TRAINING #1 | TRAINING #2 |TRAINING #3
TRAINING #4 | TRAINING #5 |TRAINING #6

 

TRAINING #1

 

Some beginning tips on SIMming.

 

    Think of SIMming like a mystery book. Each of us writes a chapter and then passes it on. By the time we take another turn (the next time we sign on) the book may be right where we hoped or it may be completely different from what you envisioned.

 

    Now, there are two ways you can SIM:

  1. Someone has asked you to do something. Like, "how many bad guys down there, Ensign?"  If you get a question like that, you make up any answer that seems appropriate at the time.

  2. The other way to participate is to just jump right in. This is when the fun begins. For example, you’re on an away team surveying a planet and you want to get some action going. Invent something -- a disaster, enemies, good guys, fascinating discovery,  ANYTHING that fits. Then just add it to the plot. Our plots develop by the inventions of our SIMmers, not by some grand design by me.

Other Notes: Please use the following form for your subject/title heading.

    Your character's rank, name, ship

    E.g. Capt Brayson, StarBase 118

 

FORMAT

    Here is an outline of the format we use in play by email SIMming.

  1. When writing actions, place them between the double colon. This helps to separate speech from actions as there are times when sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference.

  2. When using a communicator badge place =/\= at the beginning of the communication and then add it when the channel has been closed.

  3. Thoughts are expressed through:  oO  Oo

  4. Telepathy is expressed through:  << >>

  5. Also finally, we always begin our SIMs with our location in double parenthesis: 

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TRAINING #2

 

    It is important to note a distinction between the WRITER of a SIM, and the CHARACTER in a SIM. You, the person sitting at the keyboard, are the writer of the SIM. The person you are writing as is the character. This is especially good to realize when it comes to character interaction. For example, suppose Cadet Bloggs has a strong dislike for Klingons, because his father was killed by a Klingon. But, in his training group, is a Klingon cadet. Ensign Bloggs makes the remark that he thinks Klingon’s are “smelly scum of the galaxy”. In this instance, the WRITERS should understand that although Cadet Bloggs dislikes Klingons, the writer of his character does NOT necessarily dislike the writer of the Klingon. Simply be advised that if someone insults your character, that it is “part of the game” and not to become insulted or hurt by this. Have your CHARACTER react appropriately to these things.

 

    Normal procedure in SIMming is to allow everyone to see all SIMs. Even if you are in shuttle bay 2 and I am on the bridge and cannot possibly hear what you are saying. Even so, we, as writers need to know this information. Think of it like actors in a play. The actors know what the entire storyline is going to be, but their characters do not. And as actors, they must make the audience believe that their character doesn’t know what will happen. But it is important for us as writers to know this information, because we may be able to incorporate it into our SIM. Take for example, a fire in engineering. Cadet Bloggs might be in engineering, trying to fight the fire. The computer will no doubt have realized there is a fire in engineering, and notified the bridge officers. Although the officers on the bridge may not know immediately, their writers must know, so that they can have the computer send the message.

 

    Exceptions to this rule:

  1. If you have a private question to someone, you would contact them, and only them. It is not necessary to send an e-mail to the entire group if you just want to know how one character is feeling about something.

  2. Occasionally, during “joint” SIMs, which are SIMs in which two ships play together. Sometimes in these SIMs, we allow each ship to see only their SIMs, and only the important information is sent between groups. But this will be handled by your captain, and is not something you need to worry about.

A GOOD SIM

 

    Below you can find an outline of what an ideal SIM entry consists of.

 

  1. Correct Form: Make sure you write: “Cadet (your name), (Your Location)“ in the subject header, and that you use the appropriate action symbols (::these:: if you’ve forgotten!) and simple text for speech, with spaces between.

  2. Responsiveness: That you answer the question asked of you, or add something that relates to the plot.

  3. Move the plot along: That your entry moves us forward in resolving the plot arc.

  4. Incorporating Others: That your entries involve other members of the crew.

  5. Personal Insights: That you give us some indication of who your character is, what motivates him or her, and what interests your character, or bores them.

    The best SIM entries don’t necessarily contain ALL these elements, but they should be at least part of the SIM.

 

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TRAINING #3

 

    Each one of you will be required to submit a biography of your character before you can be posted to a ship. These do not need to be long, nor overly detailed. But it is essential that your new crewmates know something about you. To that end, I would ask you to take the time to create and submit a biography to me.

 

    The following information is necessary: your character’s name, age, gender, species. Some optional items are a brief physical description, the names of your character's parents, siblings, spouse, children, other family members who are fundamental to development.

 

    You may want to include some brief personal history of the character, like where they were born and reared, or anything else necessary to our understanding of you. You could include any important experiences in your character’s like which you feel we should know about, or a brief professional history. This could include information about your character’s academy days, like the degree they achieved or , any extracurricular or other activities. The more information you give us about your character, the better equipped we are to SIM with you.

 

Usually, a Bio looks like this:

 

Full name:

                Age (Date of birth):

                Species:

                Gender:

                Hair color:

                Eye color:

                Height:

 

Family --

                Parents:

                Siblings:

                Spouse:

                Children:

 

Chronological History --

 

 

SOME IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER --

  1. Widow/Orphan syndrome gets fast. Basically this is when your character has had a lot of tragedy in their life. Remember, in real life, how many orphans do YOU know that had to raise themselves. How many widows, or widowers do YOU know that had a spouse die? Not very many.

  2. Your age should be appropriate for your training. Doctors have been in graduate school for a number of years, for example. So, if you were planning on being a doctor, your character should be at least 26, if not older.

  3. Not everyone can (or should) graduate first in their class, and be exceptional at all skills. In the end, shortcoming are more interesting to SIM than exceptional qualities. Make your character balanced. Perhaps they won every track medal in their high school, but barely passed math and science.

  4. Super powers like telekinetics (the ability to move objects with one’s mind) will not be permitted.

    Write if you have any questions with your biography.

 

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TRAINING #4

 

SPEAKING FOR OTHERS

 

    Each SIMmer in the group has thought-out their character, how that character behaves and speaks, etc  We learn about other characters by reading each-other’s SIMs. In UFOP there is a rule that we have to limit the amount we speak for each others characters. We do this because until you know another SIMmer's character well, you don’t know how that SIMmer wants their character to be. For example if you were to speak for Joe Bloggs you might have him say this in one of your SIMs

 

CREWMAN -- Cadet Bloggs, do you fancy a drink of wine? Its from my parents vineyards in France.

 

BLOGGS -- Sure thing, that sounds swell buddy.

 

    Now that might not be how Joe Bloggs player would want him to speak, and perhaps Joe hates wine, so he wouldn’t drink it.

 

    Until you know each-other’s characters well enough to be able to speak for each other well, you have to limit speaking for them.

 

    Now on the other side of the coin, if you have to stop your SIM every time you want another character to speak, it will get silly and the SIMs will be short and dull. If you need to speak a lot for another character, or you are unsure how their character would react to something, then send a copy of your SIM to that player first or leave a place in the SIM for that player to comment. For example:

 

CREWMAN -- Cadet Bloggs, do you fancy coming for a quick game of holoball in the holdeck?

 

BLOGGS: <<INSERT RESPONSE HERE>>

 

    Standard responses are fine, for things that are obvious.

 

    The basic rule for speaking for other SIMmers characters is to try and be considerate, think how you would feel if someone else spoke that much for you. As you get to know each other you will find yourselves speaking more and more for each other, and that is fine, as long as all the people concerned are happy with that.

 

SPEAKING FOR YOUR COMMANDING OFFICER (CO)

 

    Problems start when you begin speaking for your CO's. This is a very fine line to judge, and everyone in UFOP has stepped over it at one time or another.

 

    It is normally OK to have your CO speak for minor things, things that it is obvious they would accept. However the only people who can authorise an away team are a captain or first officer, by that I mean in our own SIMs.

 

    Basically its a combination of common sense and consideration. If you are unsure about anything at all, don’t hesitate to contact your CO and ask for advice.

 

USING OTHER PLAYER'S CHARACTERS

 

    The above information is generally only valid for conversations. Let’s say three of you have been ordered to take a shuttle and fly out to do something. Two of you arrive in a shutlebay and are waiting for the third person, who doesn’t SIM. This is obviously inconvenient, but there are two ways around this:

  1. If the character does not SIM in three days, you are allowed to speak a little for him/her; just enough to get the plot rolling again.

  2. You can move the plot forward a little by including the character but not speaking for them:

((Shuttlebay 1))

 

::Bloggs and Jones had been waiting for a couple of minutes, when the third officer appeared. All three officers then boarded the shuttle and launched as they had been ordered.::

 

    As you can see, you haven’t spoken for the third officer, just said that they turned up, which they were supposed to do anyway. However you should always give a player a chance to give their input to the plot. Maybe the third officer wanted to disobey orders and not take part in the mission - by SIMming the above you have taken this opportunity from the player.

 

    Generally, use your common sense, if someone hasn’t responded in a couple of days then move the plot on, but don’t repeatedly do that, as you may be taking fun away from others. Just try to treat other people how you would like to be treated yourself and you should be OK; as you become more familiar with a crew, you all get to know each others characters better and how they would respond anyway.

 

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TRAINING #5

 

MILITARY TIME

 

    The UFOP uses military time. It's a simple concept, but one that can take a little getting used to. Six twenty-three AM is written 0623 hours. No problem there. However, Six PM is a bit more difficult. The clock does not start again at noon, going on straight until midnight. So six PM is 6 + 12 or 1800 hours.

 

    Please do keep in mind our website URL at “http://www.starbase118.net”. I especially recommend the ACADEMY section which gives useful information about planet classes, warp drive, and so forth.

 

    We generally consider full time SIMmers those who sign on at least four times a week. If that will be problematic for you, please let me know.

 

STARDATES

 

    In the Star Trek universe it is necessary to have a dating system, however the calendar system that is used on Earth is not suitable, as it based on Earth specific time units (i.e. the Earth year is the time taken for Earth to orbit its sun). As such the Stardate system is used.

 

    Stardates are used in Star Trek as a Federation-wide common system for the measurement of time, much in the same way we use the Gregorian calendar system today (January, February, March etc). It is not necessary to understand the theory behind how a common Stardate system would really be calculated. (Even in the Star Trek series' the numbers were arbitrarily selected between a series start value and end value.) However it is important that you understand how we decide Stardates in the UFOP group.

 

    You will be glad to hear that the UFOP Stardate system is very simple indeed. Our stardates are of the following format:

 

yyyymm.dd

 

Where:

    yyyy = The current UFOP year

    mm = The current REAL month

    dd = The current REAL date

 

    The current REAL date is SIMply the current date. I.e. If today is the 18th day of the month, then the number would be “18”. (Note: The date is always two digits, so the 4th of the month would be 04.)

 

    The current REAL month is a two digit number representing the real month. If it is January the number is 01, February is 02, and so on.

 

    The UFOP year is simply the current UFOP year. UFOP is set 377 years in the future, so this is achieved by adding 377 to the current year. If it 2001, then the UFOP year would be: 2378. If it were 2002, the UFOP year would be 2379.

 

    Adding all of these parts together gives you your Stardate. As you can see, once you understand the principle behind it all, finding a Stardate is very simple. If you are still unsure of the system, or have any questions about it, contact me with your questions.

 

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TRAINING #6

 

FORMS OF ADDRESS

 

    The appropriate formal forms of address are:

PROMOTIONS


    First, let's review the ranks in ascending order:

    Once you have completed training and are posted to a ship, then you are automatically promoted to Ensign. At the discretion of your commanding officer, you can rise in rank to Lieutenant Commander.

 

    To become a commander or captain, you must take both a written and a practical exam. You must also receive a recommendation that you are prepared for promotion. The written exam is administered by an officer in the Executive Council, while the practical exam can be administered by your own commanding officer.

 

    All ranks above captain are subject to the discretion of Fleet Admiral Tristan Wolf.

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