Staffing a Starship

[valkyrie013]

Okay, this topic has come up occasionally in other threads, so lets hash it out here.

So, you have a starship, What kind of staff do you need?
Lets take a small ship like an NX, not a Galaxy class.
What do you need, bare minimum, to crew a ship

So, lets say that the Chiefs of departments, CMO, Captain, Etc. don't count as a watch officer, they are there but there kind of Salary employees, there, but can take off to do other things if needed.

Bridge crew: Can't have just 1 on the bridge at any time, atleast 2 just in case one just falls over dead.
For positions, at least 1 at helm and 1 other, maybe officer of the watch, but they can do something like man Ops.

So that is a minimum, now lets look at a regular ship bridge crew.
1 CO
1 Helm
1 Tactical
1 Communications
1 Science
Engineering station open, as needed

So that's 5 per shift, 3 shifts per day, so that 15 people. Now people need time off, get sick, vaporized, etc. so need some relief crew, lets go with the standard 40 hours work week, so 5 days on, 8 hour days, 2 day weekend. That would call for an extra 10 people to fill in for days off, etc. so that's 25 people to man the bridge during regular operations. Could be cut down to 20 if they only have 1 day off a week. Lunch would be just 1 person at a time leave for 30 minutes. others would cover.

Engineering:
I would say for a smaller ship, would be 5 like the bridge would work, so that's another 25 people.

Medical:
I would say 5 also,
Doctor
Nurse x2
Lab X2
Maybe night shift can be as little as 2, 1 doctor, 1 nurse/lab tech.
I really don't see Sickbay as being to busy in a day to day operation, be treated as more like a clinic, just occasional person with a sprained toe, etc. Others on crew are trained in triage and help move patients to sick bay in an emergency.
So another 25 crew for sickbay.
So thats 75 total, and that's without whatever random Lab / Science personnel, or security

Any more NEEDED personal ya'll can think of?

 

[drt]

For that small of a ship, you don’t need that many medical staff, I think six total is probably plenty. One doctor, one nurse, one lab technician and three corpsmen (civilian equivalent of a physician’s assistant) is more than enough for 100 crew (probably even overkill).

I think the number of engineers depends on the era, with more manpower needed in the 22nd/23rd and way fewer for the 24th/25th and the greater levels of automation.

 

[The Wormhole]

Voyager with a crew of 150 only had a medical staff of two, a doctor and a nurse.

 

[Arpy]

Less than two doctors doesn’t make sense to me. If one dies or is incapacitated what are the nurses or physicians assistants to do?

I guess that’s mostly for a ship of exploration or one otherwise away from easy personnel resupply. Also the type of mission—if you’re not doing anything dangerous you might not have any but the simplest of medical needs. That would be a lot of downtime for one, let alone two fully trained physicians. Indeed, field surgeons.

 

[Shawnster]

Any more NEEDED personal ya'll can think of?

You mentioned you need security. Defend the ship against intruders, police unruly crew, etc... Does the mission profile require your ship to perform interdiction or boarding actions? Will you be conducting offensive tactical actions against other targets? The smallest tactical unit is the squad which is comprised of between 7 and 14 personnel plus a commanding officer.

Security grunts can also double as unskilled labor. Cargo handling. Tote that barge. Lift that bale.

So, add another, say, 15 crew.

Mission profile and duty assignment should also influence crew size and composition. Medical ship will have more medics. Corps of Engineers will have more engineers. Etc...

 

[1001001]

Less than two doctors doesn’t make sense to me. If one dies or is incapacitated what are the nurses or physicians assistants to do?

Use the EMH?



They were only on a 3 week mission.

 

[Arpy]

Use the EMH?



They were only on a 3 week mission.

That works with post-Intrepid ships I guess, yeah.

Individuals of my generation learned not to trust projected mission durations. We can never forget the 3-hour tour.

Here’s to y’, lads…

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Use the EMH?



They were only on a 3 week mission.

Spoiler: Ship full of backup Hologram programs for each job specialty

If you can mass produce (Synths / Data or Soong-style) Androids that look like their originals.

You can have a ship that has the "Original Humanoid", Synth Robot Backup, & Holographic Backup with it's own Mobile Emitter since those seem to be mass produced now.

 

[Shawnster]

So, you have a starship, What kind of staff do you need?
Lets take a small ship...

Klingon Bird of Prey from TSFS

KIRK: Mister Sulu, what is the crew complement of a Bird-of-Prey?
SULU: About a dozen officers and men.

So, that's probably the barest minimum.

On the other hand, Mudd operated a ship by himself. So did Balok, Bele, and so on

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've always believed that the size and makeup of a starship crew depends on its current mission. The Enterprise (any iteration) probably could be run with a crew of less than ten, but with greatly reduced effectiveness and mission capability, IMO. A science vessel on a long-term planetary or stellar research mission is likely going to need more sciences personnel than a medium cruiser assigned to routine sector patrol would. Conversely, a support ship like the Cerritos probably has more engineering staff than most frontline vessels. And how big a crew may vary from ship to ship, even between vessels of the same class (not all Constitution-class ships may have 400+ personnel or all Galaxy-class ships a complement of 1000+--some may have less or even more depending on an individual vessel's mission).

 

[valkyrie013]

Well lets take the NX-01 Crew of 83 or so.

Bridge crew:
Officer of the watch
Science
Communications
Helm
Tactical
Engineering.
So that's 6 crew fully manned. Now, I don't expect every station to be manned every shift. So lets go with that to reduce crew numbers. Engineering would be manned as needed, or a reed alert station. And there doesn't have to be someone sitting in the big chair, can be like Spock and run things from the science station,and take the chair as needed. So we'll go with my previous post of 25 people to fully man the bridge. Now, it being the NX and not many things to do during off shift, like holo decks, arboretums etc. lets stay they work 6 days, 8 hours, with 1 day off during the flights between systems, so that lowers the count to 20 for the bridge.

Engineering:
As my previous post, about 25 5 per shift as well. There might be more, because i would think that an NX would be more of a maintenance intensive system, so maybe 5 might be to low, maybe 3 in engineering, and 2 roamers to take care of clogged toilets, etc.

So 45 crew accounted for so far.

Sickbay:
Dr Phlox.. apparently the end.. ( this is a Stupid idea..)
Realistically, 2 doctors, 1 alpha shift, 1 Beta shift, no Gamma, on call. 1 nurse each shift, and 1 spare nurse for days off. Now you would have trauma units that are made up as other crew members during emergency, basic Emt etc. Not really counted as sick bay crew, so a total of 6. Now, the Enterprise with Just Phlox, I would still give him atleast 2 nurses 1 alpha, 1 beta or on call so atleast 3 total crew for the Enterprise.

So thats 51

Tactical/Security:
1 per shift already accounted for on the Bridge, so lets say 2 crew in the armory, so thats 6

Food:
2 chiefs, 2 sous cheifs per day and night shift, and 1 for night shift, maybe. so thats 5

Thats 62

Other:
Stands to reason the other 21 are scientists or just general crewmen that help out in various labs.

So 85 for the NX makes sense.

 

[at Quark's]

Given what the Enterprise-D-era starships are apparently capable of, creating and running sapient characters even as a side effect to a (carelessly) phrased request, I don't think starships would need any crew at all for most starship's operation. The only invention they'd still need to make would be the mobile emitter for away missions.

 

[Relayer1]

Basic small ship crew -

C/O
Helm
Navigation
Comms
Tactical

Doctor
Nurse Practitioner
Science Officer

Chief Engineer
Engineer
Engineer

That's one shift. The ship would run on a three shift system apart from combat / alert situations when a two shift pattern would kick in, providing extra cover in depth.

Eleven per shift, three shifts, thirty-three crew.

I'd expect cross skilling to be important in a small crew providing extra reserves and cover. A few secondary medically trained, several (and all bridge crew) being able to pilot and navigate, the lead medical staff back up science officers etc.

Plus reserve holographic medics and engineers.

 

[Citiprime]

Here's a question I've had about Starfleet doctors and medicine ... Are Starfleet doctors trained to be cross-discipline in medicine?

Since starships only have a chief medical officer and a limited number of physicians, and we never see mention of a dentist or other specialists, are Beverly, McCoy and Bashir just standard MDs or do they also have a DDS (i.e., doctor of dental surgery) and other qualifications for different disciplines of medicine like dentistry and pharmacology?

And given what xenobiology may require, being a doctor aboard a starship might have some aspects more similar to veterinary science.

 

[valkyrie013]

Here's a question I've had about Starfleet doctors and medicine ... Are Starfleet doctors trained to be cross-discipline in medicine?

Since starships only have a chief medical officer and a limited number of physicians, and we never see mention of a dentist or other specialists, are Beverly, McCoy and Bashir just standard MDs or do they also have a DDS (i.e., doctor of dental surgery) and other qualifications for different disciplines of medicine like dentistry and pharmacology?

And given what xenobiology may require, being a doctor aboard a starship might have some aspects more similar to veterinary science.

I would think that whatever species is onboard that they would have a doctor that would be familiar with there systems so they can work on them if needed. McCoy knew all about Vulcan physiology.
Bashir being on a station with who knows what passing by, would have to be quite skilled in xenobiology to work on whomever came in the door. But I'd expect that he'd be trained on staff personnel primarily
That or you might have different doctors, say a doctor of the species that is 2nd most numerous but trained in human physiology. A ship like the Ent D could have dozens of doctors in clinics around the ship.
Even the ship itself could have a "Vulcan" area with raised temperatures and low humidity that encompassed a section of the ship with quarters and gathering areas with more amenable life support.

 

[aquova]

C/O
Helm
Navigation
Comms
Tactical

I would say replace a tactical officer with a science one. If I recall, Sulu or Chekov served as the tactical officers aboard the Enterprise (although there were people actually manning the phasers directly)

 

[evilchumlee]

Ok... Bare Minimum.. and we will use NX as a template. Crew of 83. For ease, i'm going to run up to 100. So our ship can have a "usual crew" of 100.

I'm also going to take into consideration it's the future, and Star Trek is utopia, so Starfleet isn't working people to death. I'm going to say 6 hour shifts, 5 days a week. Therefore, every day has 4 shifts. Although Starfleet doesn't super enforce it and wants work-life balance, we will say once a week most of the crew is expected to pull a double shift. Extend that over the various stations to assume 1 double shift per day, each station needs 3 people for 4 shifts (one pulling double shift).

Bridge:
conn/command - 3* (aside from the Captain, conn isn't going to be three different people. It will be other officers volunteering to take on a shift.)
Ops - 3
Helm - 3
Security/Tactical - 3

I don't think this ship needs a dedicated communications or science officer. Ops can handle those duties.

So we have... 12* on the bridge.

Engineering:
There should always be someone in charge of engineering, so, 3.
Pulling numbers of out my butt here a bit, but judging by NX-01, lets say the ship needs an additional 3 engineers on at any given time. So, 9.

12 in Engineering.

Medical:
Pulled some quick numbers online, seems like a "good" ratio in modern day is 10 doctors per 1000 people. So... for a crew of about 100, we need 1 doctor. However, we want this medical bay manned at all times, so 3 doctors.

Let's be generous, and give a nurse to each of these doctors as well. 3

6 in Sickbay.

General Operation:
We don't know a whole lot about what needs to be manned on a starship. I'm going to make an educated guess and say there are another... 10 critical systems that require round the clock stations. So, 30.

I think i've satisfied minimum skeleton crew at 60 people.

That leaves us an additional 40 people to fill in shifts and fill non-critical roles.

 

[kkt]

In TOS "The Ultimate Computer" they thought the M-5 could run the Enterprise with no living crew at all. It would have some advantages - no risk to living crew members even if the ship is lost. No need for medical staff or counselors. But as shown in that episode, not even capable of understanding what is a drill. I'd hate to see it in a first contact situation.

In DS9 "Defiant", the Defiant operated with only Tom Riker and two others, not counting Kira as their prisoner. They operated successfully until greatly outnumbered, but they would have had a lot of trouble maintaining two or three shifts if their adventure had lasted longer. Or if someone had been injured or sick.

The "Defiant" had a minimal crew even on a typical mission. I don't think they ever said an exact number, but I get the feeling of 15-20. Of course it was intended for missions of up to a couple of weeks so they'd never be far from a base.

 

[evilchumlee]

The recurring theme, I believe, is that Starfleet ships absolutely can run with almost no crew... for a short time. Say in ST3, Scotty rigged up the E-Nil to run with nothing... but it wasn't able to perform well in battle. There's maintenance and all that to consider.

I'm sure you could make a ship... go with pretty much one person on board. It just depends on how far you will get.

 

[FormerLurker]

No one's taking into account that half the engineering crew don't work in the engineering section, but rather all over the ship doing routine maintenance. Double your engineering complement accordingly.