Does anyone know if there are any subsystems that allow you to reduce the minimum crew needed to use a starship?
Thanks
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There's a manufacturer perk in Starship Operations Manual for ships built by United Interfaith Engineering.
Manufacturer’s Perk: UIE’s ships are built for exploration and adventure, often with minimal crews. UIE starships can be operated with a crew 10% smaller than what is listed for the frame (minimum complement 1).
Given the round down rule, I guess that makes a minimum 6 round down to 5.
You can also use a Virtual Intelligence (also from SOM) to fill either the pilot, gunner, or science officer role. On Large ships I'd allow that reduce crew by one, so between the perk and the cost of a VI I'd allow 4 PCs to run a Large ship.
The starship combat minor actions fit that on a ship wide scale.
The starship combat minor actions fit that on a ship wide scale.
Those don't help with minimum crew.
"A starship without its minimum crew can't be operated." Minor actions only cover unfilled roles during combat, but you still need the minimum to act at all. Then you can choose to ignore certain roles like gunner or pilot to use minor actions so you can stack up multiple science officers or engineers or fill the more optional magic officer, captain, and chief mate roles.
The minimum complement must be met to operate the ship at all, it's separate from actions in combat, which for larger ships are totally undefined anyway for how many crew are necessary to support an officer filling a role.
So for a destroyer the minimum crew is six to even leave doc or take off. You probably get six combat roles to fill with that minimum, and don't have to have a spare crew member support the engineering officer (or whatever), but even that is GM fiat. Certainly the published destroyers tend to give six crew roles if the complement is at or toward the minimum, but they definitely don't give 20 if you're at the max. At some point you have diminishing returns.
At cruiser level, with a minimum crew of 20, you need all 20 to move the ship or do anything, but you almost certainly can't have 20 crew actions - some arbitrary number of crew are required to backup some but not all officers. The published crew numbers and crew per officer in given roles are all over the place and not consistent.
Minimum crew takes a much bigger significance post-SOM if you use the boarding rules. A successful boarding action that beats the DC by 5 or more takes out 10%(?) of the crew. If they're running at or near minimal crew that can't absorb that loss, it's an instant mission kill, and the ship can't do anything in combat ever again (or move out of combat!) until it somehow revives or replaces those lost crew. Even if you're running with a buffer, multiple boarding parties or multiple rounds can still get you below your minimum. Beware!
I don't understand your complaint. Every entry in the core rulebook has a minimum and maximum crew complement based on the chosen frame.
As Leon mentioned, the frames clearly state a Minimum and a Maximum crew. So a Destroyer needs a minimum of 6 crew and can have a maximum of 20.
On page 293 it states the rules fairly clearly
In a base frame stat block, these entries note the minimum and maximum number of characters who can take actions on that vessel during starship combat. Larger starships use teams that report to a higher officer who performs an assigned role in starship combat (see Large and Small Crews on page 316 for more about large crews). A starship without its minimum crew can’t be operated.
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I think he’s complaining that every ship would realistically need 2 and preferably 3 times the minimum crew to actually go anywhere for longer than several hours. You need multiple watches, you can’t wait for everyone to get out of bed, the shower, or the gym if you’re suddenly facing combat.
The wikipedia article on watchkeeping suggests by implication that no one, merchant or navy, is running only two watches on a ship. Whether it was ever historically possible to expect/make someone be at work 12 hours a day for weeks or months straight, probably not in the era of 40 hour work weeks and competitive labor markets.
So you really need triple the minimum crew on a ship, plus a few extra in case someone gets sick/dead unless your plan is to make some people pull extra watches on a rotating basis if that happens.
The ship frames where you can't do this because the minimum/maximum don't work is the fighter (1/2), interceptor/racer/statikete (1/1), bulk freighter (20/50), carrier (75/200). The battleship is exactly at the limit (100/300) and the destroyer and heavy freighter are close (6/20).
This is obviously fine for the tiny ships (no one really expects you to go on a weeks long drift expedition alone), and the large+ ships can always go colony ship at small BP cost to get lots more crew berths (and add some marines). But they shouldn't have to.
I remember thinking when the CRB came out that it was weird a carrier couldn't have three watches able to live inside the frame before you even get to pilots for the ships it carries. I guess they're sleeping in their cockpits.
I think he’s complaining that every ship would realistically need 2 and preferably 3 times the minimum crew to actually go anywhere for longer than several hours. You need multiple watches, you can’t wait for everyone to get out of bed, the shower, or the gym if you’re suddenly facing combat.
I would just have the VI stand watch.
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note maximum crew is how many people you can have at work stations before they get in each others way. You can shove almost any number of people on board if you want to.
note maximum crew is how many people you can have at work stations before they get in each others way. You can shove almost any number of people on board if you want to.
I dunno about any number, but there might should be a 'max supported life forms' stat, assuming max crew wasn't meant to be that stat.
Also, I'm unsure minimum crew is the same as a skeleton crew keeping the ship coasting through the drift to their destination or not.
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I think he’s complaining that every ship would realistically need 2 and preferably 3 times the minimum crew to actually go anywhere for longer than several hours. You need multiple watches, you can’t wait for everyone to get out of bed, the shower, or the gym if you’re suddenly facing combat.I would just have the VI stand watch.
It can't run the ship. You need the minimum crew to run the ship.
If it's a minimum crew of 1 base frame I guess you can find out how long your GM says it takes you to wake up and join the battle while the VI fights the first (at least) round of combat without you.
note maximum crew is how many people you can have at work stations before they get in each others way. You can shove almost any number of people on board if you want to.
You can't, unless you're just on a three hour tour, because you only have enough crew quarters up to the max crew. After that you have to invest your bays in guest quarters or take the colony/space station frame.
note maximum crew is how many people you can have at work stations before they get in each others way. You can shove almost any number of people on board if you want to.I dunno about any number, but there might should be a 'max supported life forms' stat, assuming max crew wasn't meant to be that stat.
There would be no need for the guest quarters expansion bay if max crew didn't equal max quarters/life support. And the colony/space station upgrades make this pretty explicit.
A colony ship can house a total number of occupants equal to 10 × its base frame’s maximum crew size, though its maximum crew size doesn’t change.
Also, I'm unsure minimum crew is the same as a skeleton crew keeping the ship coasting through the drift to their destination or not.
The definition of the minimum crew is that necessary to operate the ship, period, not just in combat. You can't just leave a helmsman on a nuclear submarine or aircraft carrier while everyone else sleeps and hope the engines/reactor don't get wonky or you aren't about to run into something without a navigator/sensors guy there to tell you what's up.
That's why the explorer frame tells you that it uses special automation to allow one person to run it - it's a small/simple enough ship that you can rely on one guy to keep it pointed straight without the engines needing constant maintenance/focused attention/calibration and the sensor are simple enough that you don't need a dozen people carefully staring at screens and filtering data onto a plot.
Going back to that watchkeeping article I posted, the simplest/most barebones crew a merchant ship is running these days is the office of the watch (captain), lookout (sensors/science officer), helmsman (pilot), radio watch (combine it with science officer I guess), and engineering officer (engineer). Simplifying further, call that a minimum of four to keep it pointed in the right direction, keep it from running into anything ahead of it, keep it from being surprised by something it can't see that is trying to warn it, and keep the engines from unexpectedly overheating (or whatever) and having a catastrophic failure before anyone can intervene. We've eliminated the security/anti-piracy watch that would be equivalent to our gunner in Starfinder.
You can of course handwave this sort of stuff away or houserule it, like the original laughable size/tonnage stats in the CRB, but it's a fair annoyance for those invested in realism. You need a minimum number of crew, you need three shifts of those to run a ship for days let alone weeks at a time, and without investing extra resources to solve the problem some ship frames, including some that most certainly are supposed to be voyage for weeks at a time, do not support enough crew to do that.
I dunno about any number, but there might should be a 'max supported life forms' stat, assuming max crew wasn't meant to be that stat.
I'm sure there's a limit for comfort, sanity, health, and absolute max for an hour or a day or a week, but i don't think it;s the crew compliment. Every crew room on a starship layout has its own bathroom. The idea that you can't put more people in your cargo hold and share for a few days in an emergency in a world with magitech air makers/filters/water recyclers seems a little meta.
Sure, the typical crew of the ISS is 7, and they've gone to 13 briefly at crew changeover, and I'm sure you could physically cram in 20 or 30 for a while if you didn't mind people not moving around, but at some point things aren't going to live very long before they can't breathe.
If you're taking a Drift trip that is expected to take 15-25 days you probably don't want to exceed your maximum crew by very much, even if you can have them sleep on the floor and your air/water recyling isn't literally at a marginal collapse point.
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It can't run the ship. You need the minimum crew to run the ship.
They don't say that minimum crew needs to be multiplied by the standard number of ship watches either.
You can't complain about the rules being unrealistic, then hide behind them when I point out that automation can stand in for minimum crew in your thought experiment.
So if you need a giant immovable rod park the ship somewhere and then abandon ship?
It can't run the ship. You need the minimum crew to run the ship.
They don't say that minimum crew needs to be multiplied by the standard number of ship watches either.
You can't complain about the rules being unrealistic, then hide behind them when I point out that automation can stand in for minimum crew in your thought experiment.
But it can’t. You pointed out nothing of the kind. A VI can carry out one combat role (limited to three options) during starship combat. It doesn’t replace minimal crew.
But also no, the minimum crew doesn’t have to be multiplied. Those crew just have to stay at their posts until they keel over from exhaustion or shut down the ship and let it coast while they don’t have the minimum actively on duty.
But also no, the minimum crew doesn’t have to be multiplied. Those crew just have to stay at their posts until they keel over from exhaustion
Can you cite a source for this? I can't find anything in the CRB to back up this assertion.
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The anacites manufacture starships that operate solely via VI.
Also, this isn't ye old days of sail. (I say, as someone who spent 11 years working on a replica 17th Century Dutch jaght.) A tall ship, or even a modern ship, yes, you need crew working around the clock in double or triple shifts. The entire ship requires constant maintenance and you need someone at the helm every second you're underway, because the sea comes at you fast and literally never stops trying to push you off course.
But this is Starfinder. Its starships are far more advanced than, say, the Nostromo, Sulaco, Discovery One, or even the Dark Star, all of which ran on skeleton crews with computers trusted to perform the constant monitoring required, and to wake up the sleeping crew in emergencies.
In Starfinder, that minimum crew is for special operations, like landing, docking, leaving orbit, and combat. But once you've launched into space, plugged in your navigational coordinates, and jumped to the Drift, you can absolutely go nap for a couple of weeks (or until klaxons announce a problem). Heck, we know you can even die and your ship might still make it to its destination without you.
But also no, the minimum crew doesn’t have to be multiplied. Those crew just have to stay at their posts until they keel over from exhaustionCan you cite a source for this? I can't find anything in the CRB to back up this assertion.
The minimum crew presumably has to be on duty, not sleeping or dead to run the ship. No minimum crew, no function of the ship - that’s clear enough. We have exhaustion rules for not sleeping, although I’m not sure they ever actually kill you come to think about it. I guess you can just work 24 hours and be exhausted.
Weekend at Bernie’s, but to fake having minimum crew so the real crew can get some rest without a second or third duplicate crew.
The minimum crew presumably has to be on duty, not sleeping or dead to run the ship.
I wonder though. If you read "minimum crew" as "minimum total crew for normal operation" rather than "minimum active duty personnel at any moment" it alleviates the problem of ships that are incapable of operating fully because their maximum crew counts aren't high enough.
It makes it impossible to have a skeleton crew, makes crew roles even more nebulous, and makes it even more unclear what having more crew actually does for you, but those are already kind of issues with the ship crew system, and at least reading it that way would make ships work.
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Roll for off duty crew and number of rounds for them to get out of the shower and allow their ship to participate in combat. Good deal for pirates and navies with meaningful personnel budgets, I guess.
Wouldn't the partial actions suggest that the minimum crew isnt the minimum actual crew?
Wouldn't the partial actions suggest that the minimum crew isnt the minimum actual crew?
No, they allow extra actions when you do have the minimum crew. On a tiny through medium ship they can allow more actions than the maximum crew.