Archive through April 18, 2011
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Captain's Log: New Fiction:
Federation Police Cutter -- Crew Roster:
Archive through April 18, 2011
One has to wonder if the police ships use tenders of some sort of support vessel to extend the time on station in hexes where there may not be bases or developed planets.
sort of like a combination catering truck with a extra large fuel tank to "top off" the ships fuel tanks on occasion.
sort of like what a fiction story in a captain log magazine a year or so back illustrated.
that sort of thing might also work for police security skiffs to augment POL patrols.
Just a thought.
Petrick,
Okay, I can live with "having space legs for a full year". What doesn't make sense is that's the cutter's normal peacetime deployment schedule.
It's not so much a matter of fuel and supplies (tho that's part of it), rather it's a matter of crew rest. Just how long can you work a crew seven days a week before they start dropping over?
Also, I'm having trouble with your assertion that it takes a full month to get on station / return to home port. Given that "dash warp" is some 436 parsecs per day and their patrol zone is usually only one or two F&E hexes from the nearest base or planet, I can't see it taking more than a few days to get there. Yes, I know that "dash warp" comes with restrictions and all, but I figure they'll throttle back to 100 to 200 parsecs per day. The only way it takes them a full month is if they’re using normal cruising speed of 20 parsecs per day.
[EDIT] Oh, I think you miss-typed. It's 15 x 500 = 7500 parces in six months, not 15 x 600 = 9000, is it not?
All that aside, and trying to get back on topic, do you have any issues with the crew roster as posted?
Garth L. Getgen
Seems to me that, at least in the Federation, there is a plethora of supply points for at least enough to get to a major supply node.
Bases aren't very far from each other (at warp speeds anyway), planets fill in quite a bit and there are colonies in every hex.
Then there are supply frieghters and aux's.
I don't see why they would need a tender when their range is many time what it takes to get to any number of these supply points.
And police probably have their own supply grid established in the hex or provice they are assigned to. If anything, they are the tender for ships in trouble and don't need tending to by anyone else.
I would think.
Gary Carney,
Well, all I can say is "it looks like the Vulcan criminal T'Lar strikes again!"
Garth L. Getgen
Loren,
Look at what SPP posted. if a POL requires a month to reach its patrol station, and a month to get back, that means 2 months out of every 6 months the patrol station is "uncovered" by a patrol (though SVC once posted that there might even be extra POL ships to act as relief ships... but that is still unofficial as nothing has been published about that aspect of police operations.)
Going back to the number of F&E hexes in the Federation, that means that just to cover 100% or the 234 F&E hexes in the Federation, police would need roughly 1/3 rds more POL ships than the number of hexes that need to be patroled. (call it 80 more POL or other ship types or something like 320 total police ships).
I know both steves have said that the ship list is not complete, but the actual number of personnel and ships in the Fedration Police forces might be larger than any one has suggested to date.
If the number of POL's are supplemented by APTs, Skiffs, or security skiffs or even the FT/PT police cutter variant (the one with 2 photons IIRC) or FLGs (or some other unpublished design) those other ships (particularly the skiffs) might need to be supported by tenders... there might not be enough POLs to go around for all of the assignments.
Just saying. 
Garth:
There must be some sort of reference/message/inside joke that I'm not in the loop about, but I don't quite follow you...
I think that the Federation Police Cutters are not being supplemented by skiffs in their deep-space patrol duties. Skiffs are too slow, too short ranged, and too cramped to do much other than patrol the local system. Most, if not all, security skiffs are operated by local governments / private security companies. Ditto armed cutters and Prime Traders. The number of local government cops is going to outnumber the Federation police by a bajillion to one. There may be more than 300 POL ships in service in the Federation, but that's still plenty because they don't have to perform local police duties.
Jeff,
I did read SPPs post, which is why I posted my thoughts. Who is to say that resupply isn't on a police cutters patrol route (which is different from a Star Fleet warship I'm sure)?
I don't see a place for a Pol tender class if that's what you are alluding to.
Quote:I know both steves have said that the ship list is not complete, but the actual number of personnel and ships in the Fedration Police forces might be larger than any one has suggested to date.
GURPS Federation, p.114: "As a general rule of thumb, there are police skiffs based at all planets with significant populations and space traffic, a police corvette within each district (map hex), and a police flagship (along with an extra corvette or two) for each province. The regional (and central) government will also have extra police ships which can be sent to any part of the region (or Federation) where they are needed. Each member planet may have its own police flagship and several police corvettes, and those provinces and districts near the core region usually have more police ships due to the larger number of colony planets and commercial traffic."
So. If the 46 provinces average 1.5 (halfway between "one or two") province-level POLs and one FLG, and there are 234 districts (F&E hexes) with their own POLs, there would be 303 POLs and 46 FLGs right there. Subtract, say, nine POLs and a FLG for the Orions patrolling their own space. Now, guess that each of the six regions has a fire brigade of three POLs and one FLG. The central government has, I don't know, seven POLS and a pair of FLGs. For each of the seven non-Orion full member planets named in G:Feds I'll then add a FLG and three ("several") POLs. I'll skip the general core-area increase.
So, as the Fermi guess here, 340 POLs and 60 FLGs. Pretty easy to move the number higher or lover, but an estimate of the Federation Police operating between 300 and 400 POLs and 50 to 60 FLGs in Y165 would seem to be reasonable.
Gary C.
TLAR = "That Looks About Right".
The artist draws up something that looks "cool", examines it for about ten seconds if it "fits" with all the other "cool" things, and says "that looks about right" but fails to realize they've totally thrown the scale or something else off kilter.
Another example is where SVC put the drone hatch & PH-3 mounts on the clip art I'm going by. They're right over the shuttle bay. If I am to stay "true" to the clip art, which I am trying very hard to do, I have to get very creative how to make it work. I can make the Ph-3s fit, but without easy access to the mechanics. But the only way I could make the drones work was if the rack folded up to the ceiling when not in launch mode (to allow getting the spare shuttle out of storage), but SVC himself nixed that idea.
As to the Aurora FF clip art, there are two big clues that suggest it's much, much larger than >I< think it should be. The first, as mentioned, is the bridge; the second is what appear to be the two rows of windows along the forward hull. That suggests there are five decks in the forward hull (and probably nine or ten in the aft). I scrapped a design that had four decks forward and eight aft and went back to the seven & three design. I can't imagine what to do with a five and nine deck design .....
Maybe the artist did it and SVC didn't catch it, or maybe it was something SVC told him to "fix" after the first draft. Either way, I see it as a problem. Let's say someone else should under take a deck plans project based off that art and try to keep it to-scale and match every detail, they’ll end up with a monster.
On my computer screen, the "bridge" measures 12mm (6mm for the center part) in diameter. The ship is 42mm wide by 153mm long. Checking the Star Fleet Tech Manual, the E's bridge was ten meters across (16.5 meters outside diameter). Even if we say the FF's bridge is smaller than the E's, it's about a 1:1000 scale, making the FF over 150x40 meters. If the bridge is the same-same on both ships, then the scale becomes more like 1:1200 or so, pushing the FF up to 180 meters long. Remember that the CA's main saucer is 127.1 meters diameter.
Garth L. Getgen
Hey, can we get back to the crew roster, please? What I want to do with it next is expand on it to create a Frigate / Police Flagship crew roster. If there's something drastically "wrong" with it, I'd like to know now before going to the next stage of the project. Thanks!
Garth L. Geten
Garth,
There is a lot about star ship operations that we don't know. Enough that it is very difficult to determine if the manning level you have proposed (per ranks and ratings) is reasonable.
Compare it to Real World naval vesels... older ships (say those designed prior to the 1970s) had larger crews where a portion of the man power engaged in regular maintenance issues (scrapping paint and repainting, sweeping decks, polishing metal work, replacing burned out electrical components of the Command Control and Communications systems.
Modern ships have tended to reduced manning levels and outsourcing traditional maintenance to civilian labor in ship yards as a means to reducing uniformed personnel requirements.
Is the POL staffed to the point where the crew can conduct regular maintenance on the ship? or is it required to layover at bases to conduct such requirements?
We know that Starships warp engines accumulate Ion charges that need to be flushed on a regular basis at a base... what other isues occur and can the ships crew handle the issue or does it require specilists at a base?
What if all starships need a regular hull cleaning on the exterior (sort of like having to dry dock a real world ship to scrape off barnacles every now and then or the ships performance suffers?
We simply dont know enough to judge.
my guess is the ship needs a few more "E1's and E2's" to be assigned to such tasks by the ships XO on an as needed basis.
A good example of the concept was in the book "all hands on deck" written back in the 1950's I think... they made it into a movie with Pat Boone and Buddy Hackett and (I think) barbara Eden years ago.
In a synopsis, it was a LST (Landing Ship Tank) and the officer was responsible for providing crew assignements during a repair and refit layover.
pretty good story as I recall, but it illustrates the issue I'm trying to communicate to you.
you might need a few more "grunts" to handle the repetitive tasks.
(In Star Trek Voyager, just to give an example, the captain occasionally assigned "scrubbing the deutronium manifolds" as a administrative punishment to the Nelix character in one episode... perhaps there is a similar requirement on SFBs star ships.
Jeff,
I'm so dumbfounded I'm not sure how to respond to that. Seriously. What does depot-level maintenance requirements have to do with the under-way crew size? You're not suggesting, I hope, that even at dock a ship must provide its own manpower to do that work with no help from the base, are you?
Voyager is an extreme example. But let's say the boat is in a worst-case scenario, trapped far behind enemy lines, putting its SERE training to good use while trying to get home, and the engines need the ion-flush. Let's say this normally takes a day or so at a base. I'm sure they have some sort of emergency / backup procedure whereby the ship can do it themselves, but it might take a week or more in orbit over some random planet instead of one day at a full-service base station. It can be done. (Note to Petrick: 'one day' & 'one week' picked from thin air to make the point, not to "write a new rule".)
As far as "grunt work", consider that there are 13 E-3s (a few of which, as I said before, may be E-2s ... there are no E-1s in the Fleet outside Basic Training and the brig) and 27 PO3 scraping-&-painting four hours per day five days per week outside their normal duties. If not, I've got another 30 PO2 that aren't immune from getting their hands dirty. I think the "grunt work" will get done.
Thus far, I've seen one good idea out of all this discussion, which was to move the Assistant Engineer to AuxCon during battle. We got all wrapped around the axle as to whether or not we need messmates in SFU. I'm not saying we do, but thus far I haven't been convinced that for-sure we don't. What I'm after now is this: if I missed a specility or two, I've got eight boatswains in the Tac-Teams I can re-classify to something else. If so, what do I need?
Garth L. Getgen
Well, I do have another question or two...
does the ship really need two master at arms? you have at Master at arms leading each boarding party... is that normal procedure? I was under the impression that the ship generally would have a single armory where small arms are stored when not needed.
does the presence of a second Master at Arms indicate a second armory?
What about ships security? is there a brig? is the master at Arms the enlisted police for the enlisted crew members?
I imagine the storekeeper is responsible for all equipment necessary for away missions outside of actual weapons, is he responsible for tricordeers, communicators, speciman containers?
What about uniforms, footwear and survival equipment (tents, ground shelters, emergency rations)?
lots of questions.
In the Navy, the Master at Arms is a cop. Yes, this entire boat is run by the police force, so why do we need a cop's cop? These are the guys that specialize in legal police procedures and train the rest of the crew in the basics. When the BP goes over for a "Health & Safety Inspection", the MaA can best determine whether or not it's legal to open a desk drawer while looking for "in plain sight" contraband.
I wanted two MaA working opposite 12-hour shifts, so there's always one available any time day or night.
The Armorer maintains the hand phasers, body armor and such. The Personal Equipment Tech maintains tricorders and such. He'll keep a limited supply of uniforms and boot, etc. Crewmen are expected to buy and bring a duffle-bag full of uniforms.
The Storekeeper is the ship's supply guy. He maintains the larger stuff (tents, etc), keeps the master inventory books for EVERYTHING on the ship, and works with Star Base supply to order stuff. There is some degree of overlap of which equipment which guy (Armor / PE Tech / Storekeeper) maintains.
Hope that helps.
Garth L. Getgen
By the way, nobody asked this yet, which surprised me, but a Boatswain's Mate is, for lack of a better way to say it, a general-purpose deck-hand sailor. That's an over-simplification of what they do -- NO disrespect meant, so I hope I don't have a former MCBM come jump down my throat. These guys are the jack-of-all-trades that can run and/or fix most anything on a ship. I put two of them on each Tac-Team because they should be able to handle most any situation during boarding actions.
However, each team (or two of the four, the other two of Corpsmen) need someone to run a tricorder to record everything (for legal reasons) and to scan for hidden compartments, etc. One of these might be the Forensics Tech; not sure who the might be. The other thought is to re-classify two of the Boatswains to "Tricorder Tech" (whatever the title should be).
Garth L. Getgen
If the primary purpose of the "tricorder techs" is to participate in legal / forensic searches, maybe call them evidence response technicians? It's a fairly common term in law enforcement agencies.
Garth posted:
"I'm so dumbfounded I'm not sure how to respond to that. Seriously. What does depot-level maintenance requirements have to do with the under-way crew size?"
Garth, in the Real world, ships crews have had to deal with maintenance issues like rust, replacing worn fittings and materials, and even polishing the ships metal fittings (goiing back to the victorian era proecedures).
That is why ships have paint lockers, paint scrapers and paint brushes. Rust happens, get used to it.
I am suggesting that there are similar issues that starships have to deal with in the SFBs universe.
It might be things ranging from daily maintenance on fuel fittings that pump fuel into the warp matter/anti matter chambers, or daily checks on what ever the unique fittings are required to allow warp power to charge the photon torpedo launcher (something few other navies in the star fleet universe have to worry about) or it might even be accumulated dust particles on the ships hull that require swabbing off on a daily basis (though I must confess, I find it hard to beleive that a star fleet vessel would have a daily announcement along the lines of "sweepers, man your brooms!"
The point is, none of these examples constitute Depot level maintenance.
Getting back to the assignment.
Garth asked:
Quote:What I'm after now is this: if I missed a specility or two, I've got eight boatswains in the Tac-Teams I can re-classify to something else. If so, what do I need?
and
Quote:However, each team (or two of the four, the other two of Corpsmen) need someone to run a tricorder to record everything (for legal reasons) and to scan for hidden compartments, etc. One of these might be the Forensics Tech; not sure who the might be.
Looking at the SSD, the ship has cargo spaces and, prior to the refit, there was additional space that while may not have been listed as cargo could have been used a available storage.
So wouldn't there have been a cargo master (officer or E-7 chief) stationed onboard to facilitate the handling of cargo/storage. This could be where some of those PO2s could be assigned while not on BP duty.
[EDIT: Or simply assign one of the Master-of-Arms to be the Cargo master as well]
There is also the intel PO3 crewman (#26) that could be assined to a BP when investigating freighters. Checking on cargo manifests and crew roster or such.
Just a thought
[EDIT: I believe you can add one additional crewman(99/104) to the roster and still maintain it as a "10-unit crew"]
Wouldnt a "cargo Master" be called the Purser
I don't see any point in debating (let alone defining) time on patrol or where the ship gets supplied, refitted, or repaired in a crew roster project.
In theory, every hex has a police cutter, with hexes close to the core of the empire having more than one. I'm sure that there are no end of supply ports in the provice (or the next province over). I'm willing to believe that the police commandant for a province has a modified freighrer that serves as a "tender" (more or less identical ships being in naval use) and that any police cutter that needs any real kind of port treatment gets it there. I'm sure that cutters park at various planets and take shore leave now and then, with a longer break at longer intervals. I'm sure that every few years the ship goes to a spacedock for "deep maintenance" and that every third trip is longer for "deeper maintenace". None of this has anything to do with a crew roster.
I seriously doubt that a police ship needs more than 30 days of "fresh food" and 90 days of MREs. There are a dozen inhabited planets in every hex, and it's not going to be difficult to stop at one of them and buy fresh food. (The 90 days of MREs is more a matter of having some emergency supplies to feed to citizens on the worlds being protected than it does the crew.) The ship COULD stay "at sea" some months but it would rarely be required to do so. Maybe during the intense initial period of a war when the police had a lot of herding, evacuating, and rescuing to do.
Cargomaster would be the correct term on a government ship. Purser applies to a civilian ship.
Looking for something in GURPS:PD, I found a line on page 36 that was interesting. It says the in Star Fleet, Warrant Officers are civilians given temporary rank for a specific mission & period of time. But then it goes on to say that in other services (which I persume includes the Police Force), Warrant Officers are prior enlisted commissioned for narrow technical skills. One of the examples given was shuttle pilot. So, now I'm in a quandry. Do I leave the pilots as Ensign / LT-jg, or do I revert one or both back to CWO?????
I did make a minor tweak to the list. After crunching the numbers and looking at the roster, I "promoted" three of the PO2 to PO1 (one each Sensor, Warpdrive, and Shuttle Engine techs). I also flipped one Sensor Tech from PO3 to PO2 but downgraded an Impulse Drive tech from PO2 to PO3, just to balance things out better.
George,
Cargo master ... the cargo bay was why I made sure to have a Storekeeper listed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what they do? Take care of cargo manifests, etc.
As the cutter's primary mission is not as a freighter, I believe the cargo bay was intended to store emergency relief supplies. If I really need an officer as "cargo master", that could be an additional duty of one of the LT-jg (probably the Tactical Officer). I'm trying to make sure that there's plenty of room for paint lockers and spare parts, even after the refits.
RE: Adding another Intel crewman (E-3) ... now why didn't I think of that. That can work. As long as SPP doesn't insist that a two-man crew cannot run the twin-mounted Ph-3 addition and forces me to add one or two more crewmen.
Jeff,
Funny, but in one of my stories, I did have the announcment of "Sweepers, man your brooms"!
Seriously, in the duty schedule I allow for 800-1400 man-hours of scrape-&-paint time per week. And that doesn't account for the fact that most of the DamCom and BP members primary duties are "whatever needs fixed" as well.
But your arguement flipped. In your earlier post, you were asking about flushing the ions build-up and cleaning the outside of the hull .... things that can only be done in dry dock. Now you're asking about daily maintenance, which I think I have covered as well as I can.
Garth L. Getgen
Opps, I see cross-posted with SVC. Thanks for the input, Boss.
"I seriously doubt that a police ship needs more than 30 days of "fresh food" and 90 days of MREs."
Cool. As I tried to say, the PD rules seemed to allow me to go either way ... real food or replicator food. I figure I'd do a mix. They ususally use real food, but if out too long (or at war and can't get supplies), then they go with the non-tasty fake food.
Garth L. Getgen
Garth, you mis-read the post in question.
I wasnt suggesting that ships should flush their own Ions away from base, I was contrasting a base only function (flushing Ions) with those functions that a ship could complete while under way, such as sweeping down the passage ways, or touching up a painted surface that might have been damaged... but not damaged so much that it required dry docking the ship.
I seriously have trouble believing that you think "sweepers man your brooms" is a depot level repair!
I would consider the replicator/processor foods to come in line after the MREs. You can always use power to turn whatever into food (and the ship does have recycling systems to produce ... ahem ... biological feedstocks). In effect, you can burn fuel to create food. But I would see the mix of groceries in the fridge/cupboard and stacks of cases of MREs in the cargo hold as being used up first.
Real ships flush their own ions continuously. Only PFs don't have the equipment on board to do that. Repairs are "stuff that breaks, wears out, burns out". You have some spare parts, some ability to manufature parts, and some ability to repair worn out parts. You also have redundant systems and the ability to cannibalize the bowling alley scoring system to repair the warp reactor controls. Eventually, you just cannot keep fixing the same worn out junk. Long before then, you've hit a depot ship (which brings that stuff back up to nominal status and restocks the spare parts bins).