for example, i figure on the following:
carpenter: while wood is relatively scarce in wildspace, i would still expect there to be a carpenter of some degree of skill in most every community. not only for building houses (which imo is likely a little less common to use wood in wildspace for houses), but for furniture (not so important), ships, ship weapons, etc. likely to be combined with shipwright and engineer in very small communities.
engineer: it is a fact of life that you need ship weapons in a community if you expect it to not fall to space pirates almost instantly. this person may very well be combined into other jobs, however (especially shipwright), and often spend much of their engineering time designing defensive structures, ship weapons, and nonmagical ship engines, and maintaining those things also. if not someone who can design and build from scratch, at least someone who can maintain and repair them.
shipwright: if nothing else, someone who can perform basic repairs on a ship that comes into the community damaged. most likely, however, the community will have at least some small ships (probably under 5 tons, most likely thin wood construction, at least in small towns. certainly, in the smaller communities, i wouldn't expect more than 5,000 gp on any given ship, and in the smallest communities likely only one ship will be present).
stonemason: let's face it, the most readily available building resource to a new community is probably rock. maybe the asteroid they settle actually even has plants or even trees growing on it, but those trees are likely either a trade asset, or are keeping the air envelope from getting tainted.
miner(s): i would suspect even the smallest community to have a few miners, or at least people with the proficiency. the ability to make homes, barns, storehouses, defensive structures, docking facilities, etc by tunnelling out the asteroid they are on is simply too useful to pass up. many of these people are probably not actual miners, however, so much as they are trained in tunnelling, making underground rooms, etc. in smaller communities, one of these guys is probably also the stonemason, and is responsible for making the houses and such made in this manner more liveable.
gardener/farmer/whatever: someone who grows plants as a profession. even if the asteroid has no agricultural base whatsoever, it will have some plants, and someone who's job it is to keep those plants going so that the air is breathable. often, those plants also have second uses (medicinal herbs, food plants, glow moss, trees for lumber, etc).
terraformation expert: this person probably has other jobs... such as the gardener/farmer/whatever. basically, if this person wasn't there, the community probably couldn't exist. there job may have started with making the asteroid habitable, or it may have just been to make changes in the asteroid; more or less swampy, introduce new plant/animal species, whatever.
trapper/leatherworker: stuck in the middle of space, it costs money to bring anything in... yeah, they're gonna have someone who can make use of every part of any animal they might kill. not to mention, this guy is likely the town's source of armor, if any. unfortunately, tanning can be a smelly proposition... if nothing else, however, this person is probably in charge of eliminating pests (i have a hard time believing a world will get colonized and visited, but not have rats one way or another) and turning them into useful products: clothing, armor, blankets, etc.
ok, so there's some of my basic thoughts. i'm also going to suggest some possible 'common ideas' as far as some basic ideas for communities and terraforming/colonizing projects might go.
bamboo: fast growing, straight, easy to grow, and not terribly rare (keeping in mind spelljammers can cross the world relatively quickly to find some) i suspect bamboo is a fairly popular choice for many colonies. it provides building materials, air, fuel (not sure how well it burns, tough), and such. not especially difficult to harvest, to my understanding, and would be fairly straight... a good choice for weapon hafts, arrow shafts, and so forth, i would think. not as good for traditional western construction uses, of course, but for a community with limited resources...
i would suppose that most colonies can't afford to waste much effort. it costs a lot of money to establish a colony, and it costs money to bring anything in. as such, i would expect them to make use of things which we might throw away: rubble from mining out homes would be used for catapult/jettison ammunition, larger chunks might be used for building materials, and so forth. additionally, i would suspect underground storage to be used for bunkers and such in case of attack.
terraforming ships: basically, you get some crappy one-ton ships (maybe rockships, or something like that). you devise a launch method that is basically just an initial boost (ie catapult), fire these off from a main mother ship at the planet you want to colonise, and thereby create an air envelope, or a fresh air envelope, on an otherwise barren asteroid. this step could be skipped for asteroids with fresh air, of course (but such should be rare if they have noone on them already). sometimes the ships would go with soil, and would be used to provide good soil and, if mixed with seeds, can even start the growth of plants on the target asteroid.
infinity vine: oh, the many uses of infinity vine. it would have to be stored in a dark place (most likely magically dark), but what uses it could have. it can provide air quickly enough (it grows so fast, and the more area it covers the faster it freshens air). i could certainly see this being used in various ways. set up a small planetoid with this stuff, and you've got a source of air for those terraforming ships. as i recall, it is also edible, and would therefore make a good emergency food supply. certainly not safe to leave unattended, but you could, for example, generate soil (drop it on a small asteroid, it will turn some of the rock to soil. burn the vine, and you add ash, which can enrich soil, to my understanding. do this on an asteroid close to your target colony a few times, and you've got a soil factory). infest a small ship with it (nonmagical 3engine), and have that ship fly around your colony, providing fresh air. indeed, with a hollow cavern on your gravity plane, you could have the ship inside, with the engine making sure it doesn't touch the walls. (though this is, of course, a bit risky... perhaps keep it in darkness so it doesn't grow, and use this only in emergencies) possibly even use your infested planetoid mentioned earlier for terraforming further into the community's lifetime. you could make air runs back and forth, if it's not too far. you can cause industries which pollute or consume a lot of air (tannery, blacksmith, etc) operate from ships that orbit the planetoid, and stop off at home only to exchange goods and such (indeed, you could even have a small community formed orbiting an infested planetoid using multiple ships).
i would suppose that most planetoids that get settled are size A or smaller, or have a gravity plane. these features are, imo, necessary to enable the community to exist. even the smallest community would need some kind of navy, in my opinion, even if that 'navy' is a wreckship with a nonmagical engine and a light catapult. without such a navy, a community is terribly vulnerable to attack from even the smallest of vessels. not 100% sure, but i think the catamaran from WCC is supposed to be 500 gp and include a nonmagical engine in that cost, and would likely be a common choice.
so what are your thoughts? i'm sure i've missed something, or maybe i'm just totally off my rocker on a few of those guesses. what do you think would be almost required for a spelljammer community to set up shop?
[edit] another one to add to the list of essential people: salvage/reclamation expert. when you may only see a ship from outside your asteroid every week or two, you've got probably 2-4 weeks minimum before any special requests can be made, and furthermore everything costs money to move. the materials you could salvage from broken tools, structures, furniture, etc, could save significant amounts of money for the community, which likely is making an investment as a community simply to be able to order much of anything from elsewhere. as such, someone who can repair/jury rig/salvage useful parts from damaged and broken items is very valuable. [/edit]
Undertaker. Yes you can chuck your dead into space but its not seen as very lucky. (they tend to come back as some type of undead) Not to mention any sort of religion you might worship might frown on it. And those bodies make good sources of fodder for the plants, so bury them! Pirates tend to have lots of cash and are very concerned with luck and the bad kind. So they might take the time to have there old captain put to proper rest.
Conmen (or women) tend to be in the booming asteriod towns. Lots of money about and not so smart people to take it from. From sideshow hawker to the down on his luck miner with a map to sell. They all want whatever they can get from the PC's with the least amount of risk.
Stranded: Travel isn't cheap and sometimes the prices go up on the way. Those that can't pay are dumped off at the nearest port if there lucky. (sometimes minus there things) Left broke and without a way out they may take up begging or try to find a job. The local church might help but they never seem to have enough. Good way to rope those good clerics into doing so holy work. Turns out the stranded is of the same faith (big holy symbol for the pc's to notice) Can they help get them a ride? NPC's tend to poke there noses into the traps the DM wants to set off. Panic at the wrong moment altering the monster. All kinds of fun you can do with them.
That is all I have right now.
Seige weapons like ballistas would be made/operated by "artillerists", though a carpenter would know the basics, an artillerist used to actually MAKE and design them as it was a rare/skilled craft.
making a "man powered trebuchet" is not too hard, but ballistas and big seige trebuchets would be, they're harder to make than you'd think.
-Rememebr there's no "WIkipedia" for a carpenter to look up details on crafting! ;) Thus many professions had "trade secrets" we'd consider pretty obvious.
Couple of simple animations I made while ago on ballistas ( they use DIVX video codec iirc)
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/movies/ballista_light.avi
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/artofadreamer/movies/ballista.mpg
Bamboo is a very good choice for building etc, good call!
THough it burns poorly iirc, and if you ain't careful, deadly (the tube sections can explode if there's water in them).
However material that falls from them, dried leaves etc maybe ok...or other similar plants with better characteristics.
Lot of plants maybe grown for dual or multiple use, such as a large shrub/bamboo type plant may be used for tanning leather, it's bark for medicine, and limbs "copiced" for arrows or fire wood.
but in D&D, these things tend to just get lumped together. for example, different types of weapons would be made by different craftsmen... someone who makes swords wouldn't be especially good at warhammers, maces, clubs, spears, etc. generally speaking (though i'm sure to some extent the basic knowledge of blacksmithing would apply).
in any event, the source of my confusion is that, in 2nd edition at least, there were 3 different NWPs iirc that all refer to siege type weaponry: engineering to design them, and either carpentry or weaponsmith to make them (i think weaponsmith is mentioned in an expansion book, and i would probably consider it less reliable in that area though). in third, i don't think it's ever specified, but i suspect it would just use knowledge(architecture and engineering) and craft(carpentry) to design and build them, respectively.
Bamboo is a very good choice for building etc, good call!
You're right about that! I grew up in Hong Kong, where it's not unusual to see 20-story buildings enclosed in bamboo scaffolding and green netting for cleaning or repair work. I even read an article recently about "Nanotech Wonder Plants" that extolled the virtues of bamboo (and potatoes).
Wyvern
mastersword makers certainly existed, and that's all they made. A blacksmith coudl make wepaons, but at some point they often became spcialized inw epaons, depending on the culture and size/era etc. Axes and spears were far more prevalent for most of history because hey were simpler to make and actually far more useful than swords (cuttign wood, killing game etc).
When ti ocmes to seige engines, there were indeed "artillerists", it was a profession in both East and West. Again, ti wasn't as simple as oflk think, and few folk knew the way the mechanisms or "science" of it worked (Greeks worked out the ratio length for trebuchet arms, romans the best winding system for ballistas etc).
Sorry to sort of side track your post, very good one by the way! I love NPCs, "Expert" being about my fave class after wizard ;)
also, good point with the potatoes Wyvern... a very versatile food crop indeed, and likely found in wildspace a lot as well
and if we're going to look at what it takes in 3rd to make siege weapons, then i'm going to stick with knowledge(architecture and engineering) to design them, and carpentry to build them. thus, an artillerist would likely be someone with both skills, and possibly also blacksmith or weaponsmith. in any event, the carpenter would just be someone who builds it. they would, indeed, need either appropriate knowledge, or someone else to direct them on how to build it.
as far as the knowledge being uncommon, i suspect that it's a little more common in wildspace. mainly because they're the basic tools needed to defend yourself (as a community or ship) in wildspace.