Comms

The Comms console is in charge of communicating with stations, friendly ships, and enemy ships.

Role
Comms is in charge of Optional, but many bridges also give control to the Main Screen to Comms since both Helm and Weapons may be busy in a battle situation.
 * Receiving all incoming transmissions and relaying important info to the Captain
 * Relaying orders to ships to move to certain locations or avoid incoming enemies
 * Ordering stations to focus construction of specific torpedoes
 * Taunting enemy ships or asking them to surrender
 * Raising red alert

Side Missions
Comms will occasionally get requests from friendly stations or ships to carry data or cargo from one location to another. Doing such missions can be helpful, as the ships will offer energy, coolant, or more as a reward for completing it. These requests can be filtered by clicking on 'Side' in the console screen.

Fetch Missions are the most common and will ask that the Artemis goes to ship/station A and bring something to ship/station B. The reward will be specified in the communication and will be given at the completion of the request. Possible rewards include: Rescue Missions are much less common. A friendly or neutral ship may (or may not) send a distress signal and start to act strangely like being stopped dead or moving erratically. Upon arrival, the ship will either specify it's issue, or it may spring a trap!
 * Extra Engineering coolant
 * Extra shield power capacity
 * Extra energy bank capacity
 * Anywhere from 500-1500 units of energy. Any excess over the regular maximum of 1000 will still be applied and will overcharge your energy banks (and may cause certain systems to start overheating, even if they're not being overcharged)
 * Extra nukes (even if the ship at full capacity)
 * Double production speed at the specified station

Tips

 * Comms is not for the quiet. Almost all communications in the sector go through this station, and Comms must sort through the noise and give the relevant information at the right times. Understanding where ships are in the sector may mean the ship doesn't have to go out of it's way to complete a simple fetch mission.
 * Science's second scan of enemy ships can give information on which taunt Comms can use that'll be most effective. Taunts will cause enemy ships to stop whatever they are currently doing and go to attack your ship. This is great for mine traps.
 * Red alert is purely cosmetic, but fun!

More Info

 * Advanced Comms
 * Comms page on the Artemis PBWorks Wiki