Scenario idea request

[hemulen]

I'm planning some T20 (d20 Traveller) for this weekend. Have some plots etc worked out, but one thing I'd like is to see if I can get some interesting ideas for this:

Basic part of the plot is that PCs will be looking for a Belter who owes replayments on some equipment. During the course of this, it becomes apparent that he has found a cache of old Imperial Navy unlabelled cargo crates from around 20 years ago. Another, unscrupulous bunch of Belters have arrived, stolen the crates and left him on an asteroid with some supplies, but no ship.

Now, the crates are left over experimental Navy equipment. The rogue belters will open one of the crates as they are heading off cackling evilly. It turns out that the crates hold experimental nanobot constructors. Now normally, you would use these on a solid, planetary surface to build something useful. In this case, the nanobots start to convert the nearest usable stuff (i.e. the belter spaceship) into whatever they are supposed to produce. They are designed to construct whatever it is, then become inert. The Navy eventually decided that they were really too expensive to produce.

What I'd like to get are some interesting ideas about what happens with this. I'm figuring on about 10 crates, for which the PCs can get some decent salvage costs from the Navy, with a couple of interesting ones that they might want to keep (and not tell anyone), but not too powerful.

The belter ship may well get its cargo hold opened to space as the nanobots convert the metal etc into...something? So the PCs can find this ship that's been half converted into something else.

Any ideas received gratefully!

(PS: Also posted this to RPG.net)

 

[plop101]

So we got 10 crates, size indeterminate.

Hmmm. Ok, IIRC, there was a T4 scenario were pc's got ahold of some experimental Navy weapons, and they used them against a pirate ship attacking the groups ship. Can't remember the name of the scenario, but its either in the T4 players guide or Mileau: 0.

For my purposes, 10 crates=5dt, which we'll fit nicely in a Type J belter. Assume that this is a new type of Fusion gun, capable of the same firepower as a regular Fusion gun turret, but using less EP and being able to fire at ships from long range. The new weapon is very delicate, however, and any hit against the ship carrying it will cause a miss-alighnment penalty of -1 per ship hit. Should the pc's roll snake eyes while firing the new weapon, it will melt down completly, and on a major misshap will explode, causing internal damage to the pc's ship. Or something like that.

The nanobots were part of a project to install new weapons faster than normal

 

[shield]

How about medical equipment rather than guns. The nanobots could start to build a small field hospital and produce the needed drugs online rather than you having stocks. Useful to the PCs and the Navy.

Cheers
Richard

 

[hemulen]

Originally posted by RichardP:
How about medical equipment rather than guns. The nanobots could start to build a small field hospital and produce the needed drugs online rather than you having stocks. Useful to the PCs and the Navy.

Cheers
Richard

I was wondering about an autodoc or something like that. As you say, useful to everyone, and very handy for players.

What I'd also like is something a bit weird for them to find on bad guys ship, so that they have to wander round the ship in the dark with Vacc suits on, until in the hold, open to space, they find...what?

I think I want to avoid killer robots, etc...but something to make them think "What the hell happened here, and how did this get here?"

 

[hemulen]

Originally posted by plop101:
So we got 10 crates, size indeterminate.

Hmmm. Ok, IIRC, there was a T4 scenario were pc's got ahold of some experimental Navy weapons, and they used them against a pirate ship attacking the groups ship. Can't remember the name of the scenario, but its either in the T4 players guide or Mileau: 0.

Ah, ok, thanks for the reference, I'll see if I can look it up somehow...

cheers,

Mark

 

[Shadowdancer]

How about a field latrine and shower unit? Or a Quonset-hut equivalent of a field mess, or even an officer's club?

 

[far-trader]

Or maybe an Indigenous Asset Containment Structure Fabricator. They are actually Army test weapons the IN was transporting. They are for planetary use as an airburst weapon that identifies personnel, paralyzes them and converts whatever they are carrying/wearing into a small cage around the subject and then deactivates. In the hold the raiders opened the crates in vacuum with the doors open as a safety precaution in case it was dangerous. Naturally all the raiders were present to make sure they got a share. The nanobots went to work and changed the raiders vacc-suits into cages as they suffocated. The PC's find a real mystery when they catch up to the ship. The cargo door is open, the readouts indicate a purposeful decompression, and the hold shows no signs of damage, struggle or explosive decompression, BUT, the whole crew is gathered around a crate staring at an open and empty container inside (one of several), the crew is completely naked and each is surrounded by a close fitting cage, and they are all quite dead, of asphyxiation if checked for. Lets hope the PC's don't open any of the other shiny cylinders

My problem with the nanobot scenario is getting a reasonable handle on the capabilities as it fits the rest of the tech of T20. The above might be pretty advanced. I'd say at least bleeding edge TL 17, maybe better as Ancient's tech recovered and being transported by the Navy to a secret base.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Actually, there is a nice scenario in The Traveller Adventure that sounds a lot like this. Unfortunetly, mine's sitting in an unmarked box in storage somewhere, since I moved in the last two weeks.

Scout

 

[trader jim]

or how bout 10 special cases of treated Vargr Food???

 

[Shadow Bear]

The construction nanobots are programmed to build an Imperial Army Surface Base. Different cases have different programs (Barracks, hospital, kitchen, warehouses, perimeter fences and guard houses, admin builds, garages and the like). One of the problems is how to stop them. Without the security control they do not shut off. They only go dorment until they get more useable material.

 

[hemulen]

Originally posted by far-trader:

My problem with the nanobot scenario is getting a reasonable handle on the capabilities as it fits the rest of the tech of T20. The above might be pretty advanced. I'd say at least bleeding edge TL 17, maybe better as Ancient's tech recovered and being transported by the Navy to a secret base.

Yes, I did wonder if it was maybe a bit too high tech, but I figured that:
</font>

• We're currently at what, early Tech 8? and are starting to build them, so by Tech 12-15, who knows?</font>
• They were highly experimental, and abandoned as the costs to produce them effectively turned out too high compared to shipping the finished items fairly cheaply, as is normal for Traveller.</font>
• Maybe they were developed from some existing Ancients technology which CAN replicate itself? This of course is highly dangerous.</font>

 

[hemulen]

Originally posted by Paraquat Johnson:
How about a field latrine and shower unit? Or a Quonset-hut equivalent of a field mess, or even an officer's club?

We think alike! I must admit that my first thought was of a floating empty spaceship with a toilet block (not the blue things!) sticking out the back...

 

[Shadowdancer]

Originally posted by Mark B.:
We think alike!

Great minds and all.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Mark B.:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by RichardP:
How about medical equipment rather than guns. The nanobots could start to build a small field hospital and produce the needed drugs online rather than you having stocks. Useful to the PCs and the Navy.

Cheers
Richard

I was wondering about an autodoc or something like that. As you say, useful to everyone, and very handy for players.

What I'd also like is something a bit weird for them to find on bad guys ship, so that they have to wander round the ship in the dark with Vacc suits on, until in the hold, open to space, they find...what?

I think I want to avoid killer robots, etc...but something to make them think "What the hell happened here, and how did this get here?" </font>[/QUOTE]________________________________________________
For this, use Doyle's eeels, they ate their way out of the cargo hold!
RichardP turned me attention to these babaies as a way to kill a vampire ship in TNE, (they're in JTAS) a definite nusiance critter, not TOO Aliens, but the many small holes might cause them to wqonder (what is acidic and eats this, where did they go? etc..

Slainte!
Liam

 

[hemulen]

Ok, I think I've worked out what I want. There were 10 crates originally, one has been opened. Each crate has hazard symbols on, and is quite scuffed and scraped. Since they are a few years old, there is a +2 bonus to break into the electronic systems. If the security is broken, the display will flash "Sure? (y/n)". Selecting "y" opens the front revealing a dull metallic sphere with a spigot, and a small remote control with a button on it. Pressing the button causes grey dust to tumble out of the crate after a short delay, during which the corners of the crate flash orange. Nothing appears to happen for a few minutes, then a spot roll will determine that the crate appears to be melting as the nanobots strip it down. Once they have deconstructed the crate, they will start on surrounding material, until they have enough material to build whatever it is they are supposed to build. Once finished, the bots become inoperative.

Boxes as follows (colour of box and result):

</font>

• (white) TL 11 autodoc. T/Medical 10 skill. Has supplies for 20 uses. Normal healing = 1 use, serious regeneration, etc = 2 uses, lifegiving = 3 uses.</font>
• (green) Field command post. No equipment.</font>
• (green) faulty, produces half melted looking vehicle parts.</font>
• (green) faulty, does nothing.</font>
• (red) TL 11 ground based point defence system</font>
• (brown) small vehicle (jeep, 1 person ATV?)</font>
• (red) faulty, does nothing</font>
• (brown) faulty, bots mill around, eat stuff, then fuse into a big heap.</font>
• (yellow) portable fusion generator, TL 10.</font>

I'm assuming that the Navy will pay a standard recovery fee for these things, say Cr 10000 per crate (about 5%), to ensure that they get them back. Of course, if the PCs keep them, which they might, they aren't easily going to find out what they do until they try them out.

cheers,

Mark

 

[Kentares]

Hey Mark... two questions...

1 - How many uses the bots will have? (you know that enterprising players - like my gaming group - will start selling jeeps or/and portable fusion generators)

2 - Mind if I copy your idea...

 

[hemulen]

Originally posted by Kentares:
Hey Mark... two questions...

1 - How many uses the bots will have? (you know that enterprising players - like my gaming group - will start selling jeeps or/and portable fusion generators)

I was going to assume that the bots have just one use, after which they become inert. Maybe that's how they were designed, or maybe getting the buggers to replicate is too expensive and/or too dangerous (I can see an entire planet converted into uncontrolled nanobots all trying to build something out of each other). If you want something really scary, let them evolve as well.

But no, I wasn't going to let them continue to build indefinitely, I'm sure that my players would get the same idea. If you wanted to let them continue, maybe there could be a replication problem that the Navy never quite solved, in that each successive copy is more likely to malfunction or just not work. Or, given that the ones I'm letting people find are 20 years old, how many copies of 20 year old technology are you going to sell? Well some, but not at a good price.

2 - Mind if I copy your idea...

Please feel free - if you come up with tweaks or ideas that I could steal back, then post them!

cheers,

Mark