The Enterprise-D Size Question: was the TNG Enterprise too big?

[Nutso]

[McAvoy]

Yes. For a crew that size and even taking in account for the size of the rooms, the ship is just huge.

Figure damage control. A ship this large would either mean during combat situations, either the crew is spaced out or concentrated in certain areas. So if a energy impact hit a certain part of the hull, perhaps a phaser relay energy thingie in the saucer, it might take valuable time for a repair crew to get to it.

Or think simple shifts. 8-12 hour shifts. 1,000 crew but not all Starfleet. Let's assume it's 750 crew members. That means 3 8 hour 250 crew shifts, or 2 12 hour 375 crew shifts. That's not alot of people to oversee a ship of this size during normal day to day operations.

Honestly, TNG could have tripled the crew to 3,000 and it would not have made a difference on the show, and it would have worked a bit better.

[bladela]

we could simply say the galaxy class does have a lot more automation that we would expect