I never understood why the Ops console was next to the Helm instead of the Tactical console in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I would imagine that, during combat, tactical and helm could more easily coordinate if they were sitting next to each other. Split second timing between helm and sensors doesn't seem like a high priority.
On Voyager, the Ops and Tactical stations are so far apart, Kim and Tuvok could get away by using their combadges to whisper to each other. But in practice, on a starship, the concept of data fusion would be taken to a very high level, so the information that any given station would need would be right there at their eyes and fingertips at any given time. Coordinating between the guy keeping an eye on what's happening inside and outside the ship, and the guy who shoots at things is essential, but as long as they're within earshot of each other I don't see why they'd have to be in super-close proximity. The real question is why Ops HAD to be so close to the window in the first place, on most (but not all) TNG-era ships. Was it necessary to have a look out to visually confirm the stuff the sensors were telling you? Or on Voyager would the station up front also normally have an Ops guy, since it was as big or bigger than the Con and Ops stations on a Galaxy-class ship, combined - and they just wanted to banish the lowly Ops Ensign to the back of the room? Mark
I would think that non-verbal communication would also be a factor, though. You may need to react before your fellow officer has time to formulate a sentence describing what he needs you to do. Another issue is that being closer to each other could allow you to better see their perspective, giving you a better idea of what they're looking at and what they might be thinking. In a serious combat situation, you want to know what your comrade is thinking before they have time to say it.
In a tight spot, Worf could see what Picard was doing, how he was gesturing and so forth. Seated up front, he'd need to turn his head away from his work to achieve the same. So what's there to complain? We're lucky we gradually got rid of that stupid TOS arrangement where everybody looks away from the skipper and needs to twist and turn to report or ask for instructions. It's not as if Kirk could have gotten anything out of watching the backs of his crew members' heads in return. Timo Saloniemi
So what you're saying is that the bridge should be a circle where everyone should see each other, with a small gap for the viewscreen...
Two working arrangements: 1) Everybody sees the skipper and takes hints from her body language, while the two or three people who actually benefit from the main viewer face that way, meaning one or two sit behind the skipper and watch the viewer in addition to watching her (the TNG Movies way). 2) Everybody sees the all-important viewer and the skipper, because the skipper sits at the very front, with his back turned to his crew (the Klingon Way). The third possibility is the Jem'Hadar one where the main viewer is eliminated and everybody has VR glasses or personal screens that don't stop them from also seeing the skipper. But that's more a concept change than a rearrangement. Timo Saloniemi
I thought the TOS bridge was supposed to allow the Captain to quickly view information on the display screens above each station? Obviously due to budget limitations those screens rarely changed, but I like to think in "reality" they would have contained useful status reports at a glance: engine status, sensor sweeps, etc. Or perhaps that kind of information is of little use.
Reflecting on the TOS bridge, I'm actually surprised how practical the layout is. I do think that both the captain having their own display or "put it on the main viewer" mitigate the need for the captain to see all those screens significantly. I do think, however, it makes sense for the captain to have several monitors visible rather than tiny screens built into the armrests, though. Thought: Anti-grav PADDS that float in a position and don't move easily when touched. Stream data to those floating PADDs. Of course, then you're getting into "Why not just use holographic interfaces?" territory...
On Galaxy class starships and others, the LCARs stations are reconfigurable so that ANY station can act as any other station for whoever happens to be sitting there. How an officer was trained and what procedures are in place on a given ship will determine the final arrangement, and it may sometimes shift depending on where the Captain wants his officers to be while on duty. So I figure a captain who wants his flight controller to make snap judgements based on the viewscreen data would put the conn in front, and if he wants his tactical officer to exercise a lot of restraint with weapons release he'll keep the tactical station close to the back of the room. A captain who likes to shoot from the hip and let his phasers do the talking will probably put ops and tactical in the forward stations and conn in the back station. Hell, James T. Kirk running the Enterprise-D would probably put conn and tactical in the front and have spock running the ops/science station from the big horseshoe.
Spock is probably the least likely to complain about not having a seat so that makes sense. Kirk never really had a tactical officer in the TNG sense, the phaser crews were below decks responding to signals from helm or navigation.
True, but he did have the weapons console on the refit Enterprise tucked off to the side of the bridge. That was a sort of specialized station at the time that was designed to work with the new upgraded weapon systems (torpedoes especially) of the new Enterprise, so it makes sense that that station would be one of a kind. OTOH, every movie after TMP shows us that officers are able to target and fire weapons from the helm console just like in TOS, which means the weapons and security station is probably reconfigurable too and can be used as an engineering support station for tactical systems as well. The interesting thing is, that little side nook would make WAY more sense as a helm station. If the ship's pilot has his own little viewscreen with its own readouts and controls for engine status and orientation, rather than sitting in the middle of the room squinting at a viewscreen on the far wall, he'd have much better control of the ship during maneuvers. That just goes to show that the Enterprise probably doesn't NEED a lot of fine maneuvering control and it's enough to be able to plot trajectories and orbit changes and let the computer handle the rest. So it makes sense that the helmsman would also double as the weapons officer since he's also the only person on the ship who can turn the torpedo tubes to face whatever they're supposed to be shooting at.
Just put Barclay's Neural Scan Interface over the captain's chair and get rid of the other stations. Problem solved.
I know you're joking, but the Jurai from "Tenchi Muyo" do exactly this on their starships. They're so insanely advanced that most of their starship weapons would make the Battle of Hogwarts look like a cheap card trick. It gets almost silly in the second OVA, where Ayeka and the crew coordinate the takedown of a moon-sized battleship while sitting on a picnic blanket drinking sake. The Contact division of "The Culture" is kind of like this too. Their technology is so advanced that their ships (which are invariably smarter than their crews) struggle to take anything truly seriously and sometimes seem more concerned with asthetics and style than functionality.
In the (non-Star Trek) novel series The Lost Fleet, captains speak maneuver orders and the ships execute those orders. We never get a mention of a helmsman nor manual navigation. That would be a more sensible system for Starfleet ships since the episodes tend to leave most maneuvering to the pilots without any orders short of saying, execute pattern XYZ. If we have to have a helmsman I would just put him center, then flank him on either side with ops and tactical. There's room for it, and they make sense together as the most critical for the ship surviving in emergencies. Science is frequently important so Spock's position about 15 degrees forward from hard right makes great sense. Engineering could stand to be in the opposite position on the left. The thing is, the high screens of TOS and of the rear consoles in TNG are extremely smart. Either I would put screens like those behind the three forward stations, or forward and above, which would require the main screen be raised up. Depending on the captain's position it might not be by much. I would forgo steps and rails since they're dangerous and instead give the captain a pedestal seat so he can sea over everyone's heads. TNG also has weird division of tasks. For some reason Worf deals with communications, and I think Paris in Voyager handled sensors which makes a little sense, but it makes more sense to me if ops handles communications and sensors. Or make communications fully automatic and as smart as the sliding doors. If the ship is hailed by a new ship, Picard could get a message interface in his arm rest, or where ever he is as long as he is on duty.
In Voyager, they got whichever speaking character was on the bridge to carry out whichever function was necessary for the script. So you variously have Paris initiating a transport from the conn, Harry firing phasers from Ops, and Chakotay running sensor sweeps from his little pedestal. And why not? Those panels should all be configurable from any station.