@Spinward Flow Thanks for the post! It's giving me some great ideas!
We make every pretense of competency around here ...
Incidentally, my research on the topic is what (eventually) led me into my
Pondering Starship Evolution thread ... which I really need to get back to at some point here.
Anyway, one of the things that I'm currently thinking about is the possibility of "downscaling" from TL=10 to TL=9 ... which brings a new set of technological challenges/restrictions on what can be done (and gotten away with) in context. The biggest challenge in dropping from TL=10 to TL=9 is the fact that with LBB2.81 standard drives you're limited to only A-D drives @ TL=9 (LBB2.81, p15 or TTB, p87) so there's a pretty hard cap on "what you can do" in terms of starship design.
Fortunately I have
House Rule solutions for those kinds of problems too ...
Being able to "revert to formula" so as to interpolate information that the table omits (because it's a table, not a formula) is relatively trivial ... once you figure out the what the formula was that generated the table (and is good for TL=9-14 drives and hull sizes, TL=15 drives are straight up CHEAT CODE MODES that break the formula).
So long story short ... letter drives are code: 1 per letter increment when scaling by 200 tons (see: A-F drives in a 200 ton hull if you need confirmation). Everything is straight add/multiply/divide with the letter drives, no "off by 1" multipliers like you see with LBB5.80 (that make the math "clunky" to use).
C/C/C drives are code: 1 in a 600 ton hull and displace 35 tons ... the maximum that a single engineer crew position can maintain safely before needing to add a second engineer crew position. D/D/D drives are code: 1 in an 800 ton hull and displace 45 tons, so you need 2 engineer crew positions (which CAN be filled by a single person with engineering-2+ skill working both positions). Just like how you can have a pilot/navigator (2 crew positions) or a steward/medic (2 crew positions) requiring dissimilar skills, you can have an engineer/engineer (2 crew positions) or a gunner/gunner (2 crew positions) that require the same skill.
Given a choice between needing 2 staterooms and 2 people with skill-1 each for 2 crew positions ... I personally prefer to allocate 1 stateroom and 1 person with skill-2 for 2 crew positions in the same department. I calculate the crew salary like so:
Engineer-2/Engineer-2 = ((4000*1.1)+(4000*1.1))*0.75 = Cr6600 per month/4 weeks
If you're needing to pay for "standard life support" overhead costs (Cr2000 per occupied stateroom per 2 weeks) ... then the overhead costs per 4 weeks for an engineer with skill-2 working 2 crew positions requires a single occupancy stateroom and ...
6600 + 2000*2 = Cr10,600 per month, 4 tons displacement required for stateroom accommodations
Compare that to a pair of skill-1 engineers needing 2 staterooms in order to fill 2 crew positions.
Engineer-1 (chief) = 4000*1.1 = Cr4400 per month/4 weeks
Engineer-1 = Cr4000 per month/4 weeks
4400 + 4000 + 2000*4 = Cr16,400 per month, 8 tons displacement required for stateroom accommodations
Point being, depending on the "economics" of the starship class(es) you're building, it can be "not unreasonable" to hire more highly skilled crew members in order to fill the required crew positions with a smaller crew. On balance, you pay more in crew salaries (to fewer people) but you reserve more of the starship's displacement for revenue tonnage (cargo, passengers, etc.) AND you also save a decent amount in life support expenses (because air, water and food are NOT FREE in starship economics!).
And just in case you're wondering how the crew salary for a pilot/navigator ought to be computed, here is how I would do it:
Pilot-2/Navigator-2 = ((6000*1.1)+(5000*1.1))*0.75 = Cr9075 per month/4 weeks
With those examples, you can just "plug 'n' play" with your allocation of crew however you'd like.
The advantages of "lean crews" with higher skills? More profitable operations due to lower overhead costs and increased revenue tonnage.
The downsides of "lean crews" with higher skills? Recruiting and ... casualties ... so crew "losses" are going to hurt more than usual.