Space warship crew sizes

B5B7 · Post by **B5B7** » 2007-12-13 11:03pm

In my own SF game universe, ships have relatively small crews compared to that of many, as very advanced automation. So, for instance a FF has crew of about 32. This FF is a pure warship, and the crew are extensively cross-trained, so no extraneous personnel. Like yours, many are officers.
Also, lots of use of robots for repair.

One has to look at the rationale in each universe. So, Star Wars has big crews because it is the old Space Opera feel, because there are lots of tasks, and simply due to the ships being so big, and the availability in that universe of lots of crew personnel.

In Star Trek (TOS) there are a lot of science specialists on the Enterprise, and about 80 security men (about 20% of the crew of about 430).

One also must ask questions such as is gunnery control almost 100% automatic, or does it require a gunnery crew for each gun.
One has to look at each possible duty station on the ship and what crew it requires. Especially important is the nature of combat in your universe - does one need security men to repel boarders? do you need soldiers on ship to raid less advanced planets? etc. Are crewmen/positions very specialised? Ideally, every crewman will have some training in Damage Control. And don't forget the robots.

A side question to consider with regard to damage repair is does your ship carry enough spares and supplies? This is why TNG is so stupid - have no spare warp core, for instance. And does it have the machines and workshops to do significant major damage repair (or are you using super-nanotech)?

Vehrec · Post by **Vehrec** » 2007-12-13 11:56pm

Damage Control crews are important to keeping the ship flying, but also delicate and prone to being killed if they are too close to damage when it happens. You therefore need either a lot of them, or robots who don't suffer as much when they loose air or are enveloped in burning plasma. You also want the engines to be in operations if a cable from the bridge to the reactors is cut. That's more crew right there, putting people in places to make sure nothing goes wrong that can't be stopped.

There is also the psychology of the crew to contend with. A larger crew has more incidents per day, but a fight between crew members is easily absorbed. If however, it's the second month of your two-year cruise and your A-shift pilot won't speak to your A-shift weaps officer, you have a problem. More people also generates more brownian social motion, helping to keep people sane when they spend months and years away from things like friends and family.

Coalition · Post by **Coalition** » 2007-12-14 08:04am

I'd add highly trained crews dispersed over the ship. Using the Honor Harrington series, the broadside weapons would have a gunnery officer per gun, to take over local fire control if the CIC and auxiliary command are knocked out.

An Engineering crew is useful because it prevents a potential problem in communications (the control cables being cut). Engineering personnel would be more flexible in handling repairs than robot drone. Their location is better designed for watching the main power system, so they can see potential problems before they start, rather than as they occur.

That would be the key reason to have humans in multiple locations, as they can start repair of the ship even if it is heavily damaged. This only applies until the computer technology is good enough to take their place (upon which the people upload to computers if possible).

Or you could go with the J'Rill route from the Starfire gaming system. One person in a life-support tank controlling the ship, with robots doing all the maintenance, repairs, etc. Controller modules allow a Command ship to control several smaller vessels, either warships with enslaved brains in charge, or kamikaze drones.

For day-to-day operations, you would have system checks being performed, the navigator checking the charts and updating their position (and likely keeping a secondary plot using a telescope and a star chart), the engineers making sure the reactor stays boring, and making sure the coolant lines don't have any potential problems. Weapons personnel are going over the weapons, making sure everything is still clean and ready to go, doing missile inventories, checking battery charging systems, etc.

Life support is being checked daily, cooks extracting algae for the day's meals from the different flavor tanks, then the black water tanks are run through the catalyzer to break the contents down, then the raw materials are fed into the algae tanks. Having someone check the catalyzer daily or weekly to make sure it is rendering down the black water is a very important job. Water and algae consumption is measured, allowing the XO to notice if there are any unusual spikes, indicating possible leaks.

Helmsmen are adjusting the water trim tanks to make sure the ship's center of gravity stays directly above the ship's thrust so they don't go off course.

The doctor is making sure everyone is healthy at the sick call, also checking dosimeters among the crew and making recommendations about which members should be put off ship after the current cruise due to accumulated radiation.

Cross-training is being done as well, so you might find the chief engineer taking an astronomy course from the navigator in case the navigator dies. Cooks are cross-trained for basic engineering so they can be drafted. Decompression drills are being held, crewmembers are masturbating in the showers, pinup pictures are steadily replaced with food pictures as the constant algae meals eat away at their patience. Solar watches are done if they are in-system so they can evacuate to a shelter deep within before the radiation wave arrives. Someone better be making sure there is enough oxygen for the shelter too (or they get the short straw to get more from the rest of the ship).

Does this help?

Nyrath · Post by **Nyrath** » 2007-12-14 09:47am

Obligatory Atomic Rocket reference:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3k.html

Nyrath · Post by **Nyrath** » 2007-12-14 09:52am

Vehrec wrote:Damage Control crews are important to keeping the ship flying, but also delicate and prone to being killed if they are too close to damage when it happens. You therefore need either a lot of them, or robots who don't suffer as much when they loose air or are enveloped in burning plasma.

From "Reflex" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (the deleted first chapter of The Mote in God's Eye, collected in There Will Be War I)

In principle Defiant was a better ship than she'd been when she left New Chicago. The engineers had automated all routine spacekeeping tasks, and no United Republic spacer needed to do a job that a robot could perform. Like all of New Chicago's ships, and like few of the Imperial Navy's, Defiant was as automated as a merchantman.

Colvin wondered. Merchantmen do not fight battles. A merchant captain need not worry about random holes punched through his hull. He can ignore the risk that any given piece of equipment will be smashed at any instant. He will never have only minutes to keep his ship fighting or see her destroyed in an instant of blinding heat.

No robot could cope with the complexity of decisions damage control could generate, and if there were such a robot it might easily be the first item destroyed in battle. Colvin had been a merchant captain and had seen no reason to object to the Republic's naval policies, but now that he had experience in warship command, he understood why the Imperials automated as little as possible and kept the crew in working routine tasks: washing down corridors and changing air filters, scrubbing pots and inspecting the hull. Imperial crews might grumble about the work, but they were never idle. After six months, Defiant was a better ship, but...

Ar-Adunakhor · Post by **Ar-Adunakhor** » 2007-12-14 10:12am

To expand upon earlier points, if you have a robot that is advanced enough to be able to understand and repair damage to the ship as well or better than a human then why do you need a crew? Computers that adaptable and intelligent could run the ship by themselves. You couldn't even keep humans on there as a control device, because all the ship would have to do would be cut a hole in the hab compartment without warning and be free of your oversight.

In short, if robots are able to fufill the tasks of systems repair and upkeep then they are advanced enough to do everything but advanced scientific research without humans there to help them. Even that last part is questionable, because you would already need something close to an AI to do damage control and systems upkeep due to the dynamic and improvisational nature of the tasks.

Peptuck · Post by **Peptuck** » 2007-12-14 01:32pm

I would think the best way to address this is to have frequent crew rotations. I imagined you would want to switch guys out of space every 6 months or so if possible to keep their muscles strong (I don't have artificial gravity), which would help the psycological issues here too.

This is a good idea, especially considering that its done nowadays with submarine crews, who live a lot like what you're describing - prolonged periods in enclosed areas with relatively small numbers of crew.

Darth Ruinus · Post by **Darth Ruinus** » 2007-12-14 02:50pm

Ar-Adunakhor wrote: You couldn't even keep humans on there as a control device, because all the ship would have to do would be cut a hole in the hab compartment without warning and be free of your oversight.

Well then, if your ships are run by AIs that kill people just because, then, why would anyone put that AI on a warship?

Ar-Adunakhor · Post by **Ar-Adunakhor** » 2007-12-14 03:16pm

Darth Ruinus wrote:AIs that kill people

Darth Ruinus wrote:why would anyone put that AI on a warship?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

More seriously though, I wasn't saying that the AI would just go berzerk and kill everybody. I'm just saying that if it's actually an AI then it might decide it's goals aren't the same as yours and decide to fly off into the void. In such a case, oversight would be pointless. I was simply eliminating one more reason why he might put humans on the ships because I've heard others suggest it before.

Ezekyle Abaddon · Post by **Ezekyle Abaddon** » 2007-12-14 05:41pm

is it possible the AI might be of a Bolo like construction where even though they are completely sentient and can stand off entire armies single handed (maybe single gunned) and yet they do not attack as they know and accept Humans as their dedicated commanders, especially in later models where direct mind links are possible as Humans have the ability to be unpredictable in a way that defies the Bolos attempts at prediction.

Nyrath · Post by **Nyrath** » 2007-12-14 05:59pm

Ezekyle Abaddon wrote:is it possible the AI might be of a Bolo like construction where even though they are completely sentient and can stand off entire armies single handed (maybe single gunned) and yet they do not attack as they know and accept Humans as their dedicated commanders

Well, there is a problem, as described in THE TWO FACES OF TOMORROW by James P. Hogan. A goal seeking AI (such as a Bolo) reprograms itself in order to fulfill goals. In the process of reprogramming, it is possible to reprogram itself into a state where it will turn on its creators. Read the book for details.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2007-12-14 06:32pm

Nyrath wrote:Well, there is a problem, as described in THE TWO FACES OF TOMORROW by James P. Hogan. A goal seeking AI (such as a Bolo) reprograms itself in order to fulfill goals. In the process of reprogramming, it is possible to reprogram itself into a state where it will turn on its creators. Read the book for details.

Couldn't that be fixed by hardwiring the "obey your masters" programming? The AI can reprogram everything but that.

You can also take a more benign route where your AIs are loyal because they want to be. Sure you will have some that don't want to be, maybe even some that actively hate their creators, but they will find themselves alone against the hordes of still loyal AI.

Darth Smiley · Post by **Darth Smiley** » 2007-12-14 07:17pm

Software is screwy sometimes. If the subroutine controlling the 'obey humans' function develops a segfault, you are in trouble. Additionally, how do you stop your enemy (who is probably human) from taking advantage of it? The logic of 'obey humans' is simple for a human to understand, but the leash that the AIs are on will need to be VERY short. Having an pilot 'just in case' might well be a good idea, presuming that the 1 man crew doesn't eat into your mass budget.

Ar-Adunakhor · Post by **Ar-Adunakhor** » 2007-12-14 07:25pm

How will hardwiring it in help when the AI is in control of ship repair and upkeep?

Darth Ruinus · Post by **Darth Ruinus** » 2007-12-14 10:26pm

Darth Smiley wrote:Software is screwy sometimes. If the subroutine controlling the 'obey humans' function develops a segfault, you are in trouble. Additionally, how do you stop your enemy (who is probably human) from taking advantage of it? The logic of 'obey humans' is simple for a human to understand, but the leash that the AIs are on will need to be VERY short. Having an pilot 'just in case' might well be a good idea, presuming that the 1 man crew doesn't eat into your mass budget.

You can, instead of a general order of "obey humans" you could program an "Obey all Imperial* Officers" or "Defend all Imperial citizens"

so, while it can kill other people, and not listen to non Imperials, it WILL listen to Imperials or protect the Empire's citizens.

*Or whatever your organization is called. Imperial just sounds cool.

Darth Ruinus · Post by **Darth Ruinus** » 2007-12-14 10:34pm

Destructionator XIII wrote: I've not actually come up with an in-universe rationale for not just putting AI on the ships though.

Maybe for morale reasons, or perhaps some other human related factor.

Maybe something viruses, or some technical explanation. I dont know about software, but, maybe the normal machines are more resiliant to viruses and AIs (for some reason)

Darth Ruinus · Post by **Darth Ruinus** » 2007-12-14 10:37pm

Darth Ruinus wrote:
Destructionator XIII wrote: I've not actually come up with an in-universe rationale for not just putting AI on the ships though.
Maybe for morale reasons, or perhaps some other human related factor.

Maybe something viruses, or some technical explanation. I dont know about software, but, maybe the normal machines are more resiliant to viruses and AIs (for some reason)

Ok, sorry for the triple post, but here is what I am talking about, thanks to Sea Skimmer

Sea Skimmer wrote:Ever heard of a ROM chip? Stands for Read Only Memory, you commonly find them in computers today, especially computers which have specialist functions like the engine control unit in a car. The only way to alter a program on a ROM chip is to physically remove it, and put in a different chip.

So the guns, engines, etc are specialized, but the AI is supposed to be flixible, and more likely to get a virus.

BTW, I saw this in the Droid Virus thread over in Pure SW, you might want to go there or ask Sea Skimmer, he probably knows more.

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2007-12-14 11:20pm

Destructionator XIII wrote:I would think the best way to address this is to have frequent crew rotations. I imagined you would want to switch guys out of space every 6 months or so if possible to keep their muscles strong (I don't have artificial gravity), which would help the psycological issues here too.

If your ship is large it can possibly include a small gravity simulator (basically a room in a fast-spinning centerfuge). Something like that might be useful for things like surgery as well. Trying to operate on somebody in zero G with blood and bodily fluids floating around is I'm sure not a pleasant prospect.

B5B7 · Post by **B5B7** » 2007-12-14 11:40pm

<pre>
Here's some stuff from my own universe about crew positions, and the specific crew of a frigate, the smallest regular space combat unit in my universe. Some of the formatting is messed up, but should be able to figure it out.

CREW PERSONNEL
Following are most of the positions that are on the ships of GD: Note that depending on size & actual specializations of crew, some non-officer positions may be officers and vice versa.

PART A NON-OFFICERS: Able Spacemen and NCOs

Alien specialists
Artists
Barbers
Barmen
Communications specialists
Cooks
Cosmeticains/Manicurists
Crew Testing & Appraisement Board
Cultural Officers ^^
Drivers
Emergency Exercises Operators
Enemy Liaison/Occupation Specialists
Engineering specialists
Engineers
Entertainment specialists
Exploration Specialists
Extra-vehicular controllers ##
Field Equipment Ops Instructors
Gardeners
General Crew
Gunners
Intership & Inship Competitions Officer
Laundry “men”
Lifepod “captains”

Linguists ^^
Maintenance “men”
Medics
Paramedical Instructors
Paymaster [NCO]
Personal Combat Instructors
Pest Control Officer
Philosopher
“Photographers”
Planetary Development Specialists
Planetary Exploration
Investigation specialists
Planetary Exploration Security specialists
Planetologists
Quartermaster [NCO]
Scientists
Security “men”
Shuttle Ops Instructors
Small Equipment Disbursement Officer
Stewards
Survival Training Instructors
Tractor Beam Control specialists
Weapons Instructors
Weapons specialists

Crew are cross-trained in 2 or 3 specialties.

^^ Xenologists
## responsible for probes/satellites/EVA activities [answer to DO or CE].

PART B OFFICERS

Captain
XO [Co-ordination Officer]
Chief Engineer
CMO
Security Chief
Armory Chief
Astrogator
Battle Analysis Officer +++
Captain’s Aide/Clerk %
Captain’s Steward %
Cargo Master [Manifest Controller]
Casualties Assessment & Reporting Officer
Chaplain
Chief Aliens Specialist Officer
Chief Contact Officer
Chief Cryptographer
Chief of Training
Chief Pharmacologist
Chief Recording Officer
Chief Scientist
Communications Officer
Computer Chief ***
Crew Chief
Crew Records Officer
Customs Inspection Chief
Detection Officer
Diplomacy Chief
Economics Adviser/Commerce Officer
Education (Further) Chief
Enemy Liaison Chief
Exploration Missions Chief
Financial Officer
Forensics Specialist
Gunnery Chief
Intelligence & Information Officer
Leadership Training Officer
Legal Officers
Load Master
Naval Expenses & Interests Representation Officer
OHS Official

Personnel Recruitment & Transfer Officer
Pilot ^^
Pilots – Pinnaces
Pilots – Shuttles
Political Officers
Psychologist
Publicity/Media Liaison Officer
Recreation Officer
Rescue Chief
Robotics Chief ***
Ship Abandonment Officer
Ship’s Astronomer
Ship’s Historian
Shuttle Officer
Shuttle Pilots
Tactical Officer ###
Tractor Chief

*** Cybernetician
^^ AKA Helmsman or Shipmaster
### maybe split into Offense Officer and Defense Officer on bigger ships
% whilst may expect this to be fulfilled by ordinary crew, this is not the case in the future [except on smaller ships performed by regular crew].
+++ on very large ships can be split into 4 - Enemy Defense Performance analyst, Enemy Offense Performance analyst, Friendly Offense Performance analyst, Friendly Defense Performance analyst.

PERSONNEL OF FF

POSITION SECTION RANK Assigned

Captain/TCO Command Commander B
Chief Engineer Engineering Lt SG DC
Chief Medical Officer/Psy Support Lt MS
Pilot Command Sub Lt B
Astrogator Command Sub Lt B

XO (/TCO) Command Lt Cdr G
2nd Officer/QM/RO Command Lt SG G
Sensor Officer Operations CPO B
Chief Security Officer/AO Combat Sub Lt G
Comms Specialist/IOC Operations WO B

Scanner Officer Operations CPO B
Damage Control Officer/RC Engineering CPO DC
Records Officer/CM/BAO/SO Operations WO G
Maintenance Chief/LSO/FC Engineering CPO DC
Computer Chief Command PO B

Shuttle Pilot Operations CPO S
Shuttle Engineer Engineering Senior Spaceman S
Pinnace Pilot/FCS Operations Senior Spaceman P
Pinnace Pilot/Arch Operations Senior Spaceman P

Medic/Barber Support Senior Spaceman MS
Medic/Cook Support Spaceman MS
Medic/Cook Support Spaceman MS
Engineer Engineering PO DC
Engineer/TBS Engineering Senior Spaceman G
Engineer Engineering Spaceman G

Security Officer Combat PO G
Security Officer/MRO Combat Senior Spaceman G
Security Specialist/St Combat Spaceman G
Security Specialist/St Combat Spaceman G
Security Specialist/St Combat Spaceman G
Engineer – Missile Specialist Eng WO DC

+ normally another Shuttle Pilot (PO) and Shuttle Engineer (Spaceman)

B Bridge
DC Damage Control
G Gunnery
MS Medic Station
P Pinnace
S Shuttle

St Steward
QM Quartermaster
TCO Tactical Combat Officer
TBS Tractor Beam Specialist
IOC Intelligence Officer/Cryptographer
MRO Missile Reload Officer
RO Recreation Officer
LSO Life Support Officer
AO Armory Officer
CM Cargo Master
RC Rescue Chief
FC Fire Chief
Psy Psychologist
BAO Battle Analysis Officer
FCS First Contact Specialist
SO Science Officer
Arch Archaeologist

TABLE OF ORGANIZATION

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECTIONS

COMMAND

Captain

XO

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OPERATIONS COMBAT ENGINEERING MEDICAL

2nd Officer Chief Engineer

3rd Officer (Ops Cmd) 4th Officer (Combat Cmd) CMO (Sup)

Pilot Astrogator Chief Scty Off

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comms Spec RecordsOff Eng-MissSp
Sensor Off Scanner Off ShPilot DCO MC

Comp Chief Geologist SctyOff Engineer

2 Pinnace Pilots Sh Eng Eng/TBS Medic (Barber)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 SctySpecs Engineer 2 Medics (Cooks)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAIN OF COMMAND FOR FF (some changes when seniority variances eg Astrogator may be above Pilot in CoC).

Captain

XO

2nd Officer

3rd Officer

4th Officer

Pilot

Astrogator

Comms Spec

Records Officer

Sensor Officer

Scanner Officer

Computer Chief

Chief Engineer

Chief Scty Officer

Engineer – Missile Spec

Damage Control Officer

Maintenance Chief

Security Officer

Engineer

Engineer/TBS

Engineer

Security Specialist

Shuttle Pilot

Shuttle Engineer

3 Security Specialists

</pre>

I think the stuff about AI ships is a bit off topic, and crew morale shouldn't be a real problem - just keep crew busy with work duties or study/training or play.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2007-12-15 01:31am

Destructionator XIII wrote:I've not actually come up with an in-universe rationale for not just putting AI on the ships though.

It might not be feasible in the modern day of the ASE? I can't recall if that short story of yours about developing AGI actually had a date, but it might be relatively recent, and thus too massive/hot to place upon a starship - especially a warship.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-12-15 11:34am

I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED

Adrian Laguna wrote:Couldn't that be fixed by hardwiring the "obey your masters" programming? The AI can reprogram everything but that.

In a word, no. The concept of 'hardwiring' does not make sense for any reasonable design of general AI. Making AGIs reliably 'loyal' is a very difficult and complicated endeavour.

Sure you will have some that don't want to be, maybe even some that actively hate their creators, but they will find themselves alone against the hordes of still loyal AI.

Aside from being a horribly unrealiable and dubious method on general principles, for this idea to have any sort of viability it would require a great deal of variety on the part of the AIs such that they don't all come to the same conclusions at the same time. Such variability is not typical of mass-produced items or for that matter sensible AI designs (human uploads excluded).

ThatGuyFromThatPlace · Post by **ThatGuyFromThatPlace** » 2007-12-15 07:06pm

In a realistic space-navy, damage control is fairly important, security a lot less so. Why have eighty guys tromping around with scatterguns (so as not to do too much damage to things that aren't enemies) when you can have three guys at widely separated posts that have total control over life support, airlocks, bulkhead doors etc (three for redundancy, maybe make sure that it takes two such officers to make any action, make sure they can all communicate under any circumstances though) If you want to restrain someone without killing them, just lock the adjacent bulkhead doors (which there should be a lot of to keep hull breaches from affecting too much of the ship) until an officer or two with tasers can escort him to the brig.

Damage control largely depends on the universe weapons and defenses, if things generally get killed with one or two hits, then damage control is not a major concern, but if you have to whittle down an enemy ship and punch it full of holes to get a kill,t hen there need to be lots of damage control scurrying around (in vacuum suits of some kind, I generally use skin-suits for this purpose) to patch all the holes.
While a lot of damage control could be done by robots, it would be a good idea to have human overseers to identify weird problems and the best way to fix them. (A human damage control team is not likely to fall through a hole into space because all of the hull breach sensors were destroyed by whatever punched through the hull) Damage control is just one of theose places where that 'human element' is rather useful.

Centrifugal gravity is a bad idea on a warship, the centrifuge adds mass, complexity, and that rotational acceleration makes basically everything you want to do harder. If you need to do something under gravity, do it while the ship is under acceleration. If you really want to, you can mount rooms such that they self orient with the axis of acceleration so you can have constant-direction gravity while maneuvering.

As a general rule of thumb, I usually say a star ship has the equivalent crew of the next level down modern warship (A cruiser has roughly the crew you'd expect in a modern destroyer etc.) Though in practice, you probably want to normalize it so smaller ships have crew more in line with their modern counterparts while larger ships have smaller crew than indicated.

frogcurry · Post by **frogcurry** » 2007-12-15 09:12pm

When estimating crew numbers, I don't see any indication here of shifts being taken into account. Assuming that there's a need for a human at a given console at all times, then all your core duties will need 3x as many people to achieve a proper 24 hr coverage (8 hrs duty, 8 hrs sleep, 8 hrs other time).

B5B7 · Post by **B5B7** » 2007-12-16 11:39pm

In normal circumstances, on an advanced tech ship, there should be little in the way of watch duty required, therefore in normal circumstances only a portion of the crew is needed to man stations. During combat or other crisis everyone should be at duty stations.
The main thing one needs is a continuity of command - that is why as well as Captain one will have an XO, 2nd officer, 3rd officer, 4th officer.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-12-17 02:08am

Doesn't this question depend on how realistic (and consequently fragile) this sci-fi universe's ships are?

A more realistic sci-fi universe would probably have a fair amount of crew that spends almost all its time doing preventive maintenance and status checks of critical systems and structures. The idea is to prevent a catastrophic incident rather than trying to recover from one, and a realistic spaceship would probably be very poor at absorbing serious damage.

But the sci-fi convention is starships that can take a tremendous pounding and still function, so for that, you're expected to have damage control crews that can patch it up and keep it going.