Crew Numbers : Starships / Fighters X2, X3, X3TC

[AgamemnonArgon]

If I could have added one thing into a game, it would have been a case of buying crew, like one would ammunition, or energy.

A certain number would be required to crew a fighter, transport or starship.
One would buy them and then re-supply after combat or attrition losses.

What numbers of crew would be needed for ships, in a speculative way ?

M5 - three to five crew
M4 - four to six
M3 - six to eight
M6 - six to eight hundred
M7 - four thousand plus
M8 - fifty
M2 - six to eight thousand
M1 - eight thousand plus
TS - one hundred or so
TP - several hundred as with passenger liners

Any opinions ?

[Mousse9]

I think M5, M4 and M3's are the fighter jets of the X universe, so they shouldn't hold a lot of crew.

M5 = 1
M4 = 1 or 2
M3 = 2

Transports I see as truckers. And with actual cargo loading and unloading being automated.

TS = 1
TS+ = 1, maybe 2 for long hauls so they can switch

TM = 4 or 5, pilot and maintenance crew

TP = dozens at the very least, as they can hold a lot of passengers

M6 = 12 or so

M7 = 50?

M2/M1 = 100 to 200

[Vayde]

Based on today's Royal Navy

M5 - One - No one over 6ft tall need apply.
M4 - One - Bit more leg room and somewhere for the sandwiches.
M3 - One or Two - Navigator/rear gunner
M6 - Sixty to Ninety - Modern navy frigate has 180
M7 - Eighty to One hundred and twenty. - Dependant on role.
M8 - Six to Eight - It's a bomber after all.
M2 - Ninety to One hundred and fifty - Modern navy destroyer has 190
M1 - Five to Six Hundred - Modern navy aircraft carrier has 600 including pilots.
TS - Eight to Fifteen - Firefly was a trade ship and managed quite well.
TP - Ten to Twenty - Today's Passenger jets can pack in up to 600 passengers and manage with a smallish crew.

I've reduced the numbers down from Navy totals because automation and AI will make things so much easier in the future.

[Timsup2nothin]

This points to what I think is missing, which is some sort of maintenance cost for ships and stations.

That said, I agree with Mousse9's assessment of fighter craft and transports. They need a pilot, and a gunner if they have a turret. Maybe a weapons officer or navigator in some sort of 'second seat' position. As with cruise ships, TPs need hotel staff, but they aren't really 'crew'.

Same for M6, though obviously they might need more gunners since they tend to have more turrets. Definitely more cockpit crew, maybe co-pilot, weaps and nav. Possibly an engineer monitoring engines somewhere down inside.

M8 definitely needs some sort of weapons officer in the cockpit, maybe operations and repair crewmen monitoring the launchers.

Capital ships are meant for sustained operations, so you need at least three rotations for each position. Gunners for every turret. Bridge crew, minimum an officer of the deck, helm, nav, coms, and weaps. Maybe an assistant OOD. No doubt an engineering officer of the watch with some number of operators for the engineering spaces. Probably a minimum watchbill of fifteen on even a frigate, with three watches that means minimum crew 45. With crew of 45 you need some cooks and some security master at arms types and such as well. Plus you want to be able to do some amount of maintenance and repairs independent of docking.

[AgamemnonArgon]

Based on today's Royal Navy

M5 - One - No one over 6ft tall need apply.
M4 - One - Bit more leg room and somewhere for the sandwiches.
M3 - One or Two - Navigator/rear gunner
M6 - Sixty to Ninety - Modern navy frigate has 180
M7 - Eighty to One hundred and twenty. - Dependant on role.
M8 - Six to Eight - It's a bomber after all.
M2 - Ninety to One hundred and fifty - Modern navy destroyer has 190
M1 - Five to Six Hundred - Modern navy aircraft carrier has 600 including pilots.
TS - Eight to Fifteen - Firefly was a trade ship and managed quite well.
TP - Ten to Twenty - Today's Passenger jets can pack in up to 600 passengers and manage with a smallish crew.

I've reduced the numbers down from Navy totals because automation and AI will make things so much easier in the future.

Thanks for the input dude.
However the X Universe ships are kilometres in length, so would need much more substantial crew for damage control, landing parties, and I don't think despite so much automation, crew levels would be less than thousands.

For the only type of aircraft carriers that count, a United States Super carrier has over 6,700 crew aboard.

The X Universe Destroyer is the size of several Battleships, so comparison to an Arleigh Burke or Type 45 destroyer in not really in the ballpark.

They would only be comparable to an M6, in my opinion.

I would expect hundreds of AI androids on board, if not paired with human crew and military marines on a one for one basis.
In the future everyone, and I mean everyone, will be given at least an android AI, if not two.

There are also aspects to the starships I would expect are not in the game - planetary landing and survey teams, science crew, and medical teams, mainly aboard large ships, but I reckon they would be there.

[vukica]

also, you need several shifts. people need to sleep. and do other stuff that is not work.

[Mousse9]

I think you're underestimating the automation in such a future. While it might be true that some things will need humans, especially things like repairing damaged systems and service to passengers on TP's, others might not need ANY, like turrets firing and loading/unloading cargo.

I don't think there is crew manning the turrets, BECAUSE the turrets are automated.

And with the low amount of crew, there is far less of other personnel needed, like cooks and doctors. Terran MRE's? Totally a thing, no cooks necessary. Probably just needs a minute in the microwave or something.

Look at your cockpit screen, for example. At a glance, you can see everything you need. Which weapons you have, how much energy they have, Shield energy, amount of missiles, radar, everything is on your screen at once.
Why need a navigator? A copilot? EVERYTHING is automated.

Yeah, I'm aware that putting in working with a crew is really difficult in a videogame, but given the sophistication of the technology displayed (heck, the Terraformers became selfaware like 100 years ago), I can easily imagine that a lot of things are automated. I think a skeleton crew would suffice for anything smaller than M1 and M2.

[vukica]

I don't think there is crew manning the turrets, BECAUSE the turrets are automated.

yeah, and they're crap.

NEVER trust a machine, especially with a set of anticapital weapons.

[Mousse9]

My Flak works just fine.

Hm...if it were crew manning the turrets, would they be Storm troopers?

[Sirrobert]

You can argue that turrets can and probably do (atleast on fighers) work completely automated.

M6 and 7 would need a couple of crew members. Someone to handle cargo, someone for maintanaince, the captain, probably a few extra crew on the bridge

Capital ships would indeed need a big crew. A few people for engine maintainence, some to handle all the cargo, some people to maintain the fighters you dock to it (more if you can dock more).
Than you need a full crew in the bridge. You'd also need supporting staf, as capital ships would need to opperate for weeks on end. So cooks, servers for the officers (the low level crewman can cook for themselves)
And than you'd need multiple shifts for every important role aboard. Probably atleast 3

Think Enterprise level crew members.

Ofcourse, most of the work would still be automated. Loading amuntion would be as simple as piling up the missles (in the correct way!) and let the computer take care of it. You'd still need someone to sort out any problems if they happen ofcourse

[Timsup2nothin]

(the low level crewman can cook for themselves)

You've probably invested huge amounts of training into even the lowest level operators at that level of technology. There are definitely things you'd rather they be doing with their time than working on a mess deck. Current naval vessels don't have anywhere near that kind of tech and that's the reason they have mess decks. Not likely to change.

[Ormac]

However the X Universe ships are kilometres in length, so would need much more substantial crew for damage control, landing parties, and I don't think despite so much automation, crew levels would be less than thousands.

The ship size could [still] be restricted through engineering limits, production/cost rationale, A military equilibrium.

How much force projection (hearts and minds|fear/physical)is derived upon the capital ships and the crew

[Babylon 5 Universe generally had a 1,600 metre ship limit and a crew limit of about 1000. 250 years advanced opposed to 900]

TL 6 flight Crew and up to 20 in Station Deployment Teams
TP 2 flight crew and up to 6 cabin crew
TS 1 up to one gun crew
TS+ 2 up to 3 gun crew
TM 4 flight crew 4 maintenance/gun crew

M5/ M4 1
M3 2
M8 2 and 1 Gunner
M6 30 and 3 gun crew
M7 200
M2 700
M1 500 + pilots

But I found it difficult putting crew estimates on M6 and above

-- Ormac

[AgamemnonArgon]

Cool replies.
And I still think numbers of human crew would be at least a thousand on a large Carrier, with automation, in part android humanoid artificial intelligence.

I think that most people would prefer to be crew on a starship, rather than stay planet based, in the future.

What about troop transports, again, maybe a human commander to a couple hundred AI's.

Automated everything ain't a good idea.
I can't see an AI not going to do it's own thing eventually.
Anything too intelligent would seek it's own options, and anything less intelligent would not be enough to properly crew a starship.

[Sirrobert]

Cool replies.
And I still think numbers of human crew would be at least a thousand on a large Carrier, with automation, in part android humanoid artificial intelligence.

I think that most people would prefer to be crew on a starship, rather than stay planet based, in the future.

What about troop transports, again, maybe a human commander to a couple hundred AI's.

Automated everything ain't a good idea.
I can't see an AI not going to do it's own thing eventually.
Anything too intelligent would seek it's own options, and anything less intelligent would not be enough to properly crew a starship.

AI for the turrets couldn't possibly turn into a Xenon though. All it does is calculate the best way to shoot at a target. Those targets are fed to it buy the main computer. The main computer gets it's data from the captain.

Ofcourse, we as player DO use alot of AI in our entire fleet (all non player ships are AI controlled). You could roleplay the crew in ofcourse, and avoid that.

Another fun thing to note, is that Terrans (with theyr fear of AGI) probably use alot more crew members for the same size ship than the Commonwealth races

[Lone Jedi]

When AI can invent, build and operate spaceships for large scale total wars, I believe it is quite possible there is zero need for human crew. It may sound very lonely piloting a capital ship of several hundred meters length all alone though.

[AgamemnonArgon]

An interesting thought but I would not work on the basis of total trust of tech in the future unless the AI is in charge....

[thelastslaith]

I don't think a naval basis for this works because in space you would care about supply lines more and streamline a crew much more.

At the same time because of the Xeon the story tells us that theres alot of paranoia about AI (explains why turrets are so bad at aiming).

I personally would like a engeneer/ mechanic that you could atleast have as part of a larger ship like a m2. It could even have limitations such as only repairing back to 30% or 50% even 80% as some damage would lose mass and in space you can't just add new mass (while a space ship would have spare parts inless people are insain in the future and don't worry about breaking down ever!)

My Crew numbers would be:

M5- 1 >> Pilot/ Scout
M4- 1 >> Pilot/ fighter pilot
M3 1 >> Pilot/ Fighter pilot Possibly 2nd as turret/weapons person.
M6 4 >> Captain, Navigations officer, weapons officer, Engineer.
M7 6 >>Captain, Subcommander, Tactical officer, Navigations officer, Weapons officer, Engineer,

M8 Complicated?? lots of missiles so more weapons officers? +2?>> Captain, Navigations officer, weapons officer, Engineer.

M2 >> 35 >>Captain(higher rank), Subcommander, Tactical officer*2, Navigations officer*2, Weapons officer*3, Engineer *3, then like 20 dogs bodies to do anything like painting the hull each time your shot.

M1 100 (exculding fighter pilots)>> Admiral(fleet comand), Captain (ship command) , Subcommander, Tactical officer*3, Navigations officer*3, Weapons officer*6, Engineer*15 (to repair fighters) + 70 lackies/hull painters/waiters.

I think anything more than these numbers in space would be just too inefficient remembering that these are all war ships not colony ships or transport ships and I think the number for the crew of these would be really variable.

when I write alot it means I like your idea

[thelastslaith]

Most of all I would just like some Mark 3 Fighter software making me able to hire fighter pilots and train them till they can captain a capital!!!!

[Timsup2nothin]

Most of all I would just like some Mark 3 Fighter software making me able to hire fighter pilots and train them till they can captain a capital!!!!

I use CLS software to put pilot names on all my ships. No training from fighters to capitals, but I like the effect of not seeing the same name in the pilot slot of every ship.

[AgamemnonArgon]

I just prefer the idea of people and resources on a ship.
If a Titan weighs in at 50,000 and a Phoenix is 60,000, then a certain number of crew units would be needed to operate the ship.

To me, 50,000 hull points would = 5,000 crew
and then 60,000 hull points = 6,000 crew

If a ship takes hull damage in a battle, then a proportionate amount of crew would be lost. Although a ship could operate that way, not all weapons would work, internal systems damage would apply, and speed and manuevering affected.
Once a ship is repaired, without the full crew, the ship will not function at full speed with all weapons until new crew is purchased.

In a way, it could make Fleet Command more interesting, without adding too much more in the way of micromanagement.