Who's on the Bridge?

[Lochlaber]

I love the 'It All Depends' way of looking at bridge/engineering watches. Just remember that a military ship's captain usually never stands a watch, since he is on call 24/7/365.25, although he probably will be at the helm or nearby during entering/exiting jump, taking orbit or landing, giving junior officers the experience they need to advance.

I also like CJ Cherry's aspect of main/alter day to be a better way of handling things in space where clock time really is arbitary. I also like the fact that automation handles 99% of the details, enough so that a single man could handle a merchant ship, albeit a small one, even though it really neeed a crew of 5 or more.

I have always found it strange that a scout ship with a crew of 3 has people expecting you to have engineering and the bridge manned all of the time, leading quickly to total exhaustion. A true scout ship should be big enough for a crew of about 25 or so, including a couple of experts and the like, especially since Traveller is no where near as advanced as you would like to think it should be.

Kipling has it all so right, see above

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Lochlaber:
I have always found it strange that a scout ship with a crew of 3 has people expecting you to have engineering and the bridge manned all of the time, leading quickly to total exhaustion. A true scout ship should be big enough for a crew of about 25 or so, including a couple of experts and the like, especially since Traveller is no where near as advanced as you would like to think it should be.

Remember that the "Scout/Courier" is NOT a Scout/Explorer (or "Cruiser") - it is a general-utility small starship used by the Scout Service to "fill holes" in the X-Boat network, to run errands, to fulfill small missions etc, not a first-in exploration vessel.

And yes, it should be runnable by ONE person, with the addition of a robot or two, and possibly 1-3 more persons to hold watch, to man the gunnery station (on the bridge) and to help in all other aspects of the ship's work.

 

[mike wightman]

The scout/courier can be operated by one crewman, but the second bridge seat suggests that a crew of two is more usual.
Four staterooms indicate that four crew would be normal for most scout missions IMHO.
During wartime this may well be increased to eight by double occupancy.

 

[veltyen]

I look at 4 staterooms and it indicates a crew of 3 or 5 to me.

Captains staterooms, 1 or 2 crew staterooms and a spare or two (mission specific passengers and/or rec rooms).

If you were trying to sneak troops in wartime, you can carry 16 just before the life support starts to fail. Of course you could put extra life support systems in cargo and stretch that further.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
The scout/courier can be operated by one crewman, but the second bridge seat suggests that a crew of two is more usual.
Four staterooms indicate that four crew would be normal for most scout missions IMHO.
During wartime this may well be increased to eight by double occupancy.

I'd say this depends on mission - courier duties (i.e. to worlds with no X-Boat route) in well-established areas would be easily handleable by one crewmember and an assistant robot; a second crewmember would be added in less established areas; a full crew of 4 would usually be issued for light exploration/secondary survey missions; and the full 8 in wartime scouting.

 

[aramis]

For a Type S, I would say a Pilot/Commo, Nav/Sensor, and Engineer threesome is a typical crewing...

By the end of the first year of in-play, most crews of PC's have cross-trained each other to level-0 in everything needed; I don't think that would be atypical.

BTW, under MT, the engineer is expected to have gravitics 0.
Navigators get Sensor at a level less.
I allow pilot and ship's boat to serve as Commo-0
I allow engineer to serve as gravitics 0, electronics 0, or mechanical 0 (pick one per each engineering level).