Hello again kaladorn,

On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 10:09 AM Thomas RUX < xxxxxx@comcast.net> wrote:

Morning from WA kaladorn,

On June 9, 2020 at 7:42 PM xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:

My point is the value is in being able to have either:

A) The same sized crew with redundancies and backups from other crew that share overlapping skills

OR

B) You can run with a shorter crew because someone could fill two slots (if the law allowed that... some combos might not be permitted) and thus run lighter on crew space, life support, and on salary

Yes, you have less crew space requirements, life support and saving money balanced against the safety of the ship. The smaller the crew the fewer the hands to fight an onboard casualty situation.

True enough but yet not directly impactful to the market value of multi-skilled crew.

Again you are correct that the immediate impact of being short crew does not on a multi-skilled crew until they are overwhelmed during a casualty. In an episode of Disaster at Sea a ship steaming from some port in Norway, Sweden, and Finland sank with the loss of all but three crew members and the pilot taking the ship to open ocean. The findings listed that the ship was lost due to improper loading of cargo and out-dated charts. Due the improper loading the ship handled worse than normal and until some counter flooding righted a small list. Due to the poor handling and an out-dated chart in order to make a turn the pilot increased speed and went slightly outside of the channel the pilot hit a underwater object that had been updated by the local governmental office.

The collision punched a hole in the side flooding the hold shifting the load and causing the ship to roll over. The dead crew were all multi-skilled individuals and had one of those in an officer type position had followed proper procedure the accident would not have happened.

If I'm saving all that, 5% does not seem enough. And if both of your jobs as a crewmember with two hats involve things you are legally responsible for (and for a Steward or Supercargo, that could include passengers/cargo with which there are likely to be some legal issues of handling and safety), you probably would seek a much higher salary than +5% due to the extra training and certifications. I'd expect at least +20% for key skills. If ship #1 would only offer +5%, ship #2 probably would offer a fair bit more to see the savings or to have the added capability and redundancy.

My feeling is the +5% was pulled out of the ether.

If you happen to know a lawyer who is also an engineer, as I know several, they charge a lot more money for the additional skill they spent time and money to develop (or another way to say that is they work in more complex technical areas of law and technology that those without both qualifications would be hard pressed to handle as well).

I don't know any lawyers who are also engineers. How much more do they charge over an engineer that has been doing the job for the same number of years?

Not the same job. The comparison you want is lawyer versus lawyer who is a specialist in tech law and IP law because he is an engineer and a lawyer. The answer might be +50% to +150% of a normal lawyer's charges.

My apologies for not understanding what was said.

The engineer-turned-lawyer will not be doing engineering, but he will be using engineering expertise to deal with legal aspects of patents, IP, lawsuits, defend criminal or civil cases with a technical dimension, etc.

The person trained as an engineer and then became a lawyer. The little bit I've found online for a lawyer in Tech and IP Law does not have to have skill in the tech field. Of course I probably missed the information.

A pilot and a navigator are two key flight roles on a ship. Both are pricey skills and you want certification and competence. If you find one person that can do both, pay him +50% and be happy with saving +50% plus life support! He (or she) is worth it.

The COs of my four boats and the tender could pilot and navigate the ship if they had too. They did not get extra pay for being able to do both jobs. Looking at the licensing and pay-scales for the Merchant Marine I don't think that the Ship's Master is getting additional pay because the person has qualified to do all of the skills working up to commanding the ship.

This is true, but although you might call the CO or XO as crew, the reality is that (if we changed to a work model) that the correct placement would be those roles as management and management gets a broadly higher payment for being management so it is assumed they don't need additional stipends.

Also, the fact the CO or XO is doing *their job* and not *two jobs*, that means they get one salary.

For someone on a crew doing *two distinct jobs*, that's a bit different

Engineer/Steward

Navigator/Supercargo

Comms Officer/Trader

Scans Officer/Medic

Those overlaps would be two distinct roles and should be compensated by at least half the lower salary being added to the higher. (maybe a bit of commission thrown in for the Trader)

Mind you, that is not the same as a Pilot who COULD navigate but where there is a Navigational Officer who has that job (and discounting the management - CO/CO/Owner Aboard/Captain - as they have different compensation strategies) . Just having the ability to do another job but not the requirement to do so under normal situations should maybe get a crewman a slight bump in pay (+5 to +10%). If they are actually *doing* two jobs regularly, they are investing more time daily and keeping up multiple sets of qualifications to support that, so they really do need to get paid substantively more.

Now, as I suggested, some combos might not be safe and thus might be precluded. I

I know an example from around here: One of our contractors does kitchens and bathrooms now. He can do electrical (apprenticed with an Electrician) and he can do plumbing (was a plumber, pipe fitter, gas fitter). He's not current on union membership in either of these lines of work because *the unions and the government have agreed that a multi-skilled individual should only be able to sign a ticket to work in ONE role on any jobsite*. So our friend can't legitimately use his broad skills to produce the beautiful kitchens and bathrooms he can produce, even though he can do the plumbing and electrical just fine and safely and up to code.

There may be similar restrictions in play as well as the safety ones that preclude certain combos as full time positions done by the same single individual.

I doubt you could fill pilot and engineer billets though as the engines and power plant need oversight that would be distracting to the pilot on the bridge (like having to run down to Engineering or having to troubleshoot a plant glitch while they need to be watching scans, talking to traffic control, and laying out a course and flying it).

Per details a Scout/Courier can have a crew of 1 which means that crew member has the skills of ship handling (pilot), navigation (navigator), and engineering (engineer).

Two points:

Not likely rigged for significant cargo or passengers.

Small vessels often get legislative extensions if they are not operating as commercial passenger or cargo carriers. (in the real world)

If they are, more legislation tends to apply.

3I might not have specified this, but many system governments may.

In the real world, that happens.

And from what my friend who was a Maritime Engineer (military) then a Maritime Surface Warfare (military) in the RCN, when you go onto the civvy side of things, a lot of things you were trained to do are done slightly differently and your military creds may or may not transfer. Civilian requirements may be stringent in ways military aren't (due to carrying passengers) and military training may be far better in some areas. They are just different beasts.

+5% to add a non-required Steward skill or some other such nice to have but not critical (assuming no passengers embarked) would be probably okay. Like having 'team leader' training as a software developer. It's worth something and opens options, but it isn't going to add +50% to what you make.

If the Traveller party owns a ship then a body with Steward skill is required.

Not in all versions of the rules. And Steward Skill 0 probably would cover that and someone could get that in a few weeks even if it was.

I highly doubt many of the survivors of a Scout career that get a Type S all have: Engineering, Pilot, Navigator, Mechanical, Gravitics, Electronics, Steward and Broker/Trader or Legal are entirely unlikely. Yet the solo Scout and his ship are a staple of the game despite the realities of Scout chargen.

In my own TU, Commercial Shipping works much like what commercial shipping would follow in the real world. Certifications, legislation, rules required by insurers, variable law by jurisdiction, etc. would all be factors. And in some cases, with smaller non-commercial ships, fewer rules would apply. Commercial ships have more and larger ships of any sort have more. Safety and rules of the road are necessary aspects for any vessel to be allowed to operate.

If the party are passengers by the rules the ship has to have a body with the Steward skill.

At which point you become a commercial passenger carrier. And you do likely need a certified and trained Steward/Purser.

The game uses 'must have X skill' for 'must be trained and having passed certification exams' in the real world. It's a shortcut.

In the RCN series by David Drake onboard military vessels when passengers are onboard enlisted personnel use the Steward skill and get paid by the passenger. The better the pay the better the service but the skill is not part of the crew member's pay/salary.

That's one way you could structure it. But those 'tips' or 'stipends' are probably very highly expected to be paid out (a cultural norm in that sort of setting). Just like in some resorts, there are 'mandatory gratuities' and if you try to buck them, you will not like the outcome.

That's also odd because when our military has civilians aboard, they usually are taken care of entirely by the ship's crew (to the best of their ability) with no money changing hands. Then again, we don't load random civilians onto our hulls, so they have a reason to be there that is approved of by the government and hopefully the navy as well.

Me, I prefer real world models to guide me to what rules for these situations should be. It's unimaginative, but it feels more thought out and sensible to me. YMMV. There are a million ways to do a TU.

So as I say, I don't feel like +5% is a very sufficient value for a lot of the more desirable cross overs. People with those complimentary skills will be rare and worth more than +5%.

What good is a pilot that can not navigate between two destination when the navigator is incapacitated and the original course has been thrown out the window?

Not very, and yet it is very easy to generate a pilot that does not have Navigation in chargen in many situations. (In GT, I doubt that would happen as their skill packages tended to see roles taught minimum skill levels).

I've been lucky then since my pilots had navigation skills in CT. I've used to MT chargen applications one in DOS and one online. My MT pilots had navigation of course I had some Engineers that had medical skills generated by them too.

In myTU, I handle it as follows (note 'Mate' status or some other more advanced flavours of the quals would exist with higher standards):

Spacer Certification: Anyone on spacer crews, Vacc Suit-0, Zero-G-Environment-0. (Assumes one can operate comms without Commo-0)

Pilot Certification: Anyone who will operate a space vessel in controlled space. Pilot-1 to 3 (depending on the vessel size), Commo-0, Sensor Ops-0, Legal-0. (Legal covers all the pertinent responsibilities, protocols, and so on - rules of the road, rescue obligations, etc)

Navigation Certification: Anyone navigating a space vessel (with a limited certification for in-system Nav): Navigation-1, Sensor Ops-1, Computer-0.

Ship's Medic Certification: Anyone responsible for ongoing and emergency care for a spaceship crew or passengers: Medic-1, Sensor Ops-0, Legal-0. (Legal covers legal responsibilities and liabilities and limits of professional scope, Sensor Ops covers medical diagnostic gear)

Ship's Steward Certification: Anyone responsible for passenger or crew care (other than medical) on a space vessel: Steward-1, Security-0, Medic-0, Legal-0. (Legal covers the legalities of hospitality and the laws surrounding passenger care, Security applies because this tends to be a role for protecting passengers in some situations and preventing crime)

Ship's Engineer Certification (by area - Jump Drives, Manouver Drives, Life Support, etc): Anyone in charge of power plants, drives, or ancillary ship system monitoring, preventative maintenance, repair, emergency operations, and safety protocols. Primary Tech Skill 1, Secondary Tech Skill 1.

Supercargo Certification: For anyone involved in loading, securing, handling, unloading, etc. of cargo on a pace vessel. Cargo Handling-1, Admin-0, Legal-0. (Legal covers cargo handling law, but Cargo Handling covers storage, movement, and special environments as well as how to load the ship for balance and for manouvering without cargo breakout, admin covers all the legal/customs paperwork)

Watch Stander Certification: Anyone who is to sit a watch on a spaceship. Sensor Ops-0, Commo-0.

Ship's Master: Legal-1, Admin-0, Medic-0.

Communications Officer: Commo-1, Electronics-0, Computer-0.

Ship's Security: Security-1, Sensor Ops-0, Legal-0, Admin-0. (Streetwise-0+ is usually expected in this role but is not in formal cert)

Small Craft Pilot: Vehicle-1 or Small Craft-1, Commo-0, Sensor Ops-0 if airborne or spaceborne.

Military Certs would include combat systems, damage control, ship's troops/boarding parties, etc.

People are certified for their roles. Ships have licenses that depend on their classification (Do they carry passengers? How many and what type (low vs. med/high)? Do they carry cargo? Do they carry hazardous cargos? How big is the ship? Is the ship armed? etc). Small vessels may get limited exemptions.

I can get behind the list above, however I disagree that they get a percentage of the additional skill requirements since those requirements are part of the requirements to get your license or certification. While in the USN my two shore tours was as an instructor for submarine sonar and I went to a school to get my teaching certificate. I did not get any pay increase for being a teacher.

May I steal, er I mean, use your qualification outline please?