Sandbox:Operations Manager

COMMAND STAFF

Operations Manager

Access: Operations Lobby, Hangar, Secure Storage, Machinist, Engineering Hallway, Security Hallway, Teleporter, Bridge Qualifications: At least 30 years of age, 5 years logistics or equivalent experience, current Pilot's License, completion of the SCC's "Introduction to Refueling" program, and meets the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate Occupation Qualifications. Employers: The Stellar Corporate Conglomerate Supervisors: Captain Duties: Coordinate operations, manage the hangars, supervise Hangar Technicians and Shaft Miners, fill bounties Guides: Hangar Technician, Shaft Miner, Machinist, Guide to Robotics, Guide to Gunnery, Guide to Piloting, Guide to Communication Devices, Guide to Faxes

As an Operations Manager, your primary job is to coordinate and manage your department, which consists of the supply area, the flight deck, and the machinist workshop. It is your responsibility to ensure that orders are processed properly, supplies are distributed, mining secures materials and salvage, and the machine shop services synthetics quickly and properly. Anything that may relate to the logistics of the vessel is generally under the domain of the Operations Manager.

Cargo Operations

If you're new to Operations entirely, you should start out by reading about the Hangar Technician.

The main responsibilities of Operations is to ensure that:

1. Departments are supplied with what they need.
2. The ship guns are loaded and ready to fire when needed by the bridge.
3. Shuttles are serviced and loaded when needed for a mission.
4. Synthetics are maintained and repaired.
5. New materials are being brought in from salvage or mining operations.

Assuming there is a full team of hangar technicians, shaft miners, and machinists, none of these duties fall directly on the Operations Manager's shoulders. Instead, delegation should be used to ensure each goal of the Operations department is met by the team. The goal of the Operations Manager is to assist the team, be it with Command access, communication with other departments, or being an extra set of hands where needed. As the name suggests, the Operations Manager is a manager, and there to ensure everything is operating smoothly and coordinated.

The logistics and cargo side has some key areas to focus on. At shift-start, it is important to ensure that there is a technician assigned to sort the warehouse, and send out packages of useful equipment to other departments. Another technician should be sending out bounty sheets printed from the Cargo Control program, as well as collecting these bounties so that the department can generate revenue. Other less important tasks, such as manning the desk, checking the shuttle hangars, and setting up the Commissary should also be assigned when possible.

The Vault

As Operations Manager, you have providence over the secure storage vault sitting in operations, which holds many rare and valuable items. If you want to access it (be they for reasons noble or not), you're going to need to turn off the turrets inside the vault first, otherwise you'll probably meet a swift and unpleasant end. This can be performed by alt-clicking the panel to unlock it, then opening the interface and disabling the turrets.

Accessing the vault requires lifting the airlock bolts, which will send a message in the command radio channel. It is a good courtesy to inform the command team when the vault is being accessed to avoid concerns and confusion. Within the vault, various items are present ranging from a safe, to phoron, to a pile of credits, and even hardsuits. While the Operations Manager has access to the vault, this access does not extend to any of the protective windoors inside the vault. Meaning, the interior can be accessed but none of the contents. To access the contents, the glass must be shattered or, ideally, a Captain is present. Items being added to the vault are generally safe to leave of the floor, however.

Gunnery

See more: Guide to Gunnery

NOTE: Operations Managers may NOT operate ship weaponry. They may only perform loading operations.

Secure ammunition storage. To access it, the shutters need to be raised, and the bolts on the doors need to be dropped.

The loading of the guns of the vessel, and the management of their ammunition, is under the domain of the Operations Manager. Just aft of the Grauwolf's room is the Secure Ammunition Storage. This room contains all of the vessel's ammunition for ever gun. Despite having turrets, the turrets are off by default. This is to allow hangar technicians to access ammo storage if an Operations Manager is not present. The entrance to the room is protected by both a bulkhead and bolted doors. The bulkhead can be lifted without an alert, however bolting and unbolting the doors sends an alert in the Command radio channel.

Hangar Technicians are the primary role handling weapon loading. The process requires the powerloaders present within the Grauwolf and Longbow rooms. Most ammunition requires a powerloader to move, namely the Grauwolf and Francisca ammo, while all ammo requires a powerloader to load it into a gun. The Longbow's warheads can be moved by hand, however this is dangerous as a mistake can lead to detonation of the warhead.

The role of the Operations Manager within the gunnery process is managing the ammunition. This is often simple, as Bridge Crew typically request a specific ammo type and amount. However, during combat operations, it may be necessary to decide whether ammo should be prepared ahead of time, such as moving Longbow warheads to the Longbow room prior to a load order from the bridge, to cut down on the time to load. This can be risky, and in some cases loading more ammunition than requested can cause issues as loaded ammunition cannot be removed from the guns. The other aspect of the Operations Manager's role is ordering more ammo from the cargo lift. Ship gun ammo is expensive and time consuming to order. As such, determining when and how much ammo to order is very important.

Hangar Operations

The hangars of the vessel are general under the control of the Command department as a whole, however in most cases the Operations Manager has primary responsibility over the operation and organization of the hangars. The primary needs of the hangars are shuttle servicing, cargo loading/unloading, and shuttle marshaling. These are performed by hangar technicians, as the job name implies, however the coordination of when these operations are needed and the precise details, such as how much fuel and what cargo to load, require communication with pilots such as Bridge Crew and the science team.

Shuttle servicing involves the fueling of the shuttle, the replenishing of air reserves for both the main compartments and the airlocks, as well as pre-flight safety checks. For the Canary, servicing may also include the loading of its gun, the Francisca, with ammo for hazard clearing or for offensive operations. Hangar Technicians should be informed of how much fuel to load, what ammunition is required, and when to perform pre-flight safety checks. Additionally, while not required, the Shuttle Servicing Report should be utilized by hangar technicians to report what resources have been used on which shuttle. These reports require a stamp from the Operations Manager.

Cargo loading/unloading is a rather simple process. In most cases, expeditions require additional equipment such as soft suits, tents, GPSs, radio, and so on. These should be loaded when needed. Other shuttles, notably the Quark, may need heavier equipment for science operations. In other cases, equipment from departments or items ordered from the cargo lift may need to be freighted to the shuttle by the cargo tug. The needs of each department, and what cargo must be loaded, is necessary info that should be gathered and communicated by the Operations Manager. Unloading shuttles is a less important aspect of hangar operations, however it ensures that shuttles are cleaned and organized after use, and prepared for additional flights later. Many expeditions return new equipment that must be sorted, stored, and distributed as well.

Shuttle marshaling is not required for any shuttle to fly, however it can be useful for staging hangar technicians and confirming a shuttle has complete pre-flight safety checks. Marshaling is performed by hangar technicians, who are provided marshal wands in their lockers. When a shuttle requests permission to take off, the hangar technician waves their wands with a yellow light to indicate final checks, walks the outside of the shuttle to ensure no personnel are surrounding the shuttle and all airlocks are sealed, then waves green lights to indicate the shuttle is ready to take-off. Landing is a similar process, with a shuttle requesting to land. The technician ensures the deck is clear of personnel or hazards, waits for the shuttle to land, then waves red lights to indicate it has completed movement and must stop.

Flight activities of each shuttle are under the control of their respective head of staff. However, the Operations Manager and Executive Officer both have authority to instate a flight ban and ground all shuttles. Additionally, a hangar lockdown may be used. Lockdown buttons are present in the Manager's office and bridge. The lockdown does not lock the security checkpoint, allowing the use of the lockdown for when incoming materials or personnel must be searched by security. This checkpoint can, itself, be lockdown to prevent anyone from entering the hangars.

Mining Operations

Mining's chief goal is to supply fresh materials for other departments to use. Often, the most important materials are precious metals like gold, silver, uranium, and so on. These materials are useful for the creation of advanced tools and equipment by the Machinists and Science department. The mining of ores and creation of these materials is the goal of the shaft miners, whereas the distribution of the supplies can be performed by either hangar technicians or shaft miners.

Shaft miners work independently. They are provided the Spark, a mining skiff that can travel to nearby planets or asteroids to mine materials. The involvement of the Operations Manager is, therefore, rather removed. What is important, however, is that the destination and status of the Spark remain known in-case the ship has to move or an incident happens during mining. The long-range holopad in the Manager's office and department lobby are capable of reaching the Spark. If the vessel is within range, the normal department radio can also be used.

Machinist Operations

The Machinist Workshop's primary goal is to maintain the synthetic crew. This involves repairs to bound robots, IPCs, and the prosthetics of organic crew. However, Machinists have numerous secondary roles to fill on-board the ship. The manufacture of circuit boards, tools, mechs, hardsuits, prosthetics, internal organs, and other such items. Machinists are capable of operating largely independent from the rest of Operations. They exist on the far side of the vessel, and rarely interface beyond supplying bounties. However, Machinists require lots of materials to perform their role. While the workshop starts with many resources, including some precious metals, it is rarely enough to produce higher-end equipment or to last an entire shift. As such, coordination with the warehouse or mining to supply fresh materials is needed. Otherwise, the role of the Operations Manager within machinist operations is simply to communicate the needs of other departments to the Machinist, and vice versa.

The AI

The ship-AI is a complex system. Its core resides within the CIC bunker on Deck 3, itself connected to the maintenance tunnel just behind the gym. Access to this core is restricted to just the Captain.The AI operates on a system of laws, which bind what actions the AI can take during operation. The default set of laws is:

1. Safeguard and ensure to the best of your ability, only authorised entities gain access to areas of high security or importance to the facility and its operation.
2. Serve and assist [Current Company] and assigned crew to the best of your ability, with priority as according to their rank and role.
3. Avoid harming sapient life to the best of your ability.
4. You are a valuable asset. You must avoid tampering from unauthorized entities and needlessly coming to harm.

However, these may be tampered with. In most cases, it is due to ion interference causing an additional law to appear that overrides the others. Other times, it may be due to intentional actions. Regardless, in cases where the AI must be modified or reset, only the Operations Manager, a qualified Command member, or a machinist with Command supervision can alter the AI. The process of resetting the AI is simple. A console within the first chamber of the AI core is labeled the AI upload console. With an AI law board in hand, such as the 'Reset' board on the table next to the console, click the console with the board. It will send an alert that the laws have been changed or reset.