I have even drawn up suggested guidelines for such player characters. I have included ways to introduce such a character, background suggestions and criteria for approval to play such a character on a ship. If anyone wishes to see what word documents I have written on the topic thus far, drop me an e-mail. If you don't have a current version of MS Office, then let me know what version of software you do have for viewing and I'll convert the document into something you can read.
While we're at it, I'm going to make another pitch here for something that has always been a thorn for me about staffing on ACTD ships that I wish to address. I bring it up now as a reboot is going to be the best chance I get at making such changes and it has worked extremely well on my other site, once I convinced them of the merits.
The issue is as simple as who can be a Department Head (DH). There should be a minimum rank requirement (I suggest LtJG) and approval of the CO. If you don't have anyone in that department, getting a new guy, fresh out of the academy, should not be your first choice. The DH should be an NPC until such time as the new person is fit for the position and has proven themselves capable. Running such an NPC can fall to the CO, SM or anyone they deem fit to do so, but they too should at least have a character that has attained such rank on the site and preferably on that ship.
Given that there are so few of us, we also may not even have an Academy to start out with, so all writers should be prepared to act as trainers, though to avoid piling on the poor bastards, I suggest the CO assign the noob to someone to take under their wing and act as a mentor until such time as we are staffed enough to reform the Academy.
Thoughts?
--------------------------------------------
XO LtCmdr Samantha Waters
Lone Wolf
lonewolfdagaz@hotmail.com