Crew
All ships require a crew and the size of that crew is based on the total manning requirement for all of the ship?s systems. When a ship is built it?s initial crew is created from one of two sources, Academy Graduates or conscripts. Each Naval Academy produces 1000 crew and junior officers and 5 command level officers per year. These accumulate in two different pools (one for Command Level Officers and one for Crewman and Junior Officers) on the planet where the Academy is based on and can be viewed on the Personnel tab of the Economics window, The Command Level Officers are used to command ships or govern planets or as part of a team. The crew and junior officers, supplemented by conscripts, provide the crew for all ships. When a new ship is created, the program checks to see if sufficient crew are available in the Crewman and Junior Officers pool. If so, the total crew is deducted from the pool. If there are insufficient crew in the pool, the remainder of the ship?s crew is filled by conscripts. There is an unlimited supply of conscripts.
Crew Grade
Each ship has a number of Grade Points, which indicate the ability of the crew. A ship has a Grade Bonus equal to (square root of Grade Points)-10. This Grade Bonus acts as a modifier to actions such as firing weapons or checking for system failures. A low number of grade points may result in a negative Grade Bonus which will then act as a penalty to such actions.
The starting crew grade for new ships is based on the training level of their race, which usually starts at level one. Each level of racial training level provides 100 grade points to crewmen graduating from Naval Academies. If the racial training level is higher than one, crews receive 100 grade points per level and academies produce crew equal to 1000/training level (instead of the default 1000). This means that if a new crew consists entirely of academy crewmen, the ship will have a number of grade points equal to the racial training level x 100. Conscripts begin with no grade points at all. Therefore if a new crew is entirely conscripts, the ship will have zero grade points. Ships with a mixture of academy crewmen and conscripts will have a number of grade points based on the proportion of academy crew.
For example, assume a ship needs 500 crew, the racial training level is 2 and only 300 academy crewmen are available. Racial training level 2 is equal to 200 grade points. Only 300/500 = 60% of the crew will be academy crew and the remaining 200 will be conscripts. Therefore the ship will start with 60% of the racial training level, or 120 grade points.
A race can change its racial training level on the Race window. If a race changes the training level downwards (from 3 to 2 for example), all the crewman in the pool will now have the lower grade level but the number of crewman in the pool remains the same. However, if the training level is changed upwards (from 3 to 4 for example), half the existing pool is lost to simulate the confusion in the training program but the rest have the new, higher grade. A way to rationalize this may be that those not capable of making the new grade are kicked out of the academy. The racial training level has no effect on the number of Command Level Officers produced by Academies.
As an example, ships with the following number of Grade Points have the associated Grade Bonus
0 -10%
1 - 9%
25 - 5%
81 -1%
100 - No bonus or penalty
200 4.1%
400 10%
900 20%
1600 30%
2500 40%
A ship with 100 grade points is considered an 'average' crew as they have no bonus or penalty.
Ships can increase Grade Points over time through experience or training. Many Command Level Officers have a training bonus. While they are in command of a ship, that bonus is used to gradually increase the grade points of their ship. A ship will gain grade points equal to its commander?s training bonus every year. Experience is gained through combat situations (details to follow).
The Grade Bonus is applied in the following situations (so far):
? Accuracy of beam weapon fire. For example, if a ship has a 60% chance to hit and the crew has 400 grade points (and therefore a 10% bonus), the chance to hit is increased to 66%. If the crew has 900 grade points the chance to hit would be 72%. If a crew has no grade points (and therefore a -10% penalty), the chance to hit would be 54%.
? Rate of Missile Fire. When a missile is fired, the reload time before the next missile can be fired is reduced by the grade bonus. For example, if a missile launcher has a 40 second rate pf fire and the crew has 600 grade points (and a 14% bonus), the rate of fire will be reduced to 40 x 0.86 = 34.4 seconds. As Aurora moves in a minimum of 5 second increments, this bonus is ineffective if it reduces the firing rate by less than 5 seconds.
? System failures (related to overhauls). The chance of failure is reduced by the bonus (or increased for a crew grade penalty).
When a ship is scrapped or mothballed, the crew is removed. If the crew have grade points higher than that of the academy crewmen, they are added to the academy crewmen pool. To simulate the experience of a veteran crew assisting the academy crewmen, the number of crewmen added is equal to the Crew x Grade Points / Grade Points of Academy Crew.
For example, a crew of 600 with 350 grade points is removed from a mothballed ship and added to the Academy Crewmen Pool. This race has a racial training level of 1 so academy crew have 100 grade points. Therefore the number of crewmen added to the pool = (600*350)/100 = 2100.
When a ship is reactivated from mothballs, a new crew is added, using the same rules as a newly constructed ship.
When a ship takes damage, it usually causes crew casualties. When a ship is repaired, those casualties are replaced (by academy crew if available). The grade points of the ship are adjusted to account for the grade of the replacement crew, weighted by the number of replacement compared to the total size of the full crew.
For example, assume a ship with 400 crewmen and grade points of 250 is involved in a battle and 80 of the crew are killed. When the ship is repaired, 80 crew replacements are added to the ship. If there are 80 academy crewmen available with 100 grade points, the grade of the crew changes to (320x250) + 80x100) / 400 or (80,000+800)/400 = 220. Therefore the grade of the crew drops to 220. If no academy crew were available, the grade would drop to 200.
When a ship is refitted, its new crew complement may be higher than before. If so, the additional crew is added in the same way as crew being added to a repaired ship.