Cold Stars: Crews

Starship Crews: At the heart of every warship is its crew, without these men and women your starship would not function and your adventure would come to an end. Naturally aboard every starship there are many jobs that need filling and many skill levels. Below is an overview of the jobs aboard ship, what they do and how skill will affect them.

There are two broad class of crew you will recruit Enlisted and Officers. Enlisted make up the vast bulk of your crews while officers act as department heads and eventually can command ships of their own. When it comes to game mechanics the enlisted men and women are the “expendable” crew while Officers are far more valuable and should be protected as much as possible. That’s not to say you should throw the lives of your crew away however as that will both negatively affect the moral of your crew and your own reputation as a commander.

Ship Postings: Below is a list of departments aboard the warships of the Cold Stars setting.
Astrogation: This is the department responsible for “Driving the ship” they are the teams that plot FTL jumps and handle STL navigation and helm duty. This is the smallest department on most starships.
Weapons “Weps”: This department as the name suggests is responsible for manning the weapons of ship.
Engineering: This department is responsible for maintaining the high tech reactors and engines of your ships. Engineers are essential for making sure everything is working with these systems and other high tech systems such as the ship’s networks.
Electronic Warfare: This department is responsible for the ECM/ECCM systems of your ship(s) and are essential for making sure you stay ahead of your enemies in the e-warfare field.
Damage Control: The damage control parties aboard a warship are essential for making sure you can stay in the fight or at least survive long enough to limp away to safety.
Sensors/Detection: This department is responsible for detecting and categorizing everything around your ship to ensure you know what’s out there and when.
Security/Marines: This department is made up of troops trained for infantry warfare and ship boarding operations. Although technically part of the crew they do not hold normal responsibilities aboard ship save to assist damage control parties if they are not being employed as security/boarding troops.
Medical: This department treats your wounded and saves lives.

Enlisted Skills: The enlisted do not gain rank in the way officers do but instead gain general skill ratings described below:
Rookie: A green crewman fresh out of training
Trained: A crewman that has seen more real world experience or gone to an elite training academy.
Skilled: Veteran crew that represent the better more experienced members of a fleet.
Elite: The very best crewmen a fleet can muster.


Officers: Officers are special crewmembers that are skilled leaders and department heads. Most ships have a certain number of billets required for officers as well as a “cap” on how many officers they can take aboard. Unlike enlisted personnel when you recruit an officer you can choose their assignment to a specific department and even transfer them between departments though this has the cost of making them start from scratch with learning their posting.

Officer Ranks: Unlike enlisted personnel officers “level up” in a similar fashion to your main character. Allowing you to attribute points to their skills and traits in the same way you would your captain. Officer ranks and points:
O-1: The lowest rank officer you can recruit: 5 pts to spend
O-2: Second officer rank after basic recruit: 10 pts to spend
0-3: The third ranked officer: 15 pts to spend
O-4: Fourth rank officer: 20 pts to spend
O-5: The first rank of officer that the player can assign to command a ship (Frigate): 25 pts to spend
O-6: The second command rank officer a player can assign to an officer (Cruiser): 30 pts to spend
O-7: The highest rank officer a player can assign they can command battleships or squadrons of smaller craft: 35 pts to spend.