A Few Questions About Crewing Your Ships

[matt w]

Hi guys,

first real post - so be gentle

i'm working on logistics of my first MOC ship, my main collection of lego is in storage so i am buying parts i need as i go

one thing that i wondered was, what sort of ratio do you guys use for the crew numbers??

A real ship would have 100's of crew members - but to try to cram them all into a lego ship would be difficult, so was just wondering what sort of crew levels you guys used??

On a side note - i started buying up some of the "soldiers" to use with the crew - blue for naval officers, reds for marines

But looking at the custom body stickers on here i think i'd prefer to use some of these instead.....

I've been out of the lego loop for a while and the blue torso for some of the torsos is more grey than the blue torsos i grew up with such as the Midshipman

could someone point me in the right direction for some cheap, easily available grey/blue torsos?

thanks in advance for all your help

All the best

Matt

[Captain Blackmoor]

Well, I've got a ship, Le Formidable with 4 midsections, 3 masts and 24 guns.

The people on that bathtub are as follows:

1 captain

1 first mate

1 navigator

7 soldiers

10 crewmembers

1 prisoner

You should browse BrickLink for some torso's, some of them are quite cheap.

The new pirate's line contains some great torso's for soldiers.

You can make them yourself, although you need an old/blanco torso for it.

Hope this might help!

[Guss]

mhh .. you said :

A real ship would have 100's

I'll say that it depends of the ship ^^ on the latest ship I made ( here ), I tried to put enough men to manipulate 5 canons while boarding another ship, so with some other manipulating sails and rudder , but I soon realized that it'll be "overcharged" with characters... sadly lego ship are "usually" not at scale, they're not build to have the right amount of soldiers/sailors on board, so for mine, I reduced the crew to 8 members ( including captain ) , that's way less than what it needs to be exploited at "full potential"

Edited March 25, 2009 by Guss

[matt w]

mhh .. you said :

I'll say that it depends of the ship ^^ on the latest ship I made

apologies, you are quite right - i was thinking along the lines of 4th - 3rd rate ships of the line in the Royal Navy

obviously you can "lose" quite a few of the crew on the gun deck, but you'd still have some in the rigging and running around on the top deck

thanks for the replies fellas

Matt

[SlyOwl]

I think it also depends on how you're going to station the crew: if they're going to just stand around on the deck, you may not need as many, but if they're to be positioned in the rigging/ratlines e.t.c, then you can fit a lot more on.

Regarding quantities, 1 or 2 of the main dudes should suffice (captain, quartermasters, mate, bosun e.t.c.), but for the others (marines, sailors, gunners e.t.c.), the proportions should stay in about the same ratio as for the original ship, just scaled down.

I've been out of the lego loop for a while and the blue torso for some of the torsos is more grey than the blue torsos i grew up with such as the Midshipman

could someone point me in the right direction for some cheap, easily available grey/blue torsos?

The blue on that torso looks like Dark Blue (ooh, these new-fangled colours ). As Blackmoor said, you can get nearly everything off Bricklink (be warned though, it's sometimes called Cracklink due to its addictive properties, and how you get lots of things which make you happy in plastic bags off the internet ) It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's well worth it

[Logbo]

I just rekitted out my Imperial Amarda Flagship. with a 4 gun ship (two each side) I like to have 2 gunners, Captain, 2-3 marines and a 1st mate up the rigging or in the crows nest. I see a basic crew of 4 is mandatory, + 2 minifigs for every mid section you use

Its not a hard rule i follow but i think it gives the ship a complete, usable feel.

[Aaron Morse]

Hmmmm.....I used 100 on mine :-)

[Guss]

that's a cool ship aaron Oo , did you post it somewhere ? or you didn't because It's not finished yet ?

[Aaron Morse]

Older than dirt, like 2006. Unfortunately the kids loved playing with it, and the rigging and masts were quite often the first thing to get destroyed. I still have it in our lego room in unfinished form. I have all the parts but I'm going to wait a while until the kids are older and will act a little more responsible around it.

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?...p;hl=Challenger

Edited March 26, 2009 by Aaron Morse

[Capn Frank]

A lot of your crew ought to be used within the gun crews.

On a real ship there are 10 to 16 crewmen per cannon and there was usually enough crewmen on a ship to man one broadside.

However, it also depends on the scaling of your ship too.

If you use prefab hulls, there probably won't be enough room for that many crew,

and if you use brickbuilt hulls, you probably could fit all of the crew on the ship, which could be more than a few hundred.

Basically, it's all up to you on how realistic you'd like to be for manning your ship and the size of the ship.

[RocketSeason]

I use pre-fab hulls because I like the look, and I generally prefer the underscaled cute look that LEGO models usually have.

My crew currently consists of:

1 Captain

1 First Mate

5 soldiers

8 general crew

1 midshipmen

1 cook

1 doctor

1 Captains Wife

1 First Mate's Wife

Thats a crew of 21 on a ship with 4 midsections.

[matt w]

thanks guys - please keep your crew numbers coming

i'll look at them all and scale them accordingly to see what it would look like on my MOC

Many thanks again for your patience. i know i'm new and asking a lot of questions

all the best

Matt