One of Full Thrust's main gaps is in crew quality. I wanted to add StarGrunt's use of different die types to represent varying qualities, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work until I read Allan's post. This house rule has two parts.
In normal FT, you roll a high number to make things happen, so let's turn that upside down. Beam dice that roll a 1 against an unscreened target get two points of damage and a reroll; they do one point of damage on a 2 or 3; and they miss on a 4 or higher. Similarly, PTorps hit on a 1 out to extreme range, and always miss on a 6 or higher. A threshold check roll of 1 will take out that system, and a single damage control party needs a 1 to repair a system. Caveat: this only affects "To Hit" rolls, not damage rolls.
Crew qualities and suggested cost multipliers are listed below. Elites may cause problems--for instance, with PTorps at 12mu or less, they are guaranteed to hit. Therefore you may want to reserve them for Story Protagonists or other special cases. The GZGverse major powers would have Normal crews. Breakaway colonies, minor governments, pirates, corporate ships and merchantmen are likely to have crews which are Green or worse.
| Grade | Dice | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Legendary | d4 | x 1.3 |
| Elite | d5 | x 1.15 |
| Normal | d6 | x 1.0 |
| Green | d8 | x 0.85 |
| Poor | d10 | x 0.75 |
| Untrained | d12 | x 0.65 |
The most important factor for placed ordnance (such as salvo missiles) is where the marker is placed, which is a factor of player skill. To simulate a more experienced crew, we need to move the marker. After ships have finished moving, allow the target player to adjust the position of missile markers by 1mu if the missiles came from a Green rated ship; by 2mu if they're from a Poor ship; or 3mu from an Untrained ship. If the missiles come from an Elite ship or Legendary ship, the firer would be the one to adjust the marker by 1 or 2 mu.
In the case of salvo missiles, the other factor to consider is how many missiles lock onto the target. The missile guidance package won't usually be affected by the quality of the firing ship; instead, the key variable is the target's ability to jam, spoof and evade. Therefore, after assigning PDS fire, roll the target's quality die for each salvo. The result, up to a maximum of 6, is the number of missiles that lock on and attack.
If you're really feeling ambitious, you could have different systems on the same ship use different qualities. Perhaps your Beam gunners and Damage Control teams use a d6, your ECM team and torpedo crews are d8 quality, and you have a d4 fighter squadron embarked...