Cohort without crew advancement
How strict are you guys with the whole acquiring cohorts mechanic? Often times the contacts from character creation would make perfect cohorts (e.g. doctors) and are already close / loyal to one of the crew.
My plan is to make the doctor unavailable for a downtime or 2 to show them he’s got a full live and isn’t on call for the crew. Making him a cohort will take a while though since they are fresh tier 1, so I’m playing it like the doc isn’t ready to leave his life behind and the crew has no equipment / place for the doc. And if they want to make room, get to equipment etc. I have to tell them “you can’t get those in a long term project or a score since it’s a crew advancement” (which feels like a real fiction second thing to say :/).
Do you just let your players add them as cohorts?
When in doubt, make it a project. If it’s something fairly large and/or complicated, make it multiple linked projects.
Yep if they want to break outside the rules as written just have them make a long-term project. Long-term project is for anything, whether they want to create something new or break outside of the rules as they are.