[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.