|
Post by Captain Erys Murai on Jan 14, 2013 11:40:34 GMT -5
We were discussing the skill system last night, and I realized something that's a bit of an issue with the way most of our ships operate.
According to the player handbook,
Now, as I recall, the system we're currently using is actually based on the TOS version, which is why the term "Navigator" kinda makes sense there. In the TOS days, there was helm, and navigator, with no clear tactical officer in most cases.
However, in the TNG era, there is a clear tactical officer (Tasha Yar, Worf, Tuvok, Eddington, Kira, etc), and in most cases they are the ones handling all weapons and shields during combat.
Currently, the tactical career path only offers a skill of 20 in deflector control, with Operations receiving a full 40. As I mentioned before, that makes sense with TOS days, but things have changed since then.
So, as such, I recommend we at least increase the Tactical career training to have 40 in Deflector Shield Operations, so that they may adequately perform their duty.
Current tactical / security officers would of course need their sheets adjusted to reflect this change, if it's enacted.
|
|
|
Post by Kossuth on Jan 14, 2013 12:02:08 GMT -5
The way that I've always handled this is that the player ship has a set shield value and the quality of an enemy hit determines the effect on the shield. So it's a behind-the-scenes calculation involving the strength of the player ship shield, the level of success of the enemy hit roll, the type of weapon used and the relative strength of the NPC ship.
I'm not even sure what Deflector Operation would DO in a normal combat situation. I could see that coming into play if you had to repair the deflector or do something unusual with the deflector (like the TNG Best of Both Worlds deflector weapon) but I've never used it I think.
|
|
DGM Cygnus
Game Master Group
Assistant Admin / DGM of the USS Adagio
Posts: 2,191
|
Post by DGM Cygnus on Jan 14, 2013 12:19:12 GMT -5
Erys the rules are not perfect but they are workable, we have a character development system and it allows players to expand their represented skill set. I do not think just throwing skill training at everyone (reasoned or not) is the answer. The long term development is better long term solution since it encourages quality role playing and participation, which is the ultimate goal of our fleet. As for how I use Deflector Ops...gauges skill in shield deflector ops such as: trying to adjust the shield to be more resistant to phasers, trying to re modulate to counter the Borg, using the deflector as weapon, trying to bring other active shield arrays to cover a collapses in the shield arc? Use of tractor/repulsor beams. These are some examples when Deflector Ops comes up. I also take into consideration related skills.. Having both Deflector Shield Operation and Deflector Shield Technology gives a player a more complete understanding of the system and he or she gets a synergy bonus in related tasks. Computers...everyone has Computer Operation, but few have developed Computer Technology and Computer Science..having all 3 highly developed is what makes a computer system expert. The way that I've always handled this is that the player ship has a set shield value and the quality of an enemy hit determines the effect on the shield. So it's a behind-the-scenes calculation involving the strength of the player ship shield, the level of success of the enemy hit roll, the type of weapon used and the relative strength of the NPC ship. I'm not even sure what Deflector Operation would DO in a normal combat situation. I could see that coming into play if you had to repair the deflector or do something unusual with the deflector (like the TNG Best of Both Worlds deflector weapon) but I've never used it I think. Repairs would fall under Tech.. Deflector Shield TechnologyThis skill involves the repair and maintenance of the devices that produce a starship's protective screens and its tractor/pressor beams. Training involves instruction on the theory behind the devices as well as extensive guided practice constructing and repairing the devices and their controlling panels. Engineering Officers and Operations Officers are competent in this skill so that they may make emergency repairs to the equipment, even during starship combat. This skill is used in starship combat by the Navigator in case a bridge hit damages the Deflector Shield Panel. It also could be used if a character desired to construct a tractor/ pressor beam or shield generator while on an adventure.
|
|
|
Post by Captain Erys Murai on Jan 14, 2013 16:14:10 GMT -5
I'm not really asking for skills to be thrown at everyone "just because", I'm trying to fix a problem that causes problems with RP. Really, the problem is that we're roleplaying a TNG-era game with a TOS-era system. Skills and training are out of date and mismatched. What would be the real "answer" is updating our system to actually be accurate to how training really is, rather than just trying to work around it.
Long-term development is one thing, and I agree that's something we should work for in general. But using an out-of-date system is equivalent to training a modern-day soldier to use a musket, and then expecting him to use a machine gun or tank as if he's been trained on those. If the training numbers are wrong, then the live action will suffer as a result. Someone who is supposed to be trained in something, and expected to be proficient at it, should not be penalized because they did not receive the training they were supposed to get.
This is just one example, but it's hard to have "quality" roleplay when a freshly-minted Tactical officer is expected to keep the shields running with a 20 in Deflector Shield operations. There are other examples, of course. And ideally, we should be updating our system completely. But that would probably take too much effort, since it would require all 30 of us to redo our character sheets.
So instead of doing that, I'm hoping we can at least fix the major problems with the system.
|
|
|
Post by Captain T'Pang on Jan 14, 2013 16:16:29 GMT -5
Just to add my two cents worth in on this... First everything Cygnus said is very true and the way I understood the way things worked. As far as Deflector operations/Technology goes it is important to remember that that skill apparently covers the shield emitters, the ship's main deflectors, as well as apparently every other emitter on the ship (tractor replusors) holographic emitters are something of a grey area and I am uncertain what if any skills deal with that. But then again I am uncertain how important that is. I agree that in the TNG shows the tac officer dealt a lot with shields and tractor beams and thus as a position probably deserves some consideration for at least a 40 in deflector operation (professional level.) From an RP perspective I alway s thought it would be a useful excercise to determine what skills covered what. Then based on the job funtion from each station determine what the key job skills were for each station. Those key job skills should always be at least 40, except perhaps in the case of a junior officer in which one can always say they are skill training. Of course to say they are training there must be a senior officer to train them and a means of gaining in skill. A system for which is in plce on some ships. I realize some of this is in place, just spread around. Having it concentrated in a specific loaction and easy to find would be nice. It would be useful from an RP perspective. As an example: The captain want to give an order to retune the main deflector as a particle beam, who does he give the order to? Some jobs are pretty self evident, example fire the phasers, the goto officer would be the tac officer. Another RP use of this concept would be in assigning people in positions. example: realistically we would have to assume there are certain requirements to be a chief engineer. One of those would be completing department head training. But you also have to assume that they need be a competent engineer and thus would be assumed to have certain engineering skills at certain levels. Of course this requirement would have to be rather loose. since the difference between a skill of 30 and a skill of 40 ICly would be hard to gauge and probably wouldn't be revealed until the ship was on the line. After the crew is in the life boats, Captain: "Well I guess he wasn't really qualified was he now?" I guess it has always bugged me that our dice system seems to have little impact over our RP beyond the obvious skill check during events. Despite that fact that the numbers are an OOC thingy. The ratings have IC implications. Example, if your character has the highest rating in a particular skill on your ship. It would be reasonable that person might become the go-to person for that skill irregardless of the color of thier uniform. After who cares if the person is in security if they can get the computer fixed. Of course this is assuming that anyone on the crew knows ICly that the security officer has a 90 in computer technology , or is that a secret from his misspent youth as a computer thief? I suppose I shouldn't ramble.
|
|
|
Post by Captain T'Pang on Jan 14, 2013 16:36:43 GMT -5
This is just one example, but it's hard to have "quality" roleplay when a freshly-minted Tactical officer is expected to keep the shields running with a 20 in Deflector Shield operations. There are other examples, of course. And ideally, we should be updating our system completely. But that would probably take too much effort, since it would require all 30 of us to redo our character sheets. So instead of doing that, I'm hoping we can at least fix the major problems with the system. ICly it can be worked around. If for example the Tac officer has a low skill in deflector operation some other character with a higher skill might need to strep in and pick up the slack. This would offer opportunity for character development as well as opportunity for players to work together on a problem. As a "newly minted" tactical officer it isn't so much of a problem. Where it becomes an issue in my mind is when characters are promoted into department head positions with skills that are substandard for the position. Which I realize that such is typically done because of lack of players. It is just it makes no sense ICly. I personally would love to see a long term development solution for such problems.
|
|
|
Post by Captain Erys Murai on Jan 14, 2013 17:18:39 GMT -5
Here's a listing of tactical officers and their skills in Deflector Shield Operations:
Tactical Officers: Erys Murai - 40 Vorath - 40 Malitzka - 30 Talia - 30 Tiberius Asada - 20 Joyaus Dalun - 20 Aidan - 20 Steel - 20
Non-tactical officers: Nathan - 60 M'row - 60 Nami Hotta - 40 V'ree - 40 Welbourne - 40 Trenchard - 40
The "best" tactical officers are roughly equal to a fresh-from-the-academy Operations officer, in terms of deflector control skills. Which would make sense if Operations officers were still the ones handling shields. But they're not.
And that's the kinda thing I hope we can at least try to fix. This isn't just an opportunity for character development. It's an area where an officer should be trained according to modern-day roles, but isn't because of an outdated system.
|
|
DGM Cygnus
Game Master Group
Assistant Admin / DGM of the USS Adagio
Posts: 2,191
|
Post by DGM Cygnus on Jan 14, 2013 17:28:53 GMT -5
Why fix it? Tactical typically doing the shooting, if there is a operations officer..what do THEY get to do? The long and the short is we need a way to make it so a character is not just awesome at everything and a way to run skills checks, it is why we have the sheets...that define what one is good at. I am not going to throw points at Tactical characters it not fair to anyone that not tactical. I would only consider redistributing skill points a bit for a character with sound reasoning and being backed solidly by a history of role playing in events.
|
|
|
Post by Captain Anja Malitzka on Jan 14, 2013 17:32:56 GMT -5
Honestly, I'd think it would be fine to just shift the job over to Operations and be done with it. Tactical on the TNG era shows fires all weapons, handles communication, handles shields, and often handles sensors. Operations doesn't do much aside from managing internal ship systems in TNG.
There's getting things right down to every little detail and then there's getting things overall right, and then making changes for fun. Under normal ship scale work, Tactical and Helm are pretty much the only people doing anything, unless something goes wrong for Engineering to fix. Science gets to do things because we let them handle sensors now, even though that clearly wasn't how they handled it in TNG, so in my opinion, it would be just fine if Ops took over Deflectors and Communications (I think they usually handle that now, anyway).
|
|
|
Post by Captain T'Pang on Jan 14, 2013 17:38:31 GMT -5
The "best" tactical officers are roughly equal to a fresh-from-the-academy Operations officer, in terms of deflector control skills. Which would make sense if Operations officers were still the ones handling shields. But they're not. And that's the kinda thing I hope we can at least try to fix. This isn't just an opportunity for character development. It's an area where an officer should be trained according to modern-day roles, but isn't because of an outdated system. This assumes that the tactical officer's interaction with the shield system extends beyond merely turning them on and off and that some other non-tactical officer is not going to be brought in to handle more specialized functions. Has it been determined that a tactical officer need at least a 40 in deflector operation to have a decent chance of success to accomplish what it is they need to do witht he deflector system? Also I think we need to consider that there will be a such thing as minimum training. Let's not assume that cadet's graduate from the academy and are qualified to do a job without further training. The question then becomes when a tactical officer graduates from the academy how much more training will they need to work at thier job without further training? To be sure if you roll up a character who is fresh out of the academy, unless they are exceptional students, it is unlikely they could realistically handle a job fully without supervision. However, in the case of officers who have been on active duty a while, it is reasonable to assume that they are fully trained and experienced. So in my mind it comes down to determing what being fully trained and experienced in your job means.
|
|
DGM Cygnus
Game Master Group
Assistant Admin / DGM of the USS Adagio
Posts: 2,191
|
Post by DGM Cygnus on Jan 14, 2013 17:44:16 GMT -5
Honestly, I'd think it would be fine to just shift the job over to Operations and be done with it. Tactical on the TNG era shows fires all weapons, handles communication, handles shields, and often handles sensors. Operations doesn't do much aside from managing internal ship systems in TNG. There's getting things right down to every little detail and then there's getting things overall right, and then making changes for fun. Under normal ship scale work, Tactical and Helm are pretty much the only people doing anything, unless something goes wrong for Engineering to fix. Science gets to do things because we let them handle sensors now, even though that clearly wasn't how they handled it in TNG, so in my opinion, it would be just fine if Ops took over Deflectors and Communications (I think they usually handle that now, anyway). Even Talia falls into that trap of having tactical do most everything... To expands on Anja's point. The goal is to give everyone on the crew the best opportunity to interact and role play and do things. Making contrived situations for specific players to handle is not the long term solution, allowing them the freedom and opportunity to contribute and interact, is...
|
|
|
Post by Captain T'Pang on Jan 14, 2013 17:51:09 GMT -5
Even Talia falls into that trap of having tactical do most everything... To expands on Anja's point. The goal is to give everyone on the crew the best opportunity to interact and role play and do things. Making contrived situations for specific players to handle is not the long term solution, allowing them the freedom and opportunity to contribute and interact, is... This is quite good, really. Thinking outside the box as it were. Rather than being confined by job titles and uniform colors. Where one character is weak and another is not gives players an opportunity to work together on a problem. It is just a matter of looking for opportunities.
|
|
|
Post by Captain Erys Murai on Jan 14, 2013 18:01:29 GMT -5
I suppose it really comes down to "what should the Tactical officer be capable of doing, and expected to do if needed?" According to the Wiki articles and forum post on Chief Tactical Officer, Chief Security Officer, and Operations Officer, their expected duties are as follows: Expected roles of a Security / Tactical Officer: Weapons, Shields, tactical sensors, tractor beams, sensors, Security Procedures, damage control, possibly command. Expected roles of an Operations Officer: power allocation, sensors, tractor beams, communications, away team coordination Now, what skills are available to these officers by default (that are not part of the general officer training)? Tactical / Security: Communication System Operation 20 Computer Operation 20 Electronics Technology 10 Damage Control Procedures 30 Deflector Shield Operation 20 Environmental Suit Operation 10 Federation Law 5 Marksmanship, Modern Weapon 20 Perception 15 Personal Combat, Unarmed 20 Personal Weapon Tech 5 Security Procedures 40 Small Unit Tactics 20 Starship Weaponry Operation 30 Starship Sensors 20 Starship Combat Strategy/Tactics 10 Shuttlecraft Pilot 20 Operations: Communication Systems Operations 40 Communications System Technology 10 Damage Control Procedures 30 Computer Operations 20 Deflector Shield Systems 40 Deflector Shields Technology 10 Space Sciences - Astrogation 40 - Other two at 10 Starship Sensors 10 So, looking at the available skills and comparing them to the expected roles, we can see the following: Security / Tactical Officers are strong in Damage Control, Combat, starship weapons, security procedures, sensors, and communications (all things they would need). They are weak in Deflector Shields Operations (something they need, but don't have). Operations Officers are strong in Communications, Damage Control, Astrogation, and Deflector Shield Operations. (things they either need, or may come in handy). They are weak in... well, nothing that they're expected to do, as far as I can tell.
|
|
|
Post by Captain Anja Malitzka on Jan 14, 2013 18:09:44 GMT -5
... Tactical / Security: Deflector Shield Operation 20 Starship Sensors 20 Security / Tactical Officers are strong in Damage Control, Combat, starship weapons, security procedures, sensors, and communications (all things they would need). They are weak in Deflector Shields Operations (something they need, but don't have). If you include the 10 Starship Sensors they get from Space Science Curriculum, they've only got 10 more in Sensors than Deflectors. Professional starts at 40 and both 20 and 30 are in Qualified.
|
|
|
Post by Captain T'Pang on Jan 14, 2013 18:18:23 GMT -5
As noted a skill of 20 or 30 is listed as qualified. It should be noted that what qualifies a junior officer straight out of the academy for thier job and what qualifies an officer for a department head position are going to be two different things. Those numbers cited would more or less be minimum numbers for new junior officers (before adding in any advanced training or numbers for years of experience.)
Thus the numbers seem ok to me.
P.S. Speaking of skills matching job functions, if the operations officer's job involves power allocation shouldn't they have 40 in Space Science (Astronautics) rather than astrogation. Afterall doesn't helm do navigation?
|
|