A battle drill is kind of like a fire drill. What do you do when there’s a fire? What do you do when there’s a blob? As captain, what do you do during the start of the round? What are the most recommended practices by the most successful captains? Here is the system that gets used for “Captain Battle Drills”.
First, we have to consider a couple of types of status. Just like security levels are given color codes, status levels will also be given color codes. The rational for this is the mechanics behind how exactly the captain should behave and what they should expect when they make a decision. This guide was made in this manner because it’s easier for Captain players to understand what to do next instead of having them come up with their own methods which sadly is expecting too much.
First we will start with departmental status. Each department has sub departments which add to the overall status of the department, making some sub departments more important than others. Why does this matter? Because different types of antagonist require different types of issues to be addressed in order to handle them. This game isn’t as random as many people might think, though most people are role playing and like to act random. Crew members would need to have unique crew missions each round for that to matter, and so this makes my method more dependable.
Departmental Status
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Grey: The round has just begun and the amount of time required for each department to be given a color code for their status hasn’t been met yet. This status system is based off the security status color system.
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Rainbow: The highest level of functionality a department can reach has been reached, allowing for it to be used in more ways. This is a status that doesn’t have to be set in stone, but for things like xenobiology, should be based around rather or not golems can be created yet, positronic brains for robotics, and plant people for hydroponics. The core thinking of these departments being rainbow when those circumstances are met is that they are able to create new staff members when other ones die.
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Green: This means that the expectations needed to be met for a department when coming out of grey status, was met at bare minimum.
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Blue: A department is currently down and out of grey status, but can be green with resources available currently on the station.
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Red: A department is currently down and out of grey status, but can be green with resources available through the quartermaster or cargo department, science, or another department.
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Delta: A department is currently down and out of grey status, but can’t be fixed by any means available to the station and its staff either without doing something outlandish or calling the shuttle.
Department Hierarchy and Priority
After the Captain has successfully done what needs to be done during grey status which is currently an arbitrary status, with consideration of handling potential early game threats, they may begin to find out what the status of each department is. This can be done by trying to get members of each department to turn on their suit sensors and considering members who don’t do so, to possibly be unreliable and thus don’t contribute to the overall status. If a department also has an acting head at the time, that will also make a difference.
Engineering-
-Engineers
-Atmos Techs
Cargo-
-Cargo Technicians
-Miners
Medical-
-Doctors
-Chemist
-Geneticist
-Virologist
Research-
-Scientist
-Roboticist
Security-
-Warden
-Officers
Services-
-Hydroponics
-Bartender
-Chef
-Entertainers
-Chaplin
-Janitor
-Assistants
-Curator
Headquarters-
-AI
-Cyborgs
-Staff
This is the standard checklist that you would use in order to decide rather or not these departments are up. To give an example of how this would work, you would look at staff and ask yourself if there’s a head for each department. If not, then the status would likely be considered red unless all ID consoles have been destroyed and there’s no way to replace them, which it would then be delta. You don’t need to actually complete the checklist. You just need to make sure critical departments for different types of rounds will be up and running. It’s not metagaming if centcom literally sends you a message round start saying what the potential threats are. Because of this, you can prioritize off of which threats will be the largest and first issues of the station. This isn’t power gaming either since you’re not only the captain of the station, but also have been informed by centcom about the threats. Now to move on to how you would use this information I’ve given you so far.
Example Situation
Lets say the round starts and lately there’s been lots of blobs, but not only that, they seem to be the largest threat to the station between all the antagonist due to a recent patch that has made them so. After grey phase ends and you’ve grabbed the disk and moved the teleportation beacons to areas that pose less of a security risk, the first thing you end up doing is seeing if engineering is green. This could mean multiple things depending on what kind of captain you are, but in this case, it means the super matter is up and running, there are still emitters separated from the engineering storage and available elsewhere for use in the case a blob decides to take a risk spawning on top of the emitters, and there’s a chief engineer that’s been briefed on priorities they need to take. So the status isn’t green because there’s no chief, but the emitters exist. Consider taking the chief out of the requirements for green and maybe consider it more of a requirement for rainbow, then do your checklist from there so that your standards aren’t unrealistic. Engineering is green? Now you know that if a blob shows up, you can run through the battle drill you’ve created or other engineers created for blob, which is to grab the emitters and mirrors, then set them up in line with the blob.
After engineering is green, you run through each departments sub departments that are critical for handling all the other types of antagonist, likely saving traitors for last because they’re the most unpredictable. Once you’ve covered a majority of bases on the checklist, then you can start doing status checks on departments that aren’t as critical. This is also a good way to make sure certain departments are doing what they’re suppose to be doing through a form of inspection. What’s the first thing you hear as a department staff when the round starts most of the time? For the department staff to check in. This is an example of a captain getting a status on the current situation for the station. Remember to prioritize your check list from most critical to least and be sure to brief members of that department to send you a message when various things occur, such as a department being rainbow.
Antagonist Checklist
Checklist-
-Traitors
-Changeling
-Nuclear Operatives
-Cultist
-Revolutionaries
-Malf AI
-Gang
-Wizard
-Blob
-Xenomorph
-Revenant
-Abductor
-Devil
Traitor is a rather unique little issue where the traitors might actually seem like they’re gangs or a number of other types of antagonist, causes staff to act wrongfully in many situations. Because of this, it’s important to assume that when there’s a traitor, consider the threat to be the highest type of threat with the information you have while also the same kind of threat that won’t get you in trouble for trying to handle, such as assuming it’s a revolution just because someone stole a flash from science and went around flashing people.
Putting It All Together
When a round type is confirmed, ask yourself which departments are up and running as captain. Is engineering green when the spare circuit used to make shuttle consoles is in your hands? After you made your priorities, as soon as something comes up, even merely as another head of staff saying something over the intercom, begin going through the checklist you’ve created for that situation.
An example for this is to say there’s a devil on the station. You’ve learned there’s a devil, so you check to see if the curator is green. You can’t confirm, so you have to assume the curator to be red. You can’t find the curators book on demonology within a given amount of time, so you now must assume the curator is actually delta. This is a terrible situation, though simple, as there’s no way for you to possibly deal with the devils. The only choice you have is to call the shuttle, because you can’t get your hands on a new demonology book when it’s gone. This will of course cause the crew to call you a coward and use their newly found powers to try and kill you. This leads to the next thing you should do in the checklist of things to do in this special situation. You need to call the shuttle, but the crew will try to kill you the first chance they get now. This is what your devil checklist should look like.
Confirmed Devil on the Station
Check Curator Status
Curator Status Red
Search x Amount of Time for Demonology Book
Demonology Book Not Found
Curator Status Delta
Turn Off Suit Sensors
Dismantle Shuttle Consoles in Bridge
Build Shuttle Console in Secure Hidden Location
Call Shuttle
Make Announcement Briefing Crew
When there’s multiple threats at the same time, you need to consider threat priority based on the unique nature of the threats, such as if there’s a malf AI and gangs, clearly the malf AI is a larger threat than gangs, but saving the malf AI for last might help you handle the gang problem. Consider these things heavily and maybe even have debates with other captain players about them.
Final Notes
I plan to make a google spreadsheet of sorts for this and it will be editable by others and arguable online about. I’m not doing it yet, but please leave me a message with a reason as to why you agree or disagree, as well as with a personal goal in mind when you leave the message such as the answer to why you bothered replying to me.
EDIT: Typos
