Dramatic spaceship roles

[Stormcrow]

I'm thinking about restarting my Tales of the Solar Patrol campaign. To that end, I am considering how to make characters' jobs exciting and dramatic during a space battle.

I have used Spaceships with Tales of the Solar Patrol, and found the results unsatisfying. Not only were my players uninterested in learning the basic space combat rules (lazy bums!), but I felt the play failed to allow players to focus their characters on dramatic actions. For instance, the engineer would simply make a repair roll when needed. It was too abstract. We wanted to know what we were fixing.

Matt Riggsby's article "Mr. Fixit" in Pyramid 3 #37 completely solves this problem for me—as far as the ship's engineer goes. It's not compatible with the damage-control rules in Spaceships, and given the failure of Spaceships for me in this particular case, I would rather just go back to the basic vehicle rules and use "Mr. Fixit."

But there remains the problem of what other characters are doing during combat. Their roles need to be cinematic and dramatic. So I have two problems that need answering:

1. What roles are there?
2. How do you make them cinematic and dramatic?

The role of engineer is fully defined by "Mr. Fixit." Here are some of my thoughts so far regarding other roles. I would like suggestions anyone may have to fill out these ideas and make them playable.

• Pilot: Spaceships in Tales of the Solar Patrol mostly seem to have Move 20/0.1c, though an engineer can increase the top speed a great deal. But in combat the top speed won't matter much, since acceleration 20 doesn't actually match the description of these ships reaching 0.1c in an hour and stopping dead again in five minutes. Maneuvers will consist of first assuming that ships have maneuvered to relatively similar speeds before combat begins, then announcing speed changes and turns from that point. Combat could take place on a hex grid where each hex represents 20 yards and all accelerations and decelerations take place in multiples of 20. Then use the normal high-speed movement rules. Question: do we need rules for special stunts, or is it enough to allow the player to come up with something and then make a control roll?
• Tactical Officer: For ships with independent turrets, there is need of a gunner. Is pointing and firing interesting enough? It seems to be when using ordinary, hand-held, ranged weapons.
• Navigator: Is this an important role during combat?
• Sensor Operator: Might be useful before combat, but during? Maybe you can help the gunner or pilot lock onto specific systems on the enemy ship?
• Captain: Does he do anything other than give orders? How do his Shiphandling and Leadership skills come into play?
• Are there any other roles I'm missing?