Star Trek Constitution Class Crew

[Stormcrow]

I also wonder if, because the mission of a starship is more broad than other kinds of ship, crewmembers are all trained in multiple areas. Sulu was head of astrosciences, became helmsman, and conducted biological surveys at the same time.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

While I don't think [having a "daytime" shift with more personnel than the other two shift] makes any sense whatsoever for a space ship, an episode of The Next Generation showed Data acting captain with dimmed lights as if night. That strongly implies, or outright states as I haven't seen that episode in ages, heavy and light shifts corresponding to that.

Agreed. In my campaign, I assume the Alpha shift is staffed by the more senior officers. The Beta and Gamma shift are also staffed, but include trainees in the mix. So every officer has a primary shift which is their "job", a training shift wherein they get training (i.e. can justify new skills), and a third shift they have off.

Given all that, my impression is that the Alpha shift is probably more staffed than the Beta and Gamma shifts. Also, the Alpha shift doesn't max-staff everything. E.g. there might be two persons in a phaser control room during red alert, but maybe only one when combat is not expected.

While at some point I'll want to consider how many of the crew are on duty during each shift, I think approximating each duty shift as ⅓ of the whole will work for our current purposes.

[Captain Joy]

Command Officers
Okay, this post I will try to suss out what the 43 Command officers are up to.

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

3 Bridges staffed (Main, Aux, Emer)
Conn (Cmd)
Nav (Cmd)
Helm (Cmd)
Engineer (Engr)
Commo (Ops)
2 security guards
Main only has duty science officer (Sci) - no station on Aux/emer
Main only may have weapons officer, as well. (Cmd) - no station on Aux/Emer

Since I’m going with the Starfleet Museum design, I only have a Main Bridge and Battle Bridge. My impression is that either the Main or Battle Bridge is staffed, not both at the same time. I think I’ll go with Cygnus-X1's bridge layout.

Main Bridge
1 - Captain’s Chair (Cmd)
1 - Navigation (Cmd)
1 - Helm (Cmd)
0 - Defense (Cmd)
0 - Weapons (Cmd)
0 - Nav2 (Cmd)
1 - Computer/Sensors (Acd)
1 - Communications (Opr)
1 - Engineering (Eng)
0 - Life Support (Eng)
0 - Eng2 (Eng)

The 0’s would be staffed during alert conditions. Either Nav or Helm could be left unstaffed during a graveyard shift. But, generally, 3 Command officers assigned bridge duty each shift: 3x3 = 9 Cmd for bridge duty.

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

We know a standard phaser bank watch is 2 persons (seen onscreen in TOS)... with three watches, that's 6 men per bank. One of them is probably a LtJG.

3 banks of phasers, 1 of photons. Probably 12 guys, including 3 JG's and 1 LT Rest ensing ad/or enlisted.

Cygnus-X1 shows 6 phaser control rooms and 1 torpedo launcher. I’m going to say under no-alert conditions, the phaser control rooms are staffed by 1 Cmd officer and the torpedo launcher is staffed by 2 Cmd officiers. That’s (6+2)x3 = 24 Cmd doing ship’s weapons duty.

So that’s 33 Cmd total, making me 10 short of 43, or 3x3+1 short. The shuttle bay needs some Cmd officers so shuttles can be taken out on a moment’s notice. Shield emitters need monitoring. It’s probably not a good idea to have one officer manning any station in isolation for a whole shift, so an additional Cmd officers is assigned to phaser control rooms. That’s 3 more officers and three shifts. The last +1 is an extra Alpha Shift officer.

To recap.

Command Officers
3: bridge duty - command, navigator, helm
7: phaser control (6 phaser control rooms (forward/port/starboard x dorsal/ventral + 1 floater)
2: torpedos
1: shields
1: shuttle bay
14: Total

14x3(shifts) = 42 Command officers. Add an additional Command officer for the busy alpha shift and you get 43 Command Officers.

Thank you everybody for thought provoking analysis.

[Captain Joy]

Medical and Counseling Staff

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You have 430 personnel comprising three teams of 143. If each team needs, at TL9, 1 physician per 50, that's three doctors per shift (or more likely a doctor, a nurse, and a medic) and therefore you need nine total minimum. You can easily justify doubling this for training and redundancy, and get 18, which is pretty close to your 22 without mucking about with virtual TLs...

Medical Staff: 22
2: sick bay - doctor, nurse
2: floating - medics
3: lab - researchers
7: Total x3(shifts) = 21 Medical staff
+1 addition Medical officer for the busy alpha shift and you get 22 Medical Staff.

Counseling Staff: 22
1: senior counselor - especially difficult cases, advising command/senior staff
2: counseling - individual and group (includes development of psi abilities)
1: routine psych evaluations
3: lab - researchers (social sciences, e.g. anthropology)
7: Total x3(shifts) = 21 Counseling staff
+1 addition Counseling officer for the busy alpha shift and you get 22 Counseling Staff.
Counseling Staff could potentially get by with less. I settled on 22 to match Medical.

EDIT: A Counseling Dept. in TOS stretches the credulity of canon. Fold these staff members into other departments if that suits your campaign.

[adm]

Keep in mind on military vessels, there is a lot of what private vessels think of as redundant crew. They are there to perform two basic jobs first, and foremost, is Damage Control, someone to patch the hull, and put out the fires; second is to replace lost critical crew members.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Agreed. In my campaign, I assume the Alpha shift is staffed by the more senior officers. The Beta and Gamma shift are also staffed, but include trainees in the mix. So every officer has a primary shift which is their "job", a training shift wherein they get training (i.e. can justify new skills), and a third shift they have off.
...

I think you're forgetting about sleeping and eating. Unless you're making shifts of very unequal lengths.
Most humans need about 9 hours of sleep a night. Most can handle fewer for varying amounts of time, but they will accrue sleep-debt which will lower abilities somewhat.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by adm

Keep in mind on military vessels, there is a lot of what private vessels think of as redundant crew. They are there to perform two basic jobs first, and foremost, is Damage Control, someone to patch the hull, and put out the fires; second is to replace lost critical crew members.

That would make them redundant by definition acting as emergency reserve. I don't think many use that word to mean completely useless or some organizational version of vestigial.
Using the bare minimum for operation is a skeleton crew, isn't it? That doesn't sound very sensible as a norm even to someone as ignorant of military operations as me.

Those episodes where Picard kept getting awakened for "minor" issues sounded like a horribly poor system. What's an acting captain for if you can't trust them to make important decisions? No one should be irreplaceable.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I think you're forgetting about sleeping and eating. Unless you're making shifts of very unequal lengths.
Most humans need about 9 hours of sleep a night. Most can handle fewer for varying amounts of time, but they will accrue sleep-debt which will lower abilities somewhat.

My assumption is three 8-hour shifts. They work their entire primary shift (with breaks) and about half their training shift. Is that reasonable? I also wonder if they should regularly get full days off?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Correct. My assumption is that they work their entire primary shift (with breaks) and only work about half (4 hours) of their training shift. Is that reasonable? I also wonder if they should regularly get full days off?

I haven't seen much evidence of Star Trek having advanced psychological medicine. But they should reasonably have ways to increase productivity and reduce stress compared to many modern just-suck-it-up cultures.
That's still 12 hour work days, not something the vast majority of humans can do without problems.
If you keep recruitment to the ultra-motivated, then it seems possible to amass those with insatiable curiosity. For them those four extra hours of effort are enjoyable rather than "work".
I don't know what percentage of the Federation is in Star Fleet, so can't guess on how atypical crew members may be compared to the general public.
In another thread, it was mentioned how choosy voluntary militaries can be.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

While I don't think that makes any sense whatsoever for a space ship, an episode of The Next Generation showed Data acting captain with dimmed lights as if night. That strongly implies, or outright states as I haven't seen that episode

While it might not make sense from a naturalistic POV, that is, there's no objective reason to distinguish night and day, I could imagine that it might have some psychological benefit for a primarily human crew.