Naturally the captain cannot press every single button on the bridge himself, so CorpComm has employed multiple HIGHLY TRAINED OFFICERS to press the buttons for him. When you join you will be automatically assigned a station to man. However, this is not a formal assignment so you and the other officers may switch places at will. This may sound dull, but worry not, many fun things await you!
As a bridge officer you are not a head of staff like the Captain or Head of Personnel. You are on the same level as a standard department crewman; the only difference between you and a standard crewman is your department is in the bridge, thus you must obey orders from all heads of staff, and your fancy uniform does not give you permission to order other people around.
Being on the bridge does not give you special privileges to jump the chain of command, although the Chief Medical Officer may opt to pass and stay in Medbay to heal others, the Chief Engineer may opt to stay with their team and coordinate repairs, and the Head of Security may opt to stay with and coordinate the Sec team.
The Bridge Officers and the Munitions Officer are on the same level: none of them outrank another. While a Munitions Officer will generally take orders from the Weapons Officer about which rounds to load, they are not obliged to honor a request to, say, allow the WO into the munitions bay to get a toolbox.
Your duties will vary depending on whether you're a Helms Officer or a Weapons Officer. While these aren't formal assignments, and the HO and WO can switch places as will, you should not touch the other bridge officer's console unless the other bridge officer is MIA or you've been cleared to do so by the other BO or the Captain. If you do end up using the other BO's console, you assume full responsibility for what effects your actions may have.
As a Helms Officer, your duties are fairly relaxed, at least until the ship enters combat. Your main responsibility is to jump the ship from point A to point B. The Captain’s orders determine where you should be going, as well as the mission assignment. Your ship has a max range for jumps, so you need to plan the best route to travel to faraway locations; the FTL drive only has a limited supply of plasma to use and needs to recharge between jumps, so jumping more often than necessary can easily screw you over if you suddenly need to flee from hostile forces.
Of course, jumping into enemy space also opens up the option to salvage, such as more phase cannons, air or plasma tanks, or other miscellaneous bits and bobs of cargo. You should consult with the Captain whether or not you should take the direct way or make a few stops in Syndie space, as well as the Weapons Officer to see if you have the capabilities to take on the extra enemies that you wouldn't have to worry about otherwise.
In combat, the Helm Officer can use the full range of the ship's capabilities to reposition the spacecraft, outmaneuver incoming enemy fire, and move towards friendly craft to make docking easier. The ease of performing this depends on the size of the craft you are stationed on; battleships aren't going to be outmaneuvering anything, for example, and rely mostly on their weaponry, armor and shielding for defense.
Remember to warn the crew before you jump; you will regret jumping unannounced and will be responsible for any lives lost.
As a Weapons Officer, your job is a bit more logistically involved than that of a Helms Officer. You're in charge of firing the onboard anti-ship battery, so you need to coordinate with the Munitions Officer on what to load, the Captain on where to aim, and the salvage team on when to bring the shields down and up.
Targeting an enemy is as simple as clicking the vessel's name under the Targeting section of the Tactical Console, and selecting where you wish to aim on the ship. A small reminder of where you currently are is listed at the top of the targeting section - remember, most weapons in the anti-ship battery can only hit ships at the same planet you're at, so aiming at a ship on Planet 2 while you're on Planet 1 will only waste ammo. The Superliminal Bluespace Artillery Weapon is an exception to this; it can allow you to take potshots at ships around nearby planets without them (usually) being able to respond without coming closer, but it's horribly expensive to power unless you've done a lot of work tuning the engines. It is also important to note that you cannot fire on ships while you are landed on a planet, but they can still fire on you. The available salvage from a ship will depend on where you aim. Shooting at the hull will destroy the cargo holds, shooting at the weapons will reduce your odds of salvaging a tenth phase cannon for your ship. Pick your targeting location carefully.
The phase cannons are designed to disrupt the enemy ships' shields long enough to get a MAC round through them (they still do damage though). All of your kinetic weapons (with the exception of shield-piercing) will explode harmlessly on enemy shields, so it's a good idea to fire a short burst of 2 or 3 shots from the phase cannon, then fire at the shield generator.
There are six stations on the Bridge, but in general you're only going to use two (and MAYBE the communications console to announce a jump, if the Comm Officer isn't on duty).
This console is how you move the ship to various locations. You can click on different circles on the map. Each circle represents a solar system, each with multiple celestial bodies. Different colors correspond to different factions. When you click on them it opens a menu where you can jump to the system and see more info. At the top you can click the “Show Map” tab to view the map of the current solar system. Clicking on planets lets you see if there are any points of interest. Additionally, if you can grab a copy of a local station's yellow-pages, these will help make finding stations easier. In combat you should stay near the computer in case you need to make a tactical withdrawal. Here are some of the tabs you'll be seeing on the console.
This is the most basic tab, and shows the FTL charge and what planet the ship is positioned at. If you're in FTL then this tab will tell you where you were and where you're going to.
This tab shows the type of planet, a picture of it, whether it has satellites or not, and allows you to orbit, dock with a station if it has one, land on the planet if it isn't a gas giant, and fly through it if it is. Orbiting a planet with rings will bring you close to the belt and allow miners to mine the rings.
Important: Undocking from a station is done by hitting Orbit.
This tab shows the system you're in, and will display all planets in orbit around the star. Clicking a planet will bring up a variant of the Planet Info tab for you to jump to. It should be noted that you can travel between planets without the FTL being at max charge by using the ship's thrusters. Planets here are named after their star with a number as their designation (i.e. you're in a system called Zulu with three planets, the planets are named Zulu 1, Zulu 2, etc.).
This tab brings up a bunch of colored dots which represent stars that you can jump to. You may notice you're in the center of a very large green circle, which represents the range of your FTL. Obviously you cannot reach stars that are outside the circle, but you can jump to them if you move in closer.
The systems in the star map are color-coded according to who controls them:
You may also notice that some dots have the word “CAPITAL” under them, which basically just means it's the capital of the faction if you hadn't already guessed. You can expect to see a lot of the faction's bigger ships there. “RELAY” is another word you might see, which represents the miners or others who have been dropped off at a planet and turned on their telecoms relay, and reminds you to retrieve them if they don't have Quantum Pads.
Remember: Inform the crew before you jump so they can get back on the ship or get busy things done such as moving prisoners or handling a supermatter shard delamination incident. If you make an unannounced jump and it causes someone's death (such as leaving a salvage team behind on a wreck), you may face consequences both in-character (manslaughter charges) or out-of-character (job-bans).
Remember This Too: Undock from stations that you're connected to. The ship is connected to CorpComm at round start, and going into FTL while docked will tear the docking clamps and create a nightmare for both parties.
Normally there'd be ships here on the screen, in the Targeting section. You'd click them to target them.
This console is everything in ship combat. You can see your shields, your weapons systems, and the location of other ships in the system. Not all ships are hostile, but if you shoot at a neutral or friendly vessel, expect to start an intergalactic war.
At the top of the screen you have your shield status and control. While the shields are up, they act as a physical barrier, easily blocking small objects from entering or exiting the ship, meaning you'll want to turn off the shields if the Supermatter Shard is delaminating and you need to launch it away from the ship. This also works for crew - salvage teams will not be able to bring scrap in or head out to salvage while the shields are up. An important note to make is that while the salvage team is outside the shields, they are not vulnerable to incoming fire and thus do not have to worry about being shot by the enemy (they can still be hit by your cannons if they're in the way, though).
Important: Whenever a ship is destroyed it will spawn its wreckage in a special Z-level that is reachable from the front of the ship, separate from the salvage Z-level, meaning if anyone is out salvaging, they will not be threatened by the wreckage. However, damaged ships that can be boarded also are deposited in this Z-level.
When looking at enemy vessels, be sure to note their location. If they are not at the same planet/nav beacon you are, then you are out of range and your shots will do nothing. Also, when firing at enemy ships, you can select various subsystems to target. Damaging and destroying these hinder the enemy ships. Destroying the shields allows more of your shots to do damage, destroying the engines reduces their evasion, shooting the bridge will also reduce their evasion, and shooting at the hull will destroy the enemies' cargo holds. Where you target determines the state of the salvageable wreck. Use this strategically to salvage certain items for your ship!
The weapon systems are sorted by type, with the MAC cannon(s) on top and the phase cannon(s) on bottom. Each phase cannon shot takes 200 energy and will fire almost as fast as you can click - be careful not to run it completely dry. A decent tactic is to use a couple of volleys with the phase cannon to knock down the shields, then fire the MAC before their shield system recharges.
If the Chief Medical Officer wishes to be on the bridge, they'll most likely be manning this console. Functionally, it is identical to the crew monitoring console in their office. You could use this to coordinate with the mining team to recover a deceased miner if you wish, or ensure everyone's back aboard before making the takeoff announcement. Or, if you're bored and there's a lull in the action, you could see who's where and take guesses as to what they're up to.
If the Chief Engineer wishes to be on the bridge, they'll most likely be here watching the power. Functionally, the consoles are identical to the two in the engine bay. The console on the left can be used to monitor power draw and generation, and the console on the right can be used to transfer power from one area to another. You could monitor it from the bridge and see when engineering finally sets the SMES units, or nag at them to increase the power output if the power draw is close to or exceeding the available power.
If the Head of Security isn't up to their knees in dead detainees and wants to be on the bridge, they'll most likely be manning this console. These consoles are identical to the two in their office and two of the three at the dispatchers' area of the Security Offices - one is the recordkeeping console, the other is the cameras. You won't be able to access the records unless the Head of Security forgets to log out, but you can look through the cameras and see yourself looking at the cameras, or see if the Supermatter shard is on fire and then yell at Engineering before the SM shard does.
The Communications Console is similar to the ones found aboard modern stations, albeit with some differences. The Captain will usually be manning this station if no Comm Officer is on duty. He will usually leave the console unlocked, so you can use this to ask Centcomm for guidance in an emergency, check your objectives, or make an announcement regarding jumps. Expect the Captain to be rather cross with you if you use it while he's present, however.
The Viewscreen is effectively a large Comm Console in that it broadcasts what's currently going on in communications most of the time. This can include friendly chatter from stations, threats and boasts from Syndicate adversaries, offers of trade from merchant ships, and other excitement. When there's nothing going on, the Viewscreen will broadcast the news of the day from various sources; some of it may actually be interesting.
Helms/Weapons Officer is an informal assignment - you are free to switch with the other Bridge Officer as long as they want to as well.
They also need your help - you cannot safely eject the Supermatter when docked at a station or planetside. In the case of the former, it will bounce off the docking wall; the latter, the atmosphere will allow it to damage the enginebay if it explodes.