Can a Scout ship have only one station in the bridge?

[hal]

Subject line says it all.

Per the Compact Bridge option, you can remove 2 crew stations with a volume reduction of 1/2 dTon for the Bridge. The first such reduction will lower the number of crew stations at the bridge to 3 stations. If however, the Ship is to be crewed by a single pilot/navigator/engineer trained individual - could such a ship have a compact bridge option that removes 1 dTon from the Bridge and remove 4 stations of the 5 originally set up in a standard bridge, and permit the ship to be flown by a single pilot at a single station?

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by hal

Subject line says it all.

Per the Compact Bridge option, you can remove 2 crew stations with a volume reduction of 1/2 dTon for the Bridge. The first such reduction will lower the number of crew stations at the bridge to 3 stations. If however, the Ship is to be crewed by a single pilot/navigator/engineer trained individual - could such a ship have a compact bridge option that removes 1 dTon from the Bridge and remove 4 stations of the 5 originally set up in a standard bridge, and permit the ship to be flown by a single pilot at a single station?

Which ruleset?

[hal]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Which ruleset?

GURPS TRAVELLER: STARSHIPS

That is where they introduce the compact bridge option. In GURPS TRAVELLER 2nd edition (I'd have to dig up my first edition to confirm the wording hadn't changed between editions) it says this on page 130 under the crew listing for Sulieman Scout:

"Pilot, co-pilot, and engineer are the most common arrangement. An exceptional person might fill all slots and operate the vessel alone, but few
people have all the requisite skills (see Crew Requirements, pp. 149-
150)."

That would seem to imply that if one person can crew a scout ship, a bridge that normally has five work stations, can be made to be more compact at a trade of 2 work stations per 1/2 dTon traded in, would seem to imply that you can get by with but one work station.

If that is true - then the bridge, which normally has five work stations, can trade in four work stations.

Problem is - I have never bothered to try and "optimize" the ship build simply because I never thought of it that way. Not until the day I opened up this particular thread.

Right now, I'm going through ship by ship of "old designs" in various GURPS TRAVELLER products, seeing if they could benefit from optimization in any manner, courtesy of GURPS TRAVELLER: STARSHIPS.

[Anaraxes]

You wouldn't have to actually remove the other crew stations to allow one person to run the ship. They'd just reconfigure whichever station they liked as needed. Most designs would probably keep the "extra" stations so you could also use a full crew.

The only time you'd want a single-station bridge was if there was no chance the ship would ever have a crew of more than one. An X-boat, maybe.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

You wouldn't have to actually remove the other crew stations to allow one person to run the ship. They'd just reconfigure whichever station they liked as needed. Most designs would probably keep the "extra" stations so you could also use a full crew.

The only time you'd want a single-station bridge was if there was no chance the ship would ever have a crew of more than one. An X-boat, maybe.

If we can build ships that need only one crew station to run the ship (aka bridge), then every dTon of space we can save for use with transporting freight/cargo helps.

I've got one player who enjoys running a ship with but one crew so as to keep costs to a minimum and to avoid the issue of having hijack attempts.

So, in theory, the answer is "yes - you can reduce the number of work stations for the bridge down to one".

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by hal

If we can build ships that need only one crew station to run the ship (aka bridge), then every dTon of space we can save for use with transporting freight/cargo helps.

This shifts the point from scouts to commercial freighters, which have considerably different design requirements.

The key point is that if you design a ship with one crew station, you're forever condemning it to _only_ be operated by one crewman, no matter what the mission. That's not the same thing as designing a ship to be able to be operated by one person, either expected occasionally (as with scouts) or in an emergency, but also to be able to be operated by more (as those scouts will also be intended to operate).

I'm also taking about the base design of ship classes. If the PCs with one old tramp freighter really want to rip out their bridge and replace it to get an extra ton of cargo space (for entirely licit and above-board purposes, of course; I know how troublesome these old ships can be...), that's possible. But that doesn't mean the Beowulfs and Empress Maravas would have been designed that way. For commercial operations, given the skill penalties mentioned upthread, there may well be Imperial regulations requiring proper crew stations for the required crew for safe and effective operation. Shipping lines might also require that -- why have unhappy crew, or worse, damaged or lost ships because you wanted an extra ton of space? Then there's the operational requirements -- a starport is going to have means to load and unload reasonably standard-sized cargo containers, and an extra 14 cubic meters worth of cubbyhole in a corner somewhere separate from the main cargo hold is going to mean unpacking crates and shifting cargo by hand.

The extra space would be a lot more useful for crew possessions than cargo space, because it's unlikely to conveniently make the actual hold bigger in a useful way.

I remember X-boats as having one crew, most likely from the CT era. But I won't dispute ak_aramis when it comes to Traveller details, at least not without heading down to the basement to dig through my LBBs. If it's two -- well, one less reason to have a ship class designed with only one crew workstation, even as niche as that is.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

You wouldn't have to actually remove the other crew stations to allow one person to run the ship. They'd just reconfigure whichever station they liked as needed. Most designs would probably keep the "extra" stations so you could also use a full crew.

The only time you'd want a single-station bridge was if there was no chance the ship would ever have a crew of more than one. An X-boat, maybe.

Canonical X-boats are equipped for two-man crews.

Partly because of an artifact of CT/MT rules: Each job done by a character reduces their effective skill in each skill by 1. To function in a job at a payable level, that level must be 1+. The absolutely required jobs were Pilot and Engineer. Navigation could be done by jump-cassette, so need not be carried.

So, to function as a sole crewmember on a ship would have required Pilot 2 and Engineer 2 - given the maximum of 5 skills per term, and that scouts always had flat rate 2... plus 2 extra in term 1 (one of which was pilot 1)... solo qual required 8+ years as part of a multi-person crew.

[hal]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Canonical X-boats are equipped for two-man crews.

Partly because of an artifact of CT/MT rules: Each job done by a character reduces their effective skill in each skill by 1. To function in a job at a payable level, that level must be 1+. The absolutely required jobs were Pilot and Engineer. Navigation could be done by jump-cassette, so need not be carried.

So, to function as a sole crewmember on a ship would have required Pilot 2 and Engineer 2 - given the maximum of 5 skills per term, and that scouts always had flat rate 2... plus 2 extra in term 1 (one of which was pilot 1)... solo qual required 8+ years as part of a multi-person crew.

There is that.

then again, GURPS TRAVELLER does have its own drum beat that it marched to. There is no limit to when training is given to a character, in what order, or how much.