Wth do Operations Officers do?

[PGoodman13]

Can't help that it was written for a TNG SIM bible...

I have seperated the document from the sim rules and here it is...

Cool buzz and tasty waves. I'll clean it up a little bit and PDF it and get it up on the site...eventually. I've got a lot on my plate, and it seems I just volunteered for more. What the hell am I thinking...?

[Dan Gurden]

Cool buzz and tasty waves. I'll clean it up a little bit and PDF it and get it up on the site...eventually. I've got a lot on my plate, and it seems I just volunteered for more. What the hell am I thinking...?

I know the feeling. Reading the one you sent me this evening... Before Heroes starts...

[spyone]

Cool stuff here, guys.

It appears that a great many posts may be held by either a red shirt or a gold shirt, and I imagine the same goes for blue.
For instance, at least one of the Chief Engineers on USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) wore red, I'm pretty sure.
It appears that Command officers are given a wide range of experience, and that means they might be posted doing virtually anything for six months: commanding a Science team gathering data on stellar phenomena, commanding an engineering team working on a difficult project. So you can stick redshirts in just about any position on the ship and call it "gaining broad experience".

Re:Quartermaster. The confusion comes from the term having changed in its meaning over time. In the modern US Navy, Quartermaster is a job basicly identical to TNG's Conn: control the actual motions of the ship based upon orders from the commander.
In the Age of Sail, however, the Quartermaster has a very different job: the Quartermaster was an Officer in charge of the "practicalities of running the ship": he set the rations, he kept track of when the ship would need to take on fresh supplies, and other such things. On pirates ships, the Quartermaster was often in actual command of the ship, with the Captain only having authority in combat.
Apparently the term derives (somewhat obviously) from being the one who assigned people their quarters, both on land and at sea. From there it grew to encompass the doling out of all necessary supplies. "His main purpose was to distribute things. He distributed, rations, powder, work, prize, and punishment."

I'm not sure how that evolved into steering the ship, but it did, and now the term is applied to manning the tiller on a sailboat. That seems more like an evolution from Ship's Master (or Sailing Master) to me.
Meanwhile, the modern-day duties that used to go to the Quartermaster now seem to be done by the Purser or Steward. And by TNG, they all seem to be part of OPS ("allocation of ship's resources").

[spyone]

US Air Force to the rescue!
One of the jobs that I thought would be handled by a Quartermaster in the Navy (based on old age-of-sail uses) was cargo management: the guy who decides what goes where.
On a starship, somebody is in charge of what is in each of the cargo bays. Somebody knows that you can't put the dilithium in Cargo Bay Three, because you are already storing boringzenite in there, and it is dangerous to store them close to each other. And the USAF would call that guy the Loadmaster.

The loadmaster performs the calculations and plans cargo and passenger placement to keep the aircraft within permissible center of gravity limits throughout the flight. Loadmasters ensure cargo is placed on the aircraft in such a way as to prevent overloading sensitive sections of the airframe and cargo floor. Considerations are also given to civilian and military regulations which may prohibit the placement of one type of cargo in proximity to another. Unusual cargo may require special equipment to be loaded safely aboard the aircraft, limiting where the other cargo may feasibly be placed. Tactically, loadmasters may also directly affect combat readiness as they are also responsible for determining the load order of aircraft so that more tactically important material (e.g. ammunition) is off-loaded and therefore ready to deploy faster than other support items; this may be especially germane to forward operating bases.

The loadmaster may physically load the aircraft, but primarily supervises loading crews and procedures. Once positioned aboard the aircraft, the loadmaster ensures it is secured against movement. Chains, straps, and integrated cargo locks are among the most common tools used to secure the cargo. Because the aircraft will execute abrupt maneuvers which may shift the cargo in flight, the loadmaster must determine the appropriate amount and placement of cargo restraint.

I'd say each Cargo Bay would have a guy in charge of strapping things down and stuff, who would be that bay's Loadmaster, and the ship would have an overall Loadmaster who was their boss, and in charge of the bigger picture.
Again, likely part of OPS.

[Sarge]

As a retired flight engineer, I will deny ever saying this, but the loadmaster is the most important crewman on a cargo plane. Yeah, we made fun of them because they were usually the lowest ranking in the whole crew, and we always called them loadsmashers, but most of them were great workers and really dedicated to doing the job right.

[Nuclear Fridge]

They state the glaringly obvious?
No, wait, that's the Counsellor's job, not the Ops Officer!

Seriously, though, back in my FASA Movies-era campaign the Communications Chief was a critical part of the crew. Okay, she didn't beam down and get shot at, but since she had about 91% in Damage Control Procedures - and beat the Captain on a weekly basis at 3-D Chess - the PCs would go out on a limb for her without a second thought.