• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.
  • We, the systems administration staff, apologize for this unexpected outage of the boards. We have resolved the root cause of the problem and there should be no further disruptions.

Ship Registration

Haven't had a chance to read it all yet, but after a quick look-through, I have to say I love the layout and formatting. It looks just like the kind of PDF documents you get from the government! Thanks for the work you did!
 
Thanks! If you have adobe reader, it should print as a booklet. It's in A4 though...if there is any interest in a Letter format, I'd be happy to oblige. Also, if you spot any typos or think that there is anything I should add, do mention it. I can't promise to put it in, but I'll certainly consider it. The great thing about the dropbox link is that as I update the file locally, it automatically updates the file linked to above, which effectively makes it a living document.
 
Last edited:
Hmm, would there be the starship equivelant of a 'chop shop' where the SIN is 'filed off', or the ship is stripped and parts resold (as selling bits of a stolen ship is a lot easier than selling a whole ship)?
 
Hmm, would there be the starship equivelant of a 'chop shop' where the SIN is 'filed off', or the ship is stripped and parts resold (as selling bits of a stolen ship is a lot easier than selling a whole ship)?

The way I always envisioned it is that during construction, the main structural members are deep encoded with uniquely placed density markers. (small areas where the structural member has increased density.) This data is encoded, encrypted and sent out to all Star Ports before a new ship is let go from the yards. An inspector at a star port can walk through with a hand held densitometer take a reading and load that into the database. Out pops the ships original ID.
 
Nice work. There are a couple of places where some text seems to be missing. On p.7 the text ends with "with higher level checks being performed at more ad-" which seems to be in the middle of a word. On p.11 section 3.2 ends with "tasked to bring it back and to find out whether the owners had" which seems to be in mid-sentence.
 
The way I like to work registration is that it is more like a very high tech version of a passport and ship's log. That is, the "universal" convention is that when you pull into a starport (C class or higher D and worse being really non-ports and all A and B's do this everywhere) the owner / captain or designee has to present the ship's registration "papers" to the port officials. They enter the date, time, etc., that the ship arrived, departed, got maintenance, who's on the crew, and can check where the ship has been in the recent past. It has a complete record of the ship's movements from construction.
This is like one type of official log the ship must have and must correctly maintain. Failure to do so results in anything from a serious fine to impounding the ship until everything is cleared up.
The record is difficult to forge since many worlds use unique means of entering their data on the forms in the record. A forger would have to have the ability to produce not just a wide array of entry types, but the record would have to be chronologically and astrologically accurate as well. There might also be advanced methods used that can accurately determine when entries were made by other means sort of like carbon dating something; again making forgery difficult or impossible.
You pull in and have no entries for months and you generate instant suspicion on the part of port officials.
It is the sort of log commercial truck drivers maintain or ones that an airline has to keep on each airplane. This way there is less need to try and match the ship to the log and try methods to mark it that could be circumvented.
Additionally, each port keeps files and records in their own database that match the ship's log. So, if the ship comes in again the record is automatically checked for anomalies against previous versions to catch doctoring or forgeries. Many systems (A and B ports in particular) also forward this information to other starports in effect creating a record that is everywhere of a particular ship's movements, maintenance, crew, you name it.
This sort of record / log would be much harder to forge, much harder to alter, and really keeps the sort of information that is relevant to port authorities, customs officials, and governments.
If a ship skips on payments it isn't going to be long until it finds that going to any starport that checks logs will result in arrest and confiscation of the ship. A pirated vessel would be better chopped up and parted out in many cases. Otherwise the crew would have to find someone capable of creating a completely new forged log for it going back maybe as much as 20 or more years and then have this log inserted into the database so that it can spread itself (assuming no one notices) like a virus until it is widespread sufficently to allow the ship to assume an new identity. That would be difficult and very expensive I would think.

Of course, if all you operate out of was low end C ports along with D, E and X types you might get away with a long period of no checks. That would mean having to do your own maintenance, refuel off gas giants or unoccupied worlds or satellites, and staying 'under the radar' of officials at all times.
 
Hmm, would there be the starship equivelant of a 'chop shop' where the SIN is 'filed off', or the ship is stripped and parts resold (as selling bits of a stolen ship is a lot easier than selling a whole ship)?

One would think so. I also have found that when I generate complete system data for all the planets and satellites there are often small colonies etc., on some of the other worlds in a system. Some of these I could see as places run by the less legal and basically given a blind eye to by the local authorties as they don't cause trouble and add economically to the system in some way. I could see some of these being places a questionable ship might pull into instead of the main world and starport to avoid questions.
 
Thanks for the typo spots (manual updated) and the ideas.

I had thought about the 'chop shop' and discarded it because I couldn't find a way around how a chop shop might find all the secretly marked areas on the superstructure. In the end I fudged it in para 3.1 of the Manual. , but then I guess that information would have to be on the Ships' Register (albeit available to the authorities only), so all it would take would be one bent official to give a copy of the information to the chop shop who will then know which parts of the ship to 'file off the registration numbers'. And that's good because it conjures up all sorts of game possibilities which is really the point of the whole exercise. The chop shop idea also made me address the question as to what compromises a ship? The conclusion I came to was tha the bit which is marked is the superstructure. I guess all ship's parts, engines, turrets, doors etc will have their own serial numbers and to keep the admin light (more for game purposes I guess) I settled on just the superstructure being marked.

Enoki's idea about the registration documents acting as 'a passport' was another area I fudged - I just don't know enough about Traveller canon - and I'm glad Enoki grasped the nettle. A good question might be why a ship needs a 'passport' type document if it is operating only within Imperial jurisdiction, since Starports are Imperial territory. After all, when we drive our delivery vans around within the country we don't need to record where we go for the benefit of the State, although the delivery company will want to keep records of where the truck has been (the truck driver's log that Enoki mentions). But I didn't want to discount the 'passport' idea entirely since the starships are going to different planets and it would be useful for the Imperium to keep records . So.. I just glossed over it :) Now that Enoki has addressed it, I have added this to the Registration Documents section in 1.4.

The thought of ships being bought on HP and skipping on payments had not occured to me at all (thanks Enoki) and is a prime reason for keeping records of which starports individual ships have visited. Again, good adventure fodder - the players are hired to find a ship which the buyer has missed payments on and have some 'footprints' as initial clues.

Thanks again for the input!
 
Oh, I imagine theres a nice black market for computers, drives and power plant parts. The Vargr might enjoy some "used hulls with light scorching at a great price" for internal operations.
 
... I couldn't find a way around how a chop shop might find all the secretly marked areas on the superstructure. In the end I fudged it in para 3.1 of the Manual. , but then I guess that information would have to be on the Ships' Register (albeit available to the authorities only), so all it would take would be one bent official to give a copy of the information to the chop shop who will then know which parts of the ship to 'file off the registration numbers'.

It doesn't necessarily take a corrupt official. Remember that folks get hired and fired all the time, and they get trained on things like where to look for the "registration densities". All they have to do is tell someone once they quit/get fired. There are also all the people who put together the registry list. And, the people who make the scanners. And the people who work in the shipyard. There's not really much you could do to keep it secret. The question would be how many folks are willing to cut out a structural portion of their ship in order to change it. :devil:
 
My version also has some additional game possibilities:

- Someone in the crew must have certain skills in things in order for the ship to be legally operated. That is, you have to have an actual pilot, navigator, engineer, etc., as you the refree sees fit or per the rules such as in MT. Without these individuals on the crew list and having some sort of actual proof of their ability you sit....

- The players have a ship and don't do maintenance on it because it's a hassle, forget, costs money, keep bad records, whatever. They pull into an anal retentive system with an A starport. The local officials say the ship is "unsafe to operate because the 'check engine light' is on" and ground it until the say, 25,000 credits in maintenance is done by "qualified" (ie., locals on the take with the government) personnel....

I'm sure you can think up more deviousness to keep them occupied. There is nothing quite like bureaucratic "paperwork" to throw sand in the gears of progress and slow things down when you need them to be. Besides, it can give the party some time on some world they didn't expect to be on that you have dreamed up "fun" stuff for them to do....

"We need 25,000 credits to fix the ship now! Where the #@*@*$ are we going to get that?!"

Ref: One of the shipyard technicians tells you that maybe this guy in the back of the local vid and music shop can help you out with that....

:devil:
 
It doesn't necessarily take a corrupt official. Remember that folks get hired and fired all the time, and they get trained on things like where to look for the "registration densities". All they have to do is tell someone once they quit/get fired.

Except, only id10ts would not place them randomly... ;)
 
At which point, FINDING them is a problem for those checking them.

Nope. Look at the range of a hand held densitometer. You don't "find" anything. You take the reading and load results into the black box program. Not unlike a digital fingerprint reader/recorder. The inspector just needs to know how to operate the scanner/recorder. ;)
 
Except, only id10ts would not place them randomly... ;)

Because ... ?

Your coded density idea would be hard for someone to "file off". RFID chips deeply embedded in the hull and key equipment would be pretty close to impossible to reach without leaving evidence of the deed. I'm sure there are other ideas too, the upshot being it would take a seriously well-organized and equipped criminal outfit to get away with that kind of thing - the kind of organization that's likely to have an answer for any defense we raise.

Most such interventions are intended to stop the 99%, and we are quite happy when they achieve that; that last percent is pretty close to impossible to stop completely.
 
Back
Top