Optimal number of service crew?

[stars2heaven]

I tried finding this answer and all I found were a million threads asking "what do service crew do". I'm pretty clear on what they do already and I know that more is better in some cases. What I don't know is just how many. Some ships allow for dozens and others many more than that. Do I need a percentage of that allowance or is there some standard number that is best across the board?

[felmari]

i fill it up unless i need/want marines. i'm sure there may be a optimal at least number based on hull strength but more the merrier i say.

[Gregorovitch]

I go for about 50%. Just out of habit really since I had to be cheap about it early game. I don't seem to see any problems with that but then again I can't say I know exactly what the benefit of a full compliment would be.

[hurepoix]

At this time I dont think crews have significant influence on a ship performance ; execption is of course marines boarding squad if you plane such action.
Like gregorovitch, I usually, anyway, at start fill my ship at 70 - 90 % for mining ship and 40 to 55% for freighters. It is just for a touch of realism, a sacrifice I accept in contradiction to rationality.

When I start to build my own ships I service crew is complete -1 (in order to switch people easilly from a ship to an other if needed)

The only benefit I see is service crews is a pool for future manager. At start it will be often former mining ship crew, then construction ship crews.

nota ; in old games I sent entire fleets of odyseus with no crew at all, just the captain, and didnt noticed bad things.

[arrak]

Experimentation combined with calculated observation is "the proof of the pudding is in
the eating". Point.

All my ships (except my boarding freighters) has 100% full service crew. They advance to
Elite very quick when often doing repairs. I fully rely on my service crew. I can see the
health bar of my ship topping to repaired :)
They are my Hero´s. Trust me on that one
I have more than 6000 "staf members, mostly service crew

Edit: Only by boarding freighters has no service crew, cause they are filled to the
brim with marines

[Gregorovitch]

Yeah, I figured if I got crew they will repair the ship some if it gets damaged. Dunno the difference between having half crew and full crew for this. I got a bout 2000 of them but tbh I've never found much use for them except as replacement pilots when I want to nick a pilot for a station managers job.

[arrak]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

Yeah, I figured if I got crew they will repair the ship some if it gets damaged. Dunno the difference between having half crew and full crew for this. I got a bout 2000 of them but tbh I've never found much use for them except as replacement pilots when I want to nick a pilot for a station managers job.

I like to "lone ranger" like fights. And get my Hull shot down very often to about 5% or lower.
And with that type of fighting you can make lots of testing that result in accurate calculated
observance. And that is important to Set the "big picture stage" for what i set myself to
acheive and do in the game.

Reading all your posts i see that you are also a critical tester, considering all possibillities

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by arrak:

Reading all your posts i see that you are also a critical tester, considering all possibillities

Nah, I'm a lazy tester

There's so much to do in this game that once I find something works I'm very lazy about optimising it and instead get on with something else I need to do. Plus thowing money at problems usually suffices when push comes to shove.

I do get fixated about certain things occasionally when I din't understand exactly how they work and I think they are important (exactly how station freighters work for example), but crew numbers isn't really one of them. ~50% compliment seems to work OK so I just left it at that.

[Sima | Marco]

on low cost ships you can cut down to 2 service men, otherwise max it

[hurepoix]

Originally posted by arrak:

I like to "lone ranger" like fights.

I do exactly the inverse ; I start battle only when I sure to win it. Most time it is a butchery. Anyway at that time my crew is full because I dont have to pay them, it is own build. I concerned with buying crews only the first 40 hours, and it s a 99% for civilians ships which dont go at war.

In my experience there was only one exception, where ships were able to successfully repair in battle, but it was not at vanilla but vro + ror.

[Oddible]

I start a fight until it tips in my favor, then I clear the skies and solo the remaining ships til I can capture them all :)

[stars2heaven]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. When looking around I found a lot of posts scatered here and there suggesting that service crews do all sorts of things from helping with trading to turret accuracy, but I think those claims are false. There's a developer post from last year that basically refutes those ideas and says crews are just for repairs on M size ships and higher. The post doesn't really suggest the contribution that each crew member makes though, and with a difference of dozens to hundreds of crew, I was wondering how much it mattered.

Anyways, I do pretty much the same thing as another poster here and have atleast half my possible crew as service crew and it seems to work well.

[Gwizzz]

Typically my miners and freighters have a pilot, 2 marines, and the rest service crew.

Boarding Frigates have a pilot, 1 spare captain, rest are service crew.

Boarding transports have a pilot and marine crew.

During boarding ops, Boarding frigate helps reduce shields and hull so boarding pods can launch and breach.

Boarding transports send in marine pods and target engines. (I used to make transports maintain distance but they do help keep engines offline).

After the ship is capped, all marines are transferred back to boarding transports.

The spare captain and service crew from the boarding frigate transfer to the capped ship to start repairs and head to a wharf for refit.

I send the Boarding frigate and transports back to a wharf to refill missing marines, service crew and spare captain for the next cap opportunity.

On most ships have at least 1 marine to allow CLAIM ship if one is found abandoned. Explorers may even carry a spare captain as service crew doesn't do much on S ships.

Crews are cheap, I make use of them as often as possible. Service crew helps with ship repairs and Marines with capping and claiming ships. Captains start out with 1 pilot star and prevent wasting a 3 or 4 star marine from assuming piloting duties.

[Mittens]

Originally posted by stars2heaven:

I tried finding this answer and all I found were a million threads asking "what do service crew do". I'm pretty clear on what they do already and I know that more is better in some cases. What I don't know is just how many. Some ships allow for dozens and others many more than that. Do I need a percentage of that allowance or is there some standard number that is best across the board?

Its my understanding that service crew both slightly improve ship performance based on their skill levels and when your out of combat for a set period of time the crew will incrementally repair the ship over a long period of time, its no substitute for docking and repairing at a wharf or shipyard but it can save your butt if you've got a long journey ahead.