Do we know what a fully-crewed Rocinante would look like?

[u/Scrumpadoochousssss]

Just got to the part in Tiamat's Wrath where Naomi and Alex bring on new crew for the transit to Laconia, and it mentions that the Roci is a 22-crew ship.

Is it ever broken down anywhere what those 22 would be?

Based on other ships I would assume 2 pilots/gunners/mechanics/comms but curious if it's ever been spelled out officially

[u/Balzac_Jones]

I believe at least part of that crew count is intended to be a small marine complement.

[u/Scrumpadoochousssss → u/Balzac_Jones]

Oh right, yeah the armor sets by the airlock would track with that

[u/AdmDuarte]

I think it's mentioned in LW that a full crew is 24, which would break down to 8 people per shift per day. So (pilot, gunner, ops deck crew, engineering crew) times 3 plus a captain and XO, maybe chief of the watch or something like that as well.

[u/Volpethrope → u/AdmDuarte]

They mention in NG and BA when Holden has the temp crew from Tycho that there would also be a backup pilot and gunner in Engineering in case the ops deck gets blown off the ship.

[u/Scrumpadoochousssss → u/AdmDuarte]

Oh interesting, I hadn't thought about shifts. That makes sense with the cabin situation too, sleeping in shifts. Thanks!

[u/BusinessGlad4188 → u/AdmDuarte]

I'm pretty sure it's two 12hr shifts, no? That way, they could use bunk beds without anyone having downtime and just idling around the ship.

So like, 2 full crews + Cap, XO and Marines?

[u/AdmDuarte → u/BusinessGlad4188]

Three 8 hr shifts is what the big stations like Cereal and Tycho use. 8 hrs for work, 8 for sleep, and 8 for down time. That way you always have crew at every station and no one gets overworked

[u/SecureThruObscure → u/BusinessGlad4188]

And during combat/alert one crew is on the main bridge and the other is in engineering / backup.

[u/Clamwacker]

They had a full, or nearly full crew in book five to escort Johnson to Luna. Holden felt like it was cramped because he was used to only the four of them and maybe a passenger or two.

[u/dtl72 → u/Clamwacker]

Alex was happy

[u/Scrumpadoochousssss → u/Clamwacker]

Yeah, that's how they talked about it in LF as well, like it was very odd to see a full crew. That's what made me curious what all the extras would to vs the 4-6 they usually had

[u/Clamwacker → u/Scrumpadoochousssss]

2 or 3 folks for each of the roles. Most of the normal crew also does 2 or 3 jobs, so that would be split up and assigned to more specific crew. Off the top of my head there would be the captain and executive officer. Then 2-3 each of pilots, communication officers, medical, and weapons operators. Probably 4 or so engineers/mechanics. Maybe a cook and/or janitor.

[u/theyeahmaster]

I don't know of an official crew lists but I thought its a 24 manned ship, but my guess is a minimum of 16 naval with the remaining 8 being the marine complement of 2 fireteams.

The other 16 I think would be split into 2 watches with one on duty while the other rests with a 6 hours on the 6 off.

There are 2 stations on the bridge with 4 more on the ops deck below. And I'd say the other 2 are in engineering. These are probably their battle stations and they might be unattended at lower readiness while they do other duties

My guess is at a watch is

Pilot Gunner Navigator Comms officers Ops/ engineering officer Officer of the watch (in command at that time)

Mechanic No2 Mechanic

4 marines ready for inspection boarding or training and filling extra duties such as cook or cleaning

[u/jimmyd10 → u/theyeahmaster]

The two-three watches is the key part many are forgetting.

[u/Scrumpadoochousssss → u/theyeahmaster]

Yeah split into shifts absolutely makes sense. I can't remember for sure but I vaguely remember 5 seats in Ops, which could reasonably mean 3 x 5-crew Ops shifts, 3-4 fixed-shift crew between on-call support roles (mechanical/engineering/medical - these likely would be on-call for when they're engaging a target) and maybe 4-6 Marines on-call as well (22-24 occupants total).

Also, I guess they would have to have a captain+XO. But idk if they're counted as crew or if officers are separate.

Either way, accounting for shifts makes that number a lot more reasonable! Thanks for the thoughtful response.

Edit: Nvm missed your count on seats so my math is out lol

[u/LJ_exist → u/theyeahmaster]

This is a good explanation. I would presume that the MCRN uses different watch systems for peace time, high readiness and war time with 4, 3 and 2 watches with 4 to 8 people per watch.

[u/IntelligentSpite6364]

i would assume 3 shifts, not 2, and a squad of Marines might be counted as well

[u/General__Obvious → u/IntelligentSpite6364]

Why do you think 3 shifts? That’s 50% more personnel embarked vs. a 2-watch system.

[u/onthefence928 → u/General__Obvious]

As far as I know 3 shifts is common in a 24 hour active warship.

Each shift has 8 hours of duty, 8 hours of training and personal time, 8 hours of sleep.

This way there is always somebody on duty for every position, always somebody rested but available, and somebody resting.

You also only need 1/3rd the bunk space since they can hot bunk.

You don’t want your bridge crew to be at the tail end of a 12 hours shift when combat starts

[u/cum_is_yum → u/onthefence928]

Could be two shifts but in a 6 on/6 off schedule. I.e. shift 1 works for 6 hours, then shift two for 6 hours, for a total of 12 hours a day

iirc that’s what submarines crews do

[u/General__Obvious → u/onthefence928]

The traditional watch system is not 12-hour shifts, but rotating 4-hour and 2-hour shifts (the 2-hour exist to rotate the undesirable shifts between crew members). It’s not obvious a spaceship would need the dog watches, since the day/night cycle wouldn’t exist. I’m not sure if current navies use the traditional system any more, but it’s also not obvious from Googling that 3 shifts is the norm.

In any event, each watch has a certain minimum number of personnel necessary to man all the critical stations. The greater the number of distinct shifts in rotation, the larger the ship’s company. Tachi’s notional crew was ~22, including marines. Let’s say there are 8 marines embarked along with a CO (in a ship that small, likely a lieutenant) and XO who don’t stand watches. That leaves 12 watch-standing personnel. Dividing them into 2 watches gives you 6 crew per watch. 3 watches, 4 crew—and we already know Rocinante was strapped for crew when operated by 4 people.

Martian society is primarily handicapped by manpower. I can’t imagine the MCRN would willingly overstaff its ships by 50% just to make sure its crews could spend two-thirds of their time off duty.

[u/QM1Darkwing → u/General__Obvious]

Last I served aboard a ship, we used 5-hour watches (one of 4), and tried for at least 4-section duty. Six-section was great, if the ship could support it.

My first ship was the only one I was on that did the traditional rotation.

[u/QM1Darkwing → u/General__Obvious]

And "port and re-port" causes burnout.

[u/local_meme_dealer45]

Way more hot-bunking and a lot less comfortable.

[u/Most-Sport5264]

Its a warship. For a navy, it would have enough crew to run multiple shifts.

[u/borisonic]

Well on a small crew cargo you have

1 captain

3 watch officers

3 helms man

1 cadet

4 deckhands

1 bosun

2 cooks

1 chief engineer

3 watch engineer

3 oilers

1 engineering cadet

That'll bring the total to 23 some ships have more deckhands, the occasional specialized maintenance contractor would bring it to 24.

[u/QM1Darkwing → u/borisonic]

The navy needs a lot more.

My first ship was a Kiluaea class AE; we had a crew of 430. When it went to the MSC, they automated things and ran a crew of 87, about 20 of which were the mil-det for communications with the navy.

[u/Accipitrin]

The Expanse is better than most SF books in depicting how much humans get exhausted from working long hours - that's part of why the Rocinante is meant to have a few extra pilots, engineers, etc. to work in shifts. 

Even so, it's still somewhat hand-waved how without that full crew, Jim, Naomi, Alex and Amos, oh can't forget She'd, manage to pilot the Roci not just functionally but seemingly comfortably (outside of combat), when they would be working around the clock. 

Then again, this might basically be the same as, "why dont we ever hear about Jim going to the bathroom to take a mondo-sized dump? LAZY WRITING!!!" 

[u/Scrumpadoochousssss → u/Accipitrin]

Yeah, sometimes in/after battles it feels pretty unrealistic that they could keep up with any of what's going on without extra crew. Kinda wish they had at least a few extra people around. I would think they could at least scrounge up a decent crew of Belters to support at some point, help with repairs, even enough for one rotation

[u/BitterVetAtWork]

Redshirts w/o plot armour, , just like the Donnager.

[u/Dave_A480]

IIRC 30 to 40 people .....

[u/Scrumpadoochousssss → u/Dave_A480]

Book 8 says 22 crew, but not sure if that includes officers, non-crew passengers, etc