Ship Compensation and Roles.

Determine Skills required and SHIFTS > Determine Personnel > then Determine Expenses and Compensation. 

PAY

  • Cr 1000/mo per level of Skill (Cr 500/mo for Skill-0)
  • Cr +1000/mo per Different Section (Bridge, Eng, Staff Sections)
CHANGES target outcomes
  • Salary Grades = Competence. Also, its ideal to have an Official Assessment and Ceremony for such Increases in Grade and Competence. 
  • More SHIFTS Overtime pay. the engineer who has to cover more shifts will get paid for their hours. 
  • Everyone has Multiple Roles : the captain who is the Admin and other roles will work more and be burned out, but compensated for his extra effort. 

ROLES 

Shift, Role, Function, Duties etc… it boils down is Time to Do the Actions that are required. The Roles and the Actions is where the Referee can get a lot of ideas on how to make things Interesting. Like real life there is too many to do and never enough time to eliminate risks.

All Spaces need:

  • Vacc-0
  • 0G-0 

Main Roles

  • Bridge: Command and Control – Monitoring and controlling the Ship. 
  • Engineering: Ship Condition and Requirements to perform. Anything considered “Provisions” or need for the Ship to Operate. The engineer Facilitates Fuel and Maintenance. 
  • Staff: Anything servicing the Administration, Clients, Passengers, Cargo and Biz Functions of the Ship. Dont think of them as the Lowest in the Chain of Command – Businesses dictate the powers of the Bridge and Engineering. Staff ensures the Ship is PROFITABLE and a Going Concern. 

Ship Master/Captian Someone Licensed/Certified to Command a Ship. Pilot: Spacecraft-2, Astrogation-1, Electronics: Sensors-1 1 per Ship
Bridge Officer Other Bridge Officers. A ship needs someone “On deck” 24/7, and guarding the ship even in Berth. In very small operations Engineering and Staff serve also these dual roles. Pilot-0, Astrogation-0, Electronics-0 4 per Bridge (minus Ship master)
Chief Engineer Someone Certified/Licenses to handle the Drives, Power, or Lifesupport. Typically they need to have level 1 or 2 depending on the Organization issuing the License. You get what you pay for in their salary grade (which reflects their skills). Eng: R-Drive-2, Eng: Power-2 1 per Ship
Engineering Crewman Engineering and Maintenance are pretty much the same things as Damage and Wear&Tear is pretty much accelerated wear and tear. Preventive and Corrective Actions regarding the ships complex system needs someone checking and replacing – Note that these decisions are escalated to the Top – but someone discovering and communicating this is part of Engineering.  Engineering/Mechanic-0 1 per 200dtons (minimum 1 which can be the chief engineer) minus the Chief Engineer.
Chief of Staff If the Ship has to have biz autonomy, needing to adapt Biz operations to meet goals then it will need a Chief of Staff. They handle also Financing, Legal, and other difficult Biz challenges that may cause Trauma to the other Ship Crew. Admin-1, Steward-1 1 per Ship (if the Ship has Biz operations)
Ship Staff They are part of the Staff Section. Engineering/Mechanic-0, Steward-0, Admin-0 1 shift per 20 persons and per 100dtons of cargo.

Designers Notes

One of the Similarities of Ship operations and IT is the 24/7 Shift Calculation. I stopped looking at the WEEK and Just focus on the Shifts. 

this is 48+ Hours per “week” 

This can be disrupted by staff Getting Sick where someone who had a Shift of rest can be called in to cover. 

In the Philippines we just simplify it by having 12/12 for security guards or 10/10 because there is a Weekend and really don’t have enough people to do 24/7 gapless (and ideally overlapping shifts for Responsibility Transfer) 

As long as one 1 person is always there 24/7 and everyone gets 2 shifts of sleep its all good. 

Multi-Tasking – especially in High Conext jobs that cannot be automated. This leads to a response time equal to No. of Tasks x time for those tasks.  

Disrupting the circadian rhythm with cybernetics and drugs – so that we can “shut down” is quite interesting because One of the things I realize about OUR hobby is this is how we recover. 

Recovery 

The fun we have is effective if we can REMOVE the stress by rewiring the brain temporarily – forgetting the impulses and ambient stress. And Everyone has Different FUN because the FUN has to Take them out of the Stressful Situation and PLACE THEM in a FUN/RELAXING Place. 

the mental model of viewing OUR FUN/RELAXATION has to take us out of our Stressful Place is important for troubleshooting if its is effective in resetting our brain. If our subconscious stress points, alertness levels, fight-flight response is turned off so as to heal/recover. 

At the same time, Hobbies/Relaxation where we DESTIGMATIZE work – or Hobbies that make Stressful situations less stressful help Quickly Shift from Stress to Relax. 

Too often I have the excuse “This is not fun anymore” the analysis is that the emotions I felt with this activity ingrained unpleasant memories. Balancing out these memories with Pleasant ones – where I/We win more often than fail – helps me remove the Background processes of Fight-flight readiness and dedicated more CPUs for flow.  

Sacred Rights of Compensation 

One of the best ways to determine Skill in Real-world vs Games is in writing a Realistic Job Placement/Requirement in the Real World. One of my Game pet peeves is the UNCOMPENSATED or unfairly compensated Skillset and Duties. If you’ve ever seen “Needs 10 years of experience Entry level position” job placement sometimes and other glaring inconsistencies in Jobs I’m one of those guys who don’t like in my TRPGs. 

I guess its weird by Labor Rights are kinda sacred for me. I guess coming from a Developing World where our default is actually 6 days a week not the 5 days a week. That 5 day workweek is a privilege. That the Work Conflicts with Safety and Operations requirement and addressing both says so much about myself and my character – as well as the character for others. If Alignments and Ethics matter in game. 

Also I notice when a lot of people do the short-sighted thing and Abuse the Safety Limits to make some cash. I mean 99% of the time they get away with it, on the 1% they get caught and tragedy strikes – hmmm.. that’s why there is a speed limit, there are seat belts, – statistically its unlikely but Business Plans are ideally BUILT on certainties and addressing uncertainties. 

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