Can anyone tell me what the minimum crew requirement is for a ship? Is it just the "ship's complement" value in the profiles? Is it possible to fly a ship with fewer?

I'm looking for official rules, first and foremost, but "interpretations" would be helpful if the rules do not exist. Thanks.

I did quick skim of the Corebook here at work and wasn't able to find anything about minimum crew requirements. So I think it would ultimately be a GM call as to what the minimum required crew size would be. I would think that the ships compliment listed is the standard crew size for the ship and that a skeleton crew would be considerably smaller.

I dont believe there are any hard and fast rules about minimum crew requirement.

Certainly, where a starships crew requirement states "Pilot, Co-pilot, Engineer, 3Gunners", you could probably make a couple assumptions:

1: Pilot, Copilot and Engineer Minimum.

2: Pilot Minimum.

(Justification: Airliners these days have a Pilot, Copilot and a Flight Engineer... but it is perfectly possible to fly one with just a pilot (I believe)

Size of the ship, will also be a factor... for the larger freighters that list Cargo management crew, you could probably dispense with them.

For things like Corvettes and larger... you would need a certain number to operate the ship to its peak, but running below peak... who knows. maybe 10%?

I would put it down to GMs call unfortunately. But the ship might start becoming reliant on port services to get things fixed properly.

It is hard to summarize, but I would say the Listed 'Complement' figure is what the ship is 'designed' to run with, and that is going to vary dependent on the ships role, and how long it is intended to operate before it is resupplied/relieved.

Gunners are dispensable for flight, clearly, but without gunners to man the guns, defense is going to suffer.

Equally, for long duration flights, you will need to rotate crew so they can rest... like you would get on larger ships, so certainly you could assume something like a Star Destroyer could operate at 100% with a third of its complement... but only for a limited time (Assuming 3 shifts in a 24 hour period, rotating crew).

If you are focusing on smaller ships... well, the Falcon operated fine with just 2 crew. And I believe it was fine under Landos ownership with just Himself and a Droid Pilot. But it could easily accommodate a 'crew' of Pilot, Copilot, Engineer and 2x Gunners, based on what we have seen... you could throw in a Cargo Manager if you wanted, but on that scale I would assume that role was doubled by one of the others.

It is a hard question to answer, and my gut says... go with your gut.

Sorry if that isn't any help, but that's my interpretation... I don't recall any hard and fast rules on it. But I am happy to be proven wrong.

RD

Nothing official IIRC. Its assumed you typically need a minimum of one, but the crew complement is just a list of typical jobs those crew perform to help sort things like dedicated gunners and copilots and such.

I think it would depend in part on the Silhouette.

A Firespray is basically designed for 1 person to run most or all of the systems. A YT-1300 can get away with one person operating it, albeit that ship will be at a disadvantage since all stations, including the 2 gun turrets, cannot be continuously manned. I don't think a Wayfarer can get away with a crew of 1 as easily, and anything larger certainly cannot.

I seem to recall an episode of clone was where Anakin piloted a capitol ship by himself, or at least with one or two others. The ship was damaged and was just going to ram another ship or provide a distraction.

I seem to recall an episode of clone was where Anakin piloted a capitol ship by himself, or at least with one or two others. The ship was damaged and was just going to ram another ship or provide a distraction.

With that he had set the ship on auto-pilot and had R2 with him to help set that up too, but normally there usually is a minimum crew for some ships.

I seem to recall an episode of clone was where Anakin piloted a capitol ship by himself, or at least with one or two others. The ship was damaged and was just going to ram another ship or provide a distraction.

With that he had set the ship on auto-pilot and had R2 with him to help set that up too, but normally there usually is a minimum crew for some ships.

The typical solution is to say most any craft can be piloted by as few as a single person. But that's merely piloted and can only be done for one or two encounters, or a day if no combat is involved. After that point the breakers have overloaded, emergency shutoffs have offed, and the ship has effectively disabled itself in an act of technological self preservation. Resetting it all isn't really hard, but it'll take a full crew several days to Get everything back online.

So, while Googling for the answer to this question, I've stumbled upon my own post asking the same question 5 years ago. I guess I didn't find a satisfying answer.

They actually tackled this just the other day on the Order 66 podcast (episode 119) and came up with a (IMO) satisfying way to handle less then a full compliment.

IIRC, for every 25% below compliment all ship-board skill rolls suffer a setback die. With a minimum of, I think 15% or 20% crew.

Pretty sure I also wrote something in Strongholds of Resistance, I think in the Independence entry? There's a sidebar for skeleton crews somewhere.

10 minutes ago, KRKappel said:

Pretty sure I also wrote something in Strongholds of Resistance, I think in the Independence  entry? There's a sidebar for skeleton crews somewhere.

That's correct - on page 60 bottom right.

The "reduced crew" sidebar refers to capital ships though, which certainly need more crew on hand to function effectively. By the official rules, smaller vessels (say Silhouette 4 or smaller) have no minimum crew required (except a pilot, obviously), and do not function at a penalty for having only a pilot, except for the limitation of having only one character's action and maneuver(s) each turn. That can be a significant limitation, depending on the opposition!

33 minutes ago, Direach said:

The "reduced crew" sidebar refers to capital ships though, which certainly need more crew on hand to function effectively. By the official rules, smaller vessels (say Silhouette 4 or smaller) have no minimum crew required (except a pilot, obviously), and do not function at a penalty for having only a pilot, except for the limitation of having only one character's action and maneuver(s) each turn. That can be a significant limitation, depending on the opposition!

Yeah, I mean, I think smaller ships that actually list out all the crew positions, that makes it pretty clear what your ship misses out on by flying with fewer crew (the turns those other crew might take at those stations).

18 hours ago, KRKappel said:

Pretty sure I also wrote something in Strongholds of Resistance, I think in the Independence entry? There's a sidebar for skeleton crews somewhere.

Perfect. Thanks.

This was my take on it:

REDUCED CREWS

Is a skeleton crew what you get when you have a partial starship shutdown forces the captain to furlough non-essential crew members?

2 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

Is a skeleton crew what you get when you have a partial starship shutdown forces the captain to furlough non-essential crew members?

Serious answer to a non-serious IRL politics question: No. With a skeleton crew there is usually some lack of essential crew, leaving the ship at reduced or even minimal operating capacity. If only non-essential personnel are not present, the ship can still operate at full effectiveness, at least for a short time.

You don't really need any further penalties than the loss of action economy for a large ship. A single person on a ship's bridge could perform all the functions necessary to drive the ship, watch the sensors, monitor the shields, and maybe even fire a few weapons. The difference is he could only do one thing each round. Each check wouldn't be harder on its own. It would just be a ship that couldn't do several things at once, that is the penalty for having too few crew.

Assuming that you are only talking about an encounter lasting a few minutes. A capital ship would need far more than 1 person for long term operation simply for routine maintenance and repairs.

In theory, a single person could sneak aboard a Star Destroyer's bridge, program the hyperdrive, and fly it away somewhere. The ship would probably only function for at most a day or two before it became inoperable though, but he would at least be able to "fly" it alone.