111 réponses à ce sujet

[lillitheris]

Asebstos wrote...

lillitheris wrote...

A reasonably modern battleship (< 300 meters, i.e. roughly half the size) has a complement of around 2500. Tech will probably help reduce some of that, but on the other hand, there’re more weapons, and additional tech to take care of.
 

You're thinking too much in terms of WW2 era ships.

A Ticonderoga class cruiser, built in the 1980s, is 173m long and has a crew of around 400 officers and enlisted. A 185m Cleveland class cruiser, built in the 1940s, had a crew of around 1200. Meanwhile, the upcoming Zumalt class destroyers are to be 180m long and have a crew of a mere 140.

So, in the span of ~70 years we've gone from ships of ~170-180m  in length having crews of over a thousand to having crwes of less than 200. There's a 88% reduction in crew size from the Cleveland class to the upcoming Zumalt class. As technology advances there simply isn't as much need for large crews as more and more systems become automated.

This is true, but… I will not accept 80 crew. Let’s call it 250, which is ~80 people per shift. (Can any of us even imagine how big a 600-meter space ship is? It’s like 4 Caribbean cruisers or USS Nimitzes roped together, with two more on top.)

This leaves two problems:

1. Why do dreadnoughts have so many more people?

2. The total number of people on ships out of the entire military. I can accept some handwaving about the total military strength being used for different things, but when we’re approaching 1% of the entire military on ships for this to make any sense…that’s just not correct.

Modifié par lillitheris, 13 mai 2012 - 10:54 .

[Bravery]

acording to the wiki the alliance has 8 known fleets, now in ME: Revelations it is stated that as of the first contact war 2157 the alliance had 200 ships, considering that in ME 1 joker says that the fleets were built on Arcturus station wich was started to built as early as 2152 it seems the alliance was able to built 200 ships in a period of 5 years which is relativly small, mass effect 3 takes place 29 years later, so my best guest could be that the alliance fleet could number between 1000 and 3000 ships of all clases, its just a theory and I could be wrong though

[lillitheris]

Bravery wrote...

acording to the wiki the alliance has 8 known fleets, now in ME: Revelations it is stated that as of the first contact war 2157 the alliance had 200 ships, considering that in ME 1 joker says that the fleets were built on Arcturus station wich was started to built as early as 2152 it seems the alliance was able to built 200 ships in a period of 5 years which is relativly small, mass effect 3 takes place 29 years later, so my best guest could be that the alliance fleet could number between 1000 and 3000 ships of all clases, its just a theory and I could be wrong though

Yeah, excluding fighters, 1000-3000 is something that would feel right gut-level. My only problem is that it would leave us with something like 0.5% of all military serving on ships. Where’s everyone else?

Modifié par lillitheris, 13 mai 2012 - 10:57 .

[chengda85]

Zartarc wrote...

chengda85 wrote...

lillitheris wrote...

So, I was puzzling this out. And yes, this is before the Reaper war.

Dreadnoughts: 9 known +1 possibly being built. Complement ~7500

Carriers: 3 recorded, +1 possible. Complement ~6000 + flight crews

Here’s where it gets interesting. Cruisers are the backbone of the fleets, and we know there’s a SSV Perugia. Now, given that Perugia would probably at best be the 5th city Italians would use, and the relative prominence of China/India/Africa/South America will be higher, it seems reasonable to assume that the name Perugia would at the earliest be given to around the 1000th craft.

Edit: injecting from a later thought, the 3% of humanity said to serve in the navy could be anywhere from 300 to 500 million people.

Cruisers: 10000 (?). Complement 2500-5000.

Frigates typically hunt in packs of 5-6, often with a cruiser in the lead. So we could assume:

Frigates: 60000. Complement 100 (on average)

We can only guess at numbers of fighters.

Fighters: 50000 (?) Complement 1 (some have 2)

Does this seem somewhere in the right ballpark? What are your numbers?

*Goes in search of other threads with possible info*

cruisers are only a bit smaller than dreadnaught, I dont think they have that many

A Cruiser is around 600 metres long. A dreadnought is nearly 900 metres long. This is a huge difference.

so they are about 33% bigger, I dont see why you would have 10000 cruisers when they are 600 meters long and cost a lot to build

Modifié par chengda85, 13 mai 2012 - 11:05 .

[Bravery]

lillitheris wrote...

Bravery wrote...

acording to the wiki the alliance has 8 known fleets, now in ME: Revelations it is stated that as of the first contact war 2157 the alliance had 200 ships, considering that in ME 1 joker says that the fleets were built on Arcturus station wich was started to built as early as 2152 it seems the alliance was able to built 200 ships in a period of 5 years which is relativly small, mass effect 3 takes place 29 years later, so my best guest could be that the alliance fleet could number between 1000 and 3000 ships of all clases, its just a theory and I could be wrong though

Yeah, excluding fighters, 1000-3000 is something that would feel right gut-level. My only problem is that it would leave us with something like 0.5% of all military serving on ships. Where’s everyone else?

Well a possible explanation for the remaining 2.5% it could be that the rest are Marine divisions, the alliance war asset tell´s you that there is a 103rd marine division now unless it´s a new strange type of numerical designation that pretty much could mean that the alliance has more than 100 marine division´s or maybe more station between the fleet and the colonies, then add fighter pilots, supply corps, the alliance engeniering corp and the exploration flotilla´s 

[Wulfram]

The Quarian fleet is the largest one in existence, and has 50,000 ships. So the Alliance doesn't have 60,000 frigates.

Not sure if Fighters would be counted as Ships in that.

[lillitheris]

Bravery wrote...

lillitheris wrote...

Bravery wrote...

acording to the wiki the alliance has 8 known fleets, now in ME: Revelations it is stated that as of the first contact war 2157 the alliance had 200 ships, considering that in ME 1 joker says that the fleets were built on Arcturus station wich was started to built as early as 2152 it seems the alliance was able to built 200 ships in a period of 5 years which is relativly small, mass effect 3 takes place 29 years later, so my best guest could be that the alliance fleet could number between 1000 and 3000 ships of all clases, its just a theory and I could be wrong though

Yeah, excluding fighters, 1000-3000 is something that would feel right gut-level. My only problem is that it would leave us with something like 0.5% of all military serving on ships. Where’s everyone else?

Well a possible explanation for the remaining 2.5% it could be that the rest are Marine divisions, the alliance war asset tell´s you that there is a 103rd marine division now unless it´s a new strange type of numerical designation that pretty much could mean that the alliance has more than 100 marine division´s or maybe more station between the fleet and the colonies, then add fighter pilots, supply corps, the alliance engeniering corp and the exploration flotilla´s 

No, 0.5% of the military. The military is 3% of all humans.

That is, 350-500 million people are in the military. Of that, only 1.7 million or so serve on ships if we go by 0.5%.

Where is the rest of the 348.3 million military personnel? :happy:

[Bravery]

lillitheris wrote...

Bravery wrote...

lillitheris wrote...

Bravery wrote...

acording to the wiki the alliance has 8 known fleets, now in ME: Revelations it is stated that as of the first contact war 2157 the alliance had 200 ships, considering that in ME 1 joker says that the fleets were built on Arcturus station wich was started to built as early as 2152 it seems the alliance was able to built 200 ships in a period of 5 years which is relativly small, mass effect 3 takes place 29 years later, so my best guest could be that the alliance fleet could number between 1000 and 3000 ships of all clases, its just a theory and I could be wrong though

Yeah, excluding fighters, 1000-3000 is something that would feel right gut-level. My only problem is that it would leave us with something like 0.5% of all military serving on ships. Where’s everyone else?

Well a possible explanation for the remaining 2.5% it could be that the rest are Marine divisions, the alliance war asset tell´s you that there is a 103rd marine division now unless it´s a new strange type of numerical designation that pretty much could mean that the alliance has more than 100 marine division´s or maybe more station between the fleet and the colonies, then add fighter pilots, supply corps, the alliance engeniering corp and the exploration flotilla´s 

No, 0.5% of the military. The military is 3% of all humans.

That is, 350-500 million people are in the military. Of that, only 1.7 million or so serve on ships if we go by 0.5%.

Where is the rest of the 348.3 million military personnel? :happy:

well like i said it problably means the rest are divided between the other service branches of the alliance military like the Marine ground forces (which seems to be larger in number than originaly assume), supply and engineiring corps and the exploration units, lets not forget that we dont know how much of that 3% is active before mass effect 3, the rest could be reseves and non active duty personal
plus the 3% codex entry is from mass effect 1 it could be possible that the alliance military as of ME3 could be large or smaller than that 3%

[AlanC9]

(Everyone here is aware of the possiblity that Bio didn't think these numbers through at all, right? Just checking).

Don't forget noncombatant ships. Troop transports, etc.

Modifié par AlanC9, 14 mai 2012 - 12:25 .

[Ianesta]

What type of ship was the Collector ship? 'Cause that was huuuuuge.

[arial]

Ianesta wrote...

What type of ship was the Collector ship? 'Cause that was huuuuuge.

a Cruiser, in the opening when it attacked the SR1 that nameless chick says "looks like a cruiser"

[Ianesta]

arial wrote...

Ianesta wrote...

What type of ship was the Collector ship? 'Cause that was huuuuuge.

a Cruiser, in the opening when it attacked the SR1 that nameless chick says "looks like a cruiser"

See I'm just confused now; it looked a lot bigger than the dreadnought's we've seen, such as the Destiny Acension in ME1, or the one that got blown up at the start of ME3. The Collector ship also looked bigger than most Reaper's, I've been replaying the original ME and I'm surprised how small Sovereign is. There's also a whole load of really big civilian ships, like on the mission to get Grunt you see one floating over head which is, in terms of size, the equal of any ship we've seen so far. I understand that it's not solely the size that dictates power but weapons and shielding and that, but I'd have thought making the biggest ships the dreadnaughts would be logical.

Because on the Collector ship they claim that the Collector's aim must be Earth, how could ONE Cruiser take on Earth?

Modifié par Ianesta, 14 mai 2012 - 12:44 .

[arial]

Ianesta wrote...

arial wrote...

Ianesta wrote...

What type of ship was the Collector ship? 'Cause that was huuuuuge.

a Cruiser, in the opening when it attacked the SR1 that nameless chick says "looks like a cruiser"

See I'm just confused now; it looked a lot bigger than the dreadnought's we've seen, such as the Destiny Acension in ME1, or the one that got blown up at the start of ME3. The Collector ship also looked bigger than most Reaper's, I've been replaying the original ME and I'm surprised how small Sovereign is. There's also a whole load of really big civilian ships, like on the mission to get Grunt you see one floating over head which is, in terms of size, the equal of any ship we've seen so far. I understand that it's not solely the size that dictates power but weapons and shielding and that, but I'd have thought making the biggest ships the dreadnaughts would be logical.

Because on the Collector ship they claim that the Collector's aim must be Earth, how could ONE Cruiser take on Earth?

if you want to get technical.

at the end of ME1, why does it make you lose half the fleet to save the Destiny Accension? are they human shielding it? otherwise it should not result in so many casualties from just taking out ships attacking it instead of ignoreing it.

[Raynulf]

lillitheris wrote...

So, I was puzzling this out. And yes, this is before the Reaper war.

Dreadnoughts: 9 known +1 possibly being built. Complement ~7500

Carriers: 3 recorded, +1 possible. Complement ~6000 + flight crews

Here’s where it gets interesting. Cruisers are the backbone of the fleets, and we know there’s a SSV Perugia. Now, given that Perugia would probably at best be the 5th city Italians would use, and the relative prominence of China/India/Africa/South America will be higher, it seems reasonable to assume that the name Perugia would at the earliest be given to around the 1000th craft.

Edit: injecting from a later thought, the 3% of humanity said to serve in the navy could be anywhere from 300 to 500 million people.

Cruisers: 10000 (?). Complement 2500-5000.

Frigates typically hunt in packs of 5-6, often with a cruiser in the lead. So we could assume:

Frigates: 60000. Complement 100 (on average)

We can only guess at numbers of fighters.

Fighters: 50000 (?) Complement 1 (some have 2)

Does this seem somewhere in the right ballpark? What are your numbers?

*Goes in search of other threads with possible info*

Mass Effect is quite insistent that given the high amount of automation on its ships, the crews are significantly lower.

Frigates: Around 10-50
Cruisers: Around 80-500 (depending on era, the former being the stated Alliance number)
Dreadnoughts: 5000-10,000 (Destiny Ascension was the biggest, baddest thing around at 10K)

Lets assume that the 3% is rounding up and the total population of all colonies is neglibible: 300 million military personnel. Let's assume 99% of them are infantry, marines, administration and so on, and only 5% of them are ship crew: 3 million crew members.

With 12 dreadnoughts and carriers (including flight crew), assuming they have 10K each, that's 120,000. With 2,880,000 remaining in frigates and cruisers.

Lets assume the cruisers are doing the bulk of the work, and there are twice as many as frigate wolfpacks, meaning about 2 frigates per cruiser (not that we ever SEE frigates in cutscenes, but hey): Assuming a cruiser has a crew of 400 and a frigate a crew of 50, we can chop up the 2.88 million crew to get:

~5,760 cruisers (500 per fleet, with a 1/3 on patrol)
~11,520 frigates (1,000 per fleet, with 1/3 on patrol)

The problem with trying to work this out is that what proportion of the navy serve as ships crew is somewhat arbitary. Also, it's a freaking huge number, and one that no sane person would try to put into cutscenes - so they didn't.

Cutscenes will generally be determined by three factors in order of priority:
1) What looks cool
2) What is cost effective for the coolness factor
3) What is in keeping with the setting.

Here's the battle for the citadel: youtu.be/heug7Aa5vWA

Some rough counts from what is on camera:
- Reaper capship x 1 (Sovereign)
- Geth cruisers x 50 or so (on camera in one shot, yes, really)
- Geth frigates x manylots (they are too small to see among the nebula in most cutscenes, but there are some shown)

- Asari Dreadnought x 1 (Destiny Ascension)
- Turian Cruisers x 30 or so (on camera in one shot)

- Alliance Dreadnought x 1 (maybe... none of the big ships are distinct from one another, but lets pretend the centerpiece capship is Hackett's dreadnought).
- Alliance Cruisers x 30 odd (consistent in a couple of shots).
- Alliance Frigates x manylots (small, hard to see)

(On camera, the fight is: 2 Dreadnoughts + 60 cruisers vs 1 Reaper + 50 cruisers)

Assuming that at any time, 40% of the cruisers are out of the camera shot, it would put a 'standard' fleet at around 1 dreadnought, 50 cruisers and 100 or so frigates (guessing here).

So 9 dreadnoughts and 3 carriers (at least) = 600 cruisers and 1200 frigates in the support fleets alone, with at least half that number again dedicated to patrol squadrons (given the nature of relay travel on tactics).

So by cutscene, the Alliance should have around the 3000 mark worth of ships, a third of which are cruisers - about on par with needing 1000 odd cruisers before one is named after Peruvia.

Assuming that this kind of fleet composition is "The Norm" based on the Citadel defence fleet, multiplying out by the number of dreadnoughts in 2186 should amount to the "Council" fleet being:

Dreadnoughts/Carriers: 87 (37 Turian, 21 Asari, 16 Salarian, 12 Human, 1 Volus)
Cruisers: 7250 (3085 Turian, 1750 Asari, 1330 Salarian, 1000 human, 85 Volus)
Frigates: 14,500

Plus Geth. Plus Quarians.

EDIT: Some additional commentary.

1) Frigates are tiny, and generally under 200m in length. Cruisers are up to 600m in length. Dreadnoughts are 800-1000m in length.

2) The 'power' of a mass accelerator weapon is based on its length: Kinetic energy is based on velocity squared, but as you extend the accelerator it 'adds' exponentially less velocity as it each later section has less time to act on the projectile (as it's going faster). So it is reasonable to assume that weapon 'power' scales directly with weapon (and thus ship) length, putting the main gun of Dreadnought between 30% (Alliance) and 60% (Destiny Ascension) more than an Alliance cruiser.

Even if it scaled exponentially, the dreadnought's main gun would still only be between 2x and 4x as powerful as a cruisers.

3) "So why all the crew?" Dreadnoughts function as mobile command centers and as suck are filled with people you don't want to die. For that reason, you would up the engine size and barrier capacity through the whazoo, and stick all your support crews on there, while keeping the minimum operating crews on your nowhere-near-as-tough cruisers

4) So what about frigates? They focus on avoiding the main guns of bigger ships using speed and maneuverability, and while their guns are only 30% as powerful as a cruisers (10% if it's exponential), by having 5-6 of them in a wolfpack, they can easily match a cruiser's firepower.

5) So what does this mean:
Dreadnought: Expensive as hell, tough as nails and packs guns with +60% range and power of a cruiser. Mobile command centers.
Cruisers: Cost effective mainline vessels, they lack the defenses of the Dreadnought in favor of mass production, and feature small crews to minimise casualties. Worst case: 4 cruisers can/ match the firepower of a dreadnought (though a dreadnought would kick their butts due to superior barriers).
Frigates: Speed + Guns. Small crews, big engines and modest weaponry, frigates rely on getting in close to avoid the big guns and focusing fire. Worst case scenario, 10 frigates matches a cruiser in firepower, and 40 match a dreadnought.

Converting the above numbers, the Citadel fleet equates to (using plain old kinetic weapons)
Worst case: 2262 dreadnoughts worth of boom
Best case: About 8000 dreadnoughts worth of boom

Modifié par Raynulf, 14 mai 2012 - 03:49 .

[sf0749]

Mass Effect 2
Codex/Humanity and the Systems Alliance/Primay Codex Entry/Rise of the Alliance/Paragon:

That negativy is vastly outwieghed by the respect and trust humanity earned by saving the Council during the 2183 attack on the Citadel, at the cost of Alliance cruisers Cario, Cape Town, Emden, Jakarta, Madrid, Seoul, Shenyang, and Warsaw and their 2400 crew.

When Commander Shepard, as a paragon, is in an interview with Khalisah al-Jilan in Mass Effect 2, he, or she, repeats what is stated in the Codex. Additionally, he, or she, states that the turians had lost 20 cruisers in the battle.

Mass Effect 3
War Assets/Alliance/Fifth Fleet

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Citadel during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago.

[The First Fleet and Third Fleet, in a major retcon, are reported as being at the Battle of the Citadel, and both fleets lost a third of their ships in this battle.]

[Tibullus]

If the Alliance capital ships have a larger compliment than it would seem, could it be that some of them double as troop transports, with the majority of the personnel aboard serving as an infantry strike force? For example, the squad members you have in ME1 to 3 do not actually aid in the operation of the Normandy, with the exception of Garrus (in all the games), perhaps Tali, and EDI in ME3.

I haven't looked much into this, but does the Alliance use specific ships as troop transports? For the Normandy serves both as a stealth transport and space combat vessel.

[Fixers0]

sf0749 wrote...

Mass Effect 2
Codex/Humanity and the Systems Alliance/Primay Codex Entry/Rise of the Alliance/Paragon:

That negativy is vastly outwieghed by the respect and trust humanity earned by saving the Council during the 2183 attack on the Citadel, at the cost of Alliance cruisers Cario, Cape Town, Emden, Jakarta, Madrid, Seoul, Shenyang, and Warsaw and their 2400 crew.

When Commander Shepard, as a paragon, is in an interview with Khalisah al-Jilan in Mass Effect 2, he, or she, repeats what is stated in the Codex. Additionally, he, or she, states that the turians had lost 20 cruisers in the battle.

Mass Effect 3
War Assets/Alliance/Fifth Fleet

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Citadel during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago.

[The First Fleet and Third Fleet, in a major retcon, are reported as being at the Battle of the Citadel, and both fleets lost a third of their ships in this battle.]

Yeah, this would imply that eight cruisers made up a third of three fleets, which is absurd.

[GODzilla]

lillitheris wrote...
1. Why do dreadnoughts have so many more people?

My idea would be that a dreadnought, being only a third bigger in terms of lenght but at least double in mass compared to a cruiser, it serves not only as battleship, but also as troop carrier. Yes I know, this special role is still filled with carriers, but since dreadnoughts are mostly deployed in important battles and - according to the codex - those often focus around a point of interest, like a planet, it could very well carry dropships and marines as well.

Thus the considerably larger crew.

Bravery wrote...

acording to the wiki the alliance has 8
known fleets, now in ME: Revelations it is stated that as of the first
contact war 2157 the alliance had 200 ships, considering that in ME 1
joker says that the fleets were built on Arcturus station wich was
started to built as early as 2152 it seems the alliance was able to
built 200 ships in a period of 5 years which is relativly small, mass
effect 3 takes place 29 years later, so my best guest could be that the
alliance fleet could number between 1000 and 3000 ships of all clases,
its just a theory and I could be wrong though

Definitely sounds more reasonable than the "10.000" and "150.000" in the startpost. ^^ Yeah, I agree...gut-like. Maybe it's just me and my inability to wrap my mind around SO many ships. [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/wink.png[/smilie]

But it would also fit in the whole strategy explained in the codex, stating that it is impossible for the Alliance to garrison all planets. Instead they place larger fleets at some important and central mass relays, able to react to an attack within minutes or hours.

A strategy like this has many advantages. Central support and maintenance of the fleet. The ability to always strike with a superior force (kinda a roman strategy ^^) and so on. Spreading your forces too thin would only enable potential enemies to pick them apart one by one.

Now, with numbers as described in the startpost a strategy like this would not be nessecary. Thus I believe the numbers are way too high.

Last but not least...the whole visual component. What we see in ME3 feels more like "several thousand" than "several tens / hundreds of thousands". Even regarding the Turians!

Modifié par GODzilla_GSPB, 14 mai 2012 - 09:35 .

[lillitheris]

sf0749 wrote...

Mass Effect 2
Codex/Humanity and the Systems Alliance/Primay Codex Entry/Rise of the Alliance/Paragon:

That negativy is vastly outwieghed by the respect and trust humanity earned by saving the Council during the 2183 attack on the Citadel, at the cost of Alliance cruisers Cario, Cape Town, Emden, Jakarta, Madrid, Seoul, Shenyang, and Warsaw and their 2400 crew.

When Commander Shepard, as a paragon, is in an interview with Khalisah al-Jilan in Mass Effect 2, he, or she, repeats what is stated in the Codex. Additionally, he, or she, states that the turians had lost 20 cruisers in the battle.

Mass Effect 3
War Assets/Alliance/Fifth Fleet

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Citadel during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago.

[The First Fleet and Third Fleet, in a major retcon, are reported as being at the Battle of the Citadel, and both fleets lost a third of their ships in this battle.

These are actual given details, but they both contradict the reasonable size of fleets, as well as the 80 crew figure given (2400 / 8 = 300).

Someone above asked whether it might be possible they just completely messed up the numbers? Absolutely…just need to figure out which way. My feeling is that the 3% serving in SA is not at all unreasonable, and we have to derive numbers from that.

Good points raised in other posts, too, I’ll get back to the thread after some breakfast… :happy:

[Wulfram]

If you take the 3% figure, it's pretty hard to justify the Alliance fleet being smaller than the Quarians. And it gets even harder to handle the Quarians having the largest fleet when you're supposed to have higher rates of military service in the other Council races.

Not that that codex's implication that the Asari and Volus have a higher proportion of their population in the military than humans fits very well with everything else we know about them

[lillitheris]

^ Quick thought that I need to check against quotes: can the quarian fleet be semi-retconned to be the largest single fleet? As in, it’s bigger than, say, the Alliance First Fleet (but not necessarily all of them).

[Wulfram]

Well, Raan's conversation seems to be comparing it directly with the Turian's entire force.

War assets terms, it's potentially 825 points. Which is a lot more than the Alliance First Fleet - though less than the implied strength of a full Alliance, since a single alliance fleet seems to be worth about 125 war assets and there were 8 at the start of the war.

(edit:  Not saying we should take the War assets particularly literally, but they should be some sort of indication)

Certainly Bioware's intent seems to be that the Quarian fleet should be a major force

Modifié par Wulfram, 14 mai 2012 - 11:21 .

[lillitheris]

Raynulf wrote...

Lets assume that the 3% is rounding up and the total population of all colonies is neglibible: 300 million military personnel. Let's assume 99% of them are infantry, marines, administration and so on, and only 5% of them are ship crew: 3 million crew members.

It must be at least 330 million, given population of Earth alone. At any rate, 5% of 300 million is 15 million, not 3 million, so I assume you meant the 1%. A couple hundred thousand here or there is inconsequential.

To pad it out, let’s assume that there’s a significant number of noncombatant ships such as hospital crafts and various transports.

~5,760 cruisers (500 per fleet, with a 1/3 on patrol)
~11,520 frigates (1,000 per fleet, with 1/3 on patrol)

These seem somewhat reasonable numbers. Changing around the assumed crew numbers a little keeps us within the ballpark of 5000-8000 cruisers and 10000-15000 frigates. The number of fighters is inconsequential, each having a single crewmember (my assumption by the wording on human Carriers is that the other races have fighters, but they’re mostly launched from cruisers and dreadnoughts, and in smaller numbers).

3) "So why all the crew?" Dreadnoughts function as mobile command centers and as suck are filled with people you don't want to die. For that reason, you would up the engine size and barrier capacity through the whazoo, and stick all your support crews on there, while keeping the minimum operating crews on your nowhere-near-as-tough cruisers

I have mostly considered dreadnoughts as primarily offensive ships. Their attack power is significantly higher (as you noted in the snipped part), but I’m not certain their defensive capabilities scale equally. In this sense, I’d think it would make far more sense to distribute the essential functions with redundancies between cruisers. They’re more agile, disproportionately more defendable, and there’s more of them.

But, you may be right.

[lillitheris]

Also, found this: “The Alliance maintains an impressive navy consisting of over 200 vessels ranging from small hundred meter frigates to imposing kilometer long dreadnoughts and carriers.”

200 vessels is patently absurd. They can’t even begin to move the marines with that, let alone actually fight.

[Wulfram]

On carriers, they don't seem to be a human exclusive thing any more, the codex on the Battle of Palaven has the Turians using a couple, launching unmanned fighters and drones.  Quarian War asset says that they've got some too.

Do we have any figures for Dreadnought crew numbers, other than the 10,000 on the DA?  Because that number could be heavily swollen by people evacuating the Citadel.

Personally, I'd prefer to multiply the number of Dreadnoughts we've got by at least 10.  And do the same for the Quarian population, too.  But I guess that would be too radically departing from the official numbers.