Bridge Stations According to a Beginner

[Shadow8472]

This is written from the perspective of a new player looking to learn SNIS well enough to teach others how to play quickly. Starting out, I'm alone on a dual screen workstation. Main screen on one, individual workstations on the other.

Navigation:

No better station to start than looking around right? No response due to low power.
Once navigation has power, the ship can move around the solar system at impulse or warp.
A number of arrows indicate headings other stations are looking at.

Engineering:

Engineering is all about power and coolant vs. temperature and repair status. There isn't enough power for everything, so it's your job to allocate or conserve it depending on what the ship is doing.
Things work better when they have more power, but they also are more prone to overheating.

Damage Control:

Linked to Engineering is Damage Control. You have a robot to drive around and repair components of the ship's major systems. This station can be automated, but a skilled human operator will be more efficient -- especially when taking heavily damaged components to the repair station.
Oops! Don't get the modules swapped! The robot cannot tell when components are misplaced.

Weapons:

Point gun, shoot plasma.
There are indicators for torpedoes and Missiles I haven't figured out yet.

Science:

Science is all about being the eyes and ears of the ship beyond the scope of the view screen. Space is full of things to find from lost cargo to waging battles. Point your high intensity sensors at point clouds of interest. Bring up its details. Tractor it in or deploy a mining bot. All this and more at the Science station.

Comms:

The ship's mouthpiece: Comms lets you hear about all the warring going on in the system, but it also lets you contact various craft for services, missions, or repairs.

Captain:

In the middle of the activity sits the captain, He must know the duties of each station so he can disseminate orders appropriately. He alone is responsible for everything the ship does, yet does not lay a finger on the controls.