Bridge Crew trainee role

[ASmallCuteCat]

Did a quick search but couldn't find anything on this topic. I might be suggesting this because I want to try playing Bridge Crew but don't feel comfortable jumping into a full role where I'm expected to know what I'm doing

I just woke up and the coffee hasn't kicked in, but my badly worded reason for suggesting this is: Piloting a ship can be quite challenging, and right now the only way to learn how to pilot a ship is to play Miner or Xenoarchaeologist (which are focused more on the other responsibilities of the role, rather than ship piloting) or to do an off-ship ghost role (which doesn't let the player learn how to do other Bridge Crew tasks, and will likely have them floating around all alone in space)

So, a learner role for Bridge Crew. The other non-Service, non-Ops departments all have a learner role, so why not Bridge Crew as well?

[dessysalta]

I don't think we need a command learner role, since bridge crew in and of itself is meant to be that introductory role more than anything. Mining is where you learn how to pilot and hangar tech is where you learn gunnery (to a point), and just going out to fly a bit on a deadpop shift isn't so bad. Bridge crew teaches you how to fire the guns on the Horizon as well as be a glorified assistant for the rest of command. It's not particularly complicated or high stress until ship combat begins.

If you're worried about starting out as one, don't be. Ask for help, even in LOOC, about what you should be doing and how to do certain things. There's surprisingly not much to know aside from paperwork, delivering items, and the occasional (or frequent) pilot job. If you want to be extra cautious, play a character who recently got their pilot's license for cruisers, and don't be afraid to turn down opportunities if you don't think you're ready for them. (Obviously there's a time and place for some things, so if you get asked to grab a drink from the command bar or you're the last crewman alive, you'll still have to do those.)

If you're still worried, you can ask admins to let you play as an assistant for the SCC and have OOC permission to fly the ships. Frame it as an introductory period or internship, and introduce yourself to heads of staff that way ICly and OOCly before you turn that character into an actual crewman.

Don't expect to be called across the ship constantly or sent on impossible errands or require a lot of interdepartmental knowledge. You're just the command-designated assistant and pilot. The most you'll be doing is leading away teams or taking on limited authority in very specific circumstances that a head of staff needs your help, and you can always delegate leadership to someone else in the former case. It's unlikely anyone will get on your case if for some reason you get 20 things on your plate at once, especially if you say you're new to the role.

Edited November 2 by dessysalta

[Nagito Komaeda]

1 hour ago, ASmallCuteCat said:

Did a quick search but couldn't find anything on this topic. I might be suggesting this because I want to try playing Bridge Crew but don't feel comfortable jumping into a full role where I'm expected to know what I'm doing

From experience, everyone on the Bridge - the BC, the XO, even the Captain & other Heads - are super willing to teach you. Hell, I jumped into BC without knowing how to fly the ship and I was taught in the span of an hour how everything works. I think for a lot of people, the prospect of jumping into BC is daunting due to the variety of responsibilities you have. Piloting the ship, communicating effectively, coordinating with other departments, using announcements, these are all things I can totally understand a new player to be terrified about.

So, a BC 'intern' role. I don't think this is a bad suggestion, but implementing it is a little difficult. In my opinion, learning the mechanical part of piloting does come from Mining and Xenoarch and off-ships (and I don't even think it's that necessary, it's relatively self-explanatory imo.) Learning every other part of the job honestly comes with playing any job here. Because a lot of what the BC does is communicative, many departments will already deal with it throughout their own gameplay loop. I think it would be cool to have an attendant, or something, an 'intern' job with sole command radio access, who functions as a literal secretary. That way, people can look in the Command department without feeling obligated to authority.

[Shimmer]

47 minutes ago, dessysalta said:

since bridge crew in and of itself is meant to be that introductory role more than anything

Bridge crew are not intended to be a command or a command learner role. That is not their responsibility and it never was.

 

A learner role for bridge crew IMO is a good idea, that way you're not expected to do something like mining or xenoarch, and you're in the proper environment to be taught the mechanics and responsibilities involved.

[kermit]

I don't see harm in a single slot BC trainee role if one was to make it in. I think anymore and the Bridge/command comms could get even more crowded than they sometimes are. 3 BCs already makes it a bit tricky to access certain elements of the role you may have readied up for (only one person can pilot at a time, the others just watch pmuch).

BCs making mistakes can genuinely be quite destructive at times (flying into meteors with no shields, as an example) and they aren't protected by the label of 'Intern' or 'Trainee' that actual learner assistant roles are given. This makes handling it ICly difficult/unfair on the player if they are new and OOCly, on the moderation side, can make it tricky to tell whether someone's just new to the role or is just playing recklessly.

[Carver]

In a sense, aren't most ghost roles effectively the best BC learner roles? You're almost always given a ship that no one particularly cares if you fly like an idiot, and there's no risk to it really impacting the Horizon unless you perform an escalating series of mistakes with your ship's weaponry. It's all-around low-stress good practice.

The only thing really close would be learning to fly in the Canary (with Command's permission, which probably wouldn't be hard at all to get) as a full BC, which is similarly low-risk tho Command will likely worry if you mess up enough to damage it in the process - but not nearly as much as if you did the same w/ the Horizon itself.

[Fyni]

I was going to make a post including a bunch of mini suggestions and something like this was it. I'm bad at piloting and feel intimidated trying to learn - it's very easy to troll a round by accident.

In an ideal world there is a an (IC) computer program you should be able to download on any terminal which lets you fly a fake ship on a fake overmap as practice - even give it lore as a flight sim in universe - but I'm not sure how hard that would be to implement.

[Shimmer]

1 hour ago, Carver said:

In a sense, aren't most ghost roles effectively the best BC learner roles?

On paper... But you're rarely alone in those roles and people do want to play those to loot gremlin or explore. If you're alone sure you can use it to practice piloting but if you aren't? Well you'll get sidelined.

 

Additionally, this doesn't exactly teach you. You have no one to learn from, no one to coach you no one to explain you anything, you're basically throwing yourself into the water until you learn how to swim.

 

It's why miner isnt a good role to learn how to BC either imo

[Fluffy]

While I can see myself support this, it would be by converting one of the BCs to a trainer role (not adding more slots) or as an alt title on the likes of "last year in certification intern pilot" kind of thing

[greenjoe]

I would not want to see one of the existing slots converted to a learner, 100% no. Alt-title I wouldn't be so bad with, as long as there was a way to prevent all 3 slots being the interns.

[Dreamix]

I think a new BC learner role would be alright.

idk why the offship argument is used so much. You can do engineering or security or medical work on offships too, but yet we do have learner roles for these jobs on horizon.