How to Play a Tactical Officer

Tactical is a very fun department, though there are a few things that need to be taught about it. One major thing is defining the positions. I know for a long time a lot of people asked "what exactly does this position do?" Well it's my goal that by the time you're done reading this, you will know.

Helm

Helm is one of my favorite positions as it has a lot of liberties, but you must remember it still is bound by what the Captain orders and the law of physics. Helm controls the ship, basically flies it. In fact a lot of the concepts I personally used when I was a tactical officer for basic starship flying comes from my knowledge of flying airplanes. While piloting the ship you must try to remember that your dealing with a 3D plane, and there is no upside down in space.

There is also a difference between a setting a course and setting heading to coordinates. A course means a ships heading from its current position to a direction, while a coordinate is where its destination will be. Below will explain the difference.

Course in detail:

What does your CO mean when he says "set course 158 mark 10?" Think of each set of those as being degrees on a compass with 0 mark 0, which can also be read 0 mark 360, being straight ahead. The first set of numbers, in this case 158, will be your horizontal movement (what direction the ship will move or turn to horizontally), while the second set of numbers will determine what direction the ship will move vertically. So in the above course 158 mark 10, the ship has almost turned completely around to the right, and is now nose up a little relative to the galactic plane. In another example, 10 mark 350, the ship is now turned a bit to the right, and is now nose down 10 degrees.

Coordinates in detail:

Now a coordinate is exactly where your want to end up. These are based on galactic coordinates given on a star chart. Coordinates are much like Longitude an Latitude on a map today.

Please note that since there is no official galactic chart at this time for Federation Space the coordinates are usually given in technobabble.

Tactical

Tactical is basically your weapons station. At the tactical station it would be your job to set ship alert status, such as Red Alert/Yellow Alert, (according to orders), report damage to shields and weapon systems if Ops hasn't already. Tactical is also to activate ship's defensive systems and target and fire the ships offensive systems, i.e. phasers and torpedoes. This station is also responsible for launching scientific probes.

Credits

Written by Joseph Valiant