for technical information and crew sizes, check out navy.mil's website in the navy fact file

Here are some examples:

Carrier, Nimitz Class: Crew: Ship's Company: 3,200 - Air Wing: 2,480

Carrier, Enterprise: Crew: Ship's Company: 3,350 - Air Wing 2,480

Carrier, John F Kennedy: Crew: Ship's Company: 3,117 - Air Wing 2,480

Carrier, Kitty Hawk Class: Crew: Ship's Company: 3,150 - Air Wing: 2,480

Cruiser, Ticonderoga Class: Crew: 24 Officers, 340 Enlisted

Destroyer, Arleigh Burke Class: Crew: 23 officers, 300 enlisted

Destroyer, Spruance Class: Crew: 30 officers, 352 enlisted

Frigate, Oliver Hazard Perry Class: Crew: 13 Officers, 287 Enlisted

Dock Landing Ship, Harpers Ferry Class: Crew: Ships Company: 22 officers, 397 enlisted; Marine Detachment: 402 plus 102 surge

Ammunition Ship, Kiluauea Class: Crew: 17 officers, 366 enlisted

Sea Shadow: Crew: 10


[edited by - redeyegames on February 20, 2003 1:18:11 AM]

quote: Original post by doctorsixstring
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?

Since you could go either way with this and use fiction and technology to support your idea, I''d say a lot depends on what you are trying to achieve.

About this crew...
* Do you interact with them?
* Do you have to keep them happy? Is mutiny or morale a factor?
* Are there any inter-crewmember dynamics that you need to deal with (drunken brawls on your pirate ship, cowardice during a boarding action...)
* Are you concerned at all with their experience level?
* What about their readiness level?

Crew could be as simple as points (like hit points) or as complex as fully modelled characters that walk around. But the really important question to be asking is what level of interaction does the player assume with his crew.

If they''re simply points (maybe hit points, as the Star Control series used) then it might be a good option to have more crew the bigger your ship is. If you actually interact with characters in detail, then huge ships with small crews (as with the 4 man dreadnaught you flew in Independence War 1) might make more sense.

In short, what goal are you trying to achieve by having crew?



--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by rmsgrey
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.

What I meant was they might be required to be fully operational for long period. And since they don''t know exactly when those periods will be and how long they''ll last they need multiple shifts in the event of such a high alert status.

Of course, on spacecraft a bigger crew means more life support equipment, larger pressurized sections of the ship, artificial gravity of some sort, etc. All of those things would be a liability in combat.
With that in mind, I would think that a lot more ship functions would be automated on military spacecraft, and the crew would be smaller and more skilled than the present-day naval equivilents.

quote: Original post by Wavinator
In short, what goal are you trying to achieve by having crew?

As of now, my plan is to model two types of crew: enlisted men and senior officers. The enlisted crew would simply be used as "hit points" (as someone mentioned earlier) and as a "fuel" of sorts to maintain/operate the ship''s systems. The senior officers would be actual characters in the game world, each with various skills and personalities. Each SO could offer advice or ideas in certain situations, as well as providing control over their respective subsystem (Tactical, Navigation, Science, etc.)

The senior officers would be characters, like the player, who can be hired by the player, or who may join up for various reasons. Each SO would have certain skills (science, engineering, weapons, navigation, etc.) which the player could make use of. Additionally, each character would have various attitudes and dispositions. For example, your Martian weapons officer may feel more than a little hesitant to comply with the player''s order to launch missiles at a Martian passenger liner.

I''m not sure how far I want to take the crew-related portion of my game, but I have a feeling that it could be pretty fun for people looking for more out of their space RPG-style games.

quote: Original post by Plasmadog
With that in mind, I would think that a lot more ship functions would be automated on military spacecraft, and the crew would be smaller and more skilled than the present-day naval equivilents.

This is along the lines of what I am thinking. I will probably have ships in my game universe require less crew then modern naval vessels do, but the #''s will be proportional to modern ships. Thus, a massive battlecruiser may have a crew of 1000, while a destroyer may only need 50 men. Massive non-military superfreighters could be operated by only 2 or 3 men.

-Mike

quote: Original post by Plasmadog
Of course, on spacecraft a bigger crew means more life support equipment, larger pressurized sections of the ship, artificial gravity of some sort, etc. All of those things would be a liability in combat.
With that in mind, I would think that a lot more ship functions would be automated on military spacecraft, and the crew would be smaller and more skilled than the present-day naval equivilents.

Alternatively, having a large number of small scale local life support systems (probably in addition to a ship-wide system) provides redundancy and larger scope for survival in the event of a serious hit - where having a single life support system is an all or nothing proposition - if the enemy gets a hit on your life support system, you''re in serious trouble. Of course, there''s a technical term for these small scale life support units - they''re known as space suits.
Larger pressurized sections means a larger air reserve in case of loss of power (and that''s more reserve per person).
Artificial gravity is a more or less neutral point - if you''re providing it by spinning the ship, then either you have to spin the entire ship anyway, or you need to cope with only part of the ship spinning, with associated couplings, bearings, etc. If you''re providing it by some other means, then the details may dictate that it''s more efficient to do the entire ship anyway...

If nothing else, you''d want either a reasonable number of warm bodies for damage control, or extensive self-repair systems on the ship. And I''d be very cautious about giving a machine too much autonomy and a self-repair capacity - particularly one designed for combat. Even if it''s safe to begin with, damage would do all sorts of unexpected things to it...

My personal feeling is that, provided sufficient automation that you don''t need to be a rocket scientist to avoid killing yourself on board, crew could be relatively unskilled, trained in-flight and numerous. The thing about space is that, although it''s very unforgiving, it''s much less malicious than, say, the ocean - the major constraint on whether the "victorious" ship has any survivors in either environment is how quickly repairs can be made to life-support and propulsion systems.

Non-military ships, which don''t expect to get into trouble and don''t expect to survive if they do, would tend to use small crews and extensive automation - and might even be able to travel empty (though you''d probably want someone at the other end to handle surprises on the human side)