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Starfleet Tactical Force: Simming Basics

Good day, recruit. My name is Fleet Admiral Sioned Gwynne, and this letter is intended to teach you the basic techniques of simming.

Simming is a very simple, slightly more structured form of roleplaying. In roleplaying, spoken lines are typed normally and actions are denoted by placing your action (what your character is doing) between double colons, as in:

::stands up from her chair::

Actions are typically written in the present tense, third person, as if the subject were your character (although this is omitted). If it helps you think of it in this way, you can imagine your action in a full sentence, such as "He taps the console" or "Captain Swift raises his eyes to the viewscreen," then chop off the subject and put the remaining sentence between double colons:

::taps the console::
::raises his eyes to the viewscreen::

Now, you can talk and do actions in the same line, if need be. For example:

::walks out of the turbolift and turns down the corridor, seeing Ens. JG Cordova passing by:: Hello, Jessica! How are you today?
This blasted warp core never seems to work right. ::hits his console in frustation:

In order to properly communicate without confusion in a sim, we place our post before everything we say or do. If we're talking to another person, we place their posts before our dialogue as well. The post tags you'll need to know for this are:

[CO] - Commanding Officer
[XO] - Executive Officer (first officer)
[SO] - Second Officer
[CTAC] - Chief Tactical Officer
[TAC] - Tactical Officer
[OPS] - Chief Operations Officer
[HELM] - Helmsman/CONN Officer
[CSCI] - Chief Science Officer
[ASCI] - Assistant Science Officer
[CSEC] - Chief of Security
[ASEC] - Assistant Security Officer
[CENG] - Chief Engineer
[XENG] - First Mate Engineer
[AENG] - Assistant Engineer
[CMO] - Chief Medical Officer
[AMO] - Assistant Medical Officer
[CNS] - Counselor
[MO] - Mobile Officer
[ESU] - Elite Security Unit

So, if you were the ship's Tactical officer, and you wanted to talk to the CO, you would use a format such as this:

[TAC][CO] The Ferengi ship is raising shields.

If you were the Chief Engineer and wanted to talk to more than one person successively, you might post something such as this:

[CENG][AENG] Fix that plasma leak in Astrometrics. [XENG] I need you to come with me to look at that EPS conduit.

Some people use the post tag [COMP] to speak to the computer, and [NOIP] or [TNOIP] to denote that a statement is "to no one in particular."

[XO][COMP] Red alert!

Keep in mind that actions come in between all of this! Try this on for size.

[CMO][AMO] I need 20ccs of anaprovaline. ::takes the hypospray:: [HELM] Hold still. ::presses it to his neck to inject it::

Normally in the Star Trek world, people occasionally need to talk to other members of their crew that are in different areas of a ship, or in another location altogether. When this happens, they tap their commbadge. In simming, we represent this by placing +T+ before the post of the person you're speaking to. Example:

[CO]+T+[CMO] Prepare for casualties, doctor.

There are several different "forms" of the +T+ notation that are common, although +T+ is the standard in the STF. All of these are acceptable for the same posting as well:

[CO]+taps+[CMO] Prepare for casualties, doctor.
[CO]+[CMO] Prepare for casualties, doctor.
[CO]+CMO+ Prepare for casualties, doctor.

Members who are telepathic may communicate via telepathy through variations on +T+, such as +tele+.

Members of a crew who are on an away team should note this by placing an @ symbol before their post.

@[XO] ::beams in and has a look around:: +T+[CO] All crew present and accounted for, captain.
[CENG]+T+@[XENG] I'm sending the calibration data to you now.

Special actions you should know include ::AA:: (At Attention) and ::AE:: (At Ease). A member of the STF should always go to attention with ::AA:: whenever an officer ranked Captain or higher enters a room. While at attention, there is to be absolutely no movement, no thoughts/actions, no mun bubbles, and NO TALKING. Attention is also called by the CO of a sim before it begins, and all crew members should go to attention when a CO pauses his or her sim.

Simming is about roleplaying, but it's not completely free roleplaying. The CO of a sim controls the action and guides the storyline with ACTIONS. For example, you might see something like this:

ACTION> The Cardassian ship begins hailing us.

When an action is given, it is intended to steer the storyline in its intended direction, and crew should act within that action. For example, the OPS officer might answer the hail, but under no cirumstances should a member "put words into the Captain's mouth" by, for example, stating that the Cardassian ship is powering weapons. Similarly, major actions such as a hull breach should never be given by the engineering crew, only the CO. The engineering crew, however, may play out a minor plasma conduit failure that does not affect ship operations. Knowing how to roleplay within the actions is a fine art; a simmer must walk a fine line between things that are too major to signal on his or her own and things that are good for keeping busy.

Another large part of simming within the actions is knowing when NOT to act. If a crew member is a medical officer in Sickbay and an away team member is injured, he or she should not be aware of it unless told or the away team member comes into sickbay to have that injury treated.

The basics of simming will come to you fairly quickly with a little bit of practice. The finer points will take longer, but with experience, you'll be on your way to becoming a simming expert in no time.