Battle Stations

[vanir]

We're fairly ambiguous about precisely how big one "space" is, but use the "normal round vs combat round" concept, where most actions take one minute and don't always require a roll, but under the pressure of combat take five seconds and must always be rolled.

A normal sensor sweep then takes one minute or longer, the signal radiates, is bounced and then processed and in that time looks roughly ten times the normal range during a system sweep.

This way you can do your Star Trek style exploration and discovery as well as close combat style space engagements.
I also use a BVR system for starfighter combat (med range or more, enemy starfighters have to be painted to target, which may involve an ECM/ECCM battle).

Starship battle systems for capital ships require reactor power output adjustment and aren't as easy as for small transports and the like. I use the rules for getting starships to flying condition from a cold start as a guideline.

A space transport might take 1 minute normally to go from docking to the high speed condition. A cruiser is going to take at least three minutes.
You can use your command skill to combine actions equal to the total normal crew, if successful a space transports repair or capital ships repair roll can modify the engineering protocols to fire up weapons and shields sooner, but the truth is you cannot get around the time it takes for crew members to get to their stations on a large ship.

So cruisers take a minimum of one minute if successfully commanded to change their ready-state whilst freighters and starfighters can do it in as little as one combat round, subject to circumstance.

My ready-states are thus:

Docking and repair mode (skeleton crew, no guns manned)
Patrol and cruise mode (skeleton crew, 20% guns manned)
General Quarters manoeuvre and emergency mode (full crew, 20% guns manned).
Battle Stations combat mode (full crew, all guns manned).

[Bren]

[Fallon Kell]

I'd use the skeleton crew difficulties. I don't know how long it would take to man battlestations. That would take research...
_________________
Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier

Complete Starship Construction System

[vanir]

On the Andromeda series which is a battlecruiser, under two minutes was good, over two minutes was bad.

[garhkal]

In the navy, it depends on the ship.

Carriers - 5 min or less is standard.
A cruiser (guided missile) its 3 mini
2 for destroyers..
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]

[vanir]

In the real world you start having problems with detecting all aerial threats out at around 100km, but you use pickets for high value warships like command-cruisers and carriers, these might be 50-150km which gives you an umbrella in the 500km range. Some Russian antiship missiles have about that range but they need a fire control aircraft to bounce the datalink.

Currently some of the recently refit Russian surface action warships have a phased point defence system perfectly capable of handling a massed missile assault on the ship from various launch platforms air, sea and land at close range (within 5km) with little warning (automated networked defence system). The initial phase of this system can launch its entire magazine of 192 SAMs in under 30 seconds (12-15km range).
Then you have individually tracking Kashtan stations, with twin quad launch tubes (5-8km range on these fast-tracking little buggers) and twin 30mm gatling, lethal out to about 1.5km.
Finally the CIWS is a number of 30mm gatling with independent fire directors.
The entire system has a central network in the combat information centre and aircraft are tracked with every kind of sensor suite, from thermal imaging to various radars. The area surrounding the ship is divided into sectors and up to four individual targets will be tracked per sector using multichannel phased arrays.

You could literally pop out of nowhere and suddenly toss hundreds of missiles and aircraft at something like the Kuznetsov and it'll probably shoot them all down and fire one of its silo launched gigantic antiship "battlegroup busters" at you.
Then launch a Flanker just to rub it in.

[Fallon Kell]

[vanir]

I respect individual gaming style but I was thinking along the lines that all ships crews in regular navies simply cannot man their battle stations 24/7, it's just not going to happen. Just about every crew member has a post during battle stations for example, but during normal operations you'll have about a third of that actually manning stations and others sleeping, eating, exercising, attending various mundane duties, most of the time a ship is run like a community specifically because it is relatively isolated for weeks or months at a time. Between missions recreational leave is a high priority for crew health and the ship will visit civilian tour locations during a sortie.

Normal running is really your cruise configuration, only certain stations are fully manned even on combat patrol (unless a high threat environ), no significant ships crew can simply function at a state of combat readiness for too long without relief shifts. But what ships do is they use full crew during combat and function on much fewer the rest of the time so they act more like a sustainable community (assuming you keep it stocked).

[garhkal]

True.. though i see the isds and such as splitting their crews up so they CAN maintain specific areas at battle ready at all times.. such as CIC, bridge, engineering and the gun spots.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[vanir]

Well the gun spots are the real trick, and reactor power levels.
Gun stations aren't designed to be comfortable and the very role of the general staff (usually the first officer) is to ensure the health and morale of the crew, he has equal authority to the commander in this sphere by enforcing such rules as maximum on station times without breaks.

And starship reactors (like old world boilers and turbines) just aren't designed to run around at flank all day long. For one it cuts your patrol short because it burns all your consumables (fuel and machinery oil in the real world, even nukes run out of regular stuff the ship needs).

I would adjudicate that the consumables rate and thus range listed is for normal projected operations, generally performed at 50-75% power output depending on configuration. Most capital warships thus function on skeleton crews, I'd say most definitely with minimum guns manned for most of the time unless patrolling a combat zone (ie. expecting an encounter), in which case full crew for long periods but full guns armed only during battle stations or a drill (ship at general quarters in other words, ready to man weapons on command, all other systems ready).
So you'd have the basic 1-3min battle stations drill for fully manned weapons in our system.

But you can catch Imperial warships near the core worlds simply functioning at cruise on private hyperspace lanes and more powerful warships can easily afford to function at skeleton difficulties (which are usually minimal anyway), for most of the patrol. It's just realistic for a functioning navy.
Otherwise terms of service would have to be high turnover, changing worn crews every six months or progressively losing skills due to combat fatigue. I mean it's like basically saying you're going to be one of those commanders who expects his crew to perform like machines with an on/off switch and never eat/rest/fraternise and cop surprise drills every few hours. They'd lynch you.

[Esoomian]

So while a droid ship might have lower effectiveness than a ship crewed by flesh and blood beings it would be combat ready much faster and suffer less from a surprise attack.
_________________
Don't waste money on expensive binoculars.

Simply stand closer to the object you wish to view.

[CRMcNeill]

[Esoomian]

That seems fairly logical to me.

In which case you'd just have two skill ratings the automated systems skill rating and the trained crew skill rating so a surprised ship would run on it's automated ratings until the crew was able to get to their stations.

The time taken for this changeover could probably be worked out by a tactics roll (or perhaps an opposed tactics roll against those trying to launch the surprise attack).
_________________
Don't waste money on expensive binoculars.

Simply stand closer to the object you wish to view.

[Bren]