▶ Space Couch Command CREW GUIDE // NO CONSOLE
CAPTAIN
No console, no seat.
Just the couch, the TV, and your voice.
There is no Captain seat on any hull and no Captain console anywhere — you cannot claim it in the lobby, because it is not a thing the game hands out. Whoever is captaining simply sits down, watches the viewscreen, listens to what the officers read off their phones, and decides what the ship does next.
▶ THE ROLE
A ROLE THE GAME DOES NOT ENFORCE
THE CAPTAIN. Nobody claims it — there is no Captain seat on any hull and no Captain console anywhere. In the code, Role.CAPTAIN exists only for wire compatibility, is excluded from the list of claimable duties, and owns no intents. Whoever is captaining simply sits on the couch, watches the TV, listens to the reports the officers read off their phones, and gives orders out loud. On the one- to three-crew hulls the Pilot/Shipmaster is the captain socially.
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WHY IT WORKS
YOU SEE THE ONE SHARED THING
Every officer is nose-down in a phone showing one slice of the ship. You are the only person looking at the viewscreen the whole time. That makes you the one who notices the second contact, the closing range, and the fact that nobody has mentioned the hull in a while.
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WHY IT WORKS
HULL AND SHIELDS ARE NOT ON THE TV
Deliberately. The viewscreen never shows hull or shield numbers — those live on the officers' phones so somebody has to say them out loud. Asking for them on a rhythm is most of the job.
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WHO TAKES IT
ON SMALL CREWS, THE PILOT
On the one- to three-crew hulls the Pilot or Shipmaster is the captain socially — there is nobody else. On a full bridge it is usually whoever is happiest talking, and it does not have to be the same person twice.
▶ HOW TO DO IT
GIVING ORDERS
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ORDER
Ask for numbers on a rhythm, not in a panic. "Hull and shields" every so often costs a second; discovering the fore arc collapsed two minutes ago costs the run.
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ORDER
Name the station, then the order. "Helm, come to 090" cuts through five people talking. An order shouted at the room lands on nobody.
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ORDER
Decide the things only you can decide: whether to answer the mayday, whether to enter the sector the chart has marked with a debris warning, whether to accept the surrender, whether to spend a probe. The game genuinely leaves these open and they are the interesting choices.
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ORDER
Say the plan out loud before it matters. "If that thing hails us, we are talking, not shooting" is worth more than any single order once things are loud.
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ORDER
Watch the clock nobody else is watching. Engineering is buried in the power board and will not notice the jump has been sitting at 100% cooking the reactor.
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ORDER
Let people run their own stations. The fastest way to lose is five officers waiting for permission to do the job in front of them.
▶ THE HARD ONES
CALLS THAT ARE YOURS
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DECISION
ANSWER THE MAYDAY?
A distress call can be responded to or ignored outright. Respond and you are committed to escorting a freighter through whatever ambushed it; ignore it and the sector closes quietly. Both are legitimate.
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DECISION
TAKE THE SURRENDER?
A broken pirate may strike its colours. Accepting pays salvage and ends the fight instantly, but roughly one in seven surrenders from a ship still above a quarter hull is a fake that fires point-blank the moment you accept. Refusing means that ship fights to the last.
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DECISION
ENTER THE DEBRIS?
The chart marks debris-storm systems with a warning before you jump. Inside, impacts hit far harder and a big rock can knock a system offline outright — but the eye of the storm holds a wreck worth the detour.
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DECISION
SPEND A PROBE?
Probes are finite. Sending one splits the crew in two: Science flies it and Comms runs the scope while Helm and Tactical still have a ship to fly. Sometimes what is inside the wreck is awake.
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DECISION
WAKE THE LEVIATHAN?
Some things out there can be surveyed for a fortune or provoked into a fight. Somebody on the couch will always want to poke it. That call is yours.
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DECISION
CUT LIFE SUPPORT?
Turning life support off frees ten units of power immediately, and starts the crew's radiation shielding draining. It is a real option and a real gamble, and Engineering should not make it alone.