The six combat engineers makes the soldiers redundant. Unless you want Red Shirts
Depends on exactly how scary the native lifeforms are. If there's a need for a full-time manned perimeter, the soldiers are definitely not redundant...the combat engineers can either stand guard or get some actual work done. And since they're building an airfield, the perimeter would have to cover quite a sizeable area.
Reality is for those who lack imagination.
Anyway, redundancy is what you really want in such a scenario. A single specialist for each role won't work, because one little accident, an unexpected illness or something else could jeopardize the whole mission that way. You don't want one-trick ponies, you want people who can cover multiple parts of the mission profile in a pinch. You want generalists insofar as that is possible. You want the broadest possible spectrum of skills on each individual member of your expedition.
Reality is for those who lack imagination.
Realistically, you'll have specialists who have some general knowledge. It'd be more like, a medical doctor and a surgeon and a biologist who assist each other as needs overlap (plus whatever medic training the crewcuts have).
Since the (civilian?) Comm engineer's time there will be "step one, set up radio; step two, be lazy", I'd think of something else for that character to do. Records specialist?
I'd install a one-car space elevator for surface-to-space extraction, the idea being that this is the sort of thing the setting's Army Corps of Engineers have on hand. Less need for fuel on the surface and facilities.
I'd also give the specialists away-team training with combat equipment. And since it's me, "combat equipment" is basically Mini Mechas.
I was actually considering that since every combat engineer can fight and build, why not have a team of 14 combat engineers? You can rotate engineering and guard duties to keep them fresh.
edited 20th May '15 1:35:03 PM by Belisaurius
edited 20th May '15 2:27:25 PM by MattII
The natives are irrelevant for mission planning purposes, of course. If there's no contact with them before the mission, you wouldn't make any plans involving them.
Another thing to think about: For a mission like this, you'd better be following the KISS principle religiously. That means for your equipment, you need to go as low-tech as possible. You don't want fancy gadgets with a sleek case and a logo featuring the fruit of your choice, you want kit that in an emergency can be wrangled back into something resembling working order with duct tape and a bit of Percussive Maintenance by a half-trained monkey. That means your equipment is likely to be comparatively clumsy, bulky (the bigger something is, the easier it tends to be to fix when it breaks...up to certain limits, of course) and manpower-intensive in its use. Expect a lot of manual labor taking place even in an otherwise extremely high-tech setting.
Which means your engineers should probably be a bit more of the classic greasemonkey type than Geordi "Reverse the Polarity" LaForge. Skills at working with gear that'd be considered way outdated by the general standards of the setting would be a definite plus.
Reality is for those who lack imagination.
The troops do detest having to carry projectile weapons when they're more used to lasers.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Not being used to projectile weapons would mean that while they'll maintain their weapons very well (you do not want to see what happens to a laser rifle with a dirty lens)they won't be familiar with the quirks of projectile weapons like deflection shots and over penetration.
edited 20th May '15 2:50:28 PM by Belisaurius
Deflection they're trained for (and it's expect they'll only be using them against charging animals, so minimal deflection anyway), and over-penetration is solved by having a bullet-butt mounted trigger. They don't like it though, because they're more used to lasers, which don't produce recoil.
The comm engineer won't be underworked. The long distance communicator might be the most sophisticated (read : prone to failure) and vital piece of technology they have with them, and if communications are relayed by a satellite he'll have to manage that too. Remotely, for added fun.
edited 20th May '15 5:32:50 PM by Aetol
Worldbuilding is fun, writing is a chore
The comms engineer would also be in charge of the networking, keeping track of every bit of telemetry and data. He'd know where everybody is and what they're doing. He'd be responsible for routing calls for help to the right person and coordinating separate groups.
In times of crisis, the comms engineer would likely be the only one with the big picture.
Long range comms is surface to orbit (the ship stays in orbit the whole period, which is okay because it's a converted asteroid mining vessel, so actually made for such). In addition, that communicator can be supplemented by a much more basic but simple and bulletproof radio.
Okay, I've got a story in the works ATM, which features future humans prospecting out a new world for potential colonisation. This isn't a Star Trek style away mission either, this group has to survive on an alien world (No Biochemical Barriers is heavily averted, they can breathe the air most of the time, but most or all local organic compounds are lethally poisonous) for a full earth year (about 90% of a local year). Furthermore, there are known to be large (above 1 ton) local animals that appear hostile to outsiders. The Team as I figure it is made of 24 individuals:
Does this seem like a viable team? Note that the combat engineers are in because extraction is via a Skylon type space-plane, and laying down sufficient facilities for it is expected to take most of a year (I couldn't think of a way of arranging a conventional rocket that was safe to use without much larger facilities).
edited 20th May '15 2:25:38 PM by MattII