Something that tends to get glossed over when calculating crews is the
different shifts needed eg 3 x 8 hour shifts for full 24 hour a day
operation. If pressed you can man 2/3 of your systems all the time and
wake the other 1/3 for emergency or combat. I use thirds so you can
stagger and overlap shifts but on large ships you may want 4 or 5 shifts.
What do they do onboard real world destroyers, cruisers, etc?
Short period travel vehicles of less than 48 hours would be exceptions
to the crewing rules eg fighter planes, trains, trucks etc.
It's ok to say you can get by on 1 pilot for two drives but how long
will that pilot be actively piloting. This is not a 9 to 5 job and you
will need a co-pilot even if just for those times you're navigating
through an asteroid belt and the pilot needs to go to the loo 8^}.
I suppose you could set course and hope the early warning system wakes you
in time to avoid that pirate or asteroid.
Bruce... [email removed]