Fresh from defending the killing power of destroyer-class ships in another thread, I'm here to question one niggling problem I have with them.

Actually, that's not fair, the problem I have isn't with them, instead it's with the abstracted crew population system.

For the most part, I'm happy with it. 1d5 population lost will always be preferable to 3d100+59orwhatever. Also makes the math easier on the fly. Although, sometimes I wonder why track it for non-recurring NPC ships at all, seeing as you only lose 1d10 or 1d5 when a few crits come up, and it takes quite awhile for morale and population damage to really affect a ship. Or am I just missing a source of crew/morale damage, like hull point loss? Wait, nevermind, just found page 221.

Anyway, my main problem with the percentile crew system is comes from boarding actions, with lesser qualms in the damage/replenishment sectors.

Cruisers have always been represented as having not only a larger crew, but a crew more able to sustain losses. Presumably this comes from larger ships having more room for "spare" crew, and is supported by light cruisers being the choice deep-recon ship, while frigates are relegated to picket duty. While I'm perfectly happy for the same magnitude hit killing more crew on a larger ship than a smaller one (represented by doing the same percent damage to both), I feel the larger one should be able to ignore penalties for longer. However, smaller ships should be able to more easily replenish their crews, represented by easier acquisition checks. As an aside, isn't it funny how a ship limping into port with 20% crew left has to make the exact same check (and same number of checks) as a ship with 95%? Then the most ridiculous part of all: boarding. Boarding gives bonuses based on who has the larger crew stat, not who has more crew left, meaning even though a 90% destroyer has far less crew remaining than an 80% cruiser, the destroyer has the advantage.

Yes, I know, maybe the cruiser has just as many (percentage-wise) crew allocated to essential duties, and yes, I know the cruiser also has more hull space to protect than the destroyer does, I still like the idea of the smaller ship being more vulnerable to boarding and other attacks that target its crew directly. The destroyer already is more able to engage/escape boarding attempts with its higher maneuverability, why not give it a weakness too?

I guess what I'm looking for is someone to say: "You're forgetting page xxx, where it says destroyers start with max population 90 and cruisers with max population 120." That would solve everything. Although I think I'd prefer if, say, starting in the new battlefleet book (and retroactively) they give each hull a static bonus/penalty to max crew population.

So what's the verdict? Am I crazy?

p.s. Is it just me, or are the boarding bonuses in general just a little silly. I mean, I like the turrets contributing by firing at the boarding craft/EVA marines flitting back and forth, but seriously, what's the point of giving the person with the higher hull points +10 for every 10 difference in crew population. This means if the person with less crew has more hull points, he negates the crew advantage of the other ship, while if the ship with more crew has even a single hull point more than the other ship, he doubles his bonus.

Yes, the Population score is very wonky. In addition to what you've mentioned, consider that a Cobra brought to crippled status still has roughly 70 crew population, but a Lunar crippled has about 30 crew population remaining. Somehow the smaller ship with less redundancy keeps its crew around longer...?

Etheric said:

Aren't those hull-point modifiers going a long way towards providing bigger ships with exactly the benefits you're arguing for? It's not particularly elegant, but it does mean a raider is going to be hard pressed to get a boarding bonus for crew numbers vs a cruiser, while the cruiser is likely to be doubling it's own bonus, if it has one.

SableWyvern said:

And it means a cruiser with 99 crew has no bonus/penalty relative a destroyer with 100 crew. Of course, now that I look at that rule again, it's probably a typo, and it should be providing a SEPARATE bonus for every 10 HULL POINTS remaining.

But that's not the way it is written.

Etheric said:

Like I said, it's not elegant. And you are correct in that it still leaves a number of essentially arbitrary scenarios where the larger ship has no advantage.