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Owen J. North

Greetings, all.

Okay so, here's the deal. I'm new here (obviously), haven't even done my first academy session yet (since I had the bad luck to show up just as it seems everything is shutting down for the holiday). I have about 10 years of roleplaying experience in all sorts of different settings... but this is my first venture into the Trek universe. As a matter of fact, I had never even watched an episode of any of the shows or anything until this week (seeing the new movie got me curious, lol).

 

What I'm wondering is... is being a new comer to the franchise going to throw me completely out of whack, and leave me stuck in the academy forever? I've been doing a lot of research this last little while and have come to understand things like the ranking systems, screw positions, a certain degree of ship equipment, etc. but I'm still FAR from an expert. For example, when reading the "How to Sim" section of the main page I would see phrases like "transport room 3" and think "How many transport rooms ARE there?"

 

So basically my first question is, are not knowing things like that going to hurt my chances? Also, if anybody has some advice on things I should look up, and possibly some good resources, it would be much appreciated.

 

Also, I noticed on another new person's post that a member made a comment about playing characters from specific timelines. I'm a little confused as to how that would work. Are different sims based in different timelines? Are you expected to establish what timeline your character exists in, or is it just something some people do for their own amusement?

 

Lastly, since I'm just starting out, i don't quite know the order in which to do things. Do I write up some kind of profile for my character first, so he can be used in the academy, or do the academy first and worry about stuff like that later?

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Welcome to STSF

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Yeah, Memory Alpha was wear I've gotten most of my information so far. My concern comes in when it comes to situations like I've seen in Moose's tips and stuff. Like, the hypothetical I saw was "An asteroid is moving toward a station, what do you do?" and my knowledge would be limited to tractor, phasers, torpedos... the basics. Just hoping I don't end up in the academy forever simply due to lack of Trek knowledge.

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Welcome to STSF. Just attend the Academy's and they will teach you what you need to know. Before long you'll know everything you need to know. In answer to one of your questions, yes there are different ships simming in different time periods in Advanced Sims. Another Useful Link

Edited by George_Pickett

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Welcome to STSF! I hope you have a fantastic time playing here! :)

 

So basically my first question is, are not knowing things like that going to hurt my chances? Also, if anybody has some advice on things I should look up, and possibly some good resources, it would be much appreciated.

 

Everyone plays on STSF with different levels of experience with the franchise. Some people were diehard fans of the original series (Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the like), others (like me) started out with watching one of the other series first. So not everyone knows the exact same things (as a matter of fact we're probably going to start getting a lot more people in your situation, having seen the movie) and its easy to pick up on the elements which are most common to the simming experience.

 

Also, as DarkMonkey said, Memory Alpha is a FANTASTIC resource, probably the best and most comprehensive encyclopedia of Trek anywhere on the web. Definitely check it out, and use it when simming, as it is a great place to fact-check. The "Random Page" wiki function has occupied many an hour for me, too. :P

 

Also, I noticed on another new person's post that a member made a comment about playing characters from specific timelines. I'm a little confused as to how that would work. Are different sims based in different timelines? Are you expected to establish what timeline your character exists in, or is it just something some people do for their own amusement?

 

I'm not entirely sure where this post was, so I'm not quite sure what they were referring to. It's possible they meant the different eras of Star Trek. The original series (TOS) which ran in the 1960s is set in the 2260s. The next three series -- Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), and Star Trek: Voyager (VOY) -- ran from the 1980s to the early 2000s each partially overlapping the next, and are set roughly concurrently in the 2360s-2380s. Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT), which aired after Voyager, is set as a prequel to TOS in the 2150s. So there are a couple of different eras to choose from. Most of our sims are set in the TNG/DS9/VOY era, though we do have one TOS-era sim (USS Hood), one set during the TOS movies which is slightly later (USS Challenger), and one set in an imagined future era not included in canon (USS Agincourt). We also have one sim set in the Romulan Empire (USS Talon) and one featuring a half-Federation, half-Klingon crew (IKC Qob/Lakota). So there's quite a lot of time frames and such to choose from.

 

Lastly, since I'm just starting out, i don't quite know the order in which to do things. Do I write up some kind of profile for my character first, so he can be used in the academy, or do the academy first and worry about stuff like that later?

 

In the academy, everyone is human and everyone is a cadet; you don't have to worry about writing a character profile just yet. The point of the academy is to let you get a handle on the mechanics of simming, getting used to working with other players and telling a story and keeping to a plot, to experiment with different positions and different types of character personalities, and (if necessary) to get used to the Star Trek world. Once you graduate and join an advanced sim, you'll be able to start running a character over multiple weeks and developing them, but for now you don't have to worry about it.

 

Hope this all helps! Feel free to ask around if you have any more questions -- everyone around here's pretty friendly and will be glad to help out. :)

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Sam, thanks for the in-depth reply. With regard to the timeline question, this is the post that raised the question:

 

Welcome to STSF!

 

I would recommend a name change for your postings and chat room usage, since we don't actually role-play any "real" people from the shows or movies. In other words, we don't have Kirk or Spock or Sisko here playing. You can always be a character (of your own making) who is in the TNG timeframe (as I am, for instance), but I am not playing with the name of Barkley or Riker or Worf.

 

If you would like to change your display name and/or your login name, just send me a Private Message on these Boards and I can help you. Thanks!

 

....and yes, I've been to Memory Alpha. I'ts good, I just feel like there's so much info to process, I didn't know if I would be able to get above the level of "useless noob" any time this century, lol. But for what its worth, I'd never seen an episode until yesterday and since then I've done enough reading on M.A. to understand ranking systems, the divisions, uniforms and how they work, and basic concepts of a few key races. Guess I'll just continue with my process of "pick an aspect and read" lol

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Another thing I'd recommend is reading over chat logs from sims, seeing terms used in context will probably be very helpful.

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Yeah, he was referring to the different time periods which the different series are set in. :P

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Yes, I was just giving an example, when I talked about TNG. We have sims that take place in each of the time periods of Trek, so don't worry about knowing details of the shows. Anything you need to know for the sims will be provided to you by the GMs. Just come and have fun role playing!

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Yeah, Memory Alpha was wear I've gotten most of my information so far. My concern comes in when it comes to situations like I've seen in Moose's tips and stuff. Like, the hypothetical I saw was "An asteroid is moving toward a station, what do you do?" and my knowledge would be limited to tractor, phasers, torpedos... the basics. Just hoping I don't end up in the academy forever simply due to lack of Trek knowledge.

 

Here's the great thing about our game -- it's a team activity. The other players can pick you up. When your knowledge of Trek is limited, just come up with something practical. In the asteroid example, it's clear what you want to do -- block its path, divert its path, blow it up, protect the station, etc, depending on the exact circumstances. Come up with something, suggest it, and let the brainiacs fill in the technology gaps. The engineering department is usually good for that, and when you -are- in that department, you'll probably have other engineers to lean on.

 

Don't spend too much time during a game looking stuff up on Memory Alpha or Ex Astris or whatever. Those sites are good for perusal between sims or doing research for a log, but you don't want to let your attention wander from the sim while you're looking at websites. The Academy doesn't graduate based on Trek knowledge, but on your ability to play the game.

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Greetings and welcome to STSF, Mr. North. So you are not overwhelmed with information before you even enter the academy, a few thoughts in response to your post.

 

Okay so, here's the deal. I'm new here (obviously), haven't even done my first academy session yet (since I had the bad luck to show up just as it seems everything is shutting down for the holiday). I have about 10 years of roleplaying experience in all sorts of different settings... but this is my first venture into the Trek universe. As a matter of fact, I had never even watched an episode of any of the shows or anything until this week (seeing the new movie got me curious, lol).

 

What I'm wondering is... is being a new comer to the franchise going to throw me completely out of whack, and leave me stuck in the academy forever? I've been doing a lot of research this last little while and have come to understand things like the ranking systems, screw positions, a certain degree of ship equipment, etc. but I'm still FAR from an expert. For example, when reading the "How to Sim" section of the main page I would see phrases like "transport room 3" and think "How many transport rooms ARE there?"

If you have ten years of role playing experience (and I am assuming you mean online role playing) you already know about characterization and interaction with other role players. No matter what the genre, role playing depends on team work, so you can probably check that skill off as "learned."

 

The academy focuses on the basic skills of online text-based role playing, which are:

  • Teamwork within the Chain of Command (CoC)
  • Cooperative interaction with others in your department (security, engineering, science, and medical are the basic departments)
  • Creative contribution to the current mission, such as suggesting a course of action to your department head when the Game Master (GM) presents a problem to be solved
  • Knowing how we put action into text on the screen in the chat room by using colons (::in Main Engineering (ME):: or ::entering the turbolift:: )
  • Remembering to use the comm system (+com+ or +bridge+ or +medical+) when needed
  • Your ability to follow the action onscreen and respond appropriately to the GM's action statements.
  • Your ability to play your position. For instance, if you are a science officer you don't go running off to fix the engines (unless the GM tells you to, of course).

When we see that you have mastered the basics and are ready to tackle an advanced simulation you will be promoted. So, you get a lot of experience before we throw you to the wolves ::grin::

 

So basically my first question is, are not knowing things like that going to hurt my chances?

 

No. Knowing how many transporter rooms are on a ship (or other trivia) will not hurt your chances of graduation. Concentrate on learning the basics. The GMs will tell you all the other stuff, either onscreen or in Private Message (PM). In the academy, everyone is human and everyone is a cadet. We keep it simple.

 

Lastly, since I'm just starting out, i don't quite know the order in which to do things. Do I write up some kind of profile for my character first, so he can be used in the academy, or do the academy first and worry about stuff like that later?

 

Do the academy first and worry about the other stuff later. As you play in the academy you will learn more about timelines, characters, species, and departments, so when you graduate you will probably have a good idea of what kind of ship you want to play on and what kind of character you would like to create.

 

One last thing:

There are academies every day of the week, but each is different because each host has a different style of leadership. You might consider starting in the Tuesday 9pm academy with Sorehl and Farrington. Sorehl actually has a teaching section at the beginning that lasts about 15 to 20 minutes. Some cadets have found that very helpful.

 

Any more questions, keep on asking. We're here to help.

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Yeah, he was referring to the different time periods which the different series are set in. :P

 

Yes Sam, I understood what he meant by different time periods... the question was how one determines what time period their character exists in. I just assumed the different sims were mroe or less different ships, etc. co-existing with eachother, and thus having different characters based in different timelines wouldn't make much sense. So I asked if the different sims were based in different timelines, etc.

 

Greetings and welcome to STSF, Mr. North. So you are not overwhelmed with information before you even enter the academy, a few thoughts in response to your post.

 

If you have ten years of role playing experience (and I am assuming you mean online role playing) you already know about characterization and interaction with other role players. No matter what the genre, role playing depends on team work, so you can probably check that skill off as "learned."

 

Yes and no. I WAS referring to online roleplaying for the most part (there've been isolated incidents of friends trying to get me into the whole basement, nerds, and dice seen but they didn't last, lol) ...but teamwork? Not quite so much. The sorts of roleplaying I've done so far were almost more of a competition, really. It's hard to explain to those who haven't done it but basically for example, my last one was based in a comic book-ish world, similar to the TV show 'Heroes'. Each character had their own motivations, quests, etc. and each week we would be presented with challenges related to our storline, for example "Person X fights Person Y" or "Person A is persuing Person B" and over the week we would each write sections of the events leading up to that challenge. For example, in the persuit example... Person B, a villain, might write a scene in which he steals something, Person A could write where he sees the crime in progress, etc) then at the end of the week, the organizers (similar to your GMs) would read over the "roleplays" written by each person involved, and the person who impressed them the most would "win" (thus determining if A catches B, etc.) ...so no, teamwork wasn't exactly the name of the game, and will take some adjustment, but I'm sure it won't take me long to integrate, as different RP sites I've been in have all functioned differently, so I'm used to having to adapt.

 

To everybody else, thanks for the tips, and I can't wait to hop into the academy. It's my intention to hit every academy session possible, to try and graduate and get to the real deal as soon as possible. I fully intend on trying to be one of the best, most dedicated students the academy has ever had. Hope to see you all in the advanced sims very soon.

 

O.J.N.

 

P.S. - I just thought of another question. With this whole promotion business... how does that effect the actual roleplaying end of things? It was said that when you graduate from the academy you're promoted to ensign, so does that mean your character in the advanced will be an ensign until somebody sees fit to promote you again? What about if a single player decides to run two characters, do they have the same rank then?

Edited by Owen J. North

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Welcome. I wouldn't worry too much, when I started (and now you can see my join date :P) I had no roleplaying experience and had only ever seen TOS. As for promotion, when you graduate you are an Ensign. You enter the ship of your choice as an Ensign. You are promoted through that ship as the officers see fit. If you go to another ship, (which I certainly haven't tried, so I'm guessing logically here) I believe you begin as an Ensign again. You can't have two player characters on the same ship.

 

EDIT: Lol, you joined on a holiday! I joined the day the movie came out, so everyone was away and I couldn't do anything, XD.

Edited by Leila Kalomi

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No, no, I wasn't talking about on the same ship. I meant in terms of say I have a character who I've worked up to Lt. on one ship, and I decide to start a new character on another ship. Trying to determine if that character starts off from scratch or not (cause then it seems to me that each new game would, by that reasoning, be a ship populated entirely by ensigns).

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Oh, I suppose then you would start off as an Ensign on another ship. It wouldn't be totally populated by Ensigns because there are always players that have been on board for a longer period of time. Like in actual Starfleet.

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Oh, I suppose then you would start off as an Ensign on another ship. It wouldn't be totally populated by Ensigns because there are always players that have been on board for a longer period of time. Like in actual Starfleet.

 

players, yes... but thats what I'm saying. By your reasoning, it wouldnt matter how long someone had been on the board, because when they start a character for that ship, they would start off as an ensign... thus, everybody on the ship should be an ensign. See what I mean? That's why I asked the question in the first place.

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I didn't mean on THE board, I meant on board the ship. These ships have been simming for years, so they naturally have superior officers. The ships don't keep restarting, they get new missions every so often. New recruits are Ensigns. Sometimes players leave. Sometimes characters die. And so like any armed force, there is a constant supply of recruits to replace officers.

Edited by Leila Kalomi

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When you start out on a ship, you are an ensign, and the GMs will promote you to higher ranks based on your participation, whether you log, how long you've been there, etc. So the ship will not be entirely full of ensigns because everyone has been around for different lengths of time, etc. As Leila said, these ships have been around for years and the crews as a whole continue on between missions, though people leave and join all the time.

 

If you decide to join a second game somewhere along the line, that character will probably also start out as an Ensign on that ship and will develop independently; again, that is all at the discretion of the GMs, however.

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Hello Owen,

welcome to STSF!

 

Firstly, don't worry too much about trek knowledge. When I came on here I didn't consider myself much of a Star Trek fan or anything, sure I had liked the shows and seen the movies, but not the way I do now. So, I had all the basic knowledge and, frankly, I still don't have the in-depth knowledge I know many others around here to have. But frankly, I have played in science and on the bridge and most of the situations can be solved with solid 21st century reasonable thinking. Some of it is just making things up and then some basic Trek knowledge. I can't say I have ever been in a situation where I had absolutely no clue what to do. Well, actually, let me rephrase that... I have never been in a situation where I had no clue and nobody was around who could help me out. It'd be boring if every one of us always had easy solutions at the ready.

 

Secondly, about the questions of promotions. Usually people play the academies and then graduate and go on to an advance simulation. At the advance simulation you come up with a character biography and everything and you start out as Ensign or Midshipman (depending on which simulation you join). This character will then be promoted. You show up to those advances sims every week, the plot is continuous and your position is always the same (an assistant position in one of the departments, Department Heads are all experienced players). After some time (I believe after 3 months, but I'm not 100% ccertain) you can choose to join another advanced simulation if you wish, most people create new characters for those. This new character can then work a completely different position than the other one (say one's medical and one's engineering). What that character will start out as depends on the GMs. So, that's why not everybody on the ship is an Ensign.

 

It's slightly different in the Academies. Everybody is a Cadet. But everybody is also assigned a position. These positions will not be the same for every Academy session. There you can also be assigned as a Department Head or Command staff (depending on where the GMs post you). And the plots are usually not continued. But you really needn't stress out. It's not a problem if you make mistakes during the Academy sessions or get confused. The GMs will always answer questions. The Academies are there for players to learn things and even the advanced players make mistakes and get confused.

 

Relax and have fun, that's why we're all here. Hope to see you at the Academy later.

 

 

Porter

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There, Damian said it best. :P

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Oh and for the record, anybody checking back here... I did have another question, but it's more regarding Trek knowledge than the game itself, so I posted it on the 'Community & Trek Discussion' board. If your Trek knowledge is good, please do me a favor and check it out.

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