Who is Essential? Starship Crew and Traveller

“Sure it’s your ship. Sure you can crew it however you want. But those Shululsish Model/7s sitting in your hold are still the express property of New Walpurgis Factors. And if you don’t fly with a TAS-certified complement, our insurer will cancel our policy, and then FirstSectorTrust will call in their loan. And that, Captain, would render our contract with you null and void. So I suggest you either find that second engineer in the next three hours, or you start unloading those computers before our liquidated damages begin to kick in.” —Nashu Lushuka, NWF Principal Broker.

Beginning with the Little Black Books in 1977, the six iconic crew positions for Traveller starships are Pilot, Navigator, Engineer, Steward, Medic, and Gunner. Each position in turn corresponds to a matching starship skill. The same positions and skills remain largely intact in the 2016 edition of Mongoose Traveller, though navigator is now called astrogator.

The iconic six crew positions cover a lot of ship needs, but do they cover everything? In thinking about the crew positions for my PC’s armed packet Starjammer I decided to check other editions of Traveller to see what they require. And after my review, I think there’s at least one missing crew position that might be worth adding to the MgT system.

Crew for the Beowulf

Although CT and MgT use similar calculations to compute the required crew for a starship, other editions vary greatly in how they determine the necessary positions. Traveller⁵, for example, appears to have completely abandoned hard requirements for crew—though some of the example ships apparently follow an (unfortunately unpublished) rule-of-thumb.

To illustrate the differences, let’s consider the crew requirements for a classic Type A, 200-ton Beowulf-class free trader from the following sources: 

• Classic Traveller (CT) - The Traveller Book (1982)
• MegaTraveller (MT) - The Imperial Encyclopedia (1987)
• Traveller: The New Era (TNE) - Traveller: The New Era (1993)
• Traveller Fourth Edition (T4) - Marc Miller’s Traveller (1996)
• GURPS Traveller (GT) - GURPS Traveller (2002)
• Traveller T20 (T20) - The Traveller’s Handbook (2006)
• Traveller Hero (TH) - Adventurers In Charted Space (2007)
• Mongoose Traveller 2e (MgT) - High Guard (2016)
• Traveller⁵ version 5.10 (T5) - Starships (2019) 

TNE is evidently the only edition without a direct Beowulf conversion: the TNE free trader is a 200 ton, TL10 ship.

Although the crew requirements for a free trader are similar across editions, there are some interesting differences. CT, MT, T4, TH, and T20 have four required crew positions. GT, MgT, and T5 have five required crew positions, and TNE has six required positions. It's unclear to me if this larger TNE crew requirement reflects a lower tech level or some peculiarity of the TNE design system. In any case, here are the required crew positions for a Beowulf across editions:

• Pilot: Required in all editions, though MT specifies only one Bridge crewmember while TNE specifies two Maneuver crewmembers. In T4 this position is combined with Astrogator.
• Astrogator: Required in GT, T20, TH, MgT, and T5. In CT, Navigators are only required on ships "above 200 tons [emphasis added]." In MT the solitary Bridge crewmember presumably doubles as Astrogator, as in T4. In TNE the Astrogator is presumably the second member of the Maneuver Crew.
• Engineer: Required in all editions, and both TNE and GT require two Engineers.
• Medic: Required in CT, MT, T4, and MgT. In T20, TH, and T5 this position is combined with the Steward position. Not required in GT or TNE.
• Steward: Required in all editions, though in T20, TH, and T5 this position is combined with the Medic position.
• Gunner: Required only in MgT and optional in CT, TH, and T5. Not specified in MT, TNE, T4, GT, or T20. Although a free trader has two hard points in all editions, ships working relatively peaceful, well-patrolled regions probably don’t use those hard points on weapons and thus would not need gunners.
• Freightmaster: Required only in T5, but probably worth considering further in a future post.
• Sensors/Comms Officer: Required only in GT, though TNE requires two Electronics crewmembers who presumably cover this position. Not required in CT, MT, TH, or MgT. While not required for a free trader in T4, T20, and T5, these editions all acknowledge the importance of this position.

Sensors and Communications Operators

A sensor readout of an incoming missile barrage.

As noted above, each of the six iconic crew positions correspond to one of six key starship skills. Traveller⁵, though, asserts that there are actually seven key starships skills: Astrogator, Engineer, Gunner, Medic, Pilot, Steward . . . so far, so good . . . and Sensors (Characters and Combat 160–161).

This strongly implies a seventh iconic crew position: Sensor Operator. And on reflection, that makes a lot of sense. As Traveller⁵ puts it, “Sensors are the eyes and ears” of a starship (Starships 136). Further, Sensors here include not just scanners and detectors but also the communication systems for the ship (Starships 90).

CT does not have a similar requirement, though High Guard requires, as part of the command section of ships 1,000 tons or larger, one “computer officer” and two “communication officers” (32). No real details are provided about either position, but HG does introduce the Communications skill.

While neither CT nor MT require sensor operators, TNE does—at least in some fashion. All required crew positions in TNE are grouped into broad sections such as maneuver, engineering, and electronics. The latter presumably handles on-board sensors and communications. An Electronics crewmember is required on even the smallest of ships: the scout/courier description, for example, notes that “Standard practice is for one maneuver crewmember to double as the ship's electronics operator” (TNE 366). And every sample ship in the core book, including small craft—but with the strange exception of the yacht—has at least one electronics crew position.

Most subsequent editions, with the notable exception of MgT, include a similar requirement. T4 includes provisions for an electronics crew operating on-board sensors, communicators, and computers, noting that “Small vehicles may dispense with dedicated electronics operators, allowing the pilot to monitor sensors and communications, but this results in the possibility of overload during high-stress situations such as combat or in-flight emergencies” (T4 Fire, Fusion, Steel 75, 77).

GURPS Traveller fully embraces the need for sensors and communications operators as seen in the Beowulf crew requirements. In GT, “Standard crew [for a bridge] includes a captain, pilot, navigator, sensors officer/operator, and commo officer/operator” (149). So any GT ship with a bridge should have both a sensor and a communications operator. But GT also stipulates that “Bridge crews are often smaller, with one person handling multiple tasks” (GURPS Traveller 149). The Beowulf bridge crew, for example, combines four different positions into two, resulting in one captain/pilot, one navigator, and one sensor/comms operator (GURPS Traveller 132).

While T20 does not require sensor or communications operators for the Beowulf, both positions are required for starships of 1,000 tons or greater:

Comms can be handled from any bridge position, so only large ships carry a dedicated comms officer. Anyone can operate the communications system under normal conditions, but under stress or in an unusual situation, someone with Communications skill is needed. . . . Sensor operations are often doubled up with the Pilot’s job, but in tricky conditions someone (who has Sensors skill) should be monitoring sensor data. The Astrogator often does this during normal-space flights (The Traveller’s Handbook 346).

Traveller⁵ also emphasizes the importance of the sensor and communications operator positions, while acknowledging that these functions can be combined with other positions. In T5, sensors are co-located with the Bridge and are operated by specific crew members under the general job title of Sensor Operator, or Sensop. Comms is simply a Sensop specializing in communications. The Sensop may be a dedicated, full-time crew member or may operate the Sensors as part of a greater job responsibility (Starships 90, 136).

Adding Sensops to Mongoose Traveller

Given all of this, it seems natural to add a Sensop crew position to MgT. In fact, given the importance of sensors and comms to regular starship operations, it seems a little weird not to have one already.

The MgT High Guard book has a few scattered references to sensor operators, but the position is not listed under Crew Requirements on page 21, and none of the example ships have one. The “Sensor Station” entry notes that we can find “typical numbers of sensor operators on page 41,” but there’s nothing there. The answer is actually buried in the “Multiple Warheads Incoming!” sidebar on page 28: “assume that a ship will have one sensor operator for every full 1,000 tons.” This is consistent with the T20 guidelines. The sidebar further notes that “At his discretion, a referee may specify a particular ship has more or less sensor operators.”

So what would be the case against adding a sensops crew requirement to MgT? One might argue that within the Third Imperium setting, almost any traveller should be able to use computers, communicators, or even sensor equipment—making a dedicated crew position unnecessary.

But space is big and given how utterly dependent starships are on their sensors and comms, I’m not sure that argument really flies. In nearly any kind of shipboard emergency, the most important initial activities would include a sensors sweep to assess what help might be available, and a distress signal to summon that help. Wouldn’t you want to have someone on board who not only knew which flashing button to push, but could actually repair your damaged sensor array or retune the comms system to boost a tight beam signal? I mean, if the guy who knows how to prepare a proper Vilani aperitif has a dedicated crew position, shouldn’t you have one for all those vital shipboard electronics systems?

Another argument against adding a new crew position would be that it really puts the squeeze on smaller ships—both in terms of economics and stateroom accommodations. I think this is a legitimate concern, but one we should be able address through existing game mechanics.

First, all editions with a sensors/comms operator requirement note that it can be combined with other positions. Second, both comms and sensors are just specialties of a single Electronics skill (along with computers and remote ops, for that matter), so we don’t need to create multiple positions—a single sensop position should suffice. And third, Electronics is relatively common: it’s a background skill and available through every career except Drifter. Although Electronics is not a Service Skill for the Navy career, it shows up on all three Assignment tables as well as the Advanced Education table. For the Starjammer, 7 out of the 9 crewmembers have at least one Electronics speciality of level 1 or more.

We can also avoid squeezing small ships by limiting the crew requirement to a ships of a certain size or larger. T20’s 1,000 tons seems too high for such an important position. In Traveller⁵ Starships, the 200 ton Beowulf has no Sensop crewmember requirement (44), while the 400 ton Daring-class patrol frigate has one (46).

Setting the breakpoint somewhere in between would grandfather several classic ships out of the requirement—such as the free trader or safari ship—but make it common enough to be an essential crew position for many other Traveller starships.

Putting all of this together, here’s a Sensop crew requirement for MgT:

• Position Sensop
• Skills Electronics
• Monthly Salary Cr3000
• Commercial Requirements 1 if ship is 400 tons or more
• Military Requirements 1 if ship is more than 200 tons plus 1 per 1,000 tons

While commercial starships of 200 tons or less may not require a dedicated sensops, good practice calls for at least one crewmember to possess a minimum of Electronics 0.

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