Starfield Max Crew, Crew Capacity, and Crew Stations

Explore the intricate world of Starfield’s spaceship mechanics with Max Crew, Crew Capacity, and Crew Stations. Delve into the complexities of managing crew members, ship efficiency, and the layout of your vessel. Let’s unravel the intricacies of crew management in the depths of space.

Starfield Crew Guide

Perhaps one of the most confusing aspects of ship stats in the game revolves around Max Crew, Crew Capacity, and Crew Stations. These three metrics are intricately linked and together determine how many crew members you can have working on your ship at any given time. However, understanding this number can be a bit tricky due to various factors and limitations.

Max Crew

Max Crew represents the maximum number of crew members that you can assign to tasks on your ship simultaneously. It’s crucial to note that Max Crew is tied to your ship and not your protagonist. Regardless of your ship’s Max Crew stat, your ability to assign crew members is also influenced by your “Ship Command” skill. Without investing in this skill, you’re limited to assigning only three crew members, regardless of your ship’s Max Crew stat.

Max Crew is essentially a derived statistic that takes into account both your Crew Capacity and Crew Stations, showing whichever value is currently your limiting factor. This means that Max Crew may not always provide a clear picture of how many crew members you can assign or what adjustments you need to make to accommodate more crew.

Crew Capacity

Crew Capacity indicates the amount of work required to operate your ship effectively. It’s determined by specific ship components, including your weapons, shields, reactor, and engines. These components need crew members to operate or maintain them, contributing to your ship’s overall efficiency. The more and higher-grade these components are, the greater your Crew Capacity becomes. For instance, high-end (grade C) reactors are particularly effective at keeping your crew busy, offering up to 3 crew capacity.

Crew Capacity is often expressed in fractions and is always rounded down. Weapons and shields typically yield 0.5 crew capacity, reactors range from 1 to 3 crew capacity, and engines provide 0.25 crew capacity each. So, if your ship has various components like lasers, ballistic weapons, and particle weapons (0.5 each, totaling 3 crew capacity), a grade C reactor (3 crew capacity), a shield (0.5 crew capacity), and four engines (0.25 each, totaling 1 crew capacity), your ship would have 7.5 crew capacity. Rounded down, the maximum Max Crew for this ship design based on Crew Capacity would be 7.

Crew Stations

In contrast to Crew Capacity, Crew Stations represent the number of locations where crew members can perform tasks on your ship. This aspect is simpler and less convoluted. Cockpits typically have 2 to 4 crew stations, while various habitation areas can provide even more stations. For instance:

• Computer Core (2×1) offers 1 crew station.
• Control Station (2×1) provides 4 crew stations.
• Engineering Bay (3×1) has 1 crew station.
• Battle Stations (2×2) boasts 6 crew stations.
• Computer Core (2×2) offers 2 crew stations.

Habitation areas mostly affect your ship’s aesthetics, determine the interior layout, and influence the activities of companions and NPCs on your ship. They also add a bit of hull strength to your ship and provide attachment points for other components. If you install a high-capacity cockpit and a 2×2 Battle Stations hab, you’ll have more crew stations than you probably need.

Note: It’s worth mentioning that the names of different habitation areas are purely cosmetic and reflect the interior design of your ship. You don’t need specific habs to assign crew to particular tasks, and you can’t delegate tasks to your crew directly. In fact, you can even install extra weapons that you don’t intend to power just to increase your crew capacity, as long as you have enough Max Crew and a sufficient Ship Command skill. This allows crew members to perform general “work” on your ship, utilizing their skills, regardless of your ship’s specific components.