You can make a demand of a crew member to try to improve his performance. You grant a +4 bonus to one specific check by succeeding at an Intimidate check (DC = 15 + 1½ × your starship’s tier). You must use this action before the associated check is rolled, and you can grant this bonus to an individual character only once per combat. Demand might result in negative consequences if used on NPCs, and you can’t make demands of yourself.

You can encourage another member of the crew to give her a bonus to her action. This works like aid another (see page 133), granting a +2 bonus to the check required by a crew action if you succeed at a DC 10 check using the same skill. Alternatively, you can grant this same bonus by succeeding at a Diplomacy check (DC = 15). You can’t encourage yourself.

You can use the communications system to broadcast a taunting message to the enemy vessel. You select an enemy vessel and a phase of combat (engineering, helm, or gunnery), and then attempt a Bluff or Intimidate check (DC = 15 + 1½ × the enemy starship’s tier). If you are successful, each enemy character acting during the selected phase takes a –2 penalty to all checks for 1d4 rounds; the penalty increases to –4 if the enemy’s check is made as part of a push action. Once used against an enemy starship, regardless of the outcome, taunt can’t be used against that starship again during the same combat.

At 6th level, you can grant an additional action to one member of the crew by spending 1 Resolve Point and succeeding at a difficult skill check at the beginning of the phase in which the crew member would normally act. The type of check depends on the role of the crew member targeted: a Computers check for a science officer, an Engineering check for an engineer, a gunnery check (see page 320) for a gunner, and a Piloting check for a pilot. The DC of this check is equal to 15 + 1½ × your starship’s tier. If the check succeeds, the crew member can take two actions in her role this round (both when she would normally act), but she can’t take the same action twice. You can’t give yourself orders

At 12th level, you can spend 1 Resolve Point and use your action to give a moving speech to the crew during one phase of combat with a successful Diplomacy check (DC = 20 + 1½ × your starship’s tier). For the remainder of that phase, your allies can roll twice and take the better result when performing crew actions.

You can divert auxiliary power into one of your starship’s systems, giving it a boost. This requires a successful Engineering check (DC = 10 + 1½ × your starship’s tier), and the results depend on where you decide to send this extra power. If you send it to the engines, your starship’s speed increases by 2 this round. If you send it to the science equipment, all science officers receive a +2 bonus to their crew actions this round. If you send it to the starship’s weapons, treat each damage die that rolls a 1 this round as having rolled a 2 instead. If you send it to the shields, restore an amount of Shield Points equal to 5% of the PCU rating of the starship’s power core (see page 296), up to the shields’ maximum value. Evenly distribute the restored Shield Points to all four quadrants (putting any excess Shield Points in the forward quadrant).

You can hold one system together by constantly patching and modifying it. If you succeed at an Engineering check (DC = 15 + 1½ × your starship’s tier), you can select one system; that system is treated as if its critical damage condition were two steps less severe for the rest of the round (wrecked becomes glitching, and a malfunctioning or glitching system functions as if it had taken no critical damage). This check isn’t modified by penalties from critical damage to the power core.

You can patch a system to reduce the effects of a critical damage condition. The number of actions and the DC of the Engineering check required to patch a system depend on how badly the system is damaged, as indicated on the table on page 324. Multiple engineers can pool their actions in a single round to effect repairs more quickly, but each engineer must succeed at her Engineering check to contribute her action to the patch. The number of actions required can be reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 1 action) by increasing the DC by 5. If you succeed at this check, the severity of the critical damage is unchanged, but it is treated as one step less severe for the remainder of the combat, until 1 hour has passed, or until the system takes critical damage again (which removes the patch and applies the new severity). This action can be taken more than once per round, and this check is not modified by any critical damage to the core.