We’re so glad you want to stay with the game and improve your simming frequency! You’re a vital member of our crew and a valued member of the community, and we want to make this work for you.

As soon as possible, please read through this entire page and complete the form at the bottom.

Set a schedule for simming

Many people in the game – even Commanding Officers – find that setting a schedule for themselves takes some pressure off of them and helps them to keep up with the game. Here are a few examples:

• Read/Write/Read/Write: On this schedule, you’ll read sims on one day, and write on the next day.
• Read & Write/Day Off: On this schedule, you’ll get all caught up on one day and then take the entire next day off. Then the next day you’ll get caught up again and write a new sim.

Consider making this schedule for yourself and writing it down or creating a new calendar for it to keep yourself accountable.

Learn more about your duty post

Are you finding that you’re having a hard time figuring out what to sim for your character? Maybe you need more guidance on how to sim a member of your duty post to make it more enjoyable. The first place to start is on our wiki, where we have detailed tutorials about each duty post and simming them well.

Consider changing duty posts

If you feel like you’re just not going to be able to get the hang of simming someone in your duty post really well, you can always consider changing to a new duty post. Check out the link above to learn about some other ones available.

What next? Fill out the form at the bottom of this page and then talk to your Commanding Officer to let them know that you believe that you’ll need to change your character’s duty post to do that and you’d like guidance on planning and executing this plan.

Consider changing characters

If you’re having trouble figuring out how to inhabit your character and express their thoughts and emotions, you might need to change to a new character.

If you’re playing an alien

Alien characters can be difficult – especially for new writers – when it’s not clear what motivates their behavior or how to make them seem “alien enough” to be interesting. Here are some things you can do to try and improve your writing:

• Read more about the species on Memory-Alpha: This is a fan-maintained wiki that has great source of information about everything Star Trek related. Simply search for your character species and read the wiki page about them.
• Watch episodes of Star Trek where the alien species appears: Take a critical look at their behavior in the episodes – especially the way they talk to Starfleet officers and how they behave. You may find new insights by taking the time to notice! You can find those episodes by going to Memory-Alpha (linked above), finding your character species, and checking the reference links in the article.
• Research non-canon sources on Memory-Beta: This is a fan-maintained wiki that has great information about all the “non-canon” or “near-canon” Star Trek material, like comic books, novels, and other sources. Other writers may have developed your alien species more than we saw on-screen and could give you lots of inspiration. Simply search for your character species and read the wiki page about them.
• Read our tutorial on writing an alien species: This tutorial has some great tips that you can use to revitalize your simming with an alien. Take a quick look and see if you can learn something new!
• Talk to other fleet writers about their character: If you know there are other players who use the same alien species, consider reaching out on Discord or the forums to ask for their advice – they might have great insights!

If none of these options is fruitful, we highly recommend creating a new character that’s human. You’ll find it easier to draw on your own experiences and translate those into a human character than using an alien one.

What next? Fill out the form at the bottom of this page and then talk to your Commanding Officer to let them know that you believe that you’ll need to change your character species to do that and you’d like guidance on planning and executing this plan.

If you’re playing a human

You may need to consider tweaking or changing your character even if they’re a human. For example, are you playing a character of a different gender? If so, you may find that changing to a character of the same gender as you – the writer – will help you draw on your own experiences and emotions more.

Anything that helps you write what you know more than you have now will probably remove some barriers to creating and embodying your character.

What next? Fill out the form at the bottom of this page, and then talk to your Commanding Officer to let them know that you believe that you’ll need to change your character to do that and you’d like guidance on planning and executing this plan.

Every journey starts with the first step

Sometimes, we can feel stuck with a character that we love; we know their personality; we know how they think and act. You might have self inserted yourself into the game (essentially playing yourself) and finding it hard to disconnect from them. You might have played the same character for years and come up against a brick wall when considering what might be next if they’ve seen and done it all, which leads to slowed down simming when ideas run dry. Time to cut them loose and start afresh.

This is where you need to start thinking about the character arc, not just the character. Consider what continuously drives them forward, what they want most in life, and what prevents them from getting it. These fundamentals of an arc will help build foundations for multiple arcs throughout their story through their career, otherwise, their journey would be over pretty quickly.

Here are a few suggestions to get you moving if you’re stuck:

• Keep it simple: Complex backstories give you less to develop later on. Don’t develop the whole story for them, but allow it to evolve over time. If you start with an encyclopaedia, there’s nothing to discover. Establish five things that happened in their past.
• Goals: Your character needs to have the drive to go out and seek adventure, after all, that’s why they joined Starfleet in the first place. No one joins Starfleet just to stock the minibar in the Admiral’s lounge. Do they want to be the greatest Security Officer who ever lived? Or was Starfleet the excuse they needed to break away from their family?
• Leading with the heart/head: What motivates them in their career or personal life? Do they follow their principles or the rules? What regrets keep them awake at night? Establish their secrets. What secrets do they know and what do they not know?
• Make choices: Your character grows and changes with the choices you make through roleplay, so who they are at the end is not who they started the Academy as. The situations your character is put in are choices for you to make. How will they react? Will they be brave or cowardly? Risk themselves or risk others? Some of the greatest character arcs in Star Trek are when morals were challenged.
• Who they know: Establish their relationships; who do they know well, acquainted to, the enemy of? As a seasoned player, you’ll have fellow writers in the game who may be willing to help here and give you an existing relationship to tie the character into the game.

Answering these questions and points will help you develop a starting character arc for a new character, as well as give you their first story to springboard from. Every journey starts with the first step.

Declare your intent to continue simming

If you’ve decided you’d prefer to take an LOA, use this link to go to that form now.

If you’d like to increase your simming frequency and remain on your ship, please use the form below to announce your intent: