Player Tips, Tactics, and Tricks

[opensent]

I've got a player who told me that he will be carrying extra cables for his laser pistol, because in other Traveller games, his character would carry a crossbow to shoot at the cables during boarding actions.

Another player in a different game wants to cut a hole in the exterior of his ship and create a concealed space, so he can smuggle goods without being subject to inspection during routine boarding operations.

I'd like to hear other folk’s experience with this kind of thing. What other random tips, tactics, and tricks have your players used or attempted to use in your game?

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Two questions:
1) What is the first player going to be doing while guy with the laser is shooting him in the face as he aims at their cable?

2) Cutting holes in the exterior is a bad thing because of a little necessity called "hull integrity". If he maintains hull integrity, he will have to reinforce the hull with a hatch frame. This is much more difficult to conceal.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Furtive Envoy:
I've got a player who told me that he will be carrying extra cables for his laser pistol, because in other Traveller games, his character would carry a crossbow to shoot at the cables during boarding actions.

Furtive Envoy,

After the initial shock of reading that such a practice wasn't only attempted but actually succeeded, the phrase extremely cinematic comes to mind. I'd let him try to shoot at laser pack cables with a crossbow bolt and then kill him for his idiocy.

Another player in a different game wants to cut a hole in the exterior of his ship and create a concealed space, so he can smuggle goods without being subject to inspection during routine boarding operations.

Which, of course, presumes the only time anyone in any official capacity is paying any attention to a vessel is when it is boarded in space. I mean, once you land in the port, you can blithely remove sections of your hull to reveal smuggled goods without anyone batting an eyelash, right?

Edgar: There's something you don't see everyday, Chauncey.
Chauncey: What's that Edgar?
E: That fellow is removing a section of his staship's hull so he can retrieve the tactical nuclear weapon he smuggled on-planet.
C: Well, he was inspected in orbit before landing so everything must be okay.
E: I guess you're right.

File this one with your 'cable ripping crossbow bolts'.

Now, if the player fashioned a little 'hide' in a landing gear well or behind an equipment inspection panel or some other such location that he routinely accesses in port without having to remove hull plating, we're talking about another kettle of fish entirely.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Ptah]

I like to hide my contraband in the humani-form android set-up in the autodoc. The poor "guy" recieved some really nasty wounds in a tragic accident and opening the autodoc would kill him. Also please turn off you cell phones and scanners before entering sick bay...the machines are a little finicky.

Certainly once we hit port this poor "guy" is put into a waiting transfer vehicle...I mean ambulance. Nothing to see here.

Yeah it was that same tragic accident that released radiation in the engine room and fused shut the access panel. We'll get a "repair team" on board right away in port to unstick it and remove the nuke, I mean repair the damaged machinary. Anything else officer?

 

[opensent]

I didn't press to much on the crossbow thing. Perhaps he was hidden and an expert shot or something. I sold him the extra cables for 2 cr each.

As for the cargo, I think they just want to carry a few weapons and such, as opposed to a nuclear missile. The idea of a little hide area would work well for some grenades and such.

 

[Madarin Dude]

Things like removeing panels happens all the time. I have it on good aruthority that some heavy planes that were sent temorarily to Peurto Rico had bottles of rum hidden in the HF radio cabinets. This could have happened and the results could have lead to a night of drunken gaming. I am not at liberty to tell.

Depending on how small an item is there are pleanty of places to hide a small package on a large airframe.

 

[TheEngineer]

Guess at higher TLs the actual location of an hiding place is less important than sophisticated shielding or camouflage

Wrong ??

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Well, hiding something in a spot where panels are normally removed is not the issue. (And, I'm not dumping on ya, Furtive - just trying to turn ideas into good ideas.) If you cut a hole in the fuselage of an airplane and try to cover it up, you will introduce stress problems in the skin, and possibly the airframe itself. Spacecraft would be even worse, as they have to fight vacuum, radiation, high-G's, etc.

Of course, as Bill mentioned, another disadvantage of an external hide is that everyone can see you use it if you are dirtside. If you are at a highport, how do you get to it without raising suspicions? (It can be done, but would take some roleplaying. )

Shielding only works (reliably) if you're landing/docking somewhere slightly behind you in TL. Otherwise, the "arms" race between smugglers and customs will make your shielding detectable in some way. Unless, of course, you can foil it with something akin to Ptah's method....

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Forget trying to hide things - just bribe the inspector instead.

Corrupt officials flourish on high law level worlds!

 

[Theo D Lite]

Our standard trick was to provide a concealed storage area adjacent to the fuel tanks and abutting the real cargo bay.

When not in use it was filled with water to resemble fuel tanks. As it wasn't part of the tanks goods suitably protected could be placed in there and the area reflooded so that ultrasound would just reveal tankage.

Being accessible from the cargo bay allowed a more discrete unloading.

Required two sets of ships plans - 1 for the GM/Owner and a modified one showing the extended "fuel tank" for the players.

Knew a player who wanted to have a flick knife that actually fired the blade at a target. Same person had a gauss crossbow which relied on a metal strip or tounge beneath the bolt that was accellerated by the gauss field produced in the groove of the bow. (Hope that makes sense it doesn't read as clear as I can picture the device!)

Standard thing was to tape a spare weapon or two beneath the bridge console you normally operated...just in case!

A non metallic flat blade or dagger holstered horizontally on the inside of a thick belt in the small of the back would often go undetected unless the capturers were efficient and removed belts and shoe laces to stop us hanging ourselves.

I'm sure there were a number of other things but I'm having to think back nearly 20 years to these so I'll need a bit of time to gather my thoughts.

 

[SanDragon]

But an ultrasound senses change in density, so unless you're smuggling water, it may be detected anyway.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Missing the point?

A man comes out of the factory one day pushing a wheelbarrow in which he has a carefully wrapped parcel. The security guard eyes him suspiciously and then challenges him.

"What's in the parcel?"

"Sawdust," comes the reply.

"I don't believe you. Open the parcel."

And sure enough, it is sawdust just as the man said.

This goes on day after day, with the security guard getting more and more frustrated. He knows the man is up to something, but every time the parcel contains ... sawdust. Finally, he can take it no longer.

"Look," he says, "I know you are up to something, and I can't work out what. Tell me what you're up to and I promise I won't report you."

"You promise?" asks the man.

"Absolutely. On my honor," replies the guard.

"OK. I'm stealing wheelbarrows."

-------

So what if you need those extra Air/Rafts with the reinforced hulls in your cargo bay to move those heavy pallets of fertilizer? And so what if you happen to sell all but one of the Air/Rafts to the locals? The VINs are all in the name of someone else, aren't they? You just happen to be the agent. Yeah, that's it...

... and aren't those pallets made of a rare and protected form of decorative wood?

... and those fertilizer bags wouldn't happen to be made of military-grade ballistic cloth, would they?

... and just how many tons of ammonium-nitrate based fertilizer did you ship, anyway?

... and it's a mere coincidence how all those farmers have backgrounds as merc guerillas, isn't it?

The

is always in the details.

 

[BillDowns]

Nice, Keklas

Misdirection is the key to a lot of things!

 

[kafka47]

Given that information in the Far Future is also going to be a hot commodity. It could be hidden in a brain implant, RNA sequence, e-Coli Virus sequence, another memory designed to be downloaded once a memory wipe occurs, his/her spacesuits where the sun does not shine very often (not every character is built like Pamela Anderson but spacesuits can be tailored any which way, and lastly encoded in bullets designed to shoot the patron with lethal but not deadly consequences.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Hmm...

Rare "Da Vinci" coded artworks, anyone?

"Naw, it ain't the real Monalyssa, but it's a very good copy!"


How about the least-significant bit of an audio data stream actually contains a pseudo-random cypher detailing the Darrian Star Trigger technology?

"Did you hear my new "Bad Cable" album? The thirteenth track is especially intricate."

 

[Theo D Lite]

Ahh now if its information or data then there are lots of options. Lets say you have the plans to the Death Star.

First break it down into a number of smaller pieces of information.

Then encrypt it just for safetys sake.

Now using Steganograhy techniques embed the encrytped files into a series of high res "holiday snaps" or extended "concert recordings" stored in the public access section of the ships computer.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

The photographs can still be viewed and the music can still be played, but those in the know at the far end can retrieve the information, even if the courier is intercepted. Heck the stuff can even be transmitted over the public comm link.

Of course if you're organised you could take this one step further along the lines set out by Heretic Keklas Rekobah. By bringing seemingly innocent raw materials and possibly machinery or machine parts you could deliver these openly but when used in conjunction with the trained "ships crew" and the manuals hidden in the ships computer allows the manufacture of something far more valuable than the sum of the parts carried.

 

[Klaus]

There's always loopholes.

Mark Thomas recently made a documentary about the arms trade, where a bunch of children (it was done as an after school project) were able to import variously a sting-stick (a nasty looking 2 foot metal bar with 1 inch spikes sprouting from it), a shock baton, and most weirdly, an Israeli made automatic stone thrower (800 high velocity stones per minute). They were offered a Merkava tank as well, but I don't think the show's budget stretched that far. And all perfectly legal.

I guess the moral is: use children!