Comms Officer

The Comms Officer is a Ship Position. Other ship positions can be reviewed and may affect this position.

This is considered a secondary position, and a single player can take multiple secondary positions or one Primary and one Secondary position if the ship is Small or smaller.

Description

The Communications Officer is responsible for Ship-to-Ship and internal communications, as well as the ship's sensors and Scanners. The Communications Officer can also engage in hacking or jamming enemy targets.

Associated Ship Attributes: Primary Sensors and Secondary Electronics

Bonus Impact: Can potentially boost Weapons with the Ship's Sensor Modifier.

Tertiary Bonus Impact: The Comms/Sensor Officer can choose a single d10 in the Battle Pool before re-roll to boost using their chosen Ability Modifier. (That d10, if successful, cannot be the target of a re-roll).

Officer Functions:

1. Scan: This is used for multiple things. In combat, it is used for scanning for a Target Ship’s shield weakness. This is against the target ship’s Tracking DC. If successful, this allows the Weapon’s officer to apply the Ship’s Sensors to their d10 rolls. A Scan can also find stealthed ships whose detection is too high to be passively targeted. It is a single roll that targets both the ship’s Detection and Tracking DCs. If the ship is detected but the roll isn’t high enough to break the Tracking DC, then the ship can be fired upon, but with no Sensor bonus. If the roll is high enough for Tracking DC but not enough for Detection, the Sensor officer only detects a flicker, and the Weapon’s officer cannot fire. A scan can also be used outside of combat to gather information about a ship. Passive Ship detection provides only the following info: Ship Location/Direction/Motion/Size, and whether Ship shields/engines/FTL/Power Core are active. I cannot provide any other stats, such as its armaments, attribute scores, life support, who is on board, and so on. Only detailed scans or Hacking can gather that info. Gathering that information in combat takes only 1 turn, but a single scan cannot provide everything. A GM can determine what info gets provided. A ‘Deep’ scan can, but it takes 3 turns to complete; the enemy ship knows you are doing it, and stealth is normally impossible.
2. Hack/Counter Hack: The Sensor Officer can attempt to break into the enemy ship's systems. They can also assist a Science Officer in hacking. Or can help detect and expel enemy hackers.

Advanced Officer Functions:

1. Sensor Spoofing / Decoy Projection: (Electronics/Sensors) The Comms Officer projects false signatures or chaff decoys (DC 10 + Target Sensors Mod). On a success, all scanning and targeting checks against your ship take a disadvantage for 1 round, or incoming guided missiles have a 50% chance to miss.
2. Crypto: This is explained under the Science Officer. But the Communications/Sensor Officer can also do this action if necessary.
3. Jam: This can be used to Jam communications. Useful for disabling drones, stopping ships from talking to one another, and disrupting Guided Missiles. This can also be used to temporarily disrupt a hack. This doesn’t stop the hacker, though; it only forces them to sacrifice a turn.