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Old 03-19-2020, 02:14 PM   #1
Michael Thayne
 
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Default What is a "crew station" in THS?

The descriptions of several control systems in the main THS book as well as High Frontier mention "crew stations", but it's totally unclear what this means. On p. 62 of the main book it says "Virtual interfaces have rendered solid keyboards and computer terminals obsolete," is this meant to apply to vehicle controls? Is a crew station just a chair where you can sit down and plug in your virtual interface so you can control the vehicle that way? Is it that plus a video wall, maybe even a 3D video wall? Or are manual controls still used?

Similar questions could be asked about the controls on other equipment.

Edit: Part of the reason I'm asking about this is that if an adventure is taking place on say, a space station or vehicle, how important is physical control of the bridge / control room? Or is the bridge just a convenient place to sit down, control of which has little to do with controlling the ship?

Last edited by Michael Thayne; 03-19-2020 at 03:57 PM.
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Old 03-19-2020, 06:43 PM   #2
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: What is a "crew station" in THS?

My best guess is that it's more about necessary jobs than it is details for deckplans. Since an AI can work one of those "crew stations" there may be no physical control-ish place.

This comes from a significant amount of interaction with David Pulver and that roster of jobs is usually quite important to his process. For gamist reasons it helps keep track of the multi-action penalties.

I understand you may be grappling with deckplans or something but I'd have to say there is no "standard" answer about the physical nature of control stations.
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Old 03-19-2020, 08:34 PM   #3
Michael Thayne
 
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Default Re: What is a "crew station" in THS?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
I understand you may be grappling with deckplans or something but I'd have to say there is no "standard" answer about the physical nature of control stations.
In the stage of adventure planning I'm in, it's not so much about exact deckplans as whether it even makes sense for "get to the bridge" (or whatever) to be an important objective in an adventure. Though thinking about that also made me wonder how many items of gear have physical controls vs. voice commands or having a camera interpret hand motions or whatever virtual interfaces do.
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Old 03-25-2020, 07:08 AM   #4
Michael Thayne
 
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Default Re: What is a "crew station" in THS?

FWIW, looking at the discussion of computer security in Fifth Wave, it seems to backtrack on the thing about computer terminals being obsolete. It recognizes there might be security reasons to require presence at a physical terminal. I don't know how common this would be, realistically, but it certainly makes sense for military applications. Might be common for vehicles too, given how catastrophic it could be for hackers to be able to take care of a vehicle remotely.
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