[Spaceships] Crew traits...

[GoblynByte]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

In fact, let's look at the crew of Serenity just prior to the pilot episode:

While I don't disagree that the Serenity crew is a fun mix, it puts some impractical demands on Wash. A ship really needs an "operator" of some nature to handle all the instrumentation while the pilot is maneuvering the ship. Otherwise that's a lot of multitasking. Especially in a combat situation. After that, it just makes sense to give the operator the navigation tasks as he can crunch the numbers and plot the courses based on the information he's collecting first hand.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by GoblynByte

While I don't disagree that the Serenity crew is a fun mix, it puts some impractical demands on Wash. A ship really needs an "operator" of some nature to handle all the instrumentation while the pilot is maneuvering the ship. Otherwise that's a lot of multitasking. Especially in a combat situation. After that, it just makes sense to give the operator the navigation tasks as he can crunch the numbers and plot the courses based on the information he's collecting first hand.

To be fair, combat pilots handle much more information in shorter times than a pilot of a tramp freighter, especially when a split second means life or death. And Serenity lacked ship-grade weapons (I'm guessing the Alliance laid down the law that freighters were to be unarmed). So it's not unrealistic or even impractical; IMO, an "impractical" demand would have been to not have an autopilot for routine flights.

On the other end of the realism spectrum, the Millennium Falcon had a navicomputer that handled getting all the routine updates from the HoloNet and plotting the course itself, leaving Han or Chewie to just switch off the sublight engines and go into a hyperspace wormhole.

Both of them effectively operated on an autopilot for going from point A to point B in space, leaving the pilot to handle landing, takeoff, docking, and combat flying.

[myrmidon]

I'm currently running a science fiction campaign set around a freighter, the Argo, that's being slowly reconverted into a warship. It's set in TL 10 and is a SM+11 ship. The story focuses on the PCs, who are generally the bridge crew. There are about 6 PCs (a couple are irregular), and they were originally designed to be able to run the ship by themselves, without any other crew required except for general spacers. We used the templates in Space to help get ideas for some of the characters. So here's what we came up with for the relevant primary skills for each character, by position.

Captain
Leadership
Diplomacy
Law (Space)
Tactics
Shiphandling (since our ship is bigger)
Acting

Notes: Since most of these skills are Hard, it takes more points to get him to an effective/expert level. This is also why he doesn't have many more relevant skills. He serves as the face of the ship in dealings with the ship. I didn't give him Strategy, since that seems to be relevant more for large-scale (multi-ship) combat. Merchandising is handled by other PCs as well, since the captain's role is the successful operation of the ship.

First Mate/Merchant
Administration
Accounting
Current Affairs (Business)
Market Analysis
Merchant
Freight Handling
Leadership

Notes: This is the second-in-command on the ship, so he has to have some administration and leadership capabilities. In fact, due to his background, he handles the administrative side of ship operations. He also focuses on the legal money-making side of the business.

Underworld Contact
Streetwise
Acting
Fast-talk
Diplomacy
Body Language
Detect Lies

Notes: This is the man who handles all illegal dealings and contact. He serves as a second face-man for the ship, as well. He also helps the captain in negotiations by monitoring the opposing parties.

Engineer
Engineer (High-Performance Spacecraft, HPSC)
Engineer (Aerospace)
Mechanic (HPSC)
Mechanic (Aerospace)
Machinist
HazMat

Notes: The ship's engineer. Others had previously addressed that engineering is not necessary. This character has an engineering background. He bought up Engineer (HPSC) and defaults from that. I assume that you have shuttles for planetary transport since you can only hit 1G and sometimes you may need more to escape a planet's gravity, and it's handy to have skills for that side of ship operations. Our shuttles are classed under the Aerospace category.

Pilot
Piloting (HPSC)
Piloting (Aerospace)
Navigation (Space)
Electronic Operations (Sensor)
Electronic Operations (Comm)

Note: Since combat is not considered to be a primary operation of the ship (it's a freighter that has guns to drive off pirates), the ship's pilot handles the basic operations of the ship (piloting, navigation, comms, and sensors). I, as the GM, generally assume that he's not operating under a time crunch and has time to perform these tasks. For combat, other PCs use secondary skills to assist him.

Electrician/Computer Guy
Computer Programming
Electronics Repair (Computers)
Electrician
Engineer (Electrical)
Engineer (Electronics)
Electronic Operations and Repair (Comm)

Note: He handles all electronics work on the ship. As a ship of the future (and knowing what we know about modern cars), at least half of the work that will need to be done on them will be electrical. That's his job. He also works as a hacker and in electronic security and surveillance.

That's it for bridge operations. We also have a fighter or two who man ship guns, as well as wielding their own.

As for suggestions on the bridge crew, I would recommend trying to spread out the skill load between all the crew, making sure that each character has about the same number of primary skills so that each can be effective at what they are required to do. Also, it's helpful to have each crew member have a couple of secondary skills so that they can assist in case one of the crew gets bogged down (or shot down) and can't fulfill all of their duties.

Good luck with the setting! We love our campaign and have had a blast developing each character's role on and off the ship. Enjoy!

[GoblynByte]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

To be fair, combat pilots handle much more information in shorter times than a pilot of a tramp freighter, especially when a split second means life or death. And Serenity lacked ship-grade weapons (I'm guessing the Alliance laid down the law that freighters were to be unarmed). So it's not unrealistic or even impractical; IMO, an "impractical" demand would have been to not have an autopilot for routine flights.

While I don't disagree with that, fighters are a different ball of wax. Think more in terms of multi-crew oceanic vessels. You don't have the navigator or sonar operator actually maneuvering the vessel. And you're dealing with the same sort of open terrain in which a lot of autopiloting can be used. Even some fighter planes have multiple crewmen when it is practical to do so.

On the other end of the realism spectrum, the Millennium Falcon had a navicomputer that handled getting all the routine updates from the HoloNet and plotting the course itself, leaving Han or Chewie to just switch off the sublight engines and go into a hyperspace wormhole.

Star Wars nav computers are not "set it and forget it" systems. It still takes a noteworthy amount of time for the pilot to operate the nav computer. It was very hands on. And several times in the movies it shows the difficulty of a single pilot handling the multiple tasks the ship requires.

But such automation is handled in GURPS Spaceships by reducing crew needs. This is an expense that was not applied to keep with the theme of the ship being a very low-investment beginner vessel.

[GoblynByte]

Originally Posted by myrmidon

I'm currently running a science fiction campaign set around a freighter, the Argo,...

This is all useful information. Thank you!!!

[myrmidon]

Originally Posted by GoblynByte

This is all useful information. Thank you!!!

You're welcome! If you have any other questions, let me know.