Star Trek Constitution Class Crew

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

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.

The Counseling dept. also serves as the department of choice for the "face man" characters.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

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.

I agree with all of this. I guess I'm assuming the 4-hour training shift is more "enjoyable" than "work".

I wonder how much down-time crew on navy ships have. Do they work 8-hour days and have 16 hours off?

[Captain Joy]

Academics Staff

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Crew Compliment: 430 – from Memory Alpha
…
Academics: 40 – from Starfleet Museum example of 340 total: 280 crew, 60 scientists or marine

Academics Staff: 40
36: lab - making use of 12 of the 14 lab/research areas (2 are used by Medical and Counseling)
3: shift commanders
1: department head
40: Total Academics Staff

It looks like I could double easily double (or triple) their numbers. I arrived at 40 because Starfleet Museum indicated 18.75% of heavy cruiser crews were "scientists or marines". I had just substituted the Security Dept. for marines, but maybe that was a mistake. In war time, the scientist would be replaced with marines. There is always a Security Dept. regardless, and now I've no idea how big it should be.

It remains to be seen what 117 Engineering and 117 Operators are going to be doing. If that turns out to be too many, I'll just remember that I can double (or more) my Academics Dept.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

...

It remains to be seen what 117 Engineering and 117 Operators are going to be doing. If that turns out to be too many, I'll just remember that I can double (or more) my Academics Dept.

If I recall correctly, damage control and housekeeping / minor repair both fall under Engineering. You might need more than 117 there.

[Johan Larson]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Counseling Staff: 22
1: senior counselor - especially difficult cases, advising command/senior staff
2: counseling - individual and group
1: routine psych evaluations
3: lab - researchers
7: Total x3(shifts) = 21 Counseling staff
+1 addition Counseling officer for the busy alpha shift and you get 22 Counseling Staff.

This seems awfully big. Who the heck has this much psych staff except maybe a hospital for returning veterans?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

This seems awfully big. Who the heck has this much psych staff except maybe a hospital for returning veterans?

That section is responsible for keeping the crew properly "adjusted". The telepaths and empaths come in especially useful there. It also includes what other cultures would have called the political officers or commissars, rather than "Counselor".

Wait, which side of the mirror are we on, again?

[Irish Wolf]

Having a dedicated Counselor wasn't introduced until TNG. In TOS, there was no "counseling staff" that we ever saw - the medical staff included some people with psychological-counseling training, and McCoy of course filled the role of "father confessor" for Kirk.

So, fold that "counseling" staff into the Medical department, and reduce its size somewhat; Constitution-class starships weren't as, well, luxurious as the later Galaxy-class. (In the webseries Star Trek Continues, the first episode, "Pilgrims of Eternity", introduced the character of Dr. McKenna as one of the first dedicated "counselors" in Starfleet. To be frank, while I find the concept dubious, I'm willing to accept almost any conceit that puts Michelle Specht on my screen, so...)

On the other hand, the Engineering/Support department is going to look a little bloated most of the time - because that's where your "redundant" personnel are going to be. Most of the time, they'll have some makework job or other, but when the ship is at battle stations, they get very busy very quickly - especially when someone falls and must be replaced. You can't head back to Starbase for more crew in the middle of combat, after all.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

That section is responsible for keeping the crew properly "adjusted". The telepaths and empaths come in especially useful there. It also includes what other cultures would have called the political officers or commissars, rather than "Counselor".

Yes, my Counseling Dept. officers are tasked with safeguarding the mental health of Starfleet personnel, facilitating sensitive negations, and initiating first contact with alien cultures. This department also makes use of and develops psionic abilities. It also does social sciences research.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Wait, which side of the mirror are we on, again?

Ha!

To address some points others have made. I'm aware the existence of a Counseling Department is not TOS canon, and could be folded into the Medical Dept. At this point, I feel like their duties beyond safeguarding the mental health of the crew merits it's own department. I will add a note to this effect to the Counseling Staff list, since I am pretty well off canon here.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

I invoke the forum to reality check me here. I'm wanting to suss out the crew of a typical Constitution Class heavy cruiser (i.e. TOS era Enterprise). Here is what I have so far:

<snip>

Crew Complement: 430
Command: 72 – from 1 in 6 seeming reasonable
Engineering: 117 – from half of what is left over after assigning CMD, SEC, ACD, CNS, MED
Operators: 117 – from half of what is left over after assigning CMD, SEC, ACD, CNS, MED
Security: 40 – from Starfleet Museum example of 340 total: 280 crew, 60 scientists or marine
Academics: 40 – from Starfleet Museum example of 340 total: 280 crew, 60 scientists or marine
Counseling: 22 – same as MED
Medical: 22 – from 1/20 : physicians/patients at TL6 (B425)

The Starfleet Museum is my campaign's canon source for Ship maps, so I'm happy to use their values as a basis for assigning scientist (my Academics Dept.) and marines (Security Dept.). I chose TL6 to determine the number of physicians because that is the tech level the physicians would operate at if they didn't have use of their high tech equipment.

In any case, let me know if I'm unequivocally way off on any of these. If you believe they could be possible, but only based on certain campaign assumptions, feel free to question me to make sure I'm operating under correct campaign assumptions.

First off, you’re unequivocally off for security and academics. Forty and forty are eighty, not sixty. Assuming you meant to split the figure fifty/fifty, there should be 30 security personnel and 30 academics.

Second, I’m presuming Constitution-class ships refer to TOS period ships, so some of your breakdown doesn’t really work. In TOS, there are three branches on ship that we have seen, denoted by the colour of their shirts/dresses: command/line (gold, or in some episodes, green), engineering/security (red) and medical/science (blue). Aside from the principal function we associate engineering with, engineering was also responsible for the transporters (Chief O’Brien), communications (Lt. Uhura and Yeoman Rand), electrical and mechanical engineering (food replicator repair, etc.), and presumably rank-and-file security.

Security may not necessarily have been a full-time slot on Constitution-class ships. We see Lt. Sulu is Chief of Security on the Enterprise but his primary duty is ship’s navigator. Chief of Security would appear to be a secondary duty. It isn’t too big a stretch to assume that security itself is a secondary duty. While most rank-and-file appear to be drawn from engineering, they presumably go about their primary duty until security is needed. This allows two observations. First, people probably rotate in and out of security on an annual, seasonal or even monthly basis. Second, given that it is a secondary duty and most of security are “redshirts” [drawn from engineering], it suggests that engineering is probably the largest department on the ship. While security could be drawn from engineering and line (and possibly non-medical science), it might be drawn solely from engineering because “they have people to spare” for security duty.

Counselling isn’t a separate thing on a Constitution-class ship. In a few episodes, we see that Dr. McCoy is not only a surgeon but that he administers and evaluates psychological/psychiatric testing and can and has relieved Captain Kirk of his command on psychiatric grounds.

Academics probably refers to full-time scientist/scholars but is likely to be a relatively small portion of the academics and marines complement. Most of the time, Capt. Kirk was dependent on hobbyists in the crew for specific expertise on historical/arts matters, suggesting that there weren’t many professional scholars in those areas. On the other hand, Mr. Spock seems to have headed his own, admittedly small, science department.

Marines aren’t something that would be picked up and dropped off on an as needed basis and we don’t seem to see the Enterprise running with vacancies. Even at forty, marines would make up 10% of the crew, so every tenth person we see should be a marine. Either Marines are assigned to one of the three departments and we don’t visually recognize them as Marines, or they have their own section of the ship, “Marine country” and we’ve never seen anyone need to go there.

Weapons systems usually appear to be operated by command/line personnel, though the loaders for photon torpedoes might be from engineering (Wrath of Khan).

I’d suggest a breakdown of:
Crew Complement: 430
Command: 44 – slightly more than 1 in 10, with 22 on alpha shift and 11 each on beta and gamma shift.
Engineering: 212 – 3/4 of what is left over after assigning command, medical, marines, academics then adjusted to be divisible by four; with 106 on alpha shift and 53 each on beta and gamma shift
Line: 72 – from 1/4 of what is left over after assigning command, medical, marines, academics then adjusted to be divisible by four. With 36 on alpha shift and 18 each on beta and gamma shift
Academics: 20 – 1/3 of Starfleet Museum figure
Marines: 40 - (which makes them roughly a full platoon in strength) from Starfleet Museum.
Medical: 42 – organized into six teams of seven personnel. Team breakdown is: 1 physician, 2 nurses and 4 medical assistants. Two teams on duty during alpha shift, one team each on beta and gamma shifts and one team out of rotation (on call).
(Security: 69 – security is a secondary duty lasting three months, drawn from line and engineering only, with one third of the personnel rotating out each month. Personnel can expect to draw duty once a year. Unlike other duties, security has 23 members available on each of the three shifts.)

[Johan Larson]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Yes, my Counseling Dept. officers are tasked with safeguarding the mental health of Starfleet personnel, facilitating sensitive negations, and initiating first contact with alien cultures. This department also makes use of and develops psionic abilities. It also does social sciences research.

To address some points others have made. I'm aware the existence of a Counseling Department is not TOS canon, and could be folded into the Medical Dept. At this point, I feel like their duties beyond safeguarding the mental health of the crew merits it's own department. I will add a note to this effect to the Counseling Staff list, since I am pretty well off canon here.

Consider calling it something other than Counseling to reflect its broader role. Maybe "Psychology" or "Social Science".

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

Consider calling it something other than Counseling to reflect its broader role. Maybe "Psychology" or "Social Science".

How about: within the Sciences Division there are three departments: Medical, Natural, and Social?