Hello, all!

Simple question, here. My players spent 15 SP on getting a Veteran (50) crew. Nowhere in the book can I find any rules that use that number... what am I missing? Thanks!

What it means is that shipboard action performed witjout direct control from a PC (an exemple would be firing at a target without a PC using jis own skill to direct the fire) is performed with a skill of 50%. Which means that sometimes the PC's intervention may degrade their performance.

NPC crew actions and crew rating are explained more fully on pg. 214 of the core.

Where it comes in really handy is when your players acquire more ships. With a crew rating of 50 you can decamp to another ship and rely on the crew being good enough to do what you want.

Manunancy said:

Wow, so in essence, their crew of 30,000 men have an average characteristic score of 50? That's how I'd originally read it, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it...

Thats it. Basically an incompetant crew need constant direction from the PCs to do ANYTHING. A competant crew can run a ship without breaking it, but the PCs need to intervene to get anything done. A crack crew can get buy, but underperform without guidance. A veteran crew have the experience to basically run the ship themselves, you can trust them to get things done with minimal direction.

Wow, so in essence, their crew of 30,000 men have an average characteristic score of 50? That's how I'd originally read it, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it...

More accurately, whatver the task, youll get enough crewmembers with stats in the 30 to 40 range and a skill bonus of +10 to +20, giving them a base chance of 50%. While not as good as what a PC could manage in his specialties, it's good enough that a PC directing this crew for somehting he isn't good at will be better off with a 'hands off' approach of command. An example of that would be instructing the bridge gunnery crew to 'aim for the closest ship's engines' rather than using his own skill to plot the firing solution by himself.

Manunancy said:

The only hole here is for Ballistic Skill tests, since there it's not a Skill and can't get Skill Mastery +10/+20 and/or Talented. So it really does mean that you have a lot of guys aboard that have BS 50 - and that's really quite high.

There's no need to have a lot of them - you'll need one on the bridge to direct his buddies's fire juste like a PC would and you are good to go. For most of the gun crew, strength and tech use are more relevant than balllistics.

HappyDaze said:

You are treating game rules like physics instead of abstractions, and this is a mistake. Not everything runs by the same set of rules. PCs are run by a more granular set of rules, NPCs a less granular set depending on their importance.

It isn't a ship of people with a BS of 50, it is a ship of people who can approach a strategic situation and the check to see how they did is 50. They don't have to achieve it using the same traits and abilities PCs do, and if you actually write up individuals they should not have traits that high.

They just approach situations in such a way that they skll check is 50. They may have had a 30bs, +10 for good tactics, and +10 for knowing their equipment well. Whatever. It is just an abstraction of combining their knowledge, skills, and experience.

Good stuff from everyone, says I! One other question, though...

Would you say that the crew should gain in rank as they survive battles? How would you house-rule this?

I would make it a combination of party actions and surviving battles. The party would need to dedicate resources to training their crew: time spent drilling, instructors aquired, effort put into providing the crew with situations in which they can practice.

If they put in the time, and money, I would let their crew improve by one level following a big event (finishing a major endevor, or at the end of a story arc)

riplikash said:

I like this; installing simulators, providing uniforms, better weapons, better crew quarters, holding drills, providing training, etc...