Discrepencies between ship size and crew needed...?

[Kyle]

If there's one thing that has always made me scratch my head, on this site mostly, its how much of a divide there is between the amount of crew needed for a ship vs its actual size.

In the real world, we have some very large navy ships, such as the Gerald R. Ford class of carrier which is only 337 meters long, yet has a crew of well over 4000. However, on our site, we have ships that are this long and longer that don't have anywhere NEAR those crew numbers.

So is this all due to automation? Because at it stands, ships such as the Plumeria and Atlas Class destroyer are only a little bit smaller than that carrier I listed above yet maintain a much smaller crew...

 

[Fred]

You can likely draw a better comparison between spaceships and submarines than spaceships and navy ships. Navy ships don't have closed environment and limited life support capabilities. Submarines, however, do.

 

[Kyle]

True, but even if you use the Virginia, Ohio, or Seahawk class of submarines used by the US military; all three came to be around. The Ohio being the largest submarine at over 170 meters long, but it also only had a crew of 155 individuals. So perhaps you do have a point here Fred, but we still have large sihps with less crew yet are bigger xD

 

[Arieg]

And... a lot of the ship space on SARP vessels isn't crew accessible, such as the aether shock arrays that make up most Yamataian warship designs.

 

[Wes]

Navy ships don't have closed environment and limited life support capabilities.

Yes they do.

Star Army ships have a lot of space in them taken up by guns and powerplants, and their crew spaces are fairly spacious compared to real-life ships, and they're well-automated. For example, the Plumeria's length includes a large portion that's just the main weapon array, and in theory the ship could be operated even remotely.

 

[Gunsight1]

The USN Los Angeles class attack submarine is pretty darn tiny. 110 meters long by 10 wide and 9.4 tall ( not counting the sail) and have a crew of 110. These subs are very small, I've been on a couple of them over the years. Thy have a lot of their internal space eaten up by the reactor plant, ballast tanks, torpedo storage and other hardware and supplies, but they still pack in way more crew than pretty much everything on SARP.

My issue with the small crews, is that even accounting for serious automation, most the SARP ships do not even have enough crew to man multiple watches (we all know military ships don't just shut down at night when the 1st watch goes to bed, usually there are 3-4 watches in rotation) or have any form of redundant staff if say the operator or engineer are incapacitated or killed. There is just no one to take over in combat or emergency situations. Also the ships are left so incredibly understaffed when away missions are fielded as well.

Also, bit of interesting trivia for anyone who is interested. The Los Angeles class is just a tiny bit larger than the Balao class fleet submarine the USN fielded in WW2, which is 95meters by 8.3 by 5.4 (not counting sail) compared to the specs for the modern vessel given above. I've been on the one that is preserved as a museum here in the SF Bay area and its amazing to see how much roomier the smaller and less sophisticated sub of the 1940's is to the one of today

 

[Fred]

Yes they do.

I don't get it.

A naval ship is on the surface. There's no way it's going to run out of air, is it?

A submarine, while underwater, doesn't have that luxury. If your air reserve go out, you're pretty much screwed.

We gloss over it in Star Army, but vaccuum is pretty hostile and we often have very thin-walled boxes with engines strapped on them flying around nilly willy, largely taking life support for granted. As I see it, it's one of the most important systems for not only survival (air recycling, temperature, atmospheric pressure, radiation protection, protection against acceleration), but likely the quality of life you manage to see aboard KFY ships to boot (gravity, atmospheric retention, etc etc...). The sole reason we probably don't get to see it as a concern probably comes from another understated tech - the Matter Collection System - which likely grabs molecules out of ambient space and turns them into the necessary composite gases to support life inside a spaceship.

Make a day-long pit stop at a suitable gas giant with an asteroid ring mostly composed of iced-over rocks, and said ship probably won't have anything to worry about for a week. We're a space roleplay. This actually shoulod be important. But it's usually not because it's usually made extremely trivial most of the time.

 

[DocTomoe]

Lorath ships solve their crew issue by using cryo-storage for personnel which are not actively needed at a given time. Combat pilots, infantry, repair crews, so on, they are kept in storage to be brought into consciousness as needed to maintain optimal ship functions.

OOCly though, I've taken some inspiration for crew size (aside from the cryo-storage) from works such as Star Trek's Defiant-Class, and the Klingon Bird of Prey, since such designs serve as rather common-place representations of designs which rely on computerized automation.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

I don't get it.

A naval ship is on the surface. There's no way it's going to run out of air, is it?

A submarine, while underwater, doesn't have that luxury. If your air reserve go out, you're pretty much screwed.

We gloss over it in Star Army, but vaccuum is pretty hostile and we often have very thin-walled boxes with engines strapped on them flying around nilly willy, largely taking life support for granted. As I see it, it's one of the most important systems for not only survival (air recycling, temperature, atmospheric pressure, radiation protection, protection against acceleration), but likely the quality of life you manage to see aboard KFY ships to boot (gravity, atmospheric retention, etc etc...). The sole reason we probably don't get to see it as a concern probably comes from another understated tech - the Matter Collection System - which likely grabs molecules out of ambient space and turns them into the necessary composite gases to support life inside a spaceship.

Make a day-long pit stop at a suitable gas giant with an asteroid ring mostly composed of iced-over rocks, and said ship probably won't have anything to worry about for a week. We're a space roleplay. This actually shoulod be important. But it's usually not because it's usually made extremely trivial most of the time.

Three words: Nuclear-Biological-Chemical.

Naval vessels have been designed in case of such attacks, which means life-support systems.

 

[Jimmy]

I suppose I better chuck some change into this one-armed bandit.

On one of the smallest chelti warships I've drawn up so far I would expect a ships company of about 30 crew plus three officers as skeleton crew, and three times that if very generously staffed. Bunks are hotswapped in almost all chelti warships where three shifts switch Work, Rest, and Sleep shifts. At General Quarters some of the crew will disperse throughout the ship as Damage Control, or reserve duty. Smaller chelti ships will jettison carried on supplies that subsidize their life-support, foodstuffs, and waste systems, helping to extent the range despite the inefficiencies in these systems, while also decreasing mass in combat.

Also, modern nuclear submarines take their oxygen from sea water. Technically allowing them to stay submerged indefinitely, practically they can spend a number of months submerged off the coast of some belligerent nation or rather. Typically the nuclear reactor takes up a large portion of the central area of the submarine, and has a large crew dedicated to nothing but keeping it operational. A fistful of good, dirty, Australian uranium should last you about twenty years without need to stop at a gas station, pretty decent miles to the gallon.

Meanwhile, on SARP, at least in the SAoY, the ships AI seems to take over the monitoring of systems, allowing the crew to focus on maintenance and operation. Most of the systems on a SAoY vessel seem to take care of themselves anyway, even the hull will slowly resurface itself after damage if the right materials are on board. At least Yamatai doesn't seem to have quite figured out how to make matter from energy in anything that isn't zeusium yet.

 

[Gunsight1]

Three words: Nuclear-Biological-Chemical.

Naval vessels have been designed in case of such attacks, which means life-support systems.

Yes even older warships were modefied to protect their crews from NBC attack. The USS Hornet, the museum ship i work in was built in WW2, but in the 50's and 60's was modefied to suppirt her crew and keep them alive with a fully sealed interior, save for the hangar bay.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

Yeah, it's difficult to seal and protect open-air facilities such as hanger bays, launch decks, and such. That's when you use environmental suits, kind of like EVA suits for space vessels (only lighter).

Anyway, I've always thought that Yamatai vessels and other nations vessels just used loads of automation to compensate for low crew counts (considering the sapience of AI in other nations). The Abwehrans, on the other hand, I've always tried to make more crew-heavy / semi-realistic crew levels. To aid myself in this, I created a little table on Google Drive. Though lately, I've been pondering actually creating a program to do it rather than use Google Drive (considering some issues I've had with certain things).

Maybe a Visual Basic or a Javascript so I could make it available to others.

 

[Fred]

Semi-realistic?

You guys talk about that like it was supposed to make sense. Quite honestly, I still don't understand why today's naval vessels actually need so many crewmembers. I don't have that frame of reference. I see those numbers and just think of them as mind-boggling compared to what ships probably actually need. I remember reading about different workshifts, but that doesn't even compute all that much for me considering that in an emergency situation, all hands should probably be active anyways (seriously, can you really be on break/asleep when your ship is being shot at?).

When I try to figure out a good ship size-to-crew ratio, my general guideline is the NX class Enterprise. 80 people operating in that amount of space seems to work in my head. Then again, that seems to go really under today's apparent standard (that 100x10x10 sub with 110 people?), so, blargh.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

Specifically, the reason why many modern navy vessels need so many crew (which is less than the crew amounts of WW2) is simply for both shifts and redundancy.

While the night shift is probably not a full crew, the fact that they need at least three shifts means at least 2.5x the amount of crew needed to run the vessel efficiently. Then there's the redundancy factor since crew losses can happen due to accidents and war-time casualties (which don't happen often to naval vessels now a days). You also need to account for Marines stationed on naval vessels.

You also have to remember than the NX-class and the Star Trek universe in general, doesn't really account for combat or even have a truly combative mind set. Heck, they don't even wear armor in the shows, have squad support weapons, or even a proper infantry specialist group (sans the Enterprise-era group). In general, I find Star Trek to be less of an example for a military and more for an multipurpose exploratory group. A better example for a space-based military, in my opinion, are either the Galactic Empire from Star Wars or any military in the Honor Harrington novels.

A vessel in the Star Wars universe is still a little wonky crew wise, but more towards the excessive than the under-staffed. In the Honor Harrington series, they actually go more in-depth and lean closer towards actual naval organization than other sci-fi military depictions. Naval Vessels have departments with officers at the head and enlisted men filling their complements. Naval Vessels have stations that need to be manned at all times (whether by a skeleton crew or a full complement). Naval Vessels need 24 hour maintenance and cleaning, though the major cleaning portion is often done by some crew that are not on duty rather than by specialists.

Then there are shifts, which come normally in threes (unknown if this is actually true, but it works in my mind). For a single individual, one shift would be for work, one shift would be for relaxation/fitness, and one shift would be for sleep. While said individual is on his rest periods, another individual takes his place at the station. If the station is not critical, it might be empty during a ship's night cycle. However, critical stations would be manned 24/7. This might night be needed on a vessel with sentient AI (such as Yamatai vessels), but it would be necessary for vessel that don't rely upon AI.

 

[Fred]

How does that reflect with officers, then?

For example, you could have a Taisa, a Shosa and a Taii and a couple of Shois for a starship... but how are they impacted by the different shifts needed? Should Star Army ships actually have three times that number of officers?

 

[Fian]

For example, you could have a Taisa, a Shosa and a Taii and a couple of Shois for a starship... but how are they impacted by the different shifts needed? Should Star Army ships actually have three times that number of officers?

If in combat, everyone and their moms should be awake regardless if its their 8 hour sleepytime.

If not in combat, you dont need the Taisa, Shosa and the Taii on the bridge at the same time all the time, maybe once every week to keep themselves familliar with each other's style and the rest consisting of one or two of the senior bridge officers playing captain and a handful of the Shois for on-hands training.

 

[Wes]

If we look at STO's doff system, it gives you an idea of the vast scale of professions that might appear in a ship. Remember, that the military specialises its troops because it wants replacement troops that are easily and expertly trained in a reasonable timeframe. Based on the aforementioned game, we can see a SARP version of it might include at least the following occupations:

1. Starship Pilot (Conn)
2. Energy Weapons Specialist
3. Projectile Weapons Specialist
4. Energy Shields Officer
5. Armory Officer
6. Strike Team Officer/Space Marine
   
7. Security Officer
8. Explosives Expert
9. Damage Control Specialist
10. Fabrication Engineer
11. Maintenance Engineer
12. Aether Specialist
13. Systems Engineer
14. Technician
15. FTL Drive Specialist
16. Quartermaster/Logistics Officer
    
17. Sensors Officer
18. Gravity Beam Officer
19. Teleportation Officer
20. Flight Deck Officer
21. Astrometrics Scientist
22. Biologist
23. Botanist
24. Research Lab Scientist
25. Development Lab Scientist
26. Geologist
27. Volumetric Studies Scientist
28. Biochemist
29. Psychologist
30. Doctor
31. Medic
32. Nurse
33. Advisor
34. Bartender
35. Chef
36. Diplomat
37. Entertainer
38. Miner
39. Trader
40. Personnel manager (HR)
41. Computer Programmer
42. Consultants
43. Warfare specialists for particular enemies
44. Language specialists for particular languages
45. PSYOPS

A big ship would probably have almost all of these, and smaller ships would have the essentials.

Also, keep in mind one reason the smaller SARP ships have small crews is so they can be mostly player characters.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

If in combat, everyone and their moms should be awake regardless if its their 8 hour sleepytime.

If not in combat, you dont need the Taisa, Shosa and the Taii on the bridge at the same time all the time, maybe once every week to keep themselves familliar with each other's style and the rest consisting of one or two of the senior bridge officers playing captain and a handful of the Shois for on-hands training.

Pretty much. Excess crew who aren't fulfilling a duty at a station are often used as Damage Control Teams, Triage Teams, counters to boarding parties, or even as replacements for losses at certain stations.

 

[Fred]

If we look at STO's doff system, it gives you an idea of the vast scale of professions that might appear in a ship. Remember, that the military specialises its troops because it wants replacement troops that are easily and expertly trained in a reasonable timeframe.

[...]

A big ship would probably have almost all of these, and smaller ships would have the essentials.

Also, keep in mind one reason the smaller SARP ships have small crews is so they can be mostly player characters.

But, 'multi-classing' seems to happen fairly often. I mean, don't nekos have downloaded software exactly for the purpose of fast training times?

One example that occurs to me - since I know Abwehran Commander is paying attention to this, seems to be Kurohoshi Masako - that girl has her thumbs as infantry specialist, security chief and damage control. And I might be missing some too.

Masako isn't an isolated case. There are a lot of NPCs on smaller ships that happen to have a wide array of skills. Heis on a smaller gunship and Heis on a heavy cruiser are probably mostly equal, so, you get crews with hundreds of people whom know multiple overlapping fields. Since there's that, how relevant is it to have all that many people since you may not always need one discipline (a biologist is probably useless on an Eikan, but if he happens to be a mishhu warfare specialist and a combat medic, then you get much more out of him depending on the situation - he's rarely excess baggage then).

Respawning is also a handy way of recuperating lost crew numbers. That seems like another reason to keeping crew counts justifiably lower.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

"Multi-classing" comes more from necessity, though you will normally find Shipborne Infantry actually doing those said duties, security and damage control, on top of their usual infantry things of boarding operations and planetary drops.

In fact, in the Honor Harrington series, Marines are often deployed upon ships in Brigade strength (roughly 500 or so) and are used for damage control teams, triage assistants, and even ship weapons operators when in combat situations that don't entail boarding a hostile craft or being deployed upon a planet. In non-combat situations, they're used as standard ship security.

The giving of multiple tasks on a naval vessel does tone down the amount of crew needed, but not by much. This is mainly due to the fact that said tasks are often closely related to their original duties. A reactor tech maybe used to work on power transfer systems. An helmsman maybe used for astrogation duties (or assist in them). As for officers, even specialized officers may have training in other specializations in order to groom them for ship command or to replace the officer in another department if need be.

As for downloading, that only applies to the knowledge of a subject. In practical terms, training is still needed to instruct muscle memory or practical application. The training time is decreased mainly due to the shortened period of time needed for knowledge memorization/retention (which is instant for Neko).