Dear Folks -

Jeff asked:

>  Is there anything in canon that specifies minimum crew skill levels
> for
> operating a starship? Specifically, I'm interested in whether you need
> better engineering skill to handle a J3 drive than a J2/J1 drive, or
> better
> Nav/Astro for taking a ship through J3 instead of J2/J1. And similar
> questions regarding powerplant and/or M-drive.

Check if Mongoose retained the following from CT:
- for a medic you need Medical-1
- for a doctor, you need Medical-3
- "Working Passage" (under "Interstellar Travel" - "In order to be hired
for working passage, the individual must have some expertise in the
position for which he is hired (jack-of-all-trades may be substituted)."
- Under Engineering skill: "The engineer is essential for the proper
operation of any starships. Expertise qualifies the individual for such
jobs, and can be used to get working passage on a ship in need of help.
Greater levels of expertise enable the individual to handle problems of
greater complexity and jobs with higher levels of responsibility.
Referee: Skill level is generally a DM applied to the throw to remedy an
engineering problem. In order to handle the relative value of
experience, the DM may be assigned on the basis of t2 per level of
expertise."

Under these rules I would say level-1 used to be enough, but higher
levels will give much higher chances of success.

So the real question is, since you are creating the scenario and thus
have some idea of how it should play out: how hard  do you want to make
it for the players? Is there going to be a critical moment where the
skill is really needed, and do you want them to succeed (but still think
they are in peril)?

Then select skill-1 to skill-3 based on your answer!  ;-)