Credits
to:
Refined
SIMming Techniques
Welcome
to the Advanced SIMming Techniques Guide.
By now you should have already passed the Basic SIMGuide for your
Division, and should be familiar with the basic rules and standards of SIMming,
both on IRC, and in Email.
The
goal of this guide is to pick up where the Basic SIMGuide left off. To show techniques that members in UCIP have
used to further enhance their SIMming experiences. It should be noted that there is no ‘right’
or ‘wrong’ way to employ SIMming techniques once you have learned the basics,
and each individual will develop their own style and flair for SIMming.
If
you have any techniques that you have seen or like to employ, please contact
the Academy Executive so they can be considered for addition to this Guide, as
we are always looking for ways to further enhance what we in the Academy teach
to our Cadets and students.
This
Guide will cover many subjects, and it is hoped that it will be useful to both
new SIMmers and experienced SIMmers alike.
If there are any questions or concerns after having read this guide, please
contact one of the friendly Instructors in the IRC channel #Academy and they
will be happy to direct you to the right place and person to speak with.
If
you are not already familiar with the 10 Basic Rules for SIMming, please review
them. They are extremely important to
every SIM, and are included below.
1.
Creativity
is key, creativity gives life to your character.
2.
Pay
attention to detail. Keep up with what others are doing and writing, it
just might affect your character
3.
Be
flexible, anything can happen in a SIM
4.
Remember
the Golden Rule. Treat others in your logs the way you would want to be
treated in theirs, with respect.
5.
For
every action, there is a reaction. If you put a phaser to your head and
fire, chances are, you're dead. Don't do dumb stuff.
6.
Words
are powerful, use them carefully, and write so others understand what you're
doing.
7.
Communicate;
talk out of character (OOC) with other crew members in email. It builds
cohesion and can add to creativity.
8.
Stay
involved, you can't always be the center of attention... but that doesn't mean
your character can't do anything. It is a big ship.
9.
Develop
your character. Make sure you use traits about your character in your logs.
Don't just write a BIO and then play your character completely different.
10.
Be
consistent, that way others know what to expect of you. Over time it can be
like ESP.
This
course is organized into 9 Sections, organized in order of relevance to each
other. It is recommended you read this
document in full, as each Section builds on things covered in the previous
section(s).
1. Character Development
2. Constructing your Character Biography
3. Enhancing your Logs
4. Joint Logs
5. Using IRC to work around Events
6. CART
7. The Weekly Report
8. Taking Advanced Courses
9. Becoming an Instructor
1. Character Development
Too
many people SIM for ‘power’, rank, and ‘status’. These are intangible items, and while they
can make a person feel good, these people often forget about the pride you can feel
in creating a well established and well thought out character. Often, they forget to have fun while on their
quest for those items, which, to them, are important and mean everything.
Character
development happens every time you play your character, write a log, or attend
an IRC SIM. Anything you do with your
character results in development.
Characters are constantly being defined, rewritten, and refined. They evolve, just like their players do, and
some of them can be quite complicated.
There
are several keys to true character development.
One of the first ‘rules of the trade’ is that whatever happens…
happens. Adapt. When something bad or totally unexpected
happens to or around your character, your character should have a ‘natural
reaction’. When having trouble figuring
out what that ‘natural reaction’ would be, ask yourself “How would I feel/react
to that if I were that character?” Once
you figure that out, the rest should be easy!
Often
in adapting your character past these ‘bad events’, you may take a few weeks to
years for your character to fully assimilate the consequences of whatever the
event was. In most cases, it can be hard
to see past the moment, past that your plans have been tampered with or
altogether ruined. You need to be able
to recover and SIM well from such incidents.
If whatever your plans were, were vital to your character’s development,
you may have to postpone them, or alter them to fit the situation.
Remember,
above all, this is SIMming, and the best part about SIMming is you never know
what is going to happen next! Even the
best laid plans can come to ruin by a simple plot twist or unexpected event
happening on your SIM. The best you can
do is adapt, and move on. Part of the
challenge is being able to adapt, and these unexpected twists, while
frustrating, can make the game a lot more fun if you learn to employ them
carefully into your own plans! It can be
a lot of fun to figure out how to take the current events and figure out a
believable and logical way around it to your goals.
It
is important to remember that whatever happens to your character, it is really
happening to your character. This means
it is important to remember actions and consequences. If your character breaks a bone, it will be
sore for some time afterwards. Remember
that at all times when SIMming, you are playing your character, and should
react how your character would react, not how you, the SIMmer, would react.
Most
importantly, consistency is the key to character development. Through character development, you explore
aspects of your character, and others come to know your character and are able
to reliably expect certain reactions from your character. In time, it can become like ESP. This greatly enhances your ability to be able
to SIM well with others, as well as their ability to SIM well with you.
2. Constructing your Character Biography
A
Character Biography (commonly referred to as a Bio) is also very important to
character development. Not only does it
save you having to repeat basic information to new people, but it allows you to
keep track of important events in the life of your character. Your Character Biography also can help you
focus your character during times when you may loose track of what you are
trying to do or where you are trying to take your character.
Below
are some basic elements that are most commonly found in Character
Biographies. They are not ‘law’ and you
can be as detailed and flexible as you want with your character information. You can include more, or less information,
whatever suits your needs. A Character
Biography can be as short as a page, or as long as a dozen pages in
length. There are no hard rules about
that. Additionally, many SIM
Administrators (Commanding Officers) require that you have a Character
Biography before you will be granted promotions.
Personal
Details:
This should be pretty self-explanatory. Simply enter your character details, such as;
Name, Gender, Race, Description (Appearance), birth date, birth place, and
family information.
Remember, before you pick your race and commit to
it, do some research. Your Character’s
physical description should make sense for the race you choose. As an example, if you pick a Romulan, your character
would have black hair, as blonde and brown hair is extremely uncommon. If you choose a Trill, the last name will be
3-4 letters long. Vulcans would be
without emotion. A Klingon would hold
his or her honor above all else, they are very proud race with aggressive
tendencies.
In other words, be careful, your character, unless
you have a back-story to justify it, will need to be an example of a typical
person within their race.
Previous
Posts, Awards, and Promotion History:
As you go through your time in UCIP, you will find
yourself holding various posts. It is
important to keep track of what you (and by extension your character) have
done. Dates are important, so you should
use your biography to keep track of everything.
This section might look something like:
USS Cortez – Chief Science Officer – SD 240103.25 to
SD 240301.18
SSS Griffon – Chief Medical Officer – SD 240301.18
to Present
Bergen Award – SD 2401.25 – Awarded to the USS
Crazybird for excellence in SIMming
Promotion to Ensign – SD 240103.25
Promotion to Lieutenant JG – SD 240106.18
Promotion to Lieutenant – SD 240110.03
Please note that you can make up information to fill
in gaps, such as when you go on LOA from the group, or to make your ranks fit a
little differently for your character.
You should make a note of what information is ‘real’ and what is made
up, by putting an asterisk by the entry, putting ‘Not RealSIM’ in brackets, or
something similar.
Additionally, if you are familiar with HTML, you can
add the IMG tag for the award and rank pictures to your biography.
Character
Background/History:
There are two basic ways to do your Character
History and Background. The first is to
write it in paragraph form, like a story.
The second is to write it in timeline format as shown in the previous
section for Character Biographies.
Either way is fine, and you don’t have to include every detail, but you
should hit upon the major events in the life of your character. One paragraph is not acceptable. Some of the best timelines will begin with
the birth of your character, and show you the evolution to present-times. Remember, the longer the better, but keep it
to summaries.
Medical
History
Much like your Character Background and History,
however, this focuses on the medical history of your character. Again, either paragraph format or a timeline
is fine, this is mostly for the use of the Medical Officers and Counselors on
your SIMulations. You should note
injuries, psychiatric evaluations, and checkup dates in this section.
Notes/Traits
This is an additional area where you can mention
anything else you feel is important about your character. Remember that balance is very important in
the creation of a character. An example
of something to balance a character is he might be mentally very smart, but
physically, very weak. No one wants to
SIM with a super-human character that can destroy an enemy ship with a super
power death glare! It makes it boring to
try and play your character if you never have to really solve anything. For more information on balancing your
character, there is a section entitled “Guide to Powergaming” later in this
Guide. It shows you what *not* to do
with your character.
Advanced
Courses
Again, this is pretty simple. Just click yes for any courses you have
officially completed and passed within UCIP Academy. Click “No” for any courses you have not
completed. It is very important to be
accurate with this, as false information is not taken lightly, and can cause
you to receive anything from a reduction in Level, to being banned from the
group (if you have repeated offenses).
3. Enhancing your Logs
Good
variety is important to getting people to read your logs, and thus, help to
enhance your own SIM experience. UCIP
utilizes mailing lists to make it easier for you to distribute your logs to the
crew of the SIM you are on. It is up to
your CO to make sure everyone who is on the SIM, is on the list, so they do not
miss out on anything important. Writing
logs and sending them to your fellow crewmates can be a powerful tool in
developing your character.
It
is important to remember that everything you log, and everything that happens
in logs you do not write, can or may affect your character on some level. As an example, if you write that your character
has gone into the holodeck, and the ship is attacked, the natural result of
that might be the holodeck going offline or malfunctioning.
One
technique that people like to use for consistency between logs is to past the
last few lines from their last log into the new log, and go from there. Not only does this help the person to focus
on writing their own log, but it also helps other people to understand what is
happening, and in what order.
Something
that needs to be emphasized is attention to detail. Details can make your logs come to life. It can make an otherwise boring log very
interesting to read. Below is an example
of how a little detail can make a big difference.
Lt Dex walked out of the turbo lift on his way to
sick bay. Upon entering sickbay, Dex
spoke to the chief, “I have come to get my physical Doctor”. The Doctor looked at Lt Dex and began the
examination.
As
you can see from that small log, there is nothing technically wrong with
it. However, it is short, and a log of
this length is NEVER acceptable. Now,
observe what happens when you add details and emotion to the log:
Lt Dax strutted out of the turbo lift with the doors
swooshing closed behind him. He slowly
commenced his way down the twisting corridor, nodding slightly as other crew
passed by. Dax smiled thinking about
dinner with his girlfriend from the night before as he edged closer to sickbay.
Dax smoothly walked into sickbay as the doors
politely parted, and then slid closed behind him. Moving quickly, he pounced upon the biobed
grinning like a child with candy at the doctor who was now standing there with
an eyebrow curiously raised.
“Well Doc”, Dax spoke smoothly with a clam and giddy
tone, “I’m ready for my physical!”
The Doctor glared at the strangely happy Lieutenant
as his eyebrows shifted formation. A
small smirk appeared on the Doctor’s brow as he picked up a small scanning
device and began taking several standard readings from the rather hyper trill
who could not seem to sit still.
Now,
compare the two logs. Exactly the same
thing has happened in both, however, in the second one, emotion and detail were
used to describe the situation more sufficiently, and to create a picture of
what was happening in the reader’s mind.
It is the little details that make the log come to life, and the emotion
that shows the mood.
It’s
really quite easy to do this once you get the hang of it. Try it with a few logs yourself. Write something short, and then expand on
it. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you
pick up this important skill!
Take
note that a decent good quality log will be about one to two pages long,
sometimes more, and sometimes less. If
you notice your log getting longer than two pages, you may want to consider breaking
it up into several logs to stretch over several days. This will give other crewmembers time to
react and respond to what is happening in your logs.
Remember
that some COs will require you to do a mixture of personal and duty logs. You should review the Basic SIMGuide for
information on what that entails. Try to
balance out your duty and personal logs so you can achieve both character
development, and contributing to your SIM’s plots. You can even combine personal and duty into a
single log if you wish!
4.
Joint Logs
A
lot of people like to do joint logs, but not everyone is actually familiar with
doing them. A joint log is a great way
to bring character interaction to your Email SIM. You basically get with one or more of your
fellow SIMmers and write a log together with your characters interacting with
each other. Not only do you get to work
together on one log, but you both will get credit for the log!
Joint
logs are extremely useful for mission briefings, big duty tasks, parties,
special events, getting to know other characters, and many other opportunities
that will present themselves as the SIM progresses.
There
are two different ways you can go about writing a joint log, the first, and
most popular is by taking ‘turns’ writing the log. Simply write your portion and leave a note at
the end for the next person. Then send
it to them, so they can write their portion.
Repeat this cycle until the log is finished, then whoever wrote the last
portion sends it over the mailing list.
Unfortunately, this method can take anywhere from several hours to
several days depending on how much time you and the other person have and what
time zones you each live in. Patience is
a virtue however, and you can make a great joint log with this method!
The
second method for writing joint logs is described in the next section of this
document.
5. Using IRC to work around Events
Every
SIMmer who is able should download an IRC client. The most popular Windows IRC client is mIRC,
which you can download at www.mirc.com. For more details on setting yourself up to
use IRC, please review the document entitled “How do I get onto IRC?” which you
can find through the Academy website.
Email
SIMs tend to be oriented more towards character development and detail. They take place at a slower pace than an IRC
SIM, and allow more time for development.
IRC
SIMming is a lot of fun, however, it tends to be more action oriented than an
EMail SIM.
IRC
SIMs are held at a certain time each week.
They require fast reading and quick thinking. Even if you do not wish to be part of an IRC
SIM, it is highly recommended that you at least Guest on one a few times to get
an idea of what IRC SIMming is about. If
there isn’t a ship you are interested in, there are Cadet SIMs twice a week,
and the Academy is always ready and willing to help you out!
IRC
can come in really handy for the Email SIMmer when you need to work your way
through complicated events on your SIM.
It allows for faster paced action, and you don’t have to wait hours or
days for others to respond to what is happening on the SIM.
Just
remember that if you intend to do an IRC SIM to help work around events, and
you intend to send a log, do NOT send the IRC log. This is considered very unprofessional and is
a pet peeve of EMail SIMmers.
Instead,
convert your log into paragraph format.
Not only does this make it easier to read for everyone, but it also
allows you the opportunity to add details that may have been missed, or to edit
conflicts that may occur within the IRC session.
6. CART
This
acronym describes four aspects that are very important to any Advanced
SIMmer. It stands for: Communication, Adaptability, Respect, and
Teamwork.
Communication
In character communication is key to the quality of
a SIMulation. Everyone on the SIM needs
to communicate with each other in order to understand what is going on. This is one of the key purposes of the weekly
SIM Report. This is the COs communication
to the crew to keep them informed about what is happening. It is also important to communicate with your
fellow crewmembers. The more you
communicate, the better the SIM will be!
Adaptability
Things will not always go the way you plan for them
to go. Surprises can be just around the
corner. You must learn to adapt your
plans to deal with situations as they arise for your character. This may mean changing your plan completely,
or even postponing it for a later date.
Respect
It is important that you respect your fellow
crewmembers, and their characters. No
one likes an abusive person, and being abusive can result in expulsion from
your SIM. Remember, that in SIM, you cannot
always be the center of attention, sometimes you need to take a role on the
side and let others run things.
Teamwork
A SIM that does well, is a SIM where the crew all
work together towards a common goal:
Having fun. Teamwork is what the
other three terms add up to when you put it all together. Work with your other crew mates. Even if you do not like some one, you must be
able to work with them, especially when it comes to SIMming. If you are unable to do this, it can create
real problems for you, and the SIM you are on.
7. Using The Weekly SIM Report
The
weekly report for your SIM is probably the most important document you will
ever receive. This report includes a lot
of handy things such as: Awards and
promotions, weekly quotes, current mission/order, a plot summary for the last
week, log counts, information about new crewmembers and changes happening,
places to meet on IRC, etc.
If
you read nothing else, read the report.
If you are short on time one week, read the report, it will catch you up
on whatever major events have happened on the SIM. The report is the COs tool to bring the SIM
together and make sure that the story makes sense. If there are conflicts between logs, they
will be resolved in this report.
When
in doubt about what is happening, read the report, and ALWAYS check with your
command team if you are going to write a log that will cause a major change in
the course of the plot or what is happening on the SIM. It is better to seek out permission than it
is to have your log retracted and have to write an entirely new one.
8. Taking Advanced Courses
The
Advanced Course section of the Academy is dedicated to teaching you the
information to help make your SIMming experience more realistic and
believable. It is highly recommended
that you take the Advanced Course relating to your chosen position on your SIM.
While
some of the exams themselves can be hard, taking the courses is well worth it,
as it is like taking ‘extra credit’ on your SIM when looking for
promotions. If you are interested in
taking an Advanced Course, you will need to email the Course mailing lists in
order to enroll. More information on
this can be found on the UCIP Academy website.
9. Becoming an Instructor
Instructing
at the Academy is a great way to become involved in UCIP. Not only do you get learn more about leadership
and teamwork in UCIP, but you also get to help out new members by passing on
your knowledge and experience to them.
Many
people find teaching to be a satisfying and rewarding experience. People who work in the Academy are not
working there for rank, though it can count as ‘Brownie Points’ when being
reviewed for other positions or promotions.
While instructing others, you not only get to feel good for being
helpful, you get to meet and talk to very interesting members of UCIP.
If
you have the time and patience, and take pride in your work, you may wish to
become an Instructor at the Academy.
This will enable you to begin to contribute to UCIP on more than just a
SIMming level. If you are interested in
becoming an instructor, send an inquiry to acadex@academy.ucip.org and let the
Academy Executive group know! They are
always happy to accept new people into the Academy Team.