On the Galaxy class Enterprise NCC-1701-D (available to players in the The Next Generation DLC), the engineering station is called Operations and has a Systems panel used to assign crew members to various ship systems.
Operations oversees 10 ship systems that can enhance the ship's abilities, grouped into 3 departments:
Engineering (gold)
Thruster control (increase thruster speed and turn rate)
Main engineering (decrease warp time)
Transporter room (decrease transport time)
Weapons (red)
Torpedoes (decrease arm time)
Shield generator (shield modulation, decrease recharge time, increase strength)
Phaser control (precision targeting, decrease charge time)
Science (blue)
Sickbay (heal injured crew members)
Astrophysics lab (decrease anomaly damage)
Computer core (decrease hull damage)
Scanners (cloak detection, decrease scan time)
Each department can have up to 3 crew members active
Crew members assigned to systems outside of their department ("off color") will be less effective than crew members assigned within their department ("matching color")
A total of 5 crew members can be active at any one time; crew members can be activated and deactivated by checking/unchecking them on the list on the right side of the operations console
It takes time for crew members to move from one system to another; the time depends on the distance between the systems, displayed on the map of the ship on the operations console
When deactivated, crew members will still remain in the system, and will still be there when later re-activated; thus, it is possible to "pre-load" crew members into systems and deactivate them, and then re-active them later when needed, which can be faster than moving crew members between systems, as activating/deactivating crew members usually takes less time than moving them between systems
When a system is damaged, assigning crew members to that system will repair the damage
When a crew member is injured, that crew member must be moved to sickbay to receive treatment
System benefits[ | ]
Assigning crew members to ship systems provides the following benefits:
Thruster control
1 crew: +250 max speed, -15sec turning rate (time to turn 360 degrees reduced by 15 seconds)
Phaser control: +charge rate, precision fire target size, and range(?)
Scanners: +cloak warning, about -1sec scan time per crew (tested at 6km range)
Crew assignment pre-load Alpha[ | ]
3x weapons (red) in torpedoes
For most missions, best practice is to place three weapons (red) crew members into torpedoes immediately at the start of the mission, in order to speed up the time it takes to initially load all four torpedoes
When the torpedoes are loaded, keep the three red crew members in torpedoes, but deactivate them (allowing you to activate crew members elsewhere)
When in combat, re-activate the three red crew in torpedoes, which will significantly reduce torpedo arm time and thus increase damage-per-second; deactivate them when out of combat, once torpedoes are fully re-armed
1x science (blue) in phasers
Used to activate precision phaser targeting
Activate when in combat; this crew member may be deactivated when not in combat, or left active
In combat, weapons (red) crew members will provide a larger damage-per-second boost by working in torpedoes rather than phasers; thus, one off-color crew member is placed in phasers solely to activate precision phaser targeting
1x science (blue) in shield generator
Used to activate shield modulation
Activate when in combat; this crew member may be deactivated when not in combat, or left active
In combat, the boost to damage-per-second provided by placing all weapons (red) crew in torpedoes is generally more useful than the boost to shields provided by placing weapons (red) crew members in the shield generator system; thus, one off-color crew member is placed in the shield generator solely to activate shield modulation
1x science (blue) in computer core
In combat, when shields are down, deactivate the crew member in shield generator and activate this crew member; when shields recharge, deactivate this crew member and activate the crew member in shield generator
When cloak hunting, move this crew member to scanners to activate cloak detection
3x engineering (gold) in thrusters
Typically, leave active in non-combat situations, to increase max speed from 5,000kph to 5,750kph
In combat, these three can be deactivate to make room to activate the three weapons (red) crew members in torpedoes; the thrusters crew can then be re-activated once combat is over and torpedoes are fully re-armed (and the weapons crew is deactivated)
Common in-mission assignment patterns:
In combat, with shields: blue #1 in phasers, blue #2 in shields, all three red in torpedoes; blue #3 and golds are deactivated
In combat, with shields up: 3x red in torpedoes, 1x blue in phasers, 1x blue in shields
In combat, without shields: blue #1 in phasers, blue #3 in computer core, all three red in torpedoes; blue #2 and golds are deactivated
In combat, with shields down: 3x red in torpedoes, 1x blue in phasers, 1x blue in computer core
Not in combat: blue #1 in phasers, blue #2 in shields, all three gold in thrusters; blue #3 and reds are deactivated; golds and blues can be moved about as needed
Not in combat: 3x gold in thrusters, rest at captain's or ops officer's discretion
In certain situations, the science crew members can be moved elsewhere, e.g. to astrophysics when taking anomaly damage, or to scanners when cloak hunting or on a survey mission
In certain situations, the engineering crew members can be moved elsewhere, e.g. to transporters when transporting, or to main engineering when preparing for warp (although the time it takes to move them may not be worth it)
In the unlikely event you use up all 50 torpedoes, move the three weapons officers from torpedoes to phasers or shield generator
