable civilian alternatives.

 

[far-trader]

...For a civilian ship not expecting to fight, those reductions are perfectly acceptable. For a Military ship they are not.

I seem to recall this being hinted at if not stated somewhere in CT.

 

[shadowdragon]

that would be http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/

 

[samuelvss]

I have one other most very non-canon option I might offer that I developed IMTU, again not inside of the accepted rules by did work for me.

I allowed for a smaller vessel, say a 100 or 200 ton starship to act as a semi cab of sorts while a specially designed larger hull of 10,000 or more tonnage were the trailer. At first glance that sounds absurd but the idea was first seen in the film Aliens and subsequently in several other sci-fi films over the years.

I developed the pylon system to expedite player characters from having to purchase dedicated tug or tractor vessels and made opportunities for a pylon equipped vessel to operate as a gypsy cab of sorts in the spacelanes.

I have a similar idea, based on the old "jump ship" in canon. (I no longer have the supplement, but it was either Traders and Gunboats or Fighting Ships. I think this gives a canonical justification for both a type deck cargo and reduced crew. (As I recall, the orginal jump ship was crewed as a 1000 ton ship, which carried up to 4 or 5 kdTons at reduced performance.)

My system is based on rectangular cutter modules which Lego together in 3D, with the cutters acting to assemble the load, maneuver it into position, and switch it out. [This is a large, established route job. Typically one set of cutters would serve 4-5 jumpships sequentially. How many cutters would depend on the size cargoes, which would depend on the length of the jumps(s)]. The jump ship jumps in at the 100 diameter point. Detaches and is reattached to its next cargo, while being refueled from a waiting fuel lighter and switching out crew as appropriate. 1 cutter moves 6 modules at 1G; it gets more complex and more modular. I could go on......

 

[Patron Zero]

Old Ships - New Jobs

I have a similar idea, based on the old "jump ship" in canon. (I no longer have the supplement, but it was either Traders and Gunboats or Fighting Ships. I think this gives a canonical justification for both a type deck cargo and reduced crew. (As I recall, the orginal jump ship was crewed as a 1000 ton ship, which carried up to 4 or 5 kdTons at reduced performance.)

There was the 600 ton System Defense Boat with it's 200 ton Shuttle but uncertain that might be what you refer to.

IMTU I often refit standard CT hull designs, in particular I've often modified the ring hulled 400 ton Lab Ship into a cargo tug or dedicated long haul cargo vessel. A few 800 ton 'Gemini' twin inline hull arrangements have been sighted plying my spaceways, such a design making liberal use of exterior cargo modules. The reconfigured Lab Ship hull has the ability to 'dock' an 800 ton Broadsword hull within it's ring-based design, the spherical ship outfitted as a dedicated orbit-to-planetside lander. The Lab Ship having upgraded jump and maneuver drives to support the 800 ton 'cargo' shuttle it ferries.

 

[far-trader]

I have a similar idea, based on the old "jump ship" in canon. (I no longer have the supplement, but it was either Traders and Gunboats or Fighting Ships. I think this gives a canonical justification for both a type deck cargo and reduced crew. (As I recall, the orginal jump ship was crewed as a 1000 ton ship, which carried up to 4 or 5 kdTons at reduced performance.)

Supplement 9 - Fighting Ships (which it aint )

5000tons base ship (and a wonky imo but close) crew total of 38. Adds up to 5000tons of carried stuff with reduced performance.