Ship skills...

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

This all came up because I was trying to figure out the basic skills of USN Surface Warfare and Submarine Warfare Officers. It seems that Shiphandling is their primary skill, but I agree that engineering officers (for example) are unlikely to need it.

It's probably obvious, but Tactics and probably Leadership are also going to be considered important.

The relationship between Shiphandling and Tactics for a naval officer (up to the rank of captain) might be somewhat analogous to the relationship between Soldier and Guns for an infantryman. (Though the career path goes quite differently from there.)


EDIT: Historically, Navigation was very important. It may be less so with modern navigational aids.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

It seems like Crewman is meant to be the generic "enlisted" skill and Shiphandling is meant to be the generic "officer" skill, but a pirate crew would not likely have a formal training path and it isn't that unreasonable for there to be a shortage of people with Shiphandling.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The consequences of sailing that way are severe, though. Either your two watch-standers are each standing 12 hours a day, or you're spending part of each day at the mercy of any nautical emergency that might arise. And if either of them should become incapacitated you're really in deep trouble.

Might it be that Shiphandling is only a requirement for those two roles, and in a really badly manned ship, they may be the only two people who have it (and thus be standing watch against each other - which might actually be the case in a number of very small vessels*), but in most ships (especially given the nature of pirate officer selection) there are likely to be a number of lieutenants/mates and Quatermaster's mates who also have the requisite skills (possibly at higher levels than their superiors)? In some cases, it might not be all that surprising for a really lubberly crew to get into severe trouble because no-one on duty knew what they were doing (IIRC there are even examples of professionally manned naval ships having this problem).

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It's probably obvious, but Tactics and probably Leadership are also going to be considered important.

The relationship between Shiphandling and Tactics for a naval officer (up to the rank of captain) might be somewhat analogous to the relationship between Soldier and Guns for an infantryman. (Though the career path goes quite differently from there.)

EDIT: Historically, Navigation was very important. It may be less so with modern navigational aids.

Interestingly, the old school Royal Navy used to require a midshipman to "hand, reef and steer" (Crewman/TL4) and to understand navigation (demonstrated by a written log) and shiphandling (usually examined by viva questions based on an imaginary scenario) to pass for lieutenant. He was also likely to need a significant understanding of mathematics, boating (sailboat/TL4) (unpowered/TL4), Artillery (Cannon/TL4) (possibly optional, especially under the Nelson doctrine) and various social skills. Points would also be spent on broadsword, Guns(pistol/TL4) and similar things. Admnistration and Meterology might also crop up. There are probably other skills to add to this list...

* IIRC in the age of sail RN costal cutters only warranted a lieutenant and a master's mate - who would be the only people to have navigation skills and likely the only ones with shiphandling as well (unless you had an elite crew - possibly in peacetime with a number of prime hands serving well below their rate). Practically this meant standing opposite watches.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Interestingly, the old school Royal Navy used to require a midshipman to "hand, reef and steer" (Crewman/TL4) and to understand navigation (demonstrated by a written log) and shiphandling (usually examined by viva questions based on an imaginary scenario) to pass for lieutenant.

A lot of the requirements are actually available online or in books, and some basic level of Crewman is going to be required even of officers - everyone needs to know how to patch a leak and put out a fire and do all the real basic stuff including how to steer the ship. My brother was a helmsman and joked about the days when the Ensigns working on their quals would take over the helm and try not to simultaneously scuttle the ship and their careers.

Originally Posted by The Colonel

He was also likely to need a significant understanding of mathematics, boating (sailboat/TL4) (unpowered/TL4), Artillery (Cannon/TL4) (possibly optional, especially under the Nelson doctrine) and various social skills. Points would also be spent on broadsword, Guns(pistol/TL4) and similar things. Admnistration and Meterology might also crop up. There are probably other skills to add to this list...

I am working on today's navy, and am considering Administration, Current Affairs (Military), History (Military), Law (Military), Leadership, and Tactics for all USN officers. At the moment I also have Boating, a couple of Electronic Operations, Law (International), Meteorology, Navigation, Seamanship, and Shiphandling for SWO's. I might toss some of those down to the Dabbler level or omit them entirely, but they seem consistent with the published expectations.

[shadowjack]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Which is the point of this thread. If submarines merit a complete operation skill then surface ships should as well. And if they do not then Submarine should not be a skill.

Incidentally, having Submarine for the operation skill and Submariner as the crew skill just kits confusing. Too close in names.

I agree. Though now that we mention it, I note that Submarine (Free-Flooding Sub) and (Mini-Sub) are equivalent to Boating specializations; it's Submarine (Large Sub) which is the stand-out in that trio.

And we do have the alternative example of the various Piloting specialties for spacecraft… and now that we're on the topic I've always found odd that Spacer permits steering a spaceship, which feels cinematic to me; surely a spaceship is more complicated than that, but on the other hand that's how they do it on Star Trek, with rookie ensigns taking the conn…

Perhaps a patch could work like this:

For small craft, use Boating, Piloting, or Submarine as normal.

For large craft at tech levels (or genres) that require a large crew to operate (handling sails, valves, etc.), use Crewman and Shiphandling.

For large craft at tech levels with enough automation to permit one person to handle the entire craft, return to using Boating, Piloting, or Submarine, with an appropriate specialization, e.g. Boating (Large Powerboat), Piloting (Low-Performance Spacecraft, High-Performance Spacecraft, Contragrav, etc.), Submarine (Large Submarine). Remember to count familiarity penalties for varying ship sizes (e.g. someone familiar with cabin cruisers faces a penalty when steering a superfreighter).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by shadowjack

And we do have the alternative example of the various Piloting specialties for spacecraft…

And airships.

Originally Posted by shadowjack

and now that we're on the topic I've always found odd that Spacer permits steering a spaceship, which feels cinematic to me; surely a spaceship is more complicated than that, but on the other hand that's how they do it on Star Trek, with rookie ensigns taking the conn…

Well, rookie ensigns actually might well have Piloting, not just Crewman. A space force doesn't necessarily consider piloting a basic officer skill, but it might, especially if it has air force ancestry or a strong fighter element. (The Manticoran navy in the Honorverse definitely considers piloting a basic officer skill, though their helmsmen seem to be petty officers.)

Anyway, why would helm control on a spaceship be particularly complicated? You do have one more axis to steer in than a surface ship, but that's really not a big deal...

[cosmicfish]

I think all craft should have an operation skill (Boating, Piloting, etc), regardless of size. I think all large craft should have a general crew skill (Crewman) and a general officer skill (Shiphandling). Everyone on a large ship would have Crewman, all "command" officers would have Shiphandling, and all helmsmen and command officers would have Boating/Piloting/whatever.

I think the three sets of skills should be linked by defaults, with one exception: I see no reason why a TL4 ship's rigger or a TL8 yeoman or a TL11 gunnery officer should know how to steer the ship beyond their attribute-based default. There might be exceptions, but while the basic principles of steering most craft are simple enough that attribute defaults make sense, being the best crewman in the world doesn't mean you have ever actually touched the helm controls (whatever they are) or understand how the idea of moving a wheel or joystick actually translates into accurately moving the vessel. I would consider defaulting the operation skill off of Crewman or Shiphandling for an IQ-based roll, but not for the DX roll.

[shadowjack]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Anyway, why would helm control on a spaceship be particularly complicated? You do have one more axis to steer in than a surface ship, but that's really not a big deal...

I must admit it's kind of a mental hunch, perhaps based on too many video games. :) A boat you've got post-starboard and faster-slower-reverse, and if you panic and just shut everything down, you eventually come to a safe stop. A spaceship, you've got forward-reverse thrust, vertical thrust, lateral thrust, pitch, yaw, and rotate; spins can get crazy very fast. Though I suppose that's really an argument for nothing more than a bigger default penalty, so never mind.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by shadowjack

I must admit it's kind of a mental hunch, perhaps based on too many video games. :) A boat you've got post-starboard and faster-slower-reverse, and if you panic and just shut everything down, you eventually come to a safe stop. A spaceship, you've got forward-reverse thrust, vertical thrust, lateral thrust, pitch, yaw, and rotate; spins can get crazy very fast. Though I suppose that's really an argument for nothing more than a bigger default penalty, so never mind.

In space, if you panic and shut everything down (which is, like, a critical failure result), you just do some uncontrolled drifting, which is perfectly safe in nearly every situation. Spins aren't complicated, and shouldn't be an issue at all unless you're outright pressing the wrong buttons (side note if you chance to be coming from Kerbal Space Program or the like, spins are much harder to deal with in third person perspectives).

You do have a bunch of extra potential axes of control, but you shouldn't really be doing anything too creative with them when you're using a multi-person control loop! That's actually a thing...there probably should be some kind of limit on how agile you can be when the person calling the maneuver and the person manipulating the controls are separate like that. Maybe model it as a Handling cap?