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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3644921" data-attributes="member: 18280">Control RoomsEvery TARDIS has at least one Control Room, which is the main room where any action within the TARDIS is likely to take place within an adventure.  In addition to the main Control Room, most TARDISes have a Secondary (or even a Tertiary) Control Room.  Each Control Room has, at the very minimum, a Central Console, monitor, meters, and access to both the interior and the exterior of the TARDIS.  Otherwise, the Console Rooms of different TARDISes (or even of the same TARDIS), can look very different, depending upon the architectural configuration chosen by its Time Lord operator(s).The Central Console is a hexagonal device, almost mushroom-like in design.  Each face contains meters and controls for operating the TARDIS.  TARDISes were designed to be controlled by multiple users; up to five Time Lords can Aid Another in TARDIS Systems checks to operate the machine.Rising from the centre of the Central Console is the Time Rotor.  This is generally lit in order to indicate power levels in the TARDIS, and moves when the TARDIS is in flight.  The exterior doors usually lock when the Time Rotor is in motion, although there are forces that can open them nonetheless, and a user can intentionally open the doors in flight.  Some of the problems this can cause are described on the previous page.  The power source for the TARDIS is located beneath the Time Rotor.Some specialized controls and equipment in the Central Console and Control Room include:* Coordinate Controls:  These are used to set the time-space coordinates when travelling.  A TARDIS is very good at hitting a large target.  If you are only concerned with reaching a particular planet in a particular era, you only need brief coordinates to do so.  However, the more precise your attempt at travel (including things like year, day, and hour, or trying to reach an exact location), the more difficult the trip becomes.*  Setting Coordinates:  Properly setting basic TARDIS coordinates is a DC 15 Astrogation skill check.  The DC rises depending upon how precise your coordinates need to be, to a maximum DC of 40. * Faulty Starting Coordinates:  If you do not know where you are when setting coordinates, it increases the DC by +10.  This is why the 1st Doctor couldn’t immediately return Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright when his yearometer broke in An Unearthly Child. *  Becoming Part of Events:  In some cases, when the TARDIS operator becomes part of events that involve second-party time travel (such as in The Girl in the Fireplace), using the TARDIS for travel can disentangle the user’s 5th-dimensional timeline from the timeline of events.  Doing so can mean that the operator can no longer influence those events without contravening the Laws of Time.  This is why the 5th Doctor was unable to rescue Adric in Earthshock. * Short Hops:  When the TARDIS arrives, it attempts to select the optimal point for avoiding the other versions of the TARDIS occupants (which may still be present from previous time travel, for example) and undue attention.  When the user attempts to make a short hop – one of less than 10 years or 1,000 miles – the TARDIS will sometimes arrive at the exact place from which it left, or arrive at some other wildly different “safe” landing zone.  Setting coordinates successfully is a DC 30 (or higher) TARDIS Systems skill check. *  Randomiser:  A randomiser sets random coordinates.  This requires no skill check, but gives you no control over where you go. *  Other Circumstances:  There may be other circumstances that modify setting coordinates, such as the interference of space-time energies, the influence of powerful entities, and faulty TARDIS circuits. * Failed Checks:  When a TARDIS Systems skill check to set coordinate controls fails, the TARDIS can literally end up anywhere.  Some examples of failed skill attempts include arriving on a different planet than desired, arriving at a different time period, arriving at a different area of the planet, or arriving in circumstances that are hazardous to the TARDIS.  In some cases, a failed check can cause systems failures that affect any of a number of TARDIS systems.  It was one such failure that caused the 1st Doctor’s chameleon circuit and yearometer to fail in An Unearthly Child. * Dematerialisation Circuit:  This is the switch used in order to activate the Time Rotor and dematerialise the TARDIS.  It switches back automatically when the TARDIS materializes.  With a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check, the user can have suspend the TARDIS in the Space-Time Vortex for an extended period of time. The TARDIS can be materialized around an object (which then appears within the TARDIS) with a DC 20 TARDIS Systems skill check.  A TARDIS can be dematerialised so that selected objects within it are left behind.  This requires a DC 30 TARDIS Systems skill check. *  Door Control:  Generally appearing as a lever on the Central Console, the Door Control opens and closes the exterior doors.  The Door Control can be disconnected or reconnected with a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check. * Drift Control:  When set, this system typically prevents the TARDIS from being moved relative to its surroundings by outside forces.  The 1st Doctor used Drift Control to prevent the TARDIS from being swept away by the tide in The Time Meddler, and Drift Control prevents both a car and a heavy truck from moving the TARDIS in Bad Wolf. Drift Control can also be used to move the TARDIS without dematerialising it, although this is difficult to do.  Using Drift Control in this way requires a DC 15 TARDIS Systems skill check each turn.  In The Runaway Bride, the 10th Doctor used the Drift Control to have the TARDIS participate in a chase scene with a taxi.  Using Drift Control from a distance as he did adds +10 to the DC of each check.  The TARDIS is able to act as a Fast vehicle when using Drift Control in this manner. Using Drift Control to intentionally move a TARDIS can cause damage to other systems, and possibly render the TARDIS inoperable for some time if the use is excessive.  In The Runaway Bride, the Doctor needed to use a fire extinguisher and then let the TARDIS rest for a couple of hours. * Electrical Defence:  When set, this system causes anyone touching the Central Console to experience a shock causing 1d6 points of electrical damage (Reflexes save DC 10 for ½ damage).  This can be set with a DC 5 TARDIS Systems skill check, and turned off with a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check. * Emergency Dematerialisation Circuit:  When activated, this control removes the TARDIS from Space and Time altogether.  The 4th Doctor used control in Logopolis to speak to the Watcher, and the 2nd Doctor used this control to escape an erupting volcano, ending up in the Land of Fiction as a result.  It requires the TARDIS Systems skill to use, but needs no check. * Emergency Power:  When emergency power is activated, the TARDIS shuts down all non-necessary systems, making it harder to detect the TARDIS’s energy signature.  Putting the TARDIS on emergency power is a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check. * Energy Suppression Field:  When activated, this control makes it impossible to use an energy or ballistic weapon inside the TARDIS.  This requires a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check to activate, and a DC 15 TARDIS Systems skill check to deactivate. * Fast Return Switch:  This control is supposed to return the TARDIS directly to the last location it dematerialised from.  This requires no skill check, but does require the TARDIS Systems skill to use.  If the switch sticks, though, the TARDIS can overshoot the target destination, as happened in The Edge of Destruction. * Fault Locator:  This device aids in determining where a TARDIS fault is located, allowing the TARDIS operator to determine where repairs are necessary.  The Fault Locator only locates electrical faults. * First Aid Station:  The TARDIS Central Console Room has a first aid station that includes beds, which can extrude from the walls.  Using the first aid station grants a +5 circumstance bonus to Treat Injury skill checks. * Food Machine:  The TARDIS has a food machine that creates nutritious meals in wafer form.  While they taste like the food they are designed to emulate, and supply the full effect of having eaten a meal, many travellers find the experience less rewarding than sitting down to an actual meal. * HADS:  The Hostile Action Displacement System, when active, causes the TARDIS to dematerialise in the event of an attack.  When the source of the threat is eliminated, the TARDIS rematerialises.  This is a useful system when the operator travels to a planet where the inhabitants have the technology to harm the TARDIS’s plasmic shell, but because the TARDIS doesn’t discriminate well between attacks that can breach the plasmic shell and attacks that cannot.  Activating or deactivating HADS is a DC 5 TARDIS Systems skill check. * Holographic Emitters:  These can be programmed to deliver a holographic message that is activated under specific circumstances determined when programmed.  Programming this system requires a DC 15 Computer Use skill.  This system can also be used to project a hologram, allowing someone to communicate from the TARDIS Console Room to an area outside of the TARDIS.  This later use requires a DC 15 TARDIS Systems skill check and a tremendous power source.  The 10th Doctor was able to use this system to speak to Rose Tyler in another universe by using the power of a supernova. * Isomorphic Controls:  In theory, the TARDIS will only accept instructions (including use of standard TARDIS controls) from its designated user.  In actuality, this system is extremely easy to bypass (DC 5 TARDIS Systems check), and in many TARDISes doesn’t work at all.  The system can be activated or deactivated with a DC 15 TARDIS Systems skill check. * Meters:  The TARDIS has several meters to supply information about the area outside the TARDIS.  This includes a yearometer (to determine the current year, as determined by the local inhabitants), a radiation meter, meters for atmospheric density and composition, and a meter to determine temperature.  These meters are a combination of electronic and mechanical systems, and can sometimes stick (and the radiation meter did in The Daleks). * Monitor:  The monitor allows the TARDIS occupants to see the area outside the TARDIS.  It can pan 180 degrees, allowing the user to see in a complete circle around the ship.  The monitor can also be used as a communicator, allowing to fully patch into any local visual and audio communication system with a DC 10 TARDIS Systems check. * Video System:  This system allows the user to record a video message that can be replayed on the TARDIS monitor.  The video system has fast-forward, rewind, pause, and search functions.  This system was used by the 10th Doctor to give Martha Jones instructions in Human Nature and Family of Blood.</blockquote>

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