Crew Complement of Starships

[Shamrock Holmes]

There have been several discussions in the past about viable crew complements of various ships and whether they are realistic. I've got a slightly different question regarding crew complements. Why do starships have such a wide range of standard crew versus maximum (sometimes referred to as the evacuation capacity)?

Examples:

Galaxy-class: 1013 (standard), 15,000 (evacuation). 6.75%
Intrepid-class: 150 (approximate), 350-400 (evacuation*). 37.5 to 42.9%
Consitution-class: 203-433 (standard), 547+ (diplomatic). 37.5 to 79%
Defiant-class: 40-50 (standard), 150 (evacuation). 26.7 to 33.3%
Saber-class: 40 (standard), 200 (evacuation). 20%


* based on accommodating over 200 Klingons in "Prophecy".

The Galaxy class appears to be the exception to the rule, however the est 7,000 crew of the Battleship Enterprise from "Yesterday's Enterprise" bumps it up to 47% which seems more reasonable (though the regular counterpart would carry diplomats, medical and supply personnel and maybe dual-use "cultural liaison teams" (think US Green Berets) rather than marines or army infantry).

Any thoughts?

 

[Timo]

Well, crew is not a "capacity" - it's a liability. A ship tries to make do with as few personnel as possible, but sometimes the automation just isn't up to the job and Starfleet is forced to assign a crewman or two aboard, and provide them with those expensive and cumbersome means of survival and sustenance.

Evacuation in turn is very much a "capacity", and should have very little to do with crew size. Sure, it may consume the same life support resources, but then again, perhaps not. Evacuees are just self-loading cargo, and for all we know there's a life support container added per every thousand evacuees. The ships with the smallest crews might be the ones with the greatest potential for evacuees or other passengers, what with the crew not getting in their way.

We've seen starships fly under the control of a single person, or three starships fly under the control of four people in one of them. Now, keeping them flying probably takes more people. But most of Kirk's 430 people may still well be passengers, that is, mission specialists. And most of Pike's 207 may be that, too. The design of the ship is unlikely to set much in the way of limits... Kirk could just as well have hosted 800 people, by shipping a couple of those booster containers and skimping on comforts. etc.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MAGolding]

Well, crew is not a "capacity" - it's a liability. A ship tries to make do with as few personnel as possible, but sometimes the automation just isn't up to the job and Starfleet is forced to assign a crewman or two aboard, and provide them with those expensive and cumbersome means of survival and sustenance.

Evacuation in turn is very much a "capacity", and should have very little to do with crew size. Sure, it may consume the same life support resources, but then again, perhaps not. Evacuees are just self-loading cargo, and for all we know there's a life support container added per every thousand evacuees. The ships with the smallest crews might be the ones with the greatest potential for evacuees or other passengers, what with the crew not getting in their way.

We've seen starships fly under the control of a single person, or three starships fly under the control of four people in one of them. Now, keeping them flying probably takes more people. But most of Kirk's 430 people may still well be passengers, that is, mission specialists. And most of Pike's 207 may be that, too. The design of the ship is unlikely to set much in the way of limits... Kirk could just as well have hosted 800 people, by shipping a couple of those booster containers and skimping on comforts. etc.

Timo Saloniemi

Why do you write "Pike's 207"? You are counting the 203 he mentioned being responsible for, plus himself, plus the three killed on Rigel VII, to get 207. But perhaps the normal compliment of the ship was 203 counting the captain, and so after three were killed that left 199 other crew members the captain was responsible for. What is the reason for choosing one over the other?

 

[Timo]

Hmm, good question. It depends chiefly on whether I want to believe in a "standard complement" as a concept or not.

If the ship has "design specs" for a given number of crew, then this number is what Pike would be quoting largely regardless of who many people happen to be aboard at the time - and this would then basically have to be 203+skipper, from which we need to deduce the casualties.

But if the ship is built more on the lines of needing, say, 70-90 people to operate efficiently, and then has capacity for varying numbers of two-legged payload, then there would be no "fallback" number for Pike to quote, and he would basically have to go for the current complement, this being the 203+skipper after the casualties and thus 207 before the casualties.

I'm more in the latter camp, as we a) already learn from the Enterprise example that the crew count can vary by several hundred percent within a decade or so and b) recently have had extra incentive from DSC to think that the actual operating crew of a large starship is actually very small, perhaps significantly less than a hundred.

Hence, and quite incidentally and insignificantly, 206 rather than 199 in addition to Pike - that specific day, and probably subject to changes within the week.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Evacuation limit would be for short-term transport during emergencies, which would put the ships environmental and life support systems to their maximum output (same with replicator matter and emergency supplies).

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I'm not sure if there is any basis for this, but I've always assumed the around 200 quoted by Pike was basically the 'core crew' (flight ops, engineering, admin, and minimal medical and scientific staff (Spock in The Cage could have been the Science Officer because he was the only one aside from crewman to chief ranked leab techs), while the 430-odd of the Kirk-era including additional medical and scientific teams (including several non-essential mission specialists) for the 'Five Year Mission'.

It's suggestive at best, but the episode "The 37s" suggests that 75 personnel is insufficient to operate Voyager long-term (although the Maquis remaining circa "Repression" seemed to believe that they were up to the job - despite having a lot less than that), and that a minimum of 100 would be required.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Galaxy class starships are designed to be mobile communities capable of long term, distant deployment, so they're designed for capacity. Other classes of starships are optimized for either research, transport, combat, or some other purpose.

For questions of minimum crew required to operate a ship, I suspect most of the estimations we get are the long term estimation. The amount of crew you need in order to just keep the lights on and perform basic operations is probably very small. But when you factor in long term maintenance, the need for sleep and stress relief, and so on, the number becomes much larger.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Galaxy class starships are designed to be mobile communities capable of long term, distant deployment, so they're designed for capacity.

That certainly seems to be the case, the limited canon we have suggests that the Intrepid-class crew is around 15% of the Galaxy (and I think we can reasonably assume their requirements are similar) but their evacuation capacity is less than 3% of the Galaxy. If we were to assume that they have identical capabilties then the Intrepids should be able to handle up to 2,500 but they can't even manage the 500-odd that the old Connie could (despite being around the same size which suggests a deliberate reduction in capacity), suggesting that the Intrepids aren't designed to support mass deployments whereas the Galaxys are.

A potential candiate for the first Explorer (A Battleship-Amphibious hybrid whereas most starships map as ASW frigates to cruisers) might be the Excelsior-class which (according to the DS9:TM) has a crew complement of 750-880 with an evacuation capacity of 9,800 (5 to 9%), which has a very different capacity than the Connie it nominally replaces (About 2 to 3.5x the crew, but nearly 18x the capacity).

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've always looked at most Federation starships being built around the philosophy that it's better to have the extra space and not regularly need it, than to one day need the extra space and not have it. I also think the standard complement for a starship can vary from ship, even within the same class.

 

[Markonian]

The Excelsior class ship from that Vulcan sniper (DS9) had 1400 casualties*, didn’t it?

* Not all of them may have been standard crew.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

EZRI: Science Officer Chu'lak. Age ninety seven. Assigned to Deep Space Nine three months ago. Before that, he served aboard the USS Grissom.
JORAN: Why was he transferred?
EZRI: The Grissom was destroyed by the Jem'Hadar in the battle of Ricktor Prime. He was one of only six crewmen to survive.
JORAN: Six survivors out of a crew of twelve hundred and fifty.

The Star Trek Encyclopaedia mostly identifies the second Grissom as being an Oberth-class, same as it's predecessor, however I think the crew complement in "Field of Fire" makes this unlikely. I also think it's unlikely that an Excelsior would have a regular crew larger than a Galaxy. However, Chu'lak's familiarity with the specialist and experimental TR-116 rifle suggests to me that it might have been Special Operations Vessel tasked with supporting defense/combat engineer units like the one on AR-554 and had a few on board?

 

[Tenacity]

The Excelsior class ship from that Vulcan sniper (DS9) had 1400 casualties*, didn’t it?

* Not all of them may have been standard crew.

Acting as a troop transport perhaps? Or carrying refugees.

 

[Levi]

There are many jobs and duties in Starfleet and on a Starship that could be automated, but simply are not.
People need jobs and things to do. While the technology exists to allow the computer to fully pilot a Starship, what would happen to all the people with the desire to pilot ships? Or if Scientific Surveys were left to computers, what would all the Scientists with a passion for exploring and discovery do instead?
A ships compliment (Especially in the Star Trek setting) is full of people who want to work and are passionate about what they are doing. With a species as large as the Human population, people need things to do instead of sitting around being lazy. Perhaps it would be different if we were not as plentiful. But look at the numbers in Starfleet, and still how many Billions of people are NOT in Starfleet. This explains why there are such large number of crew on starships in the first place.
As for the extra room onboard that is not filled with active crew. Crew onboard ships fluctuate commonly depending on missions and such. While a ship may have a fixed number to operate normally, it may take on several more crew and officers with specialty training to complete specific missions, such as a Planetary Survey or Diplomatic Negotiations. Or perhaps they are transporting an Engineering group somewhere. Most Starships are equipped to allow for Emergency Operations such as Evacuations, or Rescues. And of course, sometimes Crew or Officers simply need to hitch a ride somewhere to their new Assignment.
Also, a lot of a Starships 'Emergency' or 'Evacuation' capacity is simply empty storage room such as Cargo Bays that can be used to store extra Materials or Cargo, OR can be converted to house evacuees. The max compliment number does not mean that there are that many full rooms with beds onboard. This is simply how many people or transport a ship may take on at a time, and is not the same as the full crew compliment.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

The max compliment number does not mean that there are that many full rooms with beds onboard. This is simply how many people or transport a ship may take on at a time, and is not the same as the full crew compliment.

I think it varies, the situation in Prophecy (and indeed IIRC on the NX-01 in s3) had officers that would normally have their own quarters doubling up, and potentially some bunking in cargo bays (specifically, Tuvok and Neelix ended up sharing quarters so that a Klingon family could have Neelix's quarters).

If the evacuation limit is 'do nothing other than get them where the evacuees where they are going' level, what do we think the maximum operating complement would be (example the crew complement of CVN-65 was 3,000, but adding the 1,800 strong Air Wing added to operational capabilities rather than comprimising them, so it's operating complement could be regarded as 5,800), for an Excelsior or a Galaxy? My guess would be 2,400 to 4,000 for the Excelsior and 3,750 to 6,000 for the Galaxy? Depending on whether diplomatic, colony, evac, or troops of course.

 

[Timo]

I'm sort of thinking that Kirk's ship was an exceptionally lean and mean type. And that this is the very thing that made her special, in the very limited sense we witness in TOS.

A hundred operating crew could probably make any starship sail from A to B and carry a payload of whatever can fit aboard - scientists, troops, cargo, ordnance. On the ships of Lorca or Robau or Sulu, there would be room for lots of payload, in addition to the usual "fixed" things such as a certain basic level of firepower, the ability to construct probes or flintlocks at will in certain decisive numbers, a suite of sensors. But on Kirk's ship, there would be virtually no room, and putting more than four shuttlecraft aboard would be a squeeze, say.

Giving Kirk a team of 430 for a rare deep space sortie would then indeed mean "packing them tight", as Dax comments when visiting the past. Giving the same team to Robau would not raise any eyebrows or bruise any elbows, though. Which again makes Kirk special, for enduring hardship compared to the past explorers of wastelands even though their contemporaries lived and traveled in relative luxury.

If the evacuation limit is 'do nothing other than get them where the evacuees where they are going' level, what do we think the maximum operating complement would be (example the crew complement of CVN-65 was 3,000, but adding the 1,800 strong Air Wing added to operational capabilities rather than comprimising them, so it's operating complement could be regarded as 5,800), for an Excelsior or a Galaxy? My guess would be 2,400 to 4,000 for the Excelsior and 3,750 to 6,000 for the Galaxy? Depending on whether diplomatic, colony, evac, or troops of course.

What sort of onboard operating teams could we project?

Getting colonists to places would be little different from moving evacuees: they could have more luggage, but it might be more rationally configured and take up less room in the end. Ditto for troops, assuming the future infantry fights light, scorning vehicles for their inferior mobility and letting logistics happen on-demand.

Would people be packed onboard for scientific study? "The Naked Now" would suggest so, with an observation team of eighty jam-packed onboard the small Oberth even when one might surmise two graduate students could be sent instead to press the appropriate buttons and send the data to the nearest university planet. Selling tickets to a scientific event would probably be a thing, up to the evacuation limit if need be.

Which makes one wonder why only Dr Stubbs was aboard for laying his "egg" from Picard's ship, rather than 153 scientists all with their own probes, and why he had to bother a Galaxy rather than, say, a Nova.

Would the mass deploying of such probes, or fightercraft or somesuch, require the embarking of extra crew? Or would such missions invariably take precedence so that the crew would actually shrink, with nonessentials left ashore in greater numbers than the incoming pilots? Dedicating a starship to serving as a carrier would seem to limit her freedom of operations quite a lot.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

Admiral: "Captian, what is your crew compliment?"
Captain: "Usually, I just tell them they're doing a good job, sir."

 

[1001001]

Admiral: "Captian, what is your crew compliment?"
Captain: "Usually, I just tell them they're doing a good job, sir."

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Would the mass deploying of such probes, or fightercraft or somesuch, require the embarking of extra crew? Or would such missions invariably take precedence so that the crew would actually shrink, with nonessentials left ashore in greater numbers than the incoming pilots? Dedicating a starship to serving as a carrier would seem to limit her freedom of operations quite a lot.

Possibly, I can't remember whether it's canon or not, but I definately remember at least one source suggesting that the Galaxy-class' regular complement is at least 20% civilian (200 to 220) which is comparable to the 15% variation (represented by mission specialists) given for the Excelsior-class, all of which should be off-loaded before a planned military operation (especially a medium to long term campaign).

 

[Timo]

...Apropos, why should civilians be offloaded for a military operation? Supposedly Starfleet is at war 100% of the time (or 923% or whatever, as they are fighting on multiple fronts). Every season of every series, the heroes encounter adventures in which these wars threaten their lives, directly or indirectly. Engaging in a dedicated military operation should only increase the survival odds of the onboard civilians, as for a rare once their ship would be prepared for the inevitable!

I mean, these folks are onboard for a reason, in a Starfleet always at war. Supposedly Starfleet benefits from having them. Being "civilians" would mean Starfleet might lack to means to directly force them to stay aboard during military ops, but surely Starfleet would still try its best to bribe them into staying?

After all, it's the meek researchers (even if they often are in uniform) who ultimately save the day in Starfleet's many military campaigns.

And conversely, if it's the duty of Starfleet to protect the civilians, then keeping them maximally safe aboard the mighty warships sounds like a must.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

After all, it's the meek researchers (even if they often are in uniform) who ultimately save the day in Starfleet's many military campaigns.

True, when I think of civilians I think of people like Jennifer and Jake Sisko, Keiko (during DS9), Molly and Yoshi O'Brien, Alexander (during TNG) or Naomi Wildman who would be a resource 'cost' rather than a benefit, rather than blue-shirt Starfleet officers or even trained civilians like Wesley (during early s1), Jake Kurland or Icheb who could be put to use freeing up personnel for primary functions.