Some questions about ships

[qchap]

Hello, I have some questions about low-tech ships in GURPS 4e. Sorry if my English is bad.

The question is connected with all vehicles, but currently I'm interested in TL3-4 Ships with Shiphandling skill.
For examples I'll take warships from Low-Tech Companion 2.

So, there is an Occ. column, in which stated how much people can be placed in the ship, and (after "+") how much crew is needed. Sometimes there is just ine number. So, the first mini-question is am I right thinking that one number means that all passengers have to be crewmates? If it so, where it is stated?

The second, more important question is how much of the crew should really have the crewman skill (assuming the other are just helping in some way)? How much of them, besides the captain, should have the Shiphandling skill? And so on - how to estimate the crew?

The third and the most important question - what will happen if I don't obey the crew requirements? The caravel needs 24 crewmates, and what will happen if I'll try to sail with just seven people, only half of which is skilled? Or what if I have like 23? I think I really can try it, but what will happen? Some sort of skill penalty? How much than? And one more situation - I started sailing with 24 crewmates, and during the trip one of them dies. What happens than?

And the last, not so important, but interestng question, less related to other. How can I see how my ship looks? How much rooms does it has, where is the citchen and so on. As a person, who don't really knows much about ships, I'd like to be able to play a character who is really into them, so I should know as much as I can about my ship. I know that there is some kind of this thing with speceships in GURPS Spaceships, but I didn't read it. Are there some similar ship-building rules for ordinary ships? It will really help during bording fight.

Hoping to receive some help! Thank you!

[The Colonel]

I'll leave the rules questions to more systematic minds but, for an example of a late C18-C19 warship try this:
https://www.ctbasses.com/misc/BruceT.../surprise.html

In fact, you could probably do worse than make your way around the entire Aubrey-Maturin cycle (starting at Master and Commander) … there are other age of sail cycles, but Patrick O'Brian's work benefits from the presence of the entirely un-maritime Dr. Maturin to whom many nautical terms and processes can be handily explained without the exposition jarring. This will work best for fairly late period seagoing, but could probably help with understanding the problems of any seagoing under sail.

[hal]

Are you looking for real world data on ship crew sizes or just GURPS rules?

If you want real world data:

https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=home

This will also give you the real world armaments for many of the ships. Sadly, the earlier you go in the age of sail, the harder it gets to find reliable data on what the ships carried as their armaments - or even of their crew sizes.

[Gumby Bush]

Originally Posted by qchap

Hello, I have some questions about low-tech ships in GURPS 4e. Sorry if my English is bad.

Your English looks pretty good to me.

The question is connected with all vehicles, but currently I'm interested in TL3-4 Ships with Shiphandling skill.
For examples I'll take warships from Low-Tech Companion 2.

So, there is an Occ. column, in which stated how much people can be placed in the ship, and (after "+") how much crew is needed. Sometimes there is just ine number. So, the first mini-question is am I right thinking that one number means that all passengers have to be crewmates? If it so, where it is stated?

Yes, when it is just one number, they are all crew. I think you are supposed to use common sense to know that, e.g., a warship or dogsled can't drive itself. The first number is crew, the second is passengers. In spaceships, this appears to include further shifts (so, the first number is how much crew per shift, the second is essentially the number of bunks).

The second, more important question is how much of the crew should really have the crewman skill (assuming the other are just helping in some way)? How much of them, besides the captain, should have the Shiphandling skill? And so on - how to estimate the crew?

The third and the most important question - what will happen if I don't obey the crew requirements? The caravel needs 24 crewmates, and what will happen if I'll try to sail with just seven people, only half of which is skilled? Or what if I have like 23? I think I really can try it, but what will happen? Some sort of skill penalty? How much than? And one more situation - I started sailing with 24 crewmates, and during the trip one of them dies. What happens than?

Only the captain needs Shiphandling. The crewmates need Seamanship. If some of the crew lack Seamanship, I'd use the rules from DF2 p.11 (also Action 2 p.5): any time the group is rolling as a whole, roll best skill + number who know the skill - size of crew. If you like, you can shift this to a skill penalty to the captain's Shiphandling rolls. For a large group, it would make sense to use some kind of tweak... maybe best skill -1 per 10% of the group lacking the skill, rounded up? (Does a Pyramid or, say, Boardrooms & Curia, have rules expanding this to large groups? I checked Mass Combat and didn't see anything)

If a crewmate dies, and you were already operating with the minimum recommended crew, a) you either lack foresight or were not expecting to be away from port for very long, b) I don't know of any rules (maybe there are some in a Pyramid?) but my first inclination is to assess penalties as if the crewman were living but had no skill, and then an additional -1 for lack of his body (again, I'd use percentages: per 10% reduction from recommended crew, rounded up, assess an additional -1).

So, let's say you are the captain of a crew-24 vessel. You are an adventurer with Seamanship-16. Your crew is composed of 20 trained crewmembers with Shiphandling-12, and 4 rookies operating from default. Initially, you are rolling against 12 to keep things going smoothly. Then, one of them dies. If it is a trained member, you will now roll against 10. If it is one of your rookies, you'll roll against 11.

If you use my percentage tweak (which, I will warn you, I thought of while writing this, so it hasn't seen a playtest, let alone forum pushback), then those values are an initial roll against -2 (14), hopping to -3 (13) or -4 (12) depending on whether the deceased was trained or not.

And the last, not so important, but interestng question, less related to other. How can I see how my ship looks? How much rooms does it has, where is the citchen and so on. As a person, who don't really knows much about ships, I'd like to be able to play a character who is really into them, so I should know as much as I can about my ship. I know that there is some kind of this thing with speceships in GURPS Spaceships, but I didn't read it. Are there some similar ship-building rules for ordinary ships? It will really help during bording fight.

Spaceships is versatile enough that you could likely use it to build regular ships, although it doesn't exactly produce deckplans. Other than that: Google images? Use the weight, name, and description as guidelines. Most of my knowledge of ships comes from books (Swallows & Amazons and a whole lot of cross-section books). Your basic deck is relatively simple: the Fore and aft are raised relative to the midsection, my impression is that the fore is usually raised more than the aft. I don't have any rules of thumb for the midsection

Were it me, I'd likely either rule it "as plot demands" or hand it off to the player, telling them exterior dimensions, weight limitations, and capabilities, then let them run with it--then I'd review it before finalization to ensure it matched what they could get.

[qchap]

Thank you for your answers!

Sorry for being unclear - I am interested mostly in GURPS ruling than in real things, but it'll help too.

Originally Posted by Gumby Bush

If a crewmate dies, and you were already operating with the minimum recommended crew, a) you either lack foresight or were not expecting to be away from port for very long

But if I understand it right, if there only one number in Occ. column, e.g. 24, it means that only 24 members can comfortly fit in the ship, and all of them are needed. So, even if I want to have additional crew menbers for some cases, it'll make other crew members uncomfortable.

And here new question is born. What "uncomfortable" means? Some more penalties? And how much people I can fit in, if I want as much as I can?

As I understand, there no rules for all this cases, and houserules is all what we can do with it?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by qchap

am I right thinking that one number means that all passengers have to be crewmates? If it so, where it is stated?

You're correct, but just for the sake of the reference request, the definition of the "Occ"(upants) stat format for vehicles can be found on page B463.

Originally Posted by B463

Occ.: The number of occupants the vehicle can carry in reasonable comfort, given as “crew+passengers”; e.g., 2+6 means two crew and six passengers. “A” indicates a vehicle built for long-term accommodation, with room to sleep, cook, etc. If the vehicle affords the occupants special protection, there is an additional code: “S” for Sealed (p. 82), “P” for Pressure Support (p. 77), or “V” for Vacuum Support (p. 96)

[The Colonel]

As to the actual effects of being shorthanded, IIRC the most labour intensive jobs in the age of sail included shifting masts and raising the anchor. So you won't be doing either of those.
Next would be tacking or wearing, and then any other work on the sails. So with a reduced crew you are probably limited to going downwind and cannot respond to changes in wind-force effectively - if the wind drops, you will be becalmed, in a storm you are likely to be overborne. Note that trying to work the sails with untrained hands, especially when already undermanned and/or in a hurry is likely to result in further casualties - failed skill rolls are liable to result in men taking a fatal dive.

Historically, some ships did operate extremely shorthanded - usually due to epidemic disease amongst the crew. Civilian ships were also notoriously undermanned in most cases due to penny-pinching - warships, by contrast, were generally manned to work the guns, leaving a huge crew compared to what would be required to operate it.

[Gumby Bush]

Originally Posted by qchap

But if I understand it right, if there only one number in Occ. column, e.g. 24, it means that only 24 members can comfortly fit in the ship, and all of them are needed. So, even if I want to have additional crew menbers for some cases, it'll make other crew members uncomfortable.

And here new question is born. What "uncomfortable" means? Some more penalties? And how much people I can fit in, if I want as much as I can?

As I understand, there no rules for all this cases, and houserules is all what we can do with it?

As for "uncomfortable" it means the cabin boy, other rookies, and any prisoners sleep in the cargo hold or some such. I'd only assess issues with morale/loyalty if you had crew with Seamanship in such spaces (-1 to loyalty rolls per 10%? I'm sure there are rules for this somewhere...).

The Caravel has Load 65 Occ 24. The occupants take up 200*24=4800lbs, let's toss 1 cabin boy in to bring it to 5Klbs of the 2k*65=130K lbs of load, leaving a good 125.2K lbs (62.5 tons) left for food, arms, ammo, and cabin boys. Load it with food for a month (18 tons/4=4.5tons using the suggestion for feeding soldiers transport aboard ship) leaves 48tons. Load with cannon and shot to taste, and see what is left. I'm guessing you'll still have a decent amount of space whatever treasure you're hoping to bring home, and might even be able to take on some more rookies.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Gumby Bush

As for "uncomfortable" it means the cabin boy, other rookies, and any prisoners sleep in the cargo hold or some such. I'd only assess issues with morale/loyalty if you had crew with Seamanship in such spaces (-1 to loyalty rolls per 10%? I'm sure there are rules for this somewhere...).

I'm guessing this would be relative to the twelve inches or so allowed per hammock by the Navy? (As Stephen Maturin observed, that is, in fact, not enough space to sling a hammock but, given the watch system only half of them men are below at once). Presumably the number of crew and passengers also relates to the size of the ships messing facilities and what have you (this, incidentally, was the reason that disarmed warships were popular as transports - they had industrial size catering equipment that allowed you to feed all of those people).