If you use the promotion rules though moving them to a different ship could cost them their legendary status.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Friday, November 08, 2019 - 01:49 pm: Edit

Good point, Jon; I'd forgotten that.

HOWEVER, that does bring up another question; how does the "Weapons Officer" of a small freighter gain enough experience to become legendary?

I suppose there could be a "Legendary FastTalker," as a sort of freighter captain, but aside from that...

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, November 08, 2019 - 02:08 pm: Edit

Jeffrey George Anderson:

Answer: They don't. See the last sentence of (G22.111): "Standard civilian freighters cannot roll for legendary officers."

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, November 08, 2019 - 02:15 pm: Edit

Yeah, we houseruled that out for the comedy value. Just never expected someone to get a full suite of officers.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, November 08, 2019 - 02:56 pm: Edit

Jeffrey George Anderson:

Beyond the rules, and seriously, there are "training" aids that would allow a gunner to track and fire at targets without engaging the actual phaser (not wasting power and thus fuel, nor running the gymbals and thus saving wear and tear on the phaser system) that the weapons officer might have been spending almost all of his "spare time" on. Add to that there is the possibility that even though he is civilian freighter crew, he is just "naturally talented." (As an example, I tell the tale of the first real bullet I ever fired in my life, which hit the target, even though two other people firing at the same target from the same range missed it 49 times. There was obviously some innate intrinsic capability that the Army honed to my qualifying "expert" with every weapon they placed in my hands except the Dragon Missile Launcher.) So it is possible that someone could just be naturally gifted when given the system.

Then, of course, there was a "role playing game" set in the "Old West" (I think it was called "Boot Hill") in which sometimes someone became a great shot when they were drunk, and maybe that explains your legendary weapons officer, i.e., did anyone check to see if he was sober?

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, November 08, 2019 - 06:05 pm: Edit

There is a significant period for most empires where the skiff plants are making PFs. Yes, they moght go back to making skiffs, but there is a time where they apparently aren't.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Friday, November 08, 2019 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Don't know if this is a good reference, but when Grumman shifted over to making the F6F, General Motors started building F4Fs (under the name of the FM Wildcat).

Might a civilian ship builder, possibly one that's used to building VIP shuttles, start building the Skiffs?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, November 09, 2019 - 04:40 pm: Edit

There have been discussions of civilian yards constructing civilian ships. Is it possible that developing worlds could build skiffs, yet be unable to build PF's due to lack of expertise or ability to actually assemble the warp power units on the gunboats?

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 10:54 am: Edit

I have no problem believing that someone who could be the greatest weapons officer in history somehow ended up on a freighter. He or she could be undisciplined and unfit for military service, lazy except for this one obsession, have a general lack of ambition, prefer civilian life in general, etc.

If I were transported into the SFU I think I would prefer to be an independent owner of a free trader to being a captain of a cruiser, even if I was legendarily good at captaining (doubtful) just due to the freedom. Part of me would prefer even more to be the independent owner of an Orion raider but I doubt I could sleep at night working that job.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 11:14 am: Edit

I imagine the PF powers (i.e. everyone but the Feds) converted everything they could into building interceptors and then PFs until they reached full deployment. Once that happened they would produce what they needed.

I am not sure if it would still take all production. PFs are largely a defensive weapon outside of tenders, forward bases, and casual PFs. Then again since skiffs did not burn out that quickly it is not clear how often a PF needs replacing even in a rear area so it may have taken most of the yards to keep them going.

After the war if I was a penny pinching colonial leader I would prefer skiffs to PFs simply because they do not need to be replaced that often unless I believed we were very likely to need the firepower. I am more likely to be reelected because I bought the rescue skiff that saved photogenic little Timmy when his family freighter's power failed than I am to get kudos for a lot of gunboats we are keeping around just in case someone attacks.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 12:15 pm: Edit

Jon,

I've got to disagree about "... the greatest weapons officer in history somehow ended up on a freighter." Even if he or she had enormous natural talent, and were potentially the "greatest weapons officer in history", the individual would not receive the training or experience necessary to turn that potential into actual accomplishment. Natural talent is necessary but not sufficient.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 06:06 pm: Edit

Such an officer with legedary skills working on a freighter might have dependency issues... (drugs, alcohol, compulsive collector of beany babies etc...)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 06:26 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor:

I wish I could remember his name, but there was a Japanese ace who fought almost to the end of the was who was nothing but constant disciplinary problems (in the Japanese military). He was just so good that the Japanese empire could not afford to ground him. He is mentioned in Saburo Sakai's book "Samurai" and elsewhere.

The upshot is that it is entirely possible for an individual to get through training, but in a peacetime military establishment be impossible to retain because he cannot adapt to military routine outside of training (it does happen), and wind up on a civilian ship.

I mention this only because while "Legendary Officers" cannot be rolled up for a civilian freighter, exceptions might be granted for a fiction story, if the background "worked." And history does provide backgrounds for people of exceptional skill turning up in unusual places.

Normally, however, such a thing might be handled in a fiction story by simply noting one (in the case of a "Weapons officer") exceptional shot. A phaser-3 shot at Range 15 that scored the one point of damage through the down enemy shield and then rolled snake eyes, destroying the bridge box (which was at that time the last control space) of the attacking light raider (would probably require some source of ECCM) on "Impulse #32" such that the ship was immediately "uncontrolled" on Impulse #1 of the following turn, enabling the freighter to duck into the nebula and elude pursuit.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 07:44 pm: Edit

Technically, I don't think it's against the rules to have legendary officers on civilian ships since that restriction appears only in G22.111 and not in G22.112 which is an alternate procedure for selecting legendary officers. Such individuals might be retired star fleet officers or reservists.

The restriction in G22.111 might reflect the relative rarity of legendary officers on civilian ships vs. warships. The chart in G22.111 gives a warship a 45% chance of having a legendary officer while I'm guessing that a civilian ship might have a less than 1% chance of having such an officer (but take in mind that there are many more civilian ships than warships).

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 08:31 pm: Edit

Douglas, look at the numbers.

Reportedly, there are 10,000 skiffs in service in the alpha octant. The total number of civilian ships in service in just the alpha line octant could be ten times larger, or even more.

We know from GURPs Federation that there are 1,000 "useful places" per f&e hex I think it was also stated in module F1. If there is only 1 civilian ship for every 10 useful places, it would potentially mean the number if civilian ships could approach 7 digits.

It seems unlikely that there could be as many 99,999 legendary offcers on civilian ships.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 08:40 pm: Edit

Skiffs wouldn't have legendary officers since they would be covered by K8.3.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 09:28 pm: Edit

SPP,

Well, maybe. But it seems to me that it would be far more likely for a discipline problem to be separated from service during training, rather than have Star Fleet (or the Deep Space Fleet, or whoever) go through the time and expense of putting him through training and then separating him. I'm just trying to figure out how/where this "greatest weapons officer in history" got his training.

I'm not sure which Japanese ace you are referring to ("Devil" Nishizawa maybe?) but if he flew with Sakai he would have completed the Japanese naval aviation course which was - arguably - the most rigorous in the world at that time. I would note that Nishizawa, his nickname not withstanding, was not really a "wild man" so much as a taciturn, not very friendly (except with a handful of people - most noticeably Sakai himself) loner. So maybe the pilot Sakai was referencing is somebody else.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Monday, November 11, 2019 - 10:18 pm: Edit

Jeff:

And note that I did say “less than 1%” so I’m not committing to a specific percentage. It could be .1% or .01%.

Also take in mind that “legendary” status simply provides certain benefits under the rules, it doesn’t mean that the officer ever accomplished anything worthy of fame. A civilian ship is far less likely to see combat than a warship so some officers might never have the opportunity to demonstrate their skill. Even if they do, would anyone notice? When applied to a civilian ship like a small freighter, the capabilities of a legendary weapons officer are unlikely to accomplish much. The example that SPP gave is very atypical. (A legendary weapons officer is no more likely roll a bridge hit on the DAC than anyone else, not to mention the rarity of an enemy ship down to its last control space).

When firing a direct fire weapon a legendary weapons officer only improves the die roll by “1”. There is no guarantee that this will actually result in more damage. For example, with a P-3 there is only a 1 in 6 chance (at most ranges) that the bonus will have any effect at all (a 50% chance at range 2-3). It's unlikely that a civilian gunner will have enough weapons at their disposal to get in enough shots for anyone to notice that they are performing better than can be attributed to random chance.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, November 12, 2019 - 06:21 am: Edit

Douglas,
I was just using the number of skiffs as a "yard stick" to guesstimate the possible number of civilian ships in service octant wide...

As always YMMV.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, November 12, 2019 - 02:49 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor:

Could not be Nishizawa, he was killed in '44 when the transport plane he was a passenger on was shot down.

I cannot remember the name, I can only remember him being described by Sakai as a major disciplinary problem who was part of the defense of the "Home Islands," and that Sakai encountered or learned of the individual after he, himself, had been pulled back to the home islands after basically refusing to fly a suicide/kamakaze mission from Iwo Jima. Sakai spent a few paragraphs mentioning the individual and describing him attacking B-29s.

Beyond that, it is not entirely unheard of for an individual to make it through training, and then fail when deployed for duty. Once you complete training you often have more "freedom" than you do in the strict confines of the training regimen. While the tools to weed out such individuals are better than they were in the past (and in the past the desire to simply "make numbers" made this more common), like all systems it is not perfect.

Douglas Saldana:

The point is that it would be a freakish shot that saved the lives of the freighter crew. The mere fact of a phaser hit at all which cause the Orion ship to "veer off" and let the freighter escape would be "legendary." Sort of like the Legend of the Large Freighter that charged an Orion light raider and caused its captain to panic and flee, because the only reason he could imagine for a large freighter to charge him was that it must have been a Q-ship. It was not, but the "battle" was part of a "campaign" where the pirate captain knew that there was a chance any given freighter he attempted to waylay might just be a Q-ship, and he "took council of his fears" and fled. Not even bothering to unload his weapons into the "Q-Ship" (which would have exposed the bluff immediately). So the example is just intended to be something that would be thought legendary by the freighter's crew, even if it was literally all just amazing good fortune. (The weapons officer might even, unnoticed by the rest of the crew, close his eyes before triggering the phaser.)

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - 12:36 pm: Edit

I should note that in that campaign we rolled a d6 first and only on a "6" did you roll for legendary officers on the chart. Using the chart "as is" for every ship results in a glut of legendary officers in a campaign and I would not recommend it. It makes the legendary more commonplace.

Alan:

Not sure I agree. While training and experience are necessary to reveal something like that in the SFU someone flying freighters is playing with and using (admittedly low end) military grade weaponry and they are trained to do it and can use it. If the freighter screws up navigationally and you end up in an asteroid field you might even use the phaser in a utilitarian way.

They probably have simulators and for the more nerdy freighter weapons officers they might even duel for fun. That would admittedly be a long and dull fight unless you have skids or ducktails or are at least in a large freighter so you have two guns.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - 01:50 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock:

Freighters doing "duels for fun" is unlikely.

Maneuver uses fuel. Powering the phaser(s) to low level training status means you are having to generate the power (using fuel). There are also added maintenance costs of such things.

In short, such "duels" do not help the "bottom line" and freighters are intended to "make money," which in turn means "keeping costs down."

As I noted above, there are doubtless "simulator programs" that allow crew members to simulate targeting and firing the ship's phaser(s), but the phasers of freighters are probably only actually fired once a year [to test calibration and make sure they are fully operable, and truth be told some phasers on freighters may actually not be operable if the company decides the repairs are currently unaffordable since there is little likelihood any given freighter will actually need to use its phaser(s).] Although the fact of the existence of those phasers on freighters (and those "armed shuttles" they carry) may indicate that there are government inspectors who check to make sure the phasers are in fact functional.

Keep in mind that most freighters are in fact "merchant vessels" and not "warships," and are interested in producing profit (who knows how many of them are actually operated by Ferengis, to borrow from TNG and DS9).

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - 04:53 pm: Edit

I would think that you could set up your computers (on a few different ships) to create a computer duel. And I can't imagine a 1/10^6 powered phaser is going to use any appreciable fuel.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - 06:09 pm: Edit

Well, there are the TNG era Holodecks which, if I remember things correctly, were also in the TAS series episode, "The Practical Joker."

Given that the TAS episode "Slaver Weapon" was written by Larry Niven and involved the Kzinti, there is some justification for saying other elements of TAS may be allowable in the SFU.

However, if SVC says "NO!" then (obviously) that element is ABSOLUTELY not allowed, no questions asked. Right? Right!

Okay, then, IF that particular technology is allowed, then perhaps a holodeck might be part of the recreation deck; perhaps even THE recreation deck due to its unmatchable configurability?

If allowed in the SFU, then running a "Training Simulation" in one would be both a not-unreasonable exercise AND some of the crew might find it fun.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - 06:15 pm: Edit

Michael?

You do realize that Petrick IS (emphasis, not shouting) in charge of Star Fleet Battles Rules department?

If he says it uses fuel, do you really really really want to argue the point? I mean, you could choose to modify the safety protocols on the tractor beams and tie the Slirdarian Corporal into one big (angry) pretzel, and possibly get away with it... but Petrick could literally order Slirdarian Corporal to tie you into a pretzel and get awarded a medal for having the integrity for standing up for the SFBs rules set.

Just say'in.