Best way to give my players a ship

[Blue Ghost]

Hi, I'm new to the board and I'm looking for advice from some fellow Traveller Referees.

I've got a group of six players who have just finished character generation last week. The module I'm planning to run this coming week requires them to have a starship and I'd like to figure out what the best way to give them the ship is.

It's around the time of the 5th frontier war, so ships are in great demand. Complicating the matter, I'm trying to give them a merc cruiser. I'm thinking along the lines of having it be a derelict, and making the PCs mount a mission to recover and repair it. Since extra ships are at a premium, I'll force them to get to the system where the derelict is located by using all those high/mid/low passages they mustered out with. Once there, they can take a cutter, or some other in-system only space ship out to the derelict and start repairs.

I’m wondering how much should repairs cost along with renting a cutter for several week?? I'm thinking about putting them in the hole for 20-50% of the ship's original costs (the repair bill). They can cart out enough parts to get the maneuver drive working. After that it’s several weeks and millions of credits in drydock to get it repaired.

There's a noble in the party, so I can use his estates as collateral with the banks.

I having a hard time figuring out why the characters would know about this derelict and not other parties. Why is hasn’t been salvaged till now??

Anyway, I wanted to find out how other refs would handle this situation. Thanks in advance for any comments! Cheers,

First ship our characters "had", so to speak, was a Zhodani scout (from one of the FASA packets). We did the "They're loose!" animal scenario from Snapshot on that thing, and suddenly they found themselves in possesion of the vessel.

As long as it's marginally credible you shouldn't have to worry too much. One of the mistakes our group made was to have a Lucifer Class Destroyer Escort built at one of the local yards while they vacationed/adventured at the local starport hotel (another FASA packet). Said vessel is a naval ship, not one that would be readily available for public purchase. Imagine a present day Arleigh Burke class DD being built for a private party. It wouldn't happen.

As long as it's credible you're okay. This is after all science fiction. It's make believe

 

[Icosahedron]

If the guy with the trike is still alive, I assume he never made a left turn!

 

[selunatic2397]

That guy was Jesse James from Monster Garage!

And Yup, He is very much alive...google it to see even more wacky creations.

 

[BlackBat242]

It was just the engine from a Peterbuilt Semi truck, that's all.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

As has been said before there is a myriad of ways to get the players a ship... here are a few that happened in my games.

The players were hired by a Hiver scientist to crew a ship. It was Hiver built, but the hiver had it's own section so largely it was tailored for humans. The Hiver was doing research so was largely unseen during trips. The players had free run of the ship and could go where they would and use the ship to generate revenue for themselves (and to keep the ship maintained) so it was like they had been given the ship and the Hiver was the passenger. The catch was if the Hiver spotted something of interest in their travels, they would be required to drop what they were doing and go there for as long as needed... That and the players didn't know they were they Hiver's research project... It was studying them

There is an Amber Zone where the players are hired by the owner of Oberlines to break his son out of a xenophobic world's prison. He gives them a free trader from his mothball fleet as payment. (In this particular campaign a player had been awarded a ship in generation, so Oberlindes paid off the mortgage).

The players were set upon by pirates and they were on was trashed, as was the pirate vessel, but they won so they used bits of the worse off (theirs) to repair and salvage the pirate vessel for their new ship.

The derelict route is sometimes interesting. ANNIC NOVA is a great adventure for this. Besides the fact that it's a cool ship, it's also enigmatic enough that you can do all sorts of things with it later. I had it every once in a while doing things on it's own, and a large campaign arc followed as the players discovered why....

At one point a small startup ship design firm was about to evaluate a radical new design and needed a typical crew to put the ship through it's paces. Enter the players. They had to deal with the strangeness of the ship plus any difficulties along the way (from repairs to rival firms wanting to steal or destroy the design). (the ship I made for this is here btw: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=3205 )

 

[Icosahedron]

<Grin> I guessed the Hiver's purpose after your first sentence.
The Sundog sounds interesting, but I'm not sure how streamlined that ATV could be. I experimented with what I called 'Hard Core' ships. Similar to the Trek detachable saucer, these ships had the J-drive and accommodation in one section and the weaponry, M-drive and couches in another. Made it much more agile in combat when the halves had separated. The Body was a bit of a sitting duck though if a 'breakthrough' occurred.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Nods... this design was more for exploration... it could go places an ATV could go where a ship might not always be practical, and still keep most of your systems with you.

http://www.TravellerRPG.com/CotI/Gallery/images/528/1_Sundog.jpg

As for your modular ship idea it's interesting (though in the Original series at least the saucer was an emergency life boat.. limp home on impulse and need a drydock to mate back to a secondary hull). But I see what you're getting at... sort of like it's own battle rider.

That might be another option for players getting a ship (back on topic ) The players find/salvage/inherit/steal etc a ship, but it's only half of your design. The trick now is to procure the rest, either by search, salvage or new construction (or sealing those areas off and retrofitting the half they have to make a workable, albeit, weakened ship of it's own).