re: Bridge Crew

[email removed]      says:
>The only problem I have with this ruling is that if I decide to have a
>minimum bridge crew of 2 then I will be unable to use any ships made by
>someone who decided that the minimum should be 1. Many of the ships in the
>encyclopedia have a bridge crew of 1 and many ships that I have downloaded
>have bridge crews of 1. These facts pretty much force me to reduce the
>minimum bridge crew.

  My assumption is that the Bridge Crew requirements exist for one real
reason: determining how many seats to put on the bridge deckplan.
  What with reconfigurable control panels, semi-intelligent computers
(during the Imperial era, anyway), and the Han Solo "wall-banging"
method of repair, only one person is required to actually _run_ a
bridge most of the time: the pilot/astrogator.  So long as a person
who can pilot the ship (and knows which way to point it) is present,
you can get by.  He can wear headphones to monitor the Comm
station, and (in a really small ship) keep the several most important
engine telltales in view, thus monitoring Engineering.
  But safety and sanity dictate that there be an extra control station
installed on the bridge.  Why?  So someone else _can_ help if needed.
So your just-fried control station doesn't leave the ship without
controls.  So the padding on one chair doesn't wear out quite so fast.
Etcetera.
  How you (as a referee) keep your players running around in a
bridge too big for them is either to be ignored, subjected to player
ingenuity, or played for comic effect.  Standing watch on a civilian
ship requires only that the person on duty know who to wake up in
case of emergencies...

  The bridge crew question isn't a MegaTrav problem, BTW, it's an older
problem that was carried over without due consideration.  Anyone who
has looked at MT construction without benefit of High Guard and Striker
can tell you: there are NO EXPLANATIONS.  The Craft Construction rules
in MT are the poorest documented in Traveller history, and among the
ommissions is the older note regarding really small ships.
  Not to beat a dead horse, but TNE fixes this problem by rigorously
defining Bridge size in terms of crew stations.  The number of
stations you decide to keep manned is your problem ;)

  To summarize: Bridges have at least two stations (seats), but don't
always require two people to run them in the smaller ships.


James Kundert [email removed]
              [email removed]

There was a young lady named Bright,
Whose speed was much faster, much faster than Light.
She departed one day in a relative way,
And returned on the previous Night.
   --Albert & the Heart of Gold

>Roger M.,
>> I would rule that if the ship are of such a small size a lone bridge
>> bridge crew would manage the ship far as it is unarmed. Soon as you
>> put on a weapon there should be either a gunner or a second bridge
>> crew.

Daniel T.,
>Since the average travel time from planet to 100 diameters is 85 hours
>(assumes 1G acceleration and a 13000 km diameter world), making the min
>bridge crew 1 must mean that the ship can fly itself for the most part.
>what happens if something unexpected comes up while the pilot is asleep

When the ship are in jump or in transit from A to B, and that that
travel takes kore than one shift, anyone can watch the controls. In
jumpspace, there isn't much to monitor except for the powerplant,
jumpdrive and the environment. In transit from jump point which may take
one or two shifts, there isn't much more to monitor. The chances of
hitting something out there that would seriously harm the ship is
virtualy nil. And most sensors are good enough to pick up something that
will. And thus the sensors and the controls can be rigged to alarm units
that will wake up the pilot.


Roger "StarWolf" Myhre

Ted7 said,
 > Travelling through empty space on a known course is not that difficult
 > at all.  A bridge crew of 1 can do it, and simply sleep when he feels
 > like it - as long as he doesn't run into any problems.  I had no
 > problem rigging the alarms into the in-ship intercom system to wake a
 > sleeping pilot for emergencies.  Of course, if something happened in
 > time it took the pilot to wake and run to the bridge (if he wasn't
 > sleeping there), he was up the creek w/o a paddle.

b.borich echoed these sentiments as well.

It seems to me that in the high velocity world of interstellar space, the
time it takes to become alert is more than you have once the alarm goes off.

Modern day planes and some ships have automatic pilots and yet there is (or
at least should be) someone awake at all times to respond to emergencies
right?

However, my original question dealt with that fact that the design rules
said "minimum bridge crew of 2" yet several ships have a bridge crew of 1.
Based on the response I've been getting, I assume that most have decided
that the design rules are in error and the minimum bridge crew is actually
one.

I have taken a cue from 2300AD witch states that bridge stations must be
maned 24 hrs. per day. Hence I have decided that the minimum bridge crew can
indeed be one, but you still need two people to pilot the ship. :)

BTW, is Star Cruiser for 2300AD still published? If not, does anybody want
to sell me a copy?

I am glad to see all the information on Starports! Maybe this should be
placed in an faq. I'm sure the information is much wanted and much asked!

- --Daniel T.

My memory of CT starship building was that if you got a computer
model (n)vis (replace n with computer number), and the end with the
correct abbrev. (One was to do with protection for nucluar attack),
Then you could reduce the number of crew required by one (to a
mimimun of 1), due to the cleverness of the computer.

In these days of the "virus" and the mistrust of computers, I would
think that even the Scout ships these days would have two crew, one
to fly the ship on the other other to make sure that the computer is
really telling the truth ;-)

Dave
- --
[email removed] (David Johnson - CIX Staff)
   using the CIX 'rentasig' facility
How's it going in those MODULAR LOVE UNITS??