Crew composition?

[EricLarsen]

I'm wondering about what constitutes a proper crew. I played the demo and my first game pretty much not touching crew composition. I changed it a bit in the demo but didn't really see any difference. In my first game I had just left the default of 1 engineer and the rest navy personnel. No security. While I can see engineers maintaining the ship's systems and navy personnel for flying the ships and I guess even fighting them. But what does security do? I know ships still fight with no security personnel so why would I want them? Do they prevent ships from defecting? Do they aid in attacking an enemy homeworld?

So I'm wondering what crew composition would be considered "ideal" if such is the case. Do you have as many engineers as ship components for optimal maintenance? Do you include a few security personnel, and if so how many is enough?
Eric Larsen

[Digital Age]

Security defends against assaults. With zero red shirts if you go up against a race with shield ignoring pods you'll rapidly find yourself fighting your own ships.

[edit to add engineering speculation]

I think additional engineers speed repair times for battle damage while a ship is underweigh.

D.

[EricLarsen]

Digital Age,
Ah those wonderful, expendable, red shirts of Star Trek security lore. You always knew which bit actors would bite the dust by if they were wearing the red shirt. After finding the manual I found everything we need to know about what everyone does. It was a bit tough before the manual to actually see why we need certain things.

So far I've yet to come across races that capture star ships, most just seem only too happy to blow you out of their sky if you don't blow them out of your sky first. I guess it helps to have those self-destruct mechanisms early on.

If I leave staffing to the captain's discretion it seems the only things he trains is engineers and navy personnel, which is about all I'd train. Make sure you can keep everything running smoothly and make sure to have the tactical advantage for the first shot.
Eric Larsen

[Digital Age]

It only happened once. Now I make sure to be the one stealing ships. After teleporting pods are developed I always include at least one on anything bigger than a gunboat. By the end of the game I've seen almost a quarter of ships in my fleet being "repo" jobs.

D.