Why is it that oil tankers, freighters, and most other merchant vessels have very small crews (no more than 20 or 30) while military vessels generally have very large crews (100s or 1000s)? Small destroyers have crews around 400, while carriers can have as many as 5000 men (or more). Some reasons I have though of: 1) Navy ships need to operate more efficiently than civilian vessels. 2) Navy ships need to be able to absorb combat casualties and continue to function. 3) Navy ships are more complex and require more people to operate. Any other thoughts? -Mike

Also, on civilian ships, it is the owners of the ships who have to pay the crews (more people on a crew means less profit for the owners). The Navy has the government funding and such to help. The Navy also has more jobs (medics, cooks, pilots, JAG, etc) that have to be filled on a ship.

most of the ship is taken up by oil, cargo, and merchandise, not a lot of room for crew

Historically, at least, Navy ships have had to be able to detach prize crews to sail captured vessels back to base.

I don''t think needing 100 times as many people is a good sign of operating more efficiently...

The main reasons for needing more people (in my opinion) are:

1) Redundancy - while it may be theoretically possible for a naval ship to operate with only a handful of men to make decisions, the most flexible "replacement parts" for any system that fails are still human beings... at least for now. (Basically the same idea as absorbing combat casualties)

2) Complexity - In combat, a naval vessel wants to be able to perform all the navigation and steering a civilian vessel would (and maybe a bit more) and also control each gun independently.

3) Training - In general, the best Admirals are the ones who''ve come up through the ranks and had experience with command at lower levels and the actual performance of vessels hands-on.

And the main reason for using more people:

Tradition.

Going out on a slaughter is just more work than floating around with some cargo.

In the redundancy theme - not only do military ships have much more going on (requiring many more people to operate) than a civilian ship, but they have to be fully operational 24/7 for weeks or months at a time. The crew needs to sleep some time.

Thanks for the replies, everyone! The reason I have been thinking about this topic is that I am in the middle of the design of my upcoming epic space RPG. I will probably include aspects of hiring/maintaining a crew on board the player''s starship.

In most science fiction/space opera books, movies, and TV shows, we generally see huge warships with thousands of crew. Conversely, in movies such as Alien we see an even more massive ship (the freighter Nostromo , I believe?) crewed by only 6 or 7.

In my game, the player will be able to command many types of ships, including tiny destroyers, massive battlecruisers, and even more massive superfreighters. Thus, the types and sizes of crews needed may vary widely, even among ships that are roughly the same size.

What are some of your thoughts on the size of ship crews in the future (specifically in outer space)? I may decide to make the high-tech starships require only a handful of personnel, with most of the dirty work being handled automatically. What do you guys think?

-Mike

The problem with having small crews and automated systems is that you need to have an intelligence controlling each system. Making it a fancy computer is fine, but in a combat situation, it takes a lot to control all the weapons, maneuvering, power systems, and shields if you have that sort of thing.

Think Star Trek. Most times, the fights consist of a few shots. Picard says, "Target their propulsion systems and FIRE!" or, "Shields to full; brace for impact." But in a pitched battle, such slow, simple actions don''t cut it. Orders like "Evasive pattern Omega four, concentrate fire on those fighters" doesn''t set a specific action in motion, but rather determines a condition for the ship to be in. Gunners will target and fire at will, the helmsman will exercise autonomy in his decisions, and engineers will scramble to keep everything up and running a maximum efficiency.

It''s tough to do that sort of thing in a video game, because if it''s real-time, no player will be able to do the jobs of thirteen men, and if it''s turn-based, then players will have the opportunity to introduce a degree of cohesion and planning that would be impossible for any ship''s crew to pull off without weird telepathic commands.

This would be really neat for a multiplayer game, but that''s been discussed here before and found to be impractical. I hope you can come up with a really cool solution to this problem. It would make for a superb game.

quote: Original post by Dobbs
In the redundancy theme - not only do military ships have much more going on (requiring many more people to operate) than a civilian ship, but they have to be fully operational 24/7 for weeks or months at a time. The crew needs to sleep some time.

Actually, most of the time, a naval ship won''t be operating at 100% effort. Except at the highest alert conditions, there''s a lot of downtime - so there''s a certain amount of make-work (like scrubbing deckplates) and a tendency not to automate non-critical tasks in order to give crewmen something to do when they''re not shooting at someone.

Great points, Iron Chef Carnage. The stuff you''re talking about has been a major part of my design process.

My goal is a very Star Trek-ish feel, with the player taking the role of the ship''s captain giving orders to the seniors officers and crew. The game will be a bit lower level than that, but I want it to be close.

I should note that my game is a top-down, asteroids-style game w/ frictionless physics. But rather than using the arrow keys to apply thrust, like in most games of this type, the player will simply right click on a point in space and the navigation officer or navigation computer will automatically calculate a course and move towards the selected destination. The better the officer/computer, the better the ship will navigate obstacles and arrive at the destination.

You can liken the interface to something like a space RTS where the player commands a single, highly detailed unit (his or her starship). How well the ship responds to orders depends on the skill of the player''s crew and quality of his components and computers.

Well I would write more, but I have to get back to my homework. Thanks for the replies, and feel free to continue!

-Mike