Crew as Damage Conrol II: Acronyms & Anarchy

    Last week we started to address the problem with space travel and combat in RPGs by addressing the "tactical mini-game" sequence most TTPRGs seem to use.   The reasons for the mini-game approach as I see it are as follows: 

• First you have the hobby’s wargame origins, which can be exacerbated by RPGs with board game tie-ins. 
• SF games that are licensed from or inspired by movies and television. These games attempt to model the epic eye-candy of space battles on the macro-scale. 
• A simulationist approach to the game that requires specialized rules to resolve a spacecraft in a vacuum (or any vehicle) as a different system from characters in a dungeon (or whatever).

    I have a hard time avoiding those last two as I am very much inspired by SF media and am a spaceship nerd that wants to show off.  I resist these urges by keeping in mind that RPGs are Different. 

 

A Unicorn, if you will.

   RPGs are a special animal in ways that are hard to define. After years of playing (and decades of not playing),  I can't say that I'm any closer to determining what set of traits make specific games or campaigns fun in general,but I remember the legendary ones I've run or played in.  The ones that I still think about. They had two things in common: 

• The plot was a situation - either by design or as the supposed plot disintegrated. 
• Players' were allowed to plan, discuss and engage with the world and one another.
• Player's took initiative.
  

    That's what I want in Project NEPTUNE.  My friends, family and fellow players gathered around discussing the situation and what they can do about it. I have seen genius there, and engagement. I wanna encourage that.

    In my proposal that all characters are Damage Control on a starship creates that situation. The anticipation of an upcoming combat or hazard provides opportunities for planning and engagement, even if the characters don’t have space-faring skills. Player Characters have an entire spacecraft's worth of resources to utilize in their planning.  

    Now we have to get organized.

ACRONYMS & ANARCHY

    In my Damage control model, I'm using a few arbitrary assumptions:

• Consideration for a game group's average size of 2-4 players
• Finally finally dealing with my unresolved love-hate relationship with the Frigate design in Starships & Spacemen 2nd Edition which assigns a crew of ten to a starship.
• No built-in Hierarchy that puts one PC or NPC in charge. 

     The first two are the easy ones.

 

    The first starship officially designed for Project NEPTUNE is the Ultra Light Cruiser.  It has a crew of twelve and is the smallest (reusable) starship fitted with a warp drive.  

    

    The crew is divided into three Damage control parties, each with three crew assigned.  These DC parties operate out of three Flight Control Rooms (FCRs) dispersed around the spacecraft. These are called FCRs instead of DC central(s) because they also house the computers that fly and fight the ship in the same armored compartment. I chose three at first as an arbitrary reference back to Northshield's Triumvirate but kept it when I realized that with three FCRs, no single shot from an enemy could take out all three.

    Now, this only accounts for nine crew.  The other three are two are pilots for the ship's auxiliary craft and a Medic.  There are jump seats in the FCRs for these three, bringing their normal capacity to four crew.

   This arraignment was chosen to maximize choices.  Do the PCs all occupy a single FCR, or should they spread out?  Part of the procedures I'm developing will make where you are on the ship as its attacked important. All PC eggs in one basket may not be a good idea.

     

   So, that's the first two down, now for the hard part.  How do you run a starship unless someone's in charge?

    Turns out we have a template for this in the way pirate crews in the Caribbean operated during the 'golden age' of piracy.

    Before we move forward, lets set fire to some strawman arguments and get them out of the way:

• I am fully aware that actually pirates were ruthless and amoral at best and sadistic psychopaths at worst.  They were declared hostis humani generis for a reason. That said, I figure that any system of governance that can keep The Enemies of All Mankind organized and effective will work even better for regular people.
• Forget what you've seen in Pirates of the Caribbean.  A Pirate Captain served at the sufferance of their crew and could be replaced at any time by a vote of no-confidence - no mutiny required.  The only time a Pirate Captain had absolute authority was during an actual battle. This is clearly laid out in the Ship's Articles.

    The 'Pirate' Model in Practice

 

   What follows is a flight of fancy to give an idea of what I'm thinking of; a setting that supports the play style of TTRPGs, is functionally plausible, and keeps the focus of the Player Characters. 

 

    A group of starting PCs are on Mars.  They don't have a ship but may want one someday.  There's lots to do on Mars but our PCs want to get into space - there are other star systems out there and in the aftermath of the Alien Invasion and the Devastation of Earth we want our PCs to go out there and Aventure.

 

    There is no Academy or Government program for training spacers because there is no government per se - The Martian Consensus doesn't work that way.  That's fine though, because anyone who can live on Mars can live in space.  That's rapidly becoming Humanity's niche/stereotype in the galactic community - the people who live in space as opposed to a habitable planet.

 

    Anyway, there are ships in port and looking for crew and our PCs are at least marginally qualified.  The ships needing spacers will post their Articles for perusal online. These Articles may look similar but the devil is in the details.  The PCs choose which ships they want to consider based on these details.  

    Getting on a ship will involve some sort of interview and the signing of the Articles. This is a time when Friends can help, Favors can be called in, and all sorts of social interactions ensue. If a given ship is between cruises, the Articles may be up for amendment by the ship's company and any new crew, with all the back-and-forth, negotiations and intrigue that can entail.

 

    Once the PCs sign the Articles and are accepted as part of the ship's company, they would go through a process of learning similar to what NUBs on submarines go through earning their Dolphins.  The PCs will need to learn how the systems work and get qualified on each and every system before being fully accepted into the ship's company.  This doesn't have to be role-played or necessarily even rolled - in can be represented by learning the game's procedures for space travel, combat and damage control.

 

    As member's of the ship's company, the PCs have all the rights and responsibilities thereof. They can vote on all 'matters of the moment', get shares of profits, be consulted on what improvements to the ship they want, and what sort of jobs and missions the ship undertakes.  

    Perhaps most importantly to this topic of this post, the PCs will have the following rights as well:

• They may call for a vote of no-confidence in the Captain's leadership at anytime the ship is not in direct or immanent danger.
• They have a Mission Abort option, where the PCs my at anytime elect to call for a bug-out in battle to save the ship.  They may have to answer to the ship's company for using this option, but that will be after the fact.
• They may stand for election to Caption or Quartermaster at any time the incumbents lose a vote of no-confidence. 

    I see these three rights as what will preserve player agency during space travel and combat.  

 

    The above Pirate Model relies heavily on social interactions at all levels by  adding NPC crew and removing the command hierarchy present in most if not all other models of space travel. Now persuasion, negotiation, and other social interactions are options for getting the ship to do what the PCs want. Railroading becomes a less viable option when the Captain can be voted out and a PC party forms a third of the crew.

 

    For a model that uses so many social interactions, we'll need a robust set of rules or procedures to accommodate them.  We'll discuss options for that in our next How you Play is What you Win post. 

 

    After that, we'll get down to some concrete game design.  Stay tuned.

 

Project NEPTUNE Part II: Crew as Damage Control

 

Made with Daz 3d, Bryce and GIMP

   As we said last week, space combat in RPGs is generally a pain. This is one of the reasons I started designing my own SF RPG as soon as I discovered my favorite rules system was now OGL.

     Part of that effort, the Black Desert Project, led to my series of blog posts about Crew as Mission Control. The premise being that given the way computers have advanced, the crew of a realistic spacecraft will not be occupied by actually flying or fighting the ship - they will be there to monitor, manage, and direct the various Computer networks. It became the most popular series of posts in this blog's history and has stood as my humble contribution to Hard Science FictionTM.

    I stand by that series. I am convinced that it's the best way to include people on spacecraft in Hard Science Fiction. I would love to see the Mission Control model used in novels, television and movies.

     I'm equally convinced that as far as Role-Playing Games are concerned, the Mission Control Model does not work.

    As much as I like the idea of Crew as Mission Control, it still does not address the necessity of a Tactical Mini-game to resolve space travel and combat at the table.  The players are still locked into using a different set of rules and different skills and are still robbed of agency by putting them all in a tin can with few chances to make meaningful decisions.    

    What I’ve come to desire is a space travel and combat system that keeps the focus 100% on the Player Character scale. PCs - their goals, skills and opportunities, and most importantly agency - should always be the focus of a role-playing game. This is what inspired my take on the idea of “Starship as Dungeon”.

    “Starship as Dungeon”, however, runs into problems with the types of scenarios it can support. The classic “Bug Hunt” trope exemplified in the movie Aliens is perfect for Starship as Dungeon, but what about other tropes? How can Starship as Dungeon be used in a free-trader campaign? Or what if you want to actually have space combat between Fleets- how do you keep the rules for that type of scenario from taking the focus away from the Player Characters?

    Like the title says, Crew as Damage Control.

  This is far from a new idea, as we see examples dating back at least to the 70s in stories such as Northshield’s Triumvirate. In this concept, the computers on a spacecraft do all the actual flying and fighting, since they can do so faster and more accurately that people can. Organic crews exist to maintain and repair the various systems of a spacecraft. We also see it used the classic The Mote in God's Eye.

  

This wasn't a game.

 In studying first-person accounts of naval battles, particularly memoirs from the Pacific theater of WWII, we see some great examples of the "player focused" perspective. The sailors, soldiers and marines who recall those iconic battles do not do so the way we're shown in films or other fiction - which is the point of view most licensed RPGs try to capture. As much as I like to watch SF media, the cinematic spectacle is not best seen from the table top.

    The people who actually fought and survived major naval actions in the bowels of their ships recall their own personal viewpoints which are focused on their immediate situation. Often, this can be just trying to keep their ship afloat. They usually didn’t know what is going on with the battle, whether they are winning or losing, or how much damage the ship had sustained. 

    In other words, the ships these people are on became a hostile environment of rupturing steam pipes, flooding compartments, shrapnel, and darkness. A Dungeon.

    This point of view, the completely personal perspective, is one that can be used in a Player Character-focused RPG.

    At first blush, this may sound like a railroad waiting to happen. Without command level decisions to make, can the Players truly be masters of their own destiny? To this as ask a question in return: Can players whose characters are optimized for non-space travel skills be said to have any more control over the ship that they are on? 

    This is a big complaint about space travel and combat systems I have heard at my tables; that there’s nothing for most characters to do. In the Crew as Damage Control concept, everyone has something to do, even if Character’s actions revolve around survival while the ship they’re on falls apart around them. Survival in a hostile environment may be stressful, but it's still PC-focused, which is the goal.

       With Crew as Damage Control, the aftermath of a space battle is where Characters really get to shine. Their ship is now a dungeon in fact, full of hazards like decompression, ruptured tanks, radiation leaks, boarding hostiles, and more. Navigating this kind of environment is challenging enough; repairing the damage is even more so. One thing I’d love to see is a party of PCs scavenging the wrecks of other spacecraft or nearby asteroids for supplies to repair their ship. 

    That's Character focused play.

    Admittedly, this perspective is still focused on combat, which is only one small facet of space travel. Other character-focused scenarios are possible. Space is full of hazards that must be overcome, from debris strikes to solar flares to mechanical failures. There can also be passengers, mysteries, and more in a space-faring location. As long as the action is focused on the Players and their Characters, the focus is where it should be.

    More to come on this topic.

A Town on the Road to Nowhere

     The River- class transports are big.
     At four hundred and fifty meters in length, these colossal spacecraft can carry a lot of folks from here to Titan, some of which are actual passengers.  Most of the company and crew of a River, however, are part of the civilian or UN crew.  In order to make sense of what we needed in terms of staff and whatnot, we must first make a couple of assumptions about how the crew will be composed, selected, and distributed.
     First, the crew of the Rivers follow the Mission Control model. The individuals are not actually running the spacecraft, they are the managers of computers and automation and robotic drones.
     Second, the River- class is a civilian owned and operated spacecraft.  The UN pays the transport company a subsidy to insure regular service and to pay for transporting UN spacecraft and crew.  Also, naturally, the UN are present to provide the inspection team required on all spacecraft boasting a nuclear-powered drive.
      Third, There are not only three watches on the crew, there are two entire crews for each spacecraft and associated vessel.  Once the River leaves orbit, the people aboard won't see open skies again for a minimum of 2 years.  So, like submarines in today's American Navy, there are two crews for each spacecraft.
     With all of that in mind, here is a preliminary table of crew and passenger positions on a River-class transport.  The numbers in bold are the total number for that given division:

Crew Division	Crew Section	Number	Total
UN Command	Mission Support	10 (Dept Heads x2)	10
	Mission Commanders	4 MCOM/DMCOM x2	14
UN Patrol	Patrol Craft Crews	62 (5 positions x 3 watches +1 Flight x2 crews/craft x2 craft)	76
Espaciers	Shipboard	5 (1 Captain, 1 Leutentant, 3 Staff)	81
	Patrol	24 (6/squad x2 squads/craft x2 craft)	105
Civ Crew	Command Crew	31 (15 Mission Control x2 Crews +1 CIVMCOM	31 (136)
	Stewards	38 (1/Pod x3 watches +1 Chief x2 crews)	69 (174)
	Life Support	72 (2/Pod x3 watches x2 crews	141 (246)
	Hangar Crew	16 (8x 2 crews)	157 (262)
	Small craft Pilots	26 (3/Cygnus x 4 Cygnus + 4/Tug +1 AUXCOM x 2 crews)	183 (288)
Candidate Training	Candidates	60	60 (348)
	Faculty	5 (1 Commandant + Class Supervisor x1/year)	65 (353)
Passengers		100	100 (453)

Rolling Down the River

      Good Monday, RocketFans!  By the time you're reading this, I'll have been through the first phase of getting tested for autism.  Yes, autism.  I was surprised too.  Until I studied up on autism - now it seems rather obvious in retrospect.
      Anyway.
     I want to work on the River-class interplanetary vehicles some more.  I've been tweaking, modifying, and finagling the stats and sizes and other variables of the ship for going on three years now, so I've decided that it's about time to put some firm statistics to the work in progress in order to move forward.
     And of course, art.

Very much a work in progress, lacking in detail.

The beast is about four hundred and fifty meters long.  From left to right, we see the business end, a Magneto-Inertial Fusion rocket, and it's large rack of pulse units and capacitors.  There are the obligatory angled radiators that lead into the massive globe structure that dominates the craft.  this sphere is full of water and electrolysis equipment to turn that water into propellants.  The water also provide insulation against CBR to the two Ezekiel's Wheels that make up the main habitat section of the spacecraft.  For from the globe is a cargo bloc, carrying goods from Terra to Titan and back again, and to the right of that is the hangar space.  This allows for docking two of our Class A patrol craft on either side, and drydock space for one below.  The Cygnus rockets and any intra-fleet tugs also dock and are serviced here.  Above the hanger is a sensor mast that contains the forward phased arrays and the communication antennae.  The forward-most area is a command module that is partly command spaces, but mostly RCS thrusters.
     I've also been trying to get a handle on the crew compliment of this spacecraft.  I've got a few ideas already, which have to do with the spacecraft's function and other design considerations,
     That's all I have at the moment.  I'm working on details for the habitat pods, which are very complex and require a lot of thought.  Before that, I'll probably make a post about the crew compliment and more about the River's mission. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

     

Crew as Mission Control IV: The Heinlein Rocket in Combat

         Here we come to the last (for now) installment of our series on using the Mission Control model for future spacecraft crews.  Today, we will look at a fully staffed Tactical Rocket on a mission of space superiority.

          First of all, let's do a recap of the Heinlein Rocket and what goes on in space combat.  There are certain conventions I'm assuming that have to do with the physical limitations and economic realities of using crewed rockets or even rockets at all, when missiles and small robotic drones would be more efficient and affordable.  Admittedly, the justifications for some of these conventions are rather arbitrary; Meta-Fiction, in the form of Burnside's Zeroth Law, makes certain assumptions inevitable.

          Okay, so the Black Desert setting assumes that the Plasma Sails used for propulsion on IPVs also protect the spacecraft from cosmic rays, solar flares and fast moving space debris.  Assuming that means that the IPV can casually shrug off lasers, nukes, kinetic kill vehicles and what have you.  This is great for the IPVs, but bad for games and dramatic plots.

           Now we have learned of a way to take out an IPV: The Kintzi Lesson tells us that the Fusion Torch on a rocket will cut through pretty much anything if it can get close enough.  This means reusable rockets instead of missiles, however; fusion reactors will be much too valuable to waste on one-way trips.

           This still does not dictate that we need a fragile organic crew to to man any of these rockets.  Indeed, In BD, a squadron of rockets set to attack an IPV will only have one crewed rocket in the entire formation, for Command and Control.  Electronic Warfare being what it is, it will take a flesh-and-blood crew riding into the fray with the drones to keep them from being fooled by all the razzle-dazzle.  The rest of the rockets will, however, be identical to the manned rocket, as a way to protect the crew.

          As we all know, there ain't no stealth in space.  Period.  You may disagree, and may have a really good reason for doing so; if so, please read this before leaving a comment.  I'm not trying to be a spoil sport, I'm trying to make SF cooler than it currently is by making it actually possible.

         Besides, having a Wing of drones surrounding a single C and C rocket makes the idea of using decoys practical.  Since we have all of those autonomous rockets in our attack wing anyway, they might as well all be identical, to make finding the boss rocket harder.  Add Electronic Warfare to the mix, and the crew will be reasonably safe from the risk of being singled out.

          At this point, we have enough info to start thinking about this Command and Control crew.  We need a core crew to actually fly the crewed Heinlein, and additional crew to direct the drones and keep on top of EW and insure communication is maintained between the drones and the command rocket.

          The core crew is easy; we figured that one out yesterday.  It may or may not suprise you that finding info on field operating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles was a little difficult.  I did find this smallish doc online that says that up to four modern UCAVs can be operated by a pair of people.  For the purposes of Black Desert, these positions will be:

• Drone Operator (DO):  This officer only directly controls the drones in the event of EW interference, ionization blackout or other problems.  Use the Spacecraft Operation Skill.
• Mission Payload Operator (MPO): In charge of deploying Kinetic Missiles, programming the defensive lasers, and firing the Fusion Torch.  Use the Gunnery Skill.

          Now I didn't know about any of this stuff when I first designed the Heinlein.  Nevertheless, I included 11 crew positions in the deckplans to account for a fully armed and combat ready craft.  Assuming a minimum of 5 to actually fly and fight the craft, that leaves three pairs of Drone Operators available for up to 12 drones. 

So there you have it, RocketFans; we have now outlined the crew compliments for fully staffed IPVs, basic small spacecraft, and Command and Control craft in a space combat scenario.  As always, comments and questions are welcome.

           The rest of this week will be updates only - I gotta get to work on this month's Ship of the Black Desert, my Westward artwork, and finalizing the design on the Character Sheet.  Next week we will be discussing the Missile Craft again, with a look at how the Artificial Gravity will work.  Should be lots of fun.

            This brings up an important question:  Would you guys like to see a supplement on the IPV soon?  My original plan is to publish a PDF on a NuRom Vardo in March, to be the first big offering after the Core Rules.  Make no mistake, it will be a big supplement, akin to OD&D's Keep on the Boarderlands in terms of scope but with more detailed info on the NPCs.

            I've had a few of you ask for a doc on the IPV; what worries me is that info in the supplement may change as the Core Rules come into tighter focus.  What I can do is put out the IPV in PDF only by around August.  The nice thing about working with RPGNow is that I can edit the PDF once the Core Rules are finished and anybody who purchased the product will get an updated copy for free.  I can then offer the IPV in print with a clear conscience.

           So what do you say, RocketFans?  Would you like to get your hands on an IPV by August?  Leave a comment below.

           See you tomorrow!

Crew as Mission Control III: What about Small Spacecraft?

          Continuing this week's expansion on the idea that future spacecraft crews will be set up like present day Mission Control, we're taking a look at how such a model can be applied to smaller spacecraft, like the kind that PCs in the game I'm developing would actually use.

           The truth is, I've done some work on this topic already, which is where I got the current systems I have been using in my Ships of The Black Desert products.   The way I see it, there are two necessary approached to any problem such as this for an author; the Plausible design considerations, which tell you what you can get away with without stretching credulity, and the Meta-Fiction considerations, which basically mean what does the plot that you've already got in mind just have to have in order to work?   Now, being the author (of sorts) of Hard Science Fiction, I understand that the Plausible considerations must take precedence over the Meta-Fiction considerations.  As an RPG Designer, I understand that there are certain conventions that must be followed in order to make a game playable.  Hopefully, I can strike a happy medium between the two.

            When deciding how to crew my rockets, way back last September when the Paladin first came out, I understood that as an RPG product the spacecraft had to have room for up to five people.  This is the traditional baseline for PC parties in most game systems.  I also understood that in order for people to actually get to play a game more than once a month, I needed to make the game playable for smaller groups and even solo players.  In Hard SF this is not that hard difficult, because even with the way technology is shaping up, large crews in space are simply never going to be practical fanancialy.

            Problem one solved.

           So, having decided that I need spacecraft to have a crew of 1-5 organics, It was time to start researching in the real world, so I would have a baseline from which to extrapolate.  I first looked at how real space craft are currently crewed; The Space Shuttle, despite being 30 years old and on its last mission as a class of spacecraft, is the best place to start in the real world because it has the largest crew compliment; up to seven astronauts can be carried at a time.  Even better, It can be crewed by as little as two, such as on STS-1.  With a crew capacity within my Meta-Fictional filter, I could now look at what these people actually do.

            The Space Shuttle has a core crew of three or four; Commander, Pilot, Mission Specialist and Payload Specialist.  The Commander is the astronaut in charge (obviously) and also serves as the primary pilot.  The Pilot is actually the Co-Pilot and also may deploy satellites and such.  The Mission Specialist usually has specific duties related to whatever science is being performed on the Mission.  The Payload Specialist, as well as being in charge of specific satellites as technical experts, may also be a military officer responsible for launching classified payloads into orbit under the title of USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer.

          Possible crew positions also include  Educator Mission Specialist , Flight Engineer, International Mission Specialist and Spaceflight Participant.  Details can be found here.

             Now, most PCs in a game will not be conducting scientific experiments. For the Ships of the Black Desert, I used the above as inspiration to come up with the following crew positions:

• Flight Commander (FCOM): Not to be confused with "Flight" on IPVs carrying small spacecraft.  This person is the Skipper, and maybe the Emergency Pilot as well.  Use the Command Skill.
• Pilot: This is the primary pilot of the spacecraft, a job that involves incidental maneuvering, monitoring the flight computers, and guiding the spacecraft during ionization blackout. Use the Spacecraft Operation Skill.
• Flight Engineer (Booster/Chief/Drive): In charged of maintenance, electrical systems, propulsion, and the Fusion reactor, (Via robots) if any. Use the Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Spacecraft Maintenance and/or the Telepresence Skills.
• Payload Officer (PLO): This person is in charge of all cargo, including proper weight distribution, and all weapons on a spacecraft, if any.  Also operates robots often.  Use the Gunnery and Telepresence Skills.
• Life-Support Officer (LSO):  Even spacecraft fully operated by AI will have an LSO if they carry passengers, as a reassurance to their guests.  In charge of maintaining all organic consumables, atmosphere, and associated systems, like the air-scrubbers and toilets.  This is also the spacecraft's Medic.  Use the Medicine and Spacecraft Maintenance Skills.

       Now this is a perfectly workable crew line-up.  In light of our Mission Control model, I would change one thing: I would replace the Pilot with a Guidance Procedures Officer (Guidance) using the Computer Operation/ Maintanace Skills and thus cover the Electronic Warfare angle without adding any additional crew.  In an emergency the FCOM could maneuver the spacecraft just like Jim Lovell did with Apollo 13.

        Incidently, anyone who thinks that the Mission Control model for a spacecraft crew isn't bad-ass enough for a work of fiction or a role-playing game is invited to watch the movie Apollo 13 as well as the videos from the FCRs at NASA during the Challenger and Colombia disasters. 

       This type of crew would be set up thusly:  Three eight-hour Watches staffed by the Pilot, PLO and Chief in order.  Neither the FCOM nor the LSO stand watches; the FCOM is too busy being in charge and the LSO is not qualified.

            That's it for this post, RocketFans; return tomorrow for the final (maybe) installment of this series of articles, where we will discuss the staffing of a tactical command and control craft during space combat.

        PS: Don't forget to comment on the Character Sheet!

Crew As Mission Control II

          This topic has generated so much feedback, from comments, forum posts, to a new section on Atomic Rockets, that I feel it deserves more discussion.  Besides, it's fun.

           First off, allow me to apologize; I may not have been as clear as I should have as to how the Mission Control model would work in practice.  Also, I know many RocketFans out there are curious as to how this model can be applied to smaller spacecraft, such as the kind PCs in a role-playing game would actually crew.  Lastly, I wanted to address how this model may work out in command-and-control craft, such as the Heinlein rocket, during space combat. 

          To begin, let's look at the crew of our friend, the Missile Craft.  Just to recap, the Missile craft is an interplanetary vehicle (IPV) that has enough delta-v to travel one AU or thereabouts and still be able to stop at their destination.  They usually travel on year-long patrol routes, carry a crew of about 80, and can be considered a Flotilla-level asset for those who vote Navy and a a Group-level asset for those who prefer Air Force.  All this means as far as out crew model is concerned is that there will always an MCOM billet on a Missile Craft.

          As mentioned in our first post on this topic, There are five departments in Mission Control: Command, COMAST, Engineering, Life-Support, and Payload.  Each department has three staff positions.  Since there are two full Mission Control teams assigned to an IPV, for redundancy and safety, this gives us six staffers per department.  Each member of the Mission Control team will be qualified to stand watch for their entire department under normal operations, which means that the normal crew per watch is five.  This is similar to the way that flight control for the ISS is handled at NASA; only eight staffers are on duty during low priority times.  

         This gives a Watch bill of six four-hour shifts.  Each member of the Command Department functions as Flight Director for their Watch, though only the two Flight Commanders are referred to as "Flight".  The INCO is the de facto Executive/1st Officer of an IPV, and the Chief is the de facto 2nd Officer.  The Witch bill is staggared as well, with Flight 1 directing the first Watch and Flight 2 directing the 4th.

         After their 4 hour Watch is up (or before, I'm not picky) each crew member has an additional four to eight hours of work to do in their specialty.  This can mean a lot of things, but with the technology available, it will mostly be supervising a lot of robots and performing spot inspections.  The most important part of a crew member's job - indeed, the entire reason for having an organic crew at all - is to spot potential problems before they happen.  Space is an uncaring mistress, many problems are lethal and impossible to fix by the time they actually occur.  The two Flights have the task of not only handling the details of their respective commands but also being on the planning staff of the MCOM, along with the Flight Commanders of any auxiliary craft and the commanders of the Espatier attachments.

          Under combat conditions, both Flight Control Rooms are fully crewed.  The FCR used by the MCOM is the primary control room; the second FCR , home of the Deputy MCOM and Flight 2, is on standby to assume control immediately in case of loss of FCR-1. "Loss" can mean anything from communications breakdown to explosive decompression.  In order to keep both Mission Control teams honed and in fighting trim, they will routinely conduct wargames against one another in real-time via virtual reality and telepresence.  MCOMs and Flights will also conduct surprise inspections, drills and other nasty tricks to avoid the lethal complacency that can cripple a crew on the long, monotonous orbits between worlds.  One such trick will be an "Honor FCR" competition; the most efficient, alert, and combat effective  FCR team will have the honor of hosting the MCOM for whatever period of time there is between competitions.  I imagine they get first dibs on liberty and fresh provisions as well.  Whatever it takes to keep them motivated.

          This has become a pretty lengthy post already;  therefore I hereby decree that I will address the there two topics I mentioned, small spacecraft control and C-and-C spacecraft, in their own posts.  Don't worry, RocketFans, I will be posting on this topic daily until Wednesday at least.

           One last note:  I am soliciting comments and suggestions on the Character Sheet until Friday; the PDF will go live over the weekend.  I've already gotten some awsome suggestions and made a few changes, so please, if you have any thoughts at all on the subject, share them.

            See you tomorrow, RocketFans!