Officers

[JonO]

Wow. That seems like a lot of different types to keep up with, but I guess some of you guys thrive on complexity. Heh.

In Project Libertine I have:

Captain, Navigator, Helmsman, Science Officer, Chief Engineer, Gunnery Officer, and Specialist.

I'll probably end up adding CAG and Medical to the list, with CAG only being available if a ship has hangar bays attached and fighters onboard.

Specialist is how I'll allow a ship to specialize, so if you assign someone with Mining skill to the Specialist spot, your ship can better engage in Mining operations. If you assign someone with Cargo Handling, you'll be better at moving cargo around, and so on.

Hatch
http://projectlibertine.blogspot.com

In RW, crew (enlisted ranks) are also specialized but are treated as groups, not as individuals so engineers have experience and morale, but no individual ratings, ditto for pilots, gunners, space-hands (blue-collar), marines, and specialists (white-collar).

In the most abstract terms, officers and crew in RW are a way of letting the player specialize in certain activities and exercise as much or as little fine tuning as he-she wishes. I've tried to make the experience of dealing with 'em a bit more real because role-playing is supposed to be just as important as spreadsheet-building.