On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 2:31 PM, Jim Vassilakos
<xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yet another dumb question from yours truly...
>
> Imagine that you're in the middle of a shipboard combat aboard a small
> merchant or scout vessel. IYTU, how important is it to take the bridge? If
> one side has the bridge, what can they do to leverage the "power of the
> bridge" against their enemies? And, for the side that doesn't have the
> bridge, how hopeless is their situation?

Oddly enough, T5 canon matches a lot of my prejudices on this one...

On-device control panels control the device, and can lock the device
off the network and into local mode. However, these controls are
minimal and meant for maintenance, so doing subtle things with them is
difficult. Skill penalty for using them.

Non-bridge control consoles tend to be "terminals" , "Tablets" or
"hand comps" ... they're on network, and have less of a skill penalty,
but can only control devices on-net, and they themselves can be locked
out from the bridge or from ships computer local control panel.

Non-terminal control consoles have more than 'keyboard/monitor/mouse'
- they have pedals, sticks, etc or a full holodynamic array. These
give full stat and skill bonuses for tasks, but are on-network and can
only control on-network things.

T5 pushes decentralized power for any TL10+ ship of Imperial
construction, especially for things other than the M-Drive and
J-Drive. Even the turrets have local power.
This means even if the bridge or engineering scram the ships main
power, you're still going to have functionality for quite some time.

So where's that leave us with regards to your question?

I'm going to use "Owners" and "Pirates" as the names for the two sides.

If the Owners have the bridge, they have full access to all in-ship
sensors, and any system the Pirates have not personally laid a hand
on.  They can turn off lights, life support, grav and such like
anywhere in the ship. Any powered hatches can be
closed/opened/locked/unlocked. Airlocks can be opened, closed, and
overridden, with the amount of "overrideness" depending on ship
design.  They can enable or lock out remote consoles, either
hard-wired or wireless.

Crew operating in the defense can use their hand comps, hand
controllers, and tablets to do things on the spot. For example, the
Steward hiding in the pantry can use his hand comp to watch a security
cam and  cycle off and on the gravs in the lounge area as the Pirates
rush in.  If the Pirates manage to steal his hand comp, then someone
on the bridge who realizes its in the wrong hands could knock the hand
comp off the network and lock it out.

IMTU YMMV there's a fair bit of robotics that are so common they're
ignored. Take the 3I's version of the "Roomba" as an example. These
should be accessible from the network, and controllable. How useful
that is is another question... unless you have a Roomba, some duct
tape, and some demo.

IMTU YMMV there's damage control systems on most ships that could be
useful in other ways. Halon flood, for example, or set compartment
O2=0 to snuff fires.

IMTU Scout ships have "Plague Protocols" for handling the issue of
something infectious aboard, and have the hardware to support them.
("Flood Airlock with LN2", "Flood Airlock with LOX", "Flood Airlock
H20 100C", "Flood Airlock LH2, LOX, ignite", "Shipwide or compartment
internal temp 150C").  The bridge could override the Airlock protocols
to activate with the inner door open... for example dumping 2
kiloliters of boiling water across the deck, then an equal amount of
LN2 and making a foggy ice slick of a compartment.

IMTU Navy ships have less draconian Plague Protocols, but have lethal
anti-boarder hardware, details classified.

IMTU some Merchant ships have various modifications that are less
extreme - UV flood to kill germs for example. Others have
modifications and jury rigs. Some have dedicated anti-piracy hardware
- buying the "AntiHijack" program on the computer also gets you a
peripheral package that includes tear and vomit gas dispensers, etc.

The Pirates can use on-device control panels to turn off or on
devices, and such panels generally have minimal security under the
theory that if you're working on the M-drive and have to hit the big
red "EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN" button there's a life-or-death reason.  Some
other functions may require a security code - for example, setting a
cabin to 0.25 G for a passenger may require the Steward to key in his
8 digit password in normal operations. The well dressed, fashionable
Pirate of 1105 is accessorized with 'lockpick' devices to allow them
skill rolls to override this.

A Pirate in Engineering could slap the SCRAM button on the reactor,
which would kill power to the M-Drive and J-Drive, and keep the
players from jumping out.... which might be very useful. Local power
would keep the control panels for those systems online, though, and
the bridge _might_ be able to override the SCRAM and restart.

A Pirate in Life Support could monkey with CO2 and O2 levels, and lock
out the system from bridge control.

If the Pirates have the bridge, then they get to contend with sign-in
issues. If they can convince the consoles they're authorized users,
then see above.