Questions on LUG Star Trek

DEPARTMENT HEADS

This may sound like a strange request but does anyone know what titles are available for the different Department Heads? Some of them I’m already aware of: Chief Engineering Officer, Chief Security Officer, Chief Science Officer and Chief Medical Officer. It’s also easy to just say: “if it’s listed as a department (i.e. Comand, Engineering, etc.) just add ‘Chief’ to it’s name”, but what about Ship’s Councellor? In the old FASA game they claimed the Councellor is head of the “Civilian” department, I’ve also heard that Councellor is not directly part of the ship (that’s why Troi didn’t wear a standard uniform) and I’ve heard that the Councellor is part of the Medical department (which actually makes sense to me but would mean that any Councellor that wants DH status would then become the Chief Medical Officer which I read was supposed to hold the title of Chief Surgeon). And what about Flight Control? The LUG book puts Flight Control as part of the Operations Department, but don’t they wear red instead of gold? If Flight Control gets its own department is there a Chief Flight Control Officer? Finally, what about the Captain and XO? I know they have to buy the DH advantage also and Mr. Spock was an XO and Chief Science Officer, but since the Cpt. oversees the entire ship and the XO oversees all the departments (therefore they’re both doing clerical work), [on the larger ships (I say that since on smaller ships some crew members would have two jobs)], would the CO and XO have any specific title like “Chief Science Officer”? I’ve tried looking though created characters on the net and in the books and I found this subject to be somewhat vague- one Cpt. has Dept. Head (XO) another DH (Command) a third just Dept. Head. I know this is not direly important to the game but since I’m trying to deal with an upper echelons crew I am curious, any help would be appreciated.

CHARACTER POINTS

When creating characters, how do you add the points together?

When you go through the process of choosing Overlay, Template, Early Life History etc., you follow the guidelines [on page 69 of the LUG TNG Core Book], for example 1 (2) + 1 (2) = 1 (3) or 2 (2), so;

When you choose Extended Training in the Player’s Book Advanced Cadet Cruises, it says “Increase any Primary skill fom your Ovrlay by one level” am I correct in assuming that this means 1 (2) + 1 (0) = 2 (3) (or would it be 2 (2)?, I’m working on the understanding that whenever you raise a skill you automatically raise the Specialty by one higher, am I correct or are there exceptions and if so is this one of them?)

In the Starfleet Academy Books, under Character Advancement (p 113/114) they suggest how to spead out the skill acquisition over the 4 years of the Academy. Since one of the general rules is that when you have two of the same skills/specializations/levels you take the skill level and add one to either the skill or specialization, so how would about in this case? According to their rules (guidelines), each year in the Academy is represented by 16 points for development which would translate into five skills at 1 (2) level and one skill at the 0 (1) level (for a specific year, and if you hold by a strict 16 point yaer instead of varying the points like in real college), then the next year you continue taking the skill you had a previous 0 (1) level in and increase it by 1 (2) (you want to play out the gradual advancement if you’re in middle of playing a cadet), so, what is the new skill level of this skill? Is it 1 (2) like in the guidelines presented in the Player’s Book or would this skill be 1 (3), leaving you left with still having to purchase 1 (0) to complete the 2 (3) skill level of the Overlay? (Since the way I understand Starfleet Academy and the Overlays, the Cadet, after he finishes the 4 years of the Academy would (should) end up as the equivelent of someone who took the TNG Core Book and chose Template, Overlay, Early Life History, and Academy Life History.

Thanks!

Yes of course there is a Chief of Flight Control, and yes at least in the series they wear red uniforms.
Do not make the mistake of mixing up Department with Branch. Only because there are only four brnaches, Command, Operations, Science and Medical and maybe Engineering does not mean there are not more Dep. Heads.
The TNG characters are all department Heads, even Data, who is Chief of Operations and Riker is Chief of Flight Control, besides being XO. Additionally I tend to use "smaler" department heads, e.g. Stellar Cartography, etc. which usually cost 1-2 points less than the "big" ones.
On a ship like Enterprise, a Galaxy-Class ship, a Department head is comparable to the head of a battallion, while the ship as a whole has the "weight" of a regiment. On smaller ships the CO is comparalbe to a "battallion" CO, while the departments are only comparable to platoons...

But maybe the actual Navy-People can shed more light on this stuff. :)

There are only three Branches, and all Departments fall within those Branches, at least on the shows.

Command
Operations
Sciences.

Medical is part of Sciences, Security and Engineering are part of Operations and so on... On of the wonky twists LUG threw in was placing Flight Contol in Oerpations Branch, whereas on the series it's part of Command, as noted above.

Of course all departments are parts of these branches, but there is not only one department per branch. That would cost either Geordi or Data or Worf his job, which all are part of the Operations branch.

On your typical Navy ship you will find at a minimum, 4 departments:

Operations
Deck
Engineering
Supply

On a small ship like an FFG this is it. Weapons are part of Deck Div, Air Warfare and Anti-Submarine Warfare are part of Ops.

On larger ships you can have more and perhaps larger divisions. Take a Destroyer or FFG, your Intelligence Officer is a senior Enlisted guy who's read into the right programs and is on the right email aliases and maybe depending on the configuration of the ship, a handful of Spook-type comms guys. Those guys and the Electronic Warfare people are all under the SIWO or EWO(signals warfare officer, electronic warfare)... they call it different things on different ships. Those people are part of Ops Dept.
On a Carrier or Amphib, you have Intel Staff with a couple junior officers and maybe as many as a dozen lackeys not counting the sigs people who might have a couple officers themselves and might even be in their own CT division.

as for titles.. here's some:
SUPPO (Supply)
Weaps (Weapons Officer)
ASWO (Anti-Submarine Warfare Officer, ASS-WO if she's hot.. or he I guess, it IS the Navy after all).
CHENG (Chief Engineer)
OPS (Operations Officer)
DISPO (Disbursing, that's pay for you Texans)
DCA (Damage Control Assistant... second to Cheng).

sure there are others .... there are also special titles for various functions.. Oil King (I prefer Queen, depends on the ship and crew composition but I really dig girls in coveralls fixin things :) ), is the person who keeps tabs on the Fuel oil.. makes sure the levels are right and there's aren't any leaks or seawater in the mix. What would you call the crewman who maintains the plasma injectors on a Starship?

For Department Heads we have (for a movie era series around the time of ST: TFF). . .

Administrative Division: Executive Officer
Flight Control Division: Helmsman
Navigation Division: Navigator
Deck Division: Deck Officer
Communications Division: Communications Officer
Ship’s Services Division: Logistics Officer
Engineering Division: Chief Engineer
Security Division: Security Officer
Medical Division: Chief Medical Officer
Science Division: Chief Science Officer

In addition we also have Section Officers (which cost less than the Department Head advantage). . .

Warp Section Officer
Impulse Section Officer
Hull Systems Officer
Environmental Systems Officer
Transporter Systems Officer
Head Nurse

Thank you all for all the info, it was very helpful.

If I may be so bold, would anyone be willing and able to help me on my more game related questions on the character points?

When you choose Extended Training in the Player’s Book Advanced Cadet Cruises, it says “Increase any Primary skill fom your Ovrlay by one level” am I correct in assuming that this means 1 (2) + 1 (0) = 2 (3) (or would it be 2 (2)?, I’m working on the understanding that whenever you raise a skill you automatically raise the Specialty by one higher, am I correct or are there exceptions and if so is this one of them?)

In the Starfleet Academy Books, under Character Advancement (p 113/114) they suggest how to spead out the skill acquisition over the 4 years of the Academy. Since one of the general rules is that when you have two of the same skills/specializations/levels you take the skill level and add one to either the skill or specialization, so how would about in this case? According to their rules (guidelines), each year in the Academy is represented by 16 points for development which would translate into five skills at 1 (2) level and one skill at the 0 (1) level (for a specific year, and if you hold by a strict 16 point year instead of varying the points like in real college), then the next year you continue taking the skill you had a previous 0 (1) level in and increase it by 1 (2) (you want to play out the gradual advancement if you’re in middle of playing a cadet), so, what is the new skill level of this skill? Is it 1 (2) like in the guidelines presented in the Player’s Book or would this skill be 1 (3), leaving you left with still having to purchase 1 (0) to complete the 2 (3) skill level of the Overlay? (Since the way I understand Starfleet Academy and the Overlays, the Cadet, after he finishes the 4 years of the Academy would (should) end up as the equivelent of someone who took the TNG Core Book and chose Template, Overlay, Early Life History, and Academy Life History.

Thanks!

Quote:

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When creating characters, how do you add the points together?

When you go through the process of choosing Overlay, Template, Early Life History etc., you follow the guidelines [on page 69 of the LUG TNG Core Book], for example 1 (2) + 1 (2) = 1 (3) or 2 (2), so;

When you choose Extended Training in the Player’s Book Advanced Cadet Cruises, it says “Increase any Primary skill fom your Ovrlay by one level” am I correct in assuming that this means 1 (2) + 1 (0) = 2 (3) (or would it be 2 (2)?, I’m working on the understanding that whenever you raise a skill you automatically raise the Specialty by one higher, am I correct or are there exceptions and if so is this one of them?)

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I was not able to find in any of the Core Books anything saying that when your skill level rose your specializaiton automatically increased. In the example above the result would be 2 (2).

Quote:

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In the Starfleet Academy Books, under Character Advancement (p 113/114) they suggest how to spead out the skill acquisition over the 4 years of the Academy. Since one of the general rules is that when you have two of the same skills/specializations/levels you take the skill level and add one to either the skill or specialization, so how would about in this case? According to their rules (guidelines), each year in the Academy is represented by 16 points for development which would translate into five skills at 1 (2) level and one skill at the 0 (1) level (for a specific year, and if you hold by a strict 16 point yaer instead of varying the points like in real college), then the next year you continue taking the skill you had a previous 0 (1) level in and increase it by 1 (2) (you want to play out the gradual advancement if you’re in middle of playing a cadet), so, what is the new skill level of this skill? Is it 1 (2) like in the guidelines presented in the Player’s Book or would this skill be 1 (3), leaving you left with still having to purchase 1 (0) to complete the 2 (3) skill level of the Overlay?

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I belive that would be a lot of fun to sit down with each player and allow them to plan out their four years. The GM acting as guidance councilor letting the player know what need to be completed and what skills are required, and letting the player set their classes. Some players taking the recommended 16 points. Others less, some more.

Anyway, as for this example the resulting 0 (1) and 1 (2) would result in a final skill of 1 (2) as per the Player's Guide.

Quote:

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(Since the way I understand Starfleet Academy and the Overlays, the Cadet, after he finishes the 4 years of the Academy would (should) end up as the equivelent of someone who took the TNG Core Book and chose Template, Overlay, Early Life History, and Academy Life History.

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Correct.