Oh fully agree on crew making an impact, hence my slight worry at the thought of it going away.
The concept of a ship having 'x' crew and that number being reduced over time as the ship takes damage is a good one and allows you to have two different clocks on how long a ship can fight for (crew and hull damage). e.g. a merchant is probably easier to disable through crew hits than a warship with multiple watches etc.
Something SFB has, the last couple of crew units cannot be removed through damage - so you cannot de-crew a ship through weapons fire, someone always survives, though perhaps not enough to actually do a lot. You then allow these last few to be killed by fires etc.
Point is you can assign the different crew quality levels to an experience rating, say an average crew is '50' and an elite crew is '100'. In game the number matters little (just the level) but in a campaign replacement crew may be of a lower level (say 25) so that ship that was once elite may have to accept a drop in crew quality, or accept the risks of running with a reduced crew.
You're all a bunch of teases anyway with this, though its a good incentive to actually get off my posterior and get on with painting to try and get the local club playing VaS 1 while we wait for this to come out, the game is a whole lot better than the 'steam punk' version thats out there, and a darn sight better laid out as well.
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