I have a game that takes place in the TOS Era. I’ve had my characters in some cases traveling by Shuttle craft. One thing I’ve noticed about TOS is that the mission commander or Captain are normally sitting in one of the forward Helm/Navigation seats when onboard a Shuttle. Would this be an example of making an exception to the rules and allow the Captain/Commander position to be combined with Helm or Navigator Positions? Normally the Commander can only command and can not have access to another position. Any thoughts?
I wouldn’t even use roles or role benefits on a shuttlecraft; just the starship itself. Someone has to fly the shuttle, and generally we see the commanding officer doing that on most of the various series, unless a better pilot is clearly part of the landing party or away team.
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Yep, agreed. The majority of the position benefits revolve around having a department of specialists behind you while on the ship.
Those benefits also don’t prevent officers taking up other stations on the bridge/ship. It just means that the people specifically suited to those jobs get a little help. Most my crews have an XO who is also a department head, with the player being asked to choose which benefit they want to take at the start of the game. My doctors also regularly jump on the science station if the science officer is busy.
So I guess the question is, if doing combat with a shuttle, how do you handle who goes on what round?
My shuttlecraft pilot is the starship pilot with also great security and the flyby talent to be able to fire as his second action.
The engineer augments shields, sometimes provides energy.
My main shuttlecraft is a Danube not a TOS shuttle (I don’t play in TOSera right now)
I’m sure that the number of player taking actions is limited by ship size (at least on enemy side I have to double check on players side)
The Versatile quality of shuttle phasers helps a lot for momentum pool
Npcs are limited by ship scale, players are limited by player numbers.
Don’t forget that versatile is bonus momentum, so can’t be stored, but certainly is useful in saving that momentum you generated in other ways!
Since I play with 3 or 4 players, I try to adjust actions to ship size, by adding action up to the size of the Akira, from the NPC most of the time the Captain or the Science officer, that are full time NPC and not support character. Battles are more fair this way (and shuttle battles far more tensed),
Yep, Versatile is only bonus momentum but yes it helps a lot.