Star Trek Ship and Crew

[Capt Dave]

I started this topic over on the Scifi-Meshes forum and felt it might be good to get it going over here as well.

The goal of the thread both here and there is to develop a working model for a functioning ship's crew. Then expand upon that by developing the hole crew.

At the moment we are working on developing a complete list of Duty assignments. Then I want to work on assigning those duties to individual Officers and Enlistedmen positions aboard the ship.

One thing is clear, that no one aboard ship does just one Job. Almost everyone aboard ship wares more than one hat so to speak.

So this is what we have come up with so far:

The era is Pre-TOS set in the year 2228. So its about 5 years into the 70 year long Cold War between the Federation and the Klingons.

The Role of the ship is to patrol near the boarder territory along the Federation/Klingon Boarder. With an eye constantly on any Klingon and all activity. The ship is primarily built for combat, but isn't lacking in any of the other areas, as all those systems come in handy when it comes to keeping an eye on the boarder.

As for the ships look, its a design successor to the Daedalus Class. The ship is nearly twice the size of its predecessor, and has 24 decks. The Primary hull is a sphere, with the secondary hull extending back from the upper 2/3's of the Primary hull. The pylons for the warp nacelles then extend out from the secondary hull, almost completely horizontal with just a slight up slant.

The ships home port is Starbase 234. Smack dab in the middle of it, with the Klingons to Trailing, and the Romulans to Coreward. Not to mention the Nausicaans and Gorn to boot.

The Departments aboard ship are Command, Operations, Engineering, Science and Medical. We arrived at these department devisions from observation of the US navy and coastguard and how they operate.

The ship has a crew of approximatively 250. 25 are officers, the rest are Enlistedmen. The majority of Officers are Department heads and Task Force Leads, with Enlistedmen filling the majority of the rank and file aboard the ship.

There are some aspects of the command structure and duty assignments that really didn't make much sense to me, like any Senior officer being apart of an away mission. So those problems are being addressed.

Sure it makes for good television to have the Command staff to Beam Down and fight the giant Yetties, or battle in the arenas of death, but in all reality the captains place is on the ship.

So on this ship the Captain stays aboard, while the LT-CDR Jenkins and his Red shirts Beam down and deal with the mission at hand.

Well, that all I got for now. Please feel free to add your too sense. But keep in mind, I'm going for a crew that's actually functional, not a crew that looks good on camera and can't die because their still under contract.

 

[Pauln6]

You need 3 personnel for each key post (one for each duty shift) including bridge posts, engineering, security, the communications bay, the sensor bay, and medical. It's up to you if your auxillery control (battle bridge) is also fully manned at all times or just during red alerts. During General Quarters 'spare' personnel go to pre-assigned key posts, including damage control stations and spare transporter rooms. You end up with a large number of redshirts (engineers and security) with a smaller number of command staff (officers typically being helm, navigation, shuttle pilots, and commanding damage control teams and shuttle maintenance). Medical and science staff tend to be small by comparison (although not as small as in Voyager) since science labs don't need to function 24/7. The sensor bay and main computer room might be manned by scientists all the time though.

 

[milo bloom]

One thing that always annoyed me about Voyager was early on Janeway assigning Tom Paris (who had just been made a senior bridge officer) to be a nurse just because he had done well in some science class at the academy or something. To me it would have made more sense to have all those random Maquis crewman, plus assorted other Starfleet crew to be "hospital corpsman". Like depending on if they were on alpha shift or not when a red alert sounded, they would report to sickbay to assist The Doctor (or, before he got his mobile transmitter, station these corpsman near the bridge, engineering and other vital sections of the ships with stretchers, to immediately move wounded to sickbay).

To sum up that rambling mess, I'd make sure that one of the other "hats" that some enlisted wear has to do with assisting sickbay, so that the standard medical staff can be lower (one or two doctors, handful of nurses for example).


ETA

So on this ship the Captain stays aboard, while the LT-CDR Jenkins and his Red shirts Beam down and deal with the mission at hand.

Is this Lt Cdr Jenkins the head of security or a higher bridge position (like second officer?). I've mulled over this very type of project before, and one of the things I came up with (again, like you) is that the senior staff should never be on "routine" landing party missions. There should be dedicated staff for leading landing parties, depending on the type of mission (basic recon, SAR, scientific [and then, what kind of science? Geology? Biology? Archaeology?]), and even if this Jenkins of yours is the head of security, I would still find it odd to be sending a department head down on a mission, unless there were extreme circumstances.

 

[sojourner]

A good way to do things would be to have a single "day" shift. This would be the primary shift when everything gets done. General maintenance is handled, labs in use, etc. The two secondary shifts would be more of a "caretaker" situation. Only positions that need round the clock manning, like helm, sensors, a small standby crew in engineering for immediate problems. This will minimize the number of crew you need. It would be overkill to man every station 24/7 when a lot of it will only get used during combat or can wait till the "day" shift to take care of it.

So start with the crew needs for the primary shift then starting cutting un-needed crew from that roster to find what you need for the secondary shifts.

P.S. Lt-CDR Jenkins? as in Leroy Jenkins? lol

 

[Capt Dave]

You need 3 personnel for each key post...

I was thinking a 4 shift rotation, with all crew filling a shift and a half.

One thing that always annoyed me about Voyager was early on Janeway assigning Tom Paris (who had just been made a senior bridge officer) to be a nurse just because he had done well in some science class at the academy or something. To me it would have made more sense to have all those random Maquis crewman, plus assorted other Starfleet crew to be "hospital corpsman". Like depending on if they were on alpha shift or not when a red alert sounded, they would report to sickbay to assist The Doctor (or, before he got his mobile transmitter, station these corpsman near the bridge, engineering and other vital sections of the ships with stretchers, to immediately move wounded to sickbay).

I agree. Furthermore, all crew receive EMT extension training, along with Anti boarding, and Damage Control.

To sum up that rambling mess, I'd make sure that one of the other "hats" that some enlisted wear has to do with assisting sickbay, so that the standard medical staff can be lower (one or two doctors, handful of nurses for example).

This ship only has One true Doctor on board, with the assistance of 5 Nurses, everyone aboard must earn an EMT Rating or they will be transfered off the ship (this is one of the Captains standing orders).

Is this Lt Cdr Jenkins the head of security or a higher bridge position (like second officer?).

Not exactly, Mission Officer (MO) is a rating that many officers hold respective to their MOS. See below.

I've mulled over this very type of project before, and one of the things I came up with (again, like you) is that the senior staff should never be on "routine" landing party missions. There should be dedicated staff for leading landing parties, depending on the type of mission (basic recon, SAR, scientific [and then, what kind of science? Geology? Biology? Archaeology?]), and even if this Jenkins of yours is the head of security, I would still find it odd to be sending a department head down on a mission, unless there were extreme circumstances.

Yes, fully agree. unless the mission calls for specialized skills most missions are lead by Junior officer or NCO's.

A good way to do things would be to have a single "day" shift. P.S. Lt-CDR Jenkins? as in Leroy Jenkins? lol

No, I don't see a reason why the bulk of the work load should be shoved on any one shifts shoulders. The ships has 4 shifts so the work load is fairly spread out.

 

[Capt Dave]

Captain: the Captain is rarely on the bridge. He spends most of his time either in the office attached to his quarters or in his ready room adjacent to the bridge.

The Captains doesn't have a watch on the bridge. Most of his time is spent reviewing mission orders and forming a plan of action, or reviewing the 1st officers reports on the status of the ship.

First officer: The first officer's role is to oversee the operation of the ship, to supervise the training of the Crew and Keep the Captains ship ready for his use.

He must administer all Officers Tests, and makes daily reports to the Captain on the readiness of the crew and ship as well as makes recommendations for promotion and reassignment of crew members.

The Officer of the Watch (Gold) is the 2nd Officer of the ship during his shift. This officer oversee's the general operations of the ship, and reports any abnormalities to the 1st officer.

To be eligible for the Position of Officer of the Watch, the Officer must have successfully passed the Bridge officers Test.

The Helmsman (Red) is responsible for maintaining course and making course corrections as needed. He reports directly to the Officer of the Watch.

The Navigator (Blue) is responsible for plotting the ships course and issuing course corrections to the Helmsman.

The Department Lead Officer (department color) is the Officer in charge of a department. His is responsible for the training and fitness for duty of all crew under his command. They are also responsible for making reports to the 1st officer, making recommendations for promotion and reassignment.

The Department Lead officers are:

• Chief of engineering (Orange) is responsible for overseeing the engineering department, overseeing the training of all engineering staff, Making recommendations to the first officer for promotion and reassignment.
• Chief of Security (Red) is responsible for maintaining of order aboard the ship. The CoS also trains designated crewmen in anti-boarding, search and rescue, and assault training.
• Medical Chief (Teal) is responsible for maintaining the crews health and fitness for duty. He's also the ships surgeon and responsible for the medical training of the ships nurses, and oversees the nurses training of the crew in there EMT.
• Chief of Science (Blue) is the officer in charge of overseeing the training of the science staff aboard ship.

The Deck Officer (department color) is responsible to oversee their department and make reports to the Officer of the Watch every two hours on the status of his department, as well as report any abnormalities.

There is a Deck Officer assigned to each department for each shift.

To be eligible to be a deck officer you must have completed the deck officers test for the Respective department.

The Mission Officer is the Lead officer of an away mission. This is a special duty assignment. To become a MO the Officer must have completed the General mission officers test as well as Deck officers test for the respective departments.

-----

Its likely that I've missed some things, so please post what you think is missing below.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I would add a Tactical Officer, because really, having the Chief of Security take care of all that, in addition to doing his own job strikes me as a bit daft. Also, an Operations Officer, who serves as the bridge's liason to the engineering department, manages ship's systems, coordinates systems use with various departments, and what-have-you. A Communications Officer is likely a good idea as well, as bolting that person's job to Tactical or OPS seems a bit much.

 

[sojourner]

A good way to do things would be to have a single "day" shift. P.S. Lt-CDR Jenkins? as in Leroy Jenkins? lol

No, I don't see a reason why the bulk of the work load should be shoved on any one shifts shoulders. The ships has 4 shifts so the work load is fairly spread out.

No, that's not what I am saying. It is inefficient to have all of your shifts be fully crewed. There won't be enough work to go around and it would be redundant in most cases. In real life how many work environments have full 24/7 crews? Not the Navy, Not NASA. use a minimal crew for secondary shifts and a full crew for the primary shift. Heck, you already have a lot of redundance built in with the crew working 1.5 shifts in a 4 shift schedule. That means at any hour of the day you actually have 2 shifts active. Assuming you are splitting a 24 hour day into 4 and then multiplying by 1.5 to get a 9 hour shift for each crewmember.

This also allows the ship to be smaller due to less cabins, less food/stores required etc.

Also, drop a Nurse and add another Doctor. That way if one dies in combat, you have a backup.

 

[Capt Dave]

Chain of Operational Command

Captain
First officer
Officer of the Watch
Deck officer (by department)
Section Officer (by department)

Chain of Command: Administrative.

Captain
First officer
Department Head

Definitions:

Captain: [O6/CAPT] The Captain is the Commanding Officer of the Ship. The Captain does not observe a watch. The Captain's Chef responsibility is to review mission orders, form a plan of action, and execute that plan.

First Officer: [O5/CDR] The First Officer is the "Chief of Staff" of the ship. The First Officer does not observe a watch. He is responsible for maintaining the chain of command, overseeing the day to day operations of the ship, making regular reports to the captain on the readiness of the ship and its crew.

Officer of the Watch: [O4/LCDR] The Officer of the Watch is the Bridge officer that stands watch on the bridge. He is third in command of the ship. There is one Officer of the Watch for each shift. The officer of the watch oversees all bridge operations, and monitors the Deck officers. The Officer of the Watch is to make regular reports to the first officer on the status of the ship.

Department Lead Officer: This officer is the Lead officer of a department. The Lead officer is responsible for training his subordinates in the operations and maintenance of the systems they regularly interact with.
Their are Department Lead Officers for all the Following:

Department: Sections

• Engineering: Reactor control, Drive control, Power Management, Deflector Control.
• Medical: General Care, Surgery, Pathology, Chaplin.
• Security: Ships security, Search and Rescue, Intelligence, Tactical, Armory.
• Science: Sensors, Research, Lab Operations.
• Operations: Communications, Computer Tech, General Maintenance, Stewards, Cargo.

Deck Officer: [O3/LT] The Deck Officer is the Officer in Charge of a Department. The Deck officer is in charge of the operation of his department. The Deck officer is required to make regular reports to the Officer of the Watch on the status of his department.

Section Officer: [O1/ENS or O2/LTRG] The Section officer is the officer in charge of a specific task. The section officer leads several enlisted men in the operation and maintenance ships systems. (See Department Lead Officer for Sections).

Ships Station Manifest:

Captain: Ships Commanding Officer.

First Officer: Chief of Staff

Officer of the Watch: Watch officer on Bridge

• Helmsman: Flight Operations Officer
• Navigator: Navigation (Typically the Officer of the watch)
• Science Officer: Operates the ship main sensors to aid the Navigator in plotting a course and avoiding collisions.
• Comms: Officer that mans the communications console. Oversee's all communication traffic.

Deck Officer (ENG): Officer in charge of the Engineering Department.

Section Officer list:

• Reactor Control officer: Oversee's the Operation and Maintenance of the ships warp core.
• Propulsion Control Officer: Oversee's the Operation and Maintenance of the Ships Warp drive and impulse systems.
• Power Management Officer: Coordinates the power management systems.
• Deflector Control Officer: Oversee's the Operation and Maintenance of the navigational deflectors and defensive screens.

Deck Officer (MED): Officer that mans Sick bay.

Section Officer list:

• General Medicine: Nurse in charge of patent evaluation and treatment.
• Surgery: Nurse in charge of all minor surgical procedures. Major surgical procedures are performed by the Chief medical officer.
• Pathology: Diagnostic Nurse in charge the pathology lab.
• Chaplin/Councilor: Mental health, Spiritual Advisor, Performs some ceremonial duties as well.

Deck Officer (SEC)

Section Officer list:

• Ships Security: Access control, Internal Investigations,
• Search and Rescue: Special Duty.
• Intelligence: FIA Officers attached to ship for acquiring and compiling intelligence data on the status of the boarder.
• Tactical: Officer in charge of Tactical operations aboard and away from the ship.
• Armory: Officer in charge of the ships weapons systems and ships armory.

Deck Officer (SCI)

Section Officer list:

• Sensor Tech: Operates and maintains the ships sensor systems.
• Stellar Cartography: Maintains the ships navigational charts.
• Planetology: Studies the planets the ship will be encountering regularly.
• Automation: A research science that develops better ways to optimism the ships operations, including automation of some systems.
• Exobiology: Catalogs the life forms that are found in space and on planets.

Deck Officer (OPS)

Section Officer list:

• Communications: The Comms Officer oversees the communications bay.
• Computer Tech: Officer in charge of maintaining the ships computer systems.
• General Maintenance: Officer that overseas the general maintenance of ships infrastructure systems.
• Stewards: Officer that oversees Food services, laundry, inspects crew quarters.
• Cargo: Officer in charge of the cargo bays and keeping inventory of the ships supplies.

What am I missing?

 

[Capt Dave]

No, that's not what I am saying. It is inefficient to have all of your shifts be fully crewed. There won't be enough work to go around and it would be redundant in most cases. In real life how many work environments have full 24/7 crews? Not the Navy, Not NASA.

When you are in a cold war with an enemy that can show up at any second, because they have that pesky cloaking device, you can't have a time when you are at min staff.

Heck, you already have a lot of redundance built in with the crew working 1.5 shifts in a 4 shift schedule. That means at any hour of the day you actually have 2 shifts active. Assuming you are splitting a 24 hour day into 4 and then multiplying by 1.5 to get a 9 hour shift for each crewmember.

A day in the Life...

Rack Time (8 hrs)
3S (30 min)
Meal (30 min)
Duty Station (6 hrs)
Meal (30 min)
Cross Training (4 hrs)
Free time (4.5 hrs)

This ship isn't meant to be small. It my not be as long as the Enterprise, but its internal volume is certainly greater. The Sphere alone is likely to contain 3/4 the volume of the enterprise.

 

[Pauln6]

I agree that tactical, security, and bridge communications should be staffed by separate officers.

I also think that a single doctor is probably insufficient, although it might depend on how many crew your ship had (Voyager seemed to have one doctor, one nurse, a holographic back-up, and no designated medical technicians. That seems a bit lacking for precisely the reasons we saw in the show). Medical staff carry out regular crew evaluations, check equipment, and carry out research. They should be treated like any other science department on top of their actual medical duties.

You might also need a pharmacologist and a dentist. You would certainly need a chief nurse and one nurse ofr each shift (so 5 seems ok) and probably a medical technician for each shift (so 4 - although as part of ship's policy this could be rotated between crew from other posts as you suggest).

You also need an array of physicists on your team, particularly at least one astrophysicist. Scientists tend to be officers, most often lieutenants and so you may need to allow for a geologist, botanist, and maybe an archaeologist and/or anthropologist.

 

[sojourner]

No, that's not what I am saying. It is inefficient to have all of your shifts be fully crewed. There won't be enough work to go around and it would be redundant in most cases. In real life how many work environments have full 24/7 crews? Not the Navy, Not NASA.

When you are in a cold war with an enemy that can show up at any second, because they have that pesky cloaking device, you can't have a time when you are at min staff.

Then you better have 4 of everything. 4 Captains, 4 first officers, 4 Doctors, 4 Chief Engineers, etc..... Like I said, not even in the heart of the cold war when we were afraid of Soviet attack, did our armed forces run every post 24/7. It's not efficient. Your going to have people standing around with nothing to do for months at a time. Which is actually worse because it will lead to laziness. better to have a smaller crew that has to keep busy to get things done.

Edit to add: In the time frame you mentioned for this ship I don't think the Klingons had cloaking devices.

Anyway, I gave you advice based on my experience working in a shipboard environment. It's up to you what to do with it.

 

[Capt Dave]

Then you better have 4 of everything. 4 Captains, 4 first officers, 4 Doctors, 4 Chief Engineers, etc.....

Rather than throwing mud and tantrums, you could offer up your own version of the shift fun down.

Anyway, I gave you advice based on my experience working in a shipboard environment. It's up to you what to do with it.

You forget about the Romulans, who have had cloaking tech since the 2100's, if not earlier.

 

[sojourner]

Then you better have 4 of everything. 4 Captains, 4 first officers, 4 Doctors, 4 Chief Engineers, etc.....

Rather than throwing mud and tantrums, you could offer up your own version of the shift fun down.

I did give you a run down, several times. With logical reasons. My latest example listed above was an attempt to show you what your logic of have full shifts round the clock would lead to.

And make sure there is some mud being thrown before you accuse someone of it.

Anyway, I gave you advice based on my experience working in a shipboard environment. It's up to you what to do with it.

You forget about the Romulans, who have had cloaking tech since the 2100's, if not earlier.

The romulans are not a part of your original mission for the ship in the OP and their cloaking device still does not justify full crews 24/7. Under that reasoning you might as well have red alert status running full time as well.

How is having the plumbers on duty 24/7 going to help in an attack? The cooks? The gardeners? Do you think there will be enough general maintenance to justify crews working 24/7? If so, that ship should never have left drydock.

 

[milo bloom]

I agree that at some point you would run out of things to "maintain" if you ran full staff shifts all "day" long.

But I also remember thinking how silly it was during that ep of Voyager where Harry had been given bridge watch for the night shift, and he was the only one there. Who's to say any aliens you meet are going to be on the same time zone as you?

Certain areas, like the bridge and certain engine functions should have a reasonable amount of staff. Enough at least to get systems into alert status should some hostiles come calling at 3 AM, and the alpha shift bridge crew takes a few minutes to change out of their pajamas and make their way to their duty stations.

 

[sojourner]

^Yea, only one person manning the bridge is cutting it too thin.

 

[Pauln6]

Certain areas, like the bridge and certain engine functions should have a reasonable amount of staff. Enough at least to get systems into alert status should some hostiles come calling at 3 AM, and the alpha shift bridge crew takes a few minutes to change out of their pajamas and make their way to their duty stations.

I thought they wore their pyjamas while on duty? What the hell are those outfits supposed to be then?

They would probably have a rotating crew of engineers and maintenance staff that perform regular diagnostic checks plus crews that man key areas at all times. Personally I struggle to work out what is the purpose of the command personnel. They only need two pilots (saucer and secondary hull) and a floater on any duty shift (people do get tea breaks and toilet breaks even in the 23rd & 24th century) plus a deck officer.

It is tough to know exactly what should be manned at all times and to what extent but I do think that key engineering stations should be manned at all times, one transporter room, the cargo bays, shuttle bays, weapons control, the sensor bay, and communications bay. You would get away with a skeleton crew at most stations (the battle bridge could probably be manned by two crewmen at all times). During General Quarters (or Red Alert etc) crews from other shifts would also take up those posts as well as damage control crews.

I statted up the TMP Enterprise crew fully and, while opinions will vary, it was really easy to reach a crew tally of 430.