Spacer as Soldier

[Terranaunt]

Hello.
Can Spacer skill be used like a Soldier skill? For example, to operate Electronic Communications? BS only says about 'working with airlocks, pressure doors, hull patches, etc'.

[Mr_Sandman]

Originally Posted by Terranaunt

Hello.
Can Spacer skill be used like a Soldier skill? For example, to operate Electronic Communications? BS only says about 'working with airlocks, pressure doors, hull patches, etc'.

I would say that certainly for any intra-ship and probably for ship-to-ship comm systems that a crewman might be expected to use on a regular basis, this falls under 'shipboard life'. If you can steer the spaceship with spacer skill, I don't see a problem with tuning a radio and pressing the button to speak using it.

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by Terranaunt

Hello.
Can Spacer skill be used like a Soldier skill? For example, to operate Electronic Communications? BS only says about 'working with airlocks, pressure doors, hull patches, etc'.

Spacer is the same idea as Soldier, only on a spaceship. So Soldier covers all the "soldiering" stuff they teach in Basic including, but not limited to drill, basic weapons maintenance, and basic use of equipment.

Now, if you wanted to tear down your weapon, that's IQ-based Guns. But if you need to do basic oiling and cleaning, that could use Soldier (or Guns if that was higher).

Spacer would work the same way for anything an Able Spacehand should be able to do. That's basic fire suppression, airlocks, pressure doors, hull patching, but that could extend to basic operation of equipment (including the radio).

Basic operation, in my book, means the things you can do without using custom settings. So you can pick up a radio and speak into it using proper codewords etc. using Soldier, but you can't dial in the days frequency hopping pattern. For Spacer, you can use the preset frequencies, but you couldn't dial up a private channel.

[Anaraxes]

- Adjusting internal gravity / environment of various rooms in the ship
- Emergency life support
- Using equipment in evacuation drills (activating distress signals, survival bubbles, escape pods, or whatever the setting has)

These are supposed to be catch-all skills covering things that aren't the focus of other skills, so I'd avoid letting it cover actions like operating the comms system (as opposed to just talking into a mike). Otherwise why have Electronics Ops (Comms)?

That's not to say there's no overlap. All the major skills let you do minor things, like the cleaning guns example, that you might file under Soldier/Spacer as well. But the main thrust of these skills is an attempt to fill what some people felt was a gap in just the major skills, but there were too many little things to be worth creating a lot of skills (even by the standards of the long and fine-grained GURPS skill list). Spacer's for the little things.

If you feel obliged to call for a roll and there's not some other obvious candidate to use (even at default), then Spacer it is.

[jSarek]

Don't have my books, and it could be a 3E rule I'm thinking of, but I seem to recall Soldier allowing a character to make an unmodified roll to do a soldiering-related task that someone with the "correct" skill would get a +4 bonus for routine use to accomplish. I'd say that's a good approach for Spacer.

[Gedrin]

A space ship cannot dock or land safely in civilization without some form of comms. "May I have permission to dock," seems like requisite training.

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

A space ship cannot dock or land safely in civilization without some form of comms. "May I have permission to dock," seems like requisite training.

Exactly what we're talking about. Now, dialing in the frequency for the local port, configuring the computer to match whatever the local communications protocols are, setting up any translation needed, etc. Those require Electronic Ops (Comms). You could do all of this with a +4 or +6 for it being a routine action. Or you could do it all using Spacer at a base roll. More complicated stuff (Like contacting the secret frequency used by the smuggling ring running out of the spaceport using their encryption package) would be beyond the scope of Spacer. Electronic Ops (Comms) or bust.