No Starship Campaigns

[Condottiere]

The tone set in any role playing game is set by the group playing it.

In ShadowRun, I tend to have my characters opt first for non lethal disabling of most mooks, since my character is actually breaking the law, and they're just doing their job.

Until they decide to open fire.

That's not how it started out, but developed on reflection.

The essential skills required onboard a starship are pilot, astrogator, electronics, mechanical, and engineering.

Optional are coolie, steward, gunner, security, and medical.

Astrogator could be replaced by outsourcing the job, not by getting a tape by the starport, but by a local freelancer, who will do it for a lot less.

Electronics and mechanical maintenance could have a local garage do it.

Which means that the true bottleneck is if you don't have a pilot or engineer, qualified or not.

The rest are sort of nice to have.

 

[Vormaerin]

Actually, since the topic is non starship campaigns, you don't actually need a pilot, astrogator, gunner, steward, or engineer at all. They might be useful once in a while, but that's true of any skill.

I would say that Electronics, Medic, and Mechanics are, in fact, the only essential skills mentioned in your entire post, since they are likely to be relevant at least some times in any style of sci fi campaign. The others might or might not be useful.