GURPS Vessel familiarity penalties

Two areas I'm having trouble with in my skill definitions for GURPS Trek are the penalties associated with unfamiliar vessel/ craft piloting.

Starfleet uses virtually identical fully configurable interfaces for almost every aspect of vessel operation. Different work stations overlap in function and routinely back each other up during critical operations. Given a high enough security acess a crewmember could likely pilot a ship from the nearest replicator panel... certainly a senior officer could access helm control from Engineering.

It would seem to me then, that penalties for being unfamiliar with different "types" of craft should be somewhat less than usual, as the character doesn't have to deal with issues of "which is the throttle, which is the weapons"... only with the performance characteristics of a particular vehicle.

Likewise, where is the line drawn between "shuttlecraft" and "starships"... when most "modern" shuttles have warp capability?

Lastly, where does true piloting skill come into play, when runabouts and other small craft (and likely starships as well)can be voice-piloted by crewmember orders to the computer with little or no skill on the part of the "pilot"?

A couple things to consider.

There should still be some penalty as the flight characteristics are different as you said, maybe a different penalty depending on how like or unlike the new ship is to a familiar one that he is skilled with.

Then you want a reduced penalty based on a familiar control interface, since the graphical touch screens can be reconfigured from the "stock settings" to something more preferrable to the pilot.

Now on the pilot's own (familiar) ship, he will already have a control configuration saved for his use, when he comes on duty he loads his control from a saved file. Each person does this as they come on or off duty.

On an unfamiliar ship, this file may not be available (unless the character brought it with him on a PADD or data chip). So if he suddenly takes over from someone else in the middle of combat, the control interface will be set for whoever was using it before. It may take a round or two of combat to load his familiar control setup from disk. (during which he cannot control the ship, or if you rule he can then it is under the normal penalties) It may take even longer if he has to "set it up from scratch" if the computer was not previously programmed with his configuration file for his style of controls.

If the character had time before combat to do this, then fine.

For shuttle/starship, I would say that the distinction is that a SHUTTLECRAFT can land aboard a STARSHIP. Shuttles covers everything from 1 man fighters to runabouts and the like. Maybe something bigger. Anything that is large enough to carry a shuttle or runabout would be a starship in my opinion. There maybe something in the middle area where you have to make a judgement call, but that is what the GM is for...

As for voice commands, I don't think it can be as good as hands on piloting. Voice commands are limited to pre-programmed maneuvers (dock, evasive maneuver beta-2, full speed, 30 degree turn). Hands-on piloting allows for instantaneous modifications of every maneuver, critical for combat.

Given equal ships a good hands-on pilot should defeat a ship piloted only by voice commands most of the time.

Again, my opinion.

Presumably, a pilot could call up his custom (or the default) set of piloting controls on any panel that would support piloting. That might exclude some parts of the ship, by design (the builders may not have *wanted* folks flying the ship from the transporter room, for example, for security reasons). That would eliminate any part of the penalty due to control unfamiliarity. However, if a customized command template was not available (for example, on a different ship), that might increase the penalty.

Language isn't less precise than finger motion, unless the speaker is inarticulate. But finger motion is controlled by faster and more primitive brain structures (in some cases, by the spinal cord directly). This "muscle memory" can speed response in touch operated controls. (Consider how quickly you snatch your hand away from heat, for example -- you don't even think about it -- because the motion occurs in the spinal cord before you even get a chance to think about it.)

But a talented pilot might overcome this by building a voice interface that associates complex maneuvers with simple phonetic commands. Such a pilot could exceed the performance of a touch pilot in situations where his library of commands is adequate.

"For shuttle/starship, I would say that the distinction is that a SHUTTLECRAFT can land aboard a STARSHIP. Shuttles covers everything from 1 man fighters to runabouts and the like. Maybe something bigger. Anything that is large enough to carry a shuttle or runabout would be a starship in my opinion. "

Actually, runabouts are not shuttles, they are starships. They have been identified as such on screen by Starfleet personnel, and carry their own independant NCC numbers. They're likely the smallest starships, though, but starships they most certainly are.

The line between "starship" and "shuttle" is likely as grey as the current line between "ship" and "boat."

I'm not familiar with the GURPS system but I thought I'd pitch in a few comments:

According to the TNG Technical manual the computer can automatically change the configuation of the controll pannel to suit your preferences. Since all of the control pannels have biosignature readers built into them (so unauthorised users can't use them at all!) the computer would automatically know it was you and would adjust accordingly.

That said this is ONLY in the TNG era - anything before this and work stations would be progressivelly less customisable because they do not run under LCARS, which is the subsystem responsible for all of that, which I assume is only feasable on computers with tonnes of memory! :D

if you go from TOS or movie era then things become an awful lot more complex and very specific. Pannels CAN be configured to do anything but it would take time and effort and going back to the original series era it would literally be a hardware replacement! There were engineering controlls on the bridge etc back then - but you couldn't walk round the ship flying it from your PADD like it was a gameboy in those days :D

I would say that difficuties on skillchecks would rise as you are further away from a suitable control interface - a large configuable screen, such as those in engineering or a science bay would be fairly easy to set up as a virtual bridge - a terminal in your quarters or a replicator pannel might be harder because you simply don't have very much space to fit all the controlls - and equally PADD's don't seem well suited to 2 handed operation - which you would need to fly a ship!

it's like the old argument about todays mobile phones being smaller than tommorrows comunicators - yes you CAN make them smaller but there is a little thing we call ergonomics - try touch typing on a mobile phone - are we finding it slow? :D

While all shuttles in the TNG era use LCARS and you CAN more or less go "Computer please take me to Risa while I go for a nap" actually performing tricky manouvers would be different from flying a ship while there would be a definite synergy in that - it would be the difference between piloting a dinghy or an aircraft carrier - there's less to keep a handle on but you have to do more of it yourself!

In some ways I would say that the same synergy would help you pilot a DDeridex - you'd know what you were supposed to do... just not know how to read Romulan or know where that particular controll was ! :D

tanksoldier here... got my old account to work.

I've decided that the real difference isn't the size of the vessel, that can be handled by the familiarity rules.

The real difference is between warp and sublight piloting, two completely different "mediums" if you will.

So I'm going to break it down into: Piloting; Sublight and Piloting; Warp. Players can decide which vessels they are familiar with from there.