So, for an upcoming 1-shot game, I've broken down the Nebulon B's listed crew complement into minion groups to be commanded by bridge-crew PCs (except the ground troop complements- it shouldnt matter for a space game, though suggestions are welcome)

Imperial starfleet is known to be very officer heavy, about 3 or 4 enlisted per officer, so i use a lot of "Officer plus 3/4 minions" on tasks that might require a single roll (the officer's there to provide a blue die)

I also assume that there is three full shifts for every position. Including the Tie Fighters. I figure Sienar built TIE/LNs like Guardsmen Lasguns- incredibly relaible, to the point that after 8 hours of patrolling, the pilot lands, gets out, a new pilot gets in (with a fresh pilot-carried life support unit), the mechanic plugs in a fresh ion fuel cell, and the same tie flighter goes back out on patrol. I'm also assuming that engineering carries enough spare TIE parts to replace entire lost fighters in the field- the ship is limited by docking facilities, not pilots or fighter hulls.

The PCs will be handling the ship from a resourcce-management level, as well as dealing with customs inspections, talking with planetary govenors, putting down small rebelions, and other Fleet resoncibilities.

Base Nebulon B crew: 920

• 360 Starfighter crews (3 shifts, 1 pilot+1 crew chief+3 maintanace personell, 24 active fighters) (Flight Commander (highest ranking pilot) in charge)
• 324 Gun Crews (3 shifts, 1 officer+3 enlisted, 27 guns)
• 15 Astrogation section (3 shifts, 1 officer+4 enlisted)
• 30 Piloting section (3 shifts, 2+8)
• 15 Power room maintance (3 shifts, 1+4)
• 15 Engine Room maintance (3 shifts, 1+4)
• 36 Damage Control (3 shifts, 3 teams per shift, 1+3)
• 15 comunication techs (3 shifts, 1+4)
• 15 CIC personell (3 shifts, 1+4)
• 75 Ground troops (Major in charge)
• 15 support personell (3 mess crew, 12 medical personell)
• 5 command crew (Captian, 1st officer, Engineering, Ensign (maneuvering), Ensign (medical))

Thoughts? Anything i missed?

Anything

According to the Far Orbit Project, the troop complement is one platoon of naval troopers and one platoon of stormtroopers. A lieutenant in charge of each, both reporting to the Chief of Security (a naval officer).

WEG's listing shows 66 gunners total. And your count of fighter crew is way too high. There aren't any spare pilots, just the 24. And there is a Flight and Vehicle Ops officer, reporting to the Ops Officer (second in command, on the bridge [what is called the executive officer on a RL naval vessel]), in addition to the two squadron leaders. The FVO does not fly. He directs fighter ops from within the frigate.

You don't have nearly enough command crew. There are a lot more bridge positions (13) on the frigate than just 5. In addition to the separate Tactical (CIC) room (5 more officers).

I've run Far Orbit both in d6 and converted to d20 Saga, so I'm quite familiar with the crew breakdown of a Nebulon-B.

Weg's numbers seem odd to me. There are 12 turbolasers, 12 light laser cannons, and 3 tractor beams- 66 gunners is an odd number.

My argument on the starfighter complement reflects my views as GM on the imperial buerocracy, where the tie fighter actually made sence on a spreadsheet somewhere. While it is not canon, I want to keep it for this game. (Though the flight will have taken casualties before play begins- this is the paper order of battle, set up with AoR actions and minion rules in mind.

Thank you for insight into the ground troops.

As a guy who served on an aircraft carrier, I can say that the concept of 3 shifts is a luxury militarys don't generally have. Its a day shift, a skeleton night shift, and when battle starts, general quarters sounds to wake up the day shift and get all hands on battle stations. No one is sleeping during combat, so you don't really have to be quite so redundant.

Things you should consider (some of which you took into account):

Engineers working on the fighters

Engineers working on the plumbing

Engineers working on the power plant

Engineers workign on the engines

Engineers working on the life support, with separate crews for air circulation, air scrubbing, and gravity

Engineers for simple electricity, like lights and internal systesm

Engineers for internal comms

Engineers for damage control when the ship is breached

Engineers that work in machine shops, to fabricate metal parts from scratch

Flight crews for organizing and directing the various take offs and landings

Flight command, for directing the fighters in combat and keeping them out of the firing lanes of the turbolasers

Sensor operators, for the myriad sensors the ship probably has

Intelligence for identifying unidentified contacts, and advising the captain, especially important if the ship operates independently.

comms operators

navigation

mess deck personnel to make the food. Some of this can perhaps be done by droids, though.

ship's laundry, again, its possible droids can do this

droid maintenance personnel: If you have any number of droids, you need people who can fix and program them

Medical personnel: Ships crew are going to get sick and injured, you need a clinic for day to day operation, and a medical response team for casualties during combat, or in odd parts of the ship.

Security: This includes a brig, which needs guards, guards for sensitive areas of the ship, etc. The Neb B might officially have two platoons of troops to assign, but its likely that only the navy troopers are dedicated for internal security, while the stormtroopers are for boarding actions and the like. The ship would still draw another platoon's worth of standard navy personnel for watch duty or sent to security to cross train and assist the naval troopers.

The bridge crew is woefully inadequate, even if they can't quite do that many different actions with the rules. A ship as large as a Neb B can probably have multiple people working the computers for sensors, directing turbolaser fire, and readjusting shields. There is an image of the Neb B bridge, it has more than 5 chairs.

Just a few thoughts.

Everything our resident Sailor and contributor said.

Droids?

You seem to have a LOT of meatbags on that list that can be replaced by droids. That should cut down your crew significantly.

Damage Control:

Eliminate this entirely. It's a waste to have peopel just sitting round "waiting" for the ship to suddenly take damage, it's far more efficient to train EVERYONE on damage control in some fashion or another.

Remember that ships (and especially starships) are super duper limited on space and consumables, so everyone has go to pull their weight and then some. Star Trek (especially TNG) made starsshipboard life seem not much different then any other job. People forget the Enterprise-D as an extreme long range exploration ship was essentially a cruise liner with phaser banks. I'd love to have seen the episode where Picard had to host a town hall meeting with all the families on board to explain something Q did, or the time Riker had to get chewed out by the Admiral for sexual harassment complaints from some of the crew members daughters...

As a guy who served on an aircraft carrier, I can say that the concept of 3 shifts is a luxury militarys don't generally have. Its a day shift, a skeleton night shift, and when battle starts, general quarters sounds to wake up the day shift and get all hands on battle stations. No one is sleeping during combat, so you don't really have to be quite so redundant.

Without a "night" in space, I'd still want to give it at least 2 full shifts- the shift-multiplier on the crew is useful for getting up to the official crew rating.

Things you should consider (some of which you took into account):

Engineers working on the fighters (check)

Engineers working on the plumbing

Engineers working on the power plant (check)

Engineers workign on the engines (check)

Engineers working on the life support, with separate crews for air circulation, air scrubbing, and gravity

Engineers for simple electricity, like lights and internal systesm

Engineers for internal comms

Engineers for damage control when the ship is breached (check)

Engineers that work in machine shops, to fabricate metal parts from scratch

Flight crews for organizing and directing the various take offs and landings

Flight command, for directing the fighters in combat and keeping them out of the firing lanes of the turbolasers

Sensor operators, for the myriad sensors the ship probably has

Intelligence for identifying unidentified contacts, and advising the captain, especially important if the ship operates independently. (check)

comms operators (check)

navigation (check)

mess deck personnel to make the food. Some of this can perhaps be done by droids, though. (check)

ship's laundry, again, its possible droids can do this

droid maintenance personnel: If you have any number of droids, you need people who can fix and program them

Medical personnel: Ships crew are going to get sick and injured, you need a clinic for day to day operation, and a medical response team for casualties during combat, or in odd parts of the ship. (check, can be expanded)

Security: This includes a brig, which needs guards, guards for sensitive areas of the ship, etc. The Neb B might officially have two platoons of troops to assign, but its likely that only the navy troopers are dedicated for internal security, while the stormtroopers are for boarding actions and the like. The ship would still draw another platoon's worth of standard navy personnel for watch duty or sent to security to cross train and assist the naval troopers.

The bridge crew is woefully inadequate, even if they can't quite do that many different actions with the rules. A ship as large as a Neb B can probably have multiple people working the computers for sensors, directing turbolaser fire, and readjusting shields. There is an image of the Neb B bridge, it has more than 5 chairs.

Just a few thoughts.

I figured the Pilot minion group, Copilot minion group, and Astrogation minion group would be filling most of the seats to cut down the number of Rivals on the PCs ship. however, you're right, I'm going to have to add at least a few more mission seats, even if I conviently have their occupants sick/on leave when the 1-shot happens.

Droids: What is this Sepratist nonsence? Droids might handle menial talks like plumbing mainntanance, laundry, and the like but any droids should have restraining bolts to prevent an insurrection, and real imperials should handle anything mission-critical.

(your meals get prepared by a droid that hates you but cant hurt you. That's why they taste so bad. )

Rather then sweating the exact crew count why not make a dozen or so Rival, Nemesis, or Player grade NPC/PCs, and just leave the minion count whatever it needs to be at any given time?

Rather then sweating the exact crew count why not make a dozen or so Rival, Nemesis, or Player grade NPC/PCs, and just leave the minion count whatever it needs to be at any given time?

Eh, mostly because I fint it to be an interesting puzzle, and I've got almost a year before the con rolls around again.

I think your starfighter department is massively oversized. Pilots are some of the most highly trained, and expensively trained, military. Each bird should have one assigned maintenance crew. They work to the job, not the clock. Four per bird sounds about right. Pilots though, you don't have crews organized by shift, but by squadron. A squadron will have slightly more pilots than birds, say 18 to a 12 ship squadron. Any more than that is wasting personel on a ship whose carrier function is a secondary role. Neb B is, after all, an escort.

Replacement fighters is a thing, especially in WWII, which most of the fighter and ship actions of the OT were modelled after. Both Japanese and American fleet carriers would have a few spare fighters partially disassembled onboard to make good on operational losses. The thing is, those part are both massive and bulky, and space on a warship for anything is always at a premium. Even the purpose built fleet carriers of WWII only carried a few spare, usually hung from the ceiling of the main hanger. The only hard number I have on hand for this is the Kaga, at the battle of Midway. Kaga had six spare Zeros, which are a great analogue of the basic TIE. This, from an airwing of about 72 combat aircraft. And Kaga was a dedicated fleet carrier. A Neb B is basically a destroyer or light cruiser with an enhanced flight deck. It has a two deck flight bay, which is already loaded to capacity with 24 TIEs, plus a smaller secondary hanger off the engineering hull for shuttles. Even if the Neb B was allotted spare fighters, I can't imagine where they would be stored. This is already a small cramped ship

That actually does bring up an odd point. On the one hand he's saying TIEs are supposed to be super low maintenance. So he needs extra pilots because he expects them to be in the air most of the time, on the other he's got a full maintenance crew...

Seems like it needs to swing one way or the other. They are easy to keep flying, so few maintenance crews but extra pilots, or they are about average, so they have just a few extra pilots and normal maintenance crews.

I'm guessing he's got the situation where he wants the TIEs available all the time, and he doesn't want to players to go running back to drydock every game to replenish the TIEs when they more then 3. I bet if he tailors the encounters he'll find TIEs aren't that flimsy, even in this system, and I do think that just linking up with an Escort Carrier for replacements should be a thing, if for no other reason then it sounds like a good mcguffin....

In WEG it mentions fighter maintenance is not a high priority in the Empire. Even though Imperial fighter bases and carriers usually have plenty of supplies in a long operation they lose fighters to malfunctions at a much higher rate then the Alliance does because the Alliance focuses on maintaining their fighters more. The recommended post mission downtime for TIEs is much higher as well though they don't always get all the downtime they need because they and their pilots are viewed as expendable.

Seems like it needs to swing one way or the other. They are easy to keep flying, so few maintenance crews but extra pilots, or they are about average, so they have just a few extra pilots and normal maintenance crews.

I'm guessing he's got the situation where he wants the TIEs available all the time, and he doesn't want to players to go running back to drydock every game to replenish the TIEs when they more then 3. I bet if he tailors the encounters he'll find TIEs aren't that flimsy, even in this system, and I do think that just linking up with an Escort Carrier for replacements should be a thing, if for no other reason then it sounds like a good mcguffin....

In the clone wars, the Sepratists demostrated the value of starfighter s that could remain active for hours or days at a time with minimal downtime, with the ability to react instantly when organic pilots had to resupply and rearm. The tie fighter was sienar's answer.

Able to swap out pilots and life support packages in seconds, the Long Night(TIE LN) class was built to give the Imperial Navy a permanant combat space patrol capability, remaining in operation for days at a time bevfore maintenance needs coud hamper operations- this maintenance could be caught up on in hyperspace.

Weg's numbers seem odd to me. There are 12 turbolasers, 12 light laser cannons, and 3 tractor beams- 66 gunners is an odd number.

One possibility below that works. There could be countless breakdowns.

Turbolasers : 3-man crew each plus a Chief and Asst. Chief over all of them. 38.

Laser Cannons : 1-man crew each plus a Chief and Asst. Chief. 14.

Tractor Beams : 2-man crew each plus a Chief and Asst. Chief. 8.

Command : Gunnery Commander and XO. 2.

Gun nery Techs : 1 for each weapon type plus a Chief. 4.

Weg's numbers seem odd to me. There are 12 turbolasers, 12 light laser cannons, and 3 tractor beams- 66 gunners is an odd number.

One possibility below that works. There could be countless breakdowns.

Turbolasers : 3-man crew each plus a Chief and Asst. Chief over all of them. 38.

Laser Cannons : 1-man crew each plus a Chief and Asst. Chief. 14.

Tractor Beams : 2-man crew each plus a Chief and Asst. Chief. 8.

Command : Gunnery Commander and XO. 2.

Gun nery Techs : 1 for each weapon type plus a Chief. 4.

A few points:

• The 66 number does not include techs or commanders. It is just gunners.
• FFG changed the number of tractor beams to 3. All prior sources listed 2.
• WEG listed the crew for each tractor beam as 6. (Which seems excessive.)

A different breakdown that works, and is compatible with WEG's numbers (excepting the tractors):

• Turbolasers : 3-man crew each (36)
• Laser Cannons : 2-man crew each (24)
• Tractor Beams : 2-man crew each (6)

Add additional crew for techs (at least 1 per each weapon, plus crew chiefs), and battery commanders (1 senior NCO, or junior officer, per fire arc per weapon type).

Seems like it needs to swing one way or the other. They are easy to keep flying, so few maintenance crews but extra pilots, or they are about average, so they have just a few extra pilots and normal maintenance crews.

I'm guessing he's got the situation where he wants the TIEs available all the time, and he doesn't want to players to go running back to drydock every game to replenish the TIEs when they more then 3. I bet if he tailors the encounters he'll find TIEs aren't that flimsy, even in this system, and I do think that just linking up with an Escort Carrier for replacements should be a thing, if for no other reason then it sounds like a good mcguffin....

Hmm... I wonder if I can have it both ways...

In the clone wars, the Sepratists demostrated the value of starfighter s that could remain active for hours or days at a time with minimal downtime, with the ability to react instantly when organic pilots had to resupply and rearm. The tie fighter was sienar's answer.

Able to swap out pilots and life support packages in seconds, the Long Night(TIE LN) class was built to give the Imperial Navy a permanant combat space patrol capability, remaining in operation for days at a time bevfore maintenance needs coud hamper operations- this maintenance could be caught up on in hyperspace.

That really is the question isn't it? What's the Imperial Navy Starfighter doctrine? It's really tough to say since we see Star Destroyers in a battlegroup with TIEs buzzing all over, and then 10 minutes later see a Star Destroyer with no TIEs at all...

Lots of possible answers, and to a certain extent I think this one might actually be better left up to the players.

At the end of the day it's your call really, though I suspect if you dig through the old WEG imperial sourcebook you may find a possible answer, but it's been a while since I read that one at length....

Way too many starfighter crew and gunners in those estimates there and lacking for engineers and command function staff, plus 3 full shifts is a luxury the imperial military wouldn't afford its crews its more likely you would have a crew compliment broken into 3 overlapping shifts where 2 shifts are active at all times and during battles all hands would be at battle stations. The fighter compliment would likely be similarly arranged such that at any given time only 2/3rds of the TIEs would be actively performing operations, unless they were all called for.

Way too many starfighter crew and gunners in those estimates there and lacking for engineers and command function staff, plus 3 full shifts is a luxury the imperial military wouldn't afford its crews its more likely you would have a crew compliment broken into 3 overlapping shifts where 2 shifts are active at all times and during battles all hands would be at battle stations. The fighter compliment would likely be similarly arranged such that at any given time only 2/3rds of the TIEs would be actively performing operations, unless they were all called for.

More like 2 shifts, each active for half the of what is considered a full day.

Example I ran a 12 hour maint shift for days and my assistant ran a 12 hour shift for nights. Records kept us abreast as to what happened during the day.

Seems like it needs to swing one way or the other. They are easy to keep flying, so few maintenance crews but extra pilots, or they are about average, so they have just a few extra pilots and normal maintenance crews.

I'm guessing he's got the situation where he wants the TIEs available all the time, and he doesn't want to players to go running back to drydock every game to replenish the TIEs when they more then 3. I bet if he tailors the encounters he'll find TIEs aren't that flimsy, even in this system, and I do think that just linking up with an Escort Carrier for replacements should be a thing, if for no other reason then it sounds like a good mcguffin....

Hmm... I wonder if I can have it both ways...

In the clone wars, the Sepratists demostrated the value of starfighter s that could remain active for hours or days at a time with minimal downtime, with the ability to react instantly when organic pilots had to resupply and rearm. The tie fighter was sienar's answer.

Able to swap out pilots and life support packages in seconds, the Long Night(TIE LN) class was built to give the Imperial Navy a permanant combat space patrol capability, remaining in operation for days at a time bevfore maintenance needs coud hamper operations- this maintenance could be caught up on in hyperspace.

That really is the question isn't it? What's the Imperial Navy Starfighter doctrine? It's really tough to say since we see Star Destroyers in a battlegroup with TIEs buzzing all over, and then 10 minutes later see a Star Destroyer with no TIEs at all...

Lots of possible answers, and to a certain extent I think this one might actually be better left up to the players.

At the end of the day it's your call really, though I suspect if you dig through the old WEG imperial sourcebook you may find a possible answer, but it's been a while since I read that one at length....

Everything I can find on Imperial Navy fighter doctrine says it is based around close range and short missions expect for some specialty models. Imperial fighters are mostly designed as anti-fighter craft to defend bases and larger ships from enemy strike fighters.

Close range is correct but it doesn't change the amount of crew, OP are you aware that the EotE core book shows the crew compliment of the Neb B?

Hull Type: Frigate
Categories: Capital Ship, Starship, Non-Fighter Starship
Hyperdrive: Primary: Class 2, Backup: Class 12
NaviComputer: Yes
Sensor Range: Long
Ship's Complement: 920 Officers, Pilots, and Enlisted Crew
Encumbrance Capacity: 4,000
Passenger Capacity: 75
Consumables: Two Years
Cost: 8,500,000
Rarity: 7 restricted
Customization Hard Points: 2 (2 Remaining)
Weapons : Six Port and Six Starboard Turret Mounted
Retractable Medium Turbolasers (Fire Arc Forward,
Aft, and Port or Forward, Aft and Starboard; Damage
1 0; Critical 3; Range [Long]; Breach 3, Slow-Firing 1),
T hree Port, T hree Starboard, T hree Forward, and T hree
Aft Turret Mounted Retractable Light Laser Cannons
(Fire Arc Port or Starboard or Forward or Aft; Damage
5; Critical 3; Range [Close]), T hree Forward Mounted
Heavy Tractor Beam Emitters (Fire Arc Forward; Damage-;
Critical-; Range [Medium]; Tractor 6).

those frigates in Imperial service carry two squadrons of twelve TIE fighters.

Ok, just so you know I was in the Air Force Force as an acft maintainer on the F-16 for 23 years, a F-16 fighter squadron consisted of 22 acft and around 300 maint personnel per squadron and that didn't count pilots and included support personnel like personnellists. In total only flew 10 to 12 for the first sortie and 8 to 10 for the second sortie a day. There were extra pilots over what we were flying for the day and 2 to 3 acft that were hard broke, but that is getting to in deapth. The rest of the Bace did not work 24 hours a day 7 days a week so looking at that fact means that the Neb B could get away with not having everyone working equally a full shift or whats considered a full cycle.

Typically we had the most personnel working on the second shift doing heavy maintenance and a skeleton crew on third to service them. Do away with the skeleton shift for TiEs due to the fact they don't have tires and oxygen to service.

So comparing the TiEs to a 16 squadron really cuts the amount of maintainers you need to put somewhere else.

Just as a side note, GM Hooly is working on a Capital Ship Combat Guide in another thread regarding using minions and narrative control of capital ships in EotE. It seems simple and solves the headache such mammoth ships can create to quick and fun combat.

Over here:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/138576-capital-ship-combat-a-user-guide/