[Spaceships] What are the mechanical consequences of not meeting crew quotas?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Presumably there will be some minimum limit below which the ship cannot operate … although the GM might want to allow cinematic dashing between workstations to make do in an emergency, subject to skill rolls. Presumably this will apply in spades to specialist roles - a lack of deck hands might just make for a dirty ship, but putting off without a navigator or reactor tech is probably asking for trouble...
Undercrewed ships might also be subject to various other penalties - for example a lack of control over the propulsion system might make flying the ship a lot harder. Lack of stewards might impose small penalties to virtually everyone's skills as dirt, fatigue and poor food catch up with them...

SS, p.10 says that the crews in the workstations for ship's systems are there to do routine maintenance, and possibly monitoring stuff. In the short term they aren't essential. Heck, on a SM+9 or smaller ship they are completely optional (you have to have an engine room or the 'lacks automation' switch to have any).

This is why I suggest long-term penalties, rather than short-term ones. Now, being short of control room crew is likely to be far more serious in the short term, as people have to multi-task, find that they can't effective manage the engines and calculate flight paths at the same time because the controls just aren't set up for that, and so on.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by Rupert

This is why I suggest long-term penalties, rather than short-term ones. Now, being short of control room crew is likely to be far more serious in the short term, as people have to multi-task, find that they can't effective manage the engines and calculate flight paths at the same time because the controls just aren't set up for that, and so on.

Depending on the setting and/or specific craft:

Navigation could be mapped out in advance and then rechecked at intervals. If you're off course, you could spend time plotting a corrected course, which would take time but not be fatal unless supplies run low due to navigation errors. Navigation would also be of less importance during combat in most cases.

Piloting may not be actively required while enroute in open space unless combat happens. When near objects like an asteroid swarm, space station, planet, other spacecraft or space creature, it does become a lot more important to focus on.

Sensors could also be put at a lower priority if you're in open space. This can obviously lead to being surprised by another spacecraft, an asteroid or a giant space goat. But most of the time if you're not near known objects a quick glance once in a while should be good enough if you lack staff.

Communications would likely be a low priority if you aren't near civilized space and haven't noticed any other spacecaft nearby.

Any gunner position would only need to be manned in a scenario where combat is expected or asteroids need to be shot down.

You could likely get away with 1 or 2 people just checking that nothing is happening for large stretches of flight, as long as it isn't a "gate/warp to system/planet in 10 ingame seconds, then action" type of setting.