Incidentally, the game described in the first post, April Fools joke or not, is identical to the game design I have been wanting to see someone make since roughly forever.
Just the concept of multi-crew ships is cool and I hope to see that some day.
My vision of it would be that you generally have "captains" and "crew" with crew slots being something that can be filled on the fly. So a ship might not need a gunner 100% of the time but when the action starts, he can call for one and someone waiting for a crew slot to open can jump when needed. Similarly, you could have boarding action where captains can call for boarding party crews to sign up when needed, versus sitting in room on the ship somewhere with your thumb up your butt waiting for the one time security personnel are actually needed.
Anyway, I hope someone makes that game one day. The only multi-crew vehicles I ever see are in WW2 games.