Overaccommodating for crew

[Guest]

So I wrote out a relatively realistic crew roster for my first interplanetary craft...

Spoiler

Astraea crew:
captain (pilot)
first officer (pilot)
lander fly-by-wire pilot (pilot)
life support technician (engineer)
reactor technician (engineer)
propulsion technician (engineer)
IT technician (scientist)
botanist (scientist)
+ science team in lab (x2)

But it feels a bit uh... embarrassing, going to this kind of detail. I dunno why. Still, I also think this might actually be quite a commonly done thing. Is it? What decides how many crew you take on a mission? Just the barebones three (ie. one for each role) in a capsule or as many as feasible because why not? I've seen plenty of service bay lawn chair challenges on YouTube but pictures on the forums suggest most players bring at least a few Kerbals along for any given journey, and care about making their spaceship look 'right'.

[Hydrothermalventclam]

I have not done any really ambitious missions, but I try to bring the same amount of kerbals that I can land, because it feels mean to leave someone in the mother ship orbiting while everyone else goes down and explores  For my duna mission, this was 6, and for all of my many mun/minimus missions, three each.  Though, for my minimus base, I landed like 15 or so, and for stations, I usually fill them to somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of their max capacity.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Hi, well it's a personal choice and the RP types like that kind of detail, in my case crew number is decided primarily on the amount I'm prepared to kill off in one go. It's not unusual for a ship (sea going as apposed to space)  to have a crew of 20 plus,  so restraint has to be exercised.  Mind you the IGC ( a real spaceship )  is currently surveying Laythe for new harbors with a crew of 29 nameless Kerbs, i say nameless as it's been a good while since I've been attached to a particular crew.   But if designating crew giving them all jobs and duties is how you enjoy playing your game that's cool,  I know from my early days that it can be quite nice having familiar crew.  Scotty Kerman and i did the grand tour pre ksp v1 and it was his loss in a freak accident that changed my whole outlook .

Sadly these days most Kerbs sign on for only one mission.  and the accidents are far from freaky.

Spoiler

Another 8 Mrs Kermans will receive the telegram and flag package ........

 

[The Aziz]

I think I have four in my Duna ship, and the fourth is additional scientist who is chosen to stay on surface until next mission arrives.

[Starman4308]

Right now, I've got six on my lunar space stations; two scientists for the lab, and a pair of both pilots and engineers so that there's always one of each on the station, even when I send a refueling team to the ground. I'll probably keep that configuration for interplanetary missions; it also happens to be equal to the largest command capsule I have available.

My primary bit of overprovisioning is in the crew accomodation; the station has 17 dedicated seats (a cupola, a science lab, a 6-man hab, an 8-man hab), plus two 1-man landers, a 2-man lander, and the two 4-man transfer/return vehicles.

[Red Shirt]

In the past I have gone so far as to have enough crew for shift rotations. Of course that means crew quarters for off duty, 

[Curveball Anders]

I often stash a couple of extras on most missions, both for redundancy and for hogging experience education.

[magnemoe]

I tend to use oversized crews on my interplanetary missions. Not so much on bases. 
Standard base has science lab, command module and greenhouse, this require 5 to be fully staffed. Engineer can work in greenhouse while maintaining ISRU, makes sense as its just fixing and tuning. Can also work with four if pilot switch between greenhouse and command module. 
Also demand more living space than number of kerbals for long missions or bases. 

 

[Tyko]

I generally role play it and never strap a kerbal into a single seat for months on end. For missions/bases in Kerbin SOI I usually stick to 3 because it's pretty quick to send out relief crews every 90 days. For interplanetary I might go as high as 6. I keep a ratio of at least 2 seats for every Kerbal in local space and I'm thinking 3 seats / kerbal for interplanetary to give them space to move around. This space requirement means that increasing crew size gets expensive very quickly.

[Guest]

My usual crew:

 

Ship crew - always:

Shift 0 - 1 pilot, 1 Engineer, 1 Scientist

Shift 1 - 1 pilot, 1 Engineer, 1 Scientist

Together, they provide 6-strong crew needed for RT remote control.

Lander Crew - if lander present:

Same, 1-2 shifts

Science Crew - on opportunity:

A crowd of scientists.

Tourists - not often:

About 6 tourists sometimes present aboard.

 

Also, there is a rule about maximum ship capacity:

LKO missions can use up to 100% seats.

Mun and Minmus missions can use up to 66% seats

Inner Kerbol system missions can use up to 50% seats

Outer Kerbol system  missions - not decided yet, last time I was on Eeloo was when KSP was about v0.25 - v0.90.

It used to simulate life support requirements and crew comfort.

 

 

[Wjolcz]

Enough to get the job done. Usually 4 is my minimum when it comes to spacious vessels. Each has a different role and there's that extra guy just in case. Makes me wish kerbals could have two skills each.

[Kerbart]

For Duna just the botanist should be enough.

[SpacedCowboy]

And 50,000 packets of ketchup.

[Sharpy]

My missions usually consist of at least 2 main vessels - lander/rove and station - and often some support vessels (an ascent vehicle, dinghies on the station etc).

I don't roleplay the roles of the crew. I follow the necessity.

Lander - usually three: pilot, engineer, scientist.

Station: two scientists (lab), engineer, two pilots (one resident, one mobile - dinghies, support vehicles, etc.)

Since I'm playing with KIS/KAS, and using these very actively, the engineers are some of most important members of the crew too,

Other than that, I'm filling some spare space with rookies, to let them gain experience, and leave more (much) free space for rescuees.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Sharpy

[something]

Completely depends on the number of Kerbals I do have available. But a minimum is 6 Kerbals on interplanetary missions (2x Pilot-Engineer-Scientist). With a base on the surface, two rovers (one for mining, one for science stuff), a fuel ferry to the mothership, mining equipment, fuel trucks etc, that's about the minimum crew you can deal with.

Within Kerbin SOI, I usually send no more than 3 Kerbals at once. You don't need to observe transfer windows and a mission to Minmus or the Mun is done relatively fast....

 

[GluttonyReaper]

I typically play with the half-capacity rule, so I have a lot more crew space than actual crew. Outside Kerbin SOI, 3 crew is the absolute minimum (even then only for Eve/Duna), and I step up to 6 crew per mission once I have the proper tech. Never gone to Jool in a career mode yet, but for a big establishing mission I'd like to take 10 crew, then downgrade to 6 crew for future missions once I have infrastructure.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

In sandbox or science I role play the shiz out of things. Cargo bays for recreation areas. Every ship has a laboratory. Etc. 

But in career mode, it's bare bones. I've had a scientist roving Moho off and on for 4 years now. She's almost back to the lander can though  . 

[RA3236]

On 17/11/2016 at 10:52 PM, String Witch said:

botanist (scientist)

Reminds me of Mark Watney.

[GoSlash27]

Most of my crews consist of 4 members.

 Why? Well... *mainly* because a hitchhiker pod has room for 4. Accordingly, my mission planning and vehicle designs have evolved around that. 1 pilot for the mothership. 1 pilot for the lander. 1 scientist to reset and clean all the experiments and 1 engineer to fix whatever breaks along the way.

 Everything else is designed to support that. My roster is 50% pilots, 25% engineers, and 25% scientists. My SSTO spaceplane crew shuttles seat 4 passengers. My LKO station has berthing for 4 for each dock. And so on...

Best,
-Slashy

[tater]

For distant trips, when I was using mostly stock parts, I used a hitchhiker for every 1-2 crew. A typical Duna transfer vessel was a mk1-2, a lab, and 4 hitchhikers. Plus a lander. Now I would tend to add a centrifuge hab (SSTU), and I don't use many stock parts.

[Mastikator]

I tried going to Duna and back again with Kerbalism. I tried to make it as bare bones as possible while still having a mobile lab and landing capable. It turned out that nuclear drives and ISRU were the way to achieve that.

I had to have 1 pilot because the autopilot wouldn't be able to work without LOS to Kerbin. I had to have 1 engineer because of potential equipment failure and because of the parachutes. I had 2 scientists for the lab.

To reduce stress they had a gravity ring on the ship and 10 crew slots, a greenhouse to deal with food (bringing enough food would've been heavier) and lots of oxygen cans. There was no actual over accommodation though, when they got home their stress and radiation levels were very high.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

2 hours ago, Mastikator said:

I tried going to Duna and back again with Kerbalism... 

-snip-

...when they got home their stress and radiation levels were very high.

Stress and rads? Is that from Kerbalism? Sounds fun. 

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

Yeah, it's done. By me, anyway.

[Mastikator]

4 hours ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

Stress and rads? Is that from Kerbalism? Sounds fun. 

Yeah it's like TAC Lifesupport but also with radiation protection concerns and living condition concerns. So long term crewed missions don't just need supplies, they need space, entertainment and protection. And it includes part malfunction and in 1.1 also a remote-tech like thing for probe cores. It was like insanely good.