Doyle Simming Guide/Doyle-A New Officer Handbook: Difference between revisions

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{{LCARS Section Heading|Introduction to the Doyle|150|COLOR=#6699cc}}

N.B This handbook is meant to supplement rather than replace the one on one guidance that you get from the command staff or your mentor.  

{{LCARS Section Heading|Some Helpful Resources|150|COLOR=#6699cc}}

In this area, the obvious goal is legibility. People don’t want to struggle to read your sims anymore than you do this. To this end there are a few things you should keep in mind:

As a rule, we would like everyone on the Doyle to be hitting the Fleet’s Full Time requirements: at least three times a week, making 12 posts in a month. Ideally, as many of these posts should be with your primary character (PC), however posts written for either Personal Non-Player Characters (PNPCs), Non-Player Characters (NPCs), or Mission Specific Non-Player Characters (MSNPCs) will count towards it. At first this can seem like a pretty daunting number, however it is really surprising how quickly you pick up the steam!

If, however, you can’t make this for some reason please don’t hesitate to contact the Command Staff! There are many options that we can discuss with you to help you out which don’t necessarily mean forcing you to take a Leave of Absence (LoA).

The rule is 36 to 48 hours, once you post, give everyone you tag 36 hours to respond before simming again. This gives them ample opportunity to be included in on the plot, as all of us have real lives, work, school, children, housework, etc, that can keep us from responding immediately. However that said, if those you tagged haven’t responded within 48 hours, you are strongly encouraged to post again, keeping the plot moving, as we also don’t want to hinder your fun.

Feel free to post again, the above said rule is to allow everyone a chance to post. However, remember there are 10-15 people on the ship at all times, so while we encourage big plot twists, if you do, give others an opportunity to jump on board with reacting/solving them, before closing it up. (Example: Sending a sim with an Alien Holographic AI showing up on the bridge, you are only tagging the captain and First Officer, but there are 3 other people on the bridge, don’t make the AI disappear before the 48 hours of that window expires on them too.)

You’ve waited more than 72 hours? Well, I can understand the desire to give everyone an opportunity to respond to my tags too, but at this point my suggestion is to move on, if there’s no one else in the scene responding with you, write another set of tags, and move to tag someone else. Sometimes real life creeps up and bites us in the rear, and we don’t want to hinder your ability to have fun, so we definitely will understand if you move to another, more active, crew member to interact with.

Would you like if you had to wait a whole week for someone to respond to your tags, because they posted all their sims in one day? Personally, I wouldn’t, because it hinders the ability to write full time, or have an interactive conversation if you are making full time by pushing the scene. The recommendation here is, write three separate times a week, and if you wish to and can write more, we would certainly enjoy the sims and activity.

Creativity in your sims is not just encouraged, but is really the reason why we sim. While our missions have usually been planned in advance, nothing is set in stone and plot twists are welcome and encouraged from all levels! Every character, from Ensign to Captain, helps decide the direction of our missions.

That said, before you go ahead and sim 10,000 Romulan Warbirds appearing off our port bow, stop and think:

As long as you can comfortably answer all of these questions with a resounding ‘Yes!’ should you go ahead and add it. The only additional thing to think about with this, is when new additions take control of another writer's character out of that writer's hands. For example, you should never injure another character without talking to the character's writer first.

Thinking outside the box and sometimes inside the box are both valid solutions to problems that will come up in sim.

Of course, the only way to move the plot forward is to tag people…

This is a topic I’m sure you’ll have heard all about in the Academy but it does deserve reiterating some basic points. The average sim should contain between 3 to 5 tags per post, although obviously this is at the writers discretion. On the Doyle, we also mainly use two forms of tagging:

and

Also, there will be times when you will be assigned to work with someone. Make sure to tag them and work with them, and not just the CO, First Officer or Chief. Like in the show, people are often assigned so the Commanding Officer can pay attention to something else, handle other work, or issue other orders. It also will help you grow friendships and connections within the ship as well!

While this is a time for your character to relax, that in no way means the writer can drop the ball on posting! Ideally, Full Time rates should still apply over leave!

While it may only seem like a small thing, posting on the forums is part of being part of the wider fleet! We’re a pretty awesome bunch (even if we do say so ourselves) and would love to get to know you! The forums cover a wide variety of activities from discussions about Star Trek, to memorable quotes from ships, to even just funny image threads! If you find yourself with a little free time, there is certainly worse places to hang around.

As you’ve obviously found out, the wiki is a treasure trove of information both from an In-Character Perspective and a Out-Of-Character Perspective. For instance, every player on the Doyle should have a wiki page for their characters (This includes you!) which will tell you something about who they are. So, perhaps your character enjoys playing Vulcan Chess and you notice that a Vulcan Engineer does too, there is no harm in emailing the writer to see if having the two meet is something they would enjoy - you never know, both you and your character may get a new friend out of it!

If you find you really enjoy helping out on the wiki, the Doyle is always looking on people to help out with our own pages! Not only is it fun, but its a great way to show your ready to move up the promotion ladder. Contact the Command Staff Today!

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