Sketchpad Posted April 17 Report Share Posted April 17 Greetings! I'm looking at starting a Star Hero campaign some time in the future and was wondering how you figure out crew size? Is it just an arbitrary number you pluck out of the ether? Do you try and judge what's right based on the ship size/function? As far as I can tell there are no rules that govern what a ship may need. Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenAge Posted April 18 Report Share Posted April 18 (edited) Crew size = # of Players you can competently handle. Everything else is fairly arbitrary. A ship can run with a captain or a group of likeminded crew members. It can run with a Ship's Engineer or an entire Engineering team including a Chief Engineer, a Propulsion Expert, an Electrician, and more. The ship may have a single Pilot, or operation of the ship can be broken down into an entire bridge crew including a Captain, a Helmsman, a Navigator, a Stellar Cartographer, Sensor Operations, Science Officer, Weapons Specialist, Gunner, etc, etc...etc. Premade templates in 6th Edition are limited, but one look at all the 5E products (Terran Empire, Aliens Wars, Spacer's Toolkit, and secondary publications like Star Trek HERO – Unofficial Resource Guide and Battlestar Galactica Hero By Richard Littles - all of which are easily adaptable to 6E) and you'll find dozens of crew templates and package deals. Mostly, it's whatever you think is fun! In our current game we have a Captain, Helmsman, Navigator, Engineer, Sensor Operations, Ships Weapons Chief and 2 utility NPC; another engineer and a gambling, streetwise, appraisal and trade expert. Edited April 18 by GoldenAge tkdguy and DShomshak 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowcat1313 Posted August 29 Report Share Posted August 29 how big is the ship? how much computer assistance/automation is there? Military or Civilian crew? are there small craft or vehicles to provide crew for? some really small ships like scouts or couriers might only need 1 or 2 crew is the ship designed to carry passengers? does the ship carry cold sleep capsules? does the ship have robots/drones to help with maintenance and repairs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchpad Posted August 29 Author Report Share Posted August 29 6 hours ago, shadowcat1313 said: how big is the ship? how much computer assistance/automation is there? Military or Civilian crew? are there small craft or vehicles to provide crew for? some really small ships like scouts or couriers might only need 1 or 2 crew is the ship designed to carry passengers? does the ship carry cold sleep capsules? does the ship have robots/drones to help with maintenance and repairs? Space Opera campaign. Scout Ship to Light Freighter. Some. Civilian Crew with Military experience. Might be some kind of ground vehicle. Could carry passengers if cargo was swapped out. Not really, but maybe? Maybe. Thinking of creating a placement/slot system to use for ships (as well as other vehicles). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christougher Posted August 29 Report Share Posted August 29 My .02 credits. If you're going to have ship combat, find a way to give every player something to do / roll / keep track of. Heavily dependent on your group, but consider making the Captain an NPC. They have to stay on the ship while the players get to do things, and they won't worry about something incompetent happening. When it's time for the Captain to give orders, the Players can discuss and come to an agreement, which the NPC then dictates for them to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchpad Posted August 30 Author Report Share Posted August 30 2 hours ago, Christougher said: My .02 credits. If you're going to have ship combat, find a way to give every player something to do / roll / keep track of. Heavily dependent on your group, but consider making the Captain an NPC. They have to stay on the ship while the players get to do things, and they won't worry about something incompetent happening. When it's time for the Captain to give orders, the Players can discuss and come to an agreement, which the NPC then dictates for them to do. Absolutely. I've always done that as much as possible in previous ship-based games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoneWolf Posted September 2 Report Share Posted September 2 The absolute minimum crew size is 0. You can have the entire ship be computer controlled. Other than that it is going to depend on the size and function. Another thing you have to factor in is does the ship operate 24/7. If it does you might need to have multiple shifts to allow this. Does the crew work every day or do they get time off. If they do then then you will need an even greater number for of crew members. Also, as the number of crew that run the ship increases the number of support positions will also increase. On a small ship a single medic can probably handle things, but if you have a crew in the hundreds or thousands you will need a lot more. How long will the ship be operating? If the ship only does short runs, it can get by without some positions, but if it is going to be operating for long missions it will have to have more crew positions to take care of things that cannot be postponed too long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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