Ship's Locker Contents: Your Rules?

[SpaceBadger]

To me, telling a Player that they forgot to buy a Whats-a-whos-it™ at Starship-Mart^© when they stocked up their Ship's Locker is kinda being a jerk about it, if the skills and Intelligence stats say the character should have known better.

Exactly. Which is why my bias toward Method #2 should be obvious. The ship's locker contains everything that reasonably should be there, in reasonable quantities. If the Players want to make sure of something, they can buy it and add it to the locker.

OTOH, Players who want to go the full accounting method of noting every item they think they will possibly need, then "OOPS we forgot something because we are not real spacers and didn't think about that," get little sympathy from me.

 

[mike wightman]

OOOOOOOOH! This is an excellent idea! Gotta ponder this a bit...

It's stolen straight from T5 - sort of.

I printed out the makers for my group and my players assumed there was a fancy high TL3d printer/nanofactory that could make stuff as needed or modify stuff from a basic template if you had the correct software. They wanted to know where on the ship it was...

It was too good an idea not to run with and it makes equipment selection part of what the characters do, rather than something the players do if you see what I mean.

It also means i can offer adventure rewards consisting of new gear that can be disassembled by the makers to create a new template.

 

[mike wightman]

Oooh, TL15 replicators!

I want one of those for the kitchen!

Not quite, I have them start at TL9 - they are limited by their Tl as to what they can produce.

Considering what we can do with primitive 3d printers now, and the projections as to where the technology is going over the next couple of decade, i figured that by making the introductory TL9 it is far enough away to make it future tech.

 

[flykiller]

...2 radiacs...

2 whats?

a radiac measures active gamma radiation. the movies all use the term "geiger counter", it's the hand-held machine that goes "clickety-click" when radiation is around, and "clickety-click"s faster when there's more radiation.

a dosimeter measures how much gamma radiation you have received already, but won't tell you how much radiation is around you at any given moment and cannot measure alpha or beta radiation.

I have them start at TL9

modern tl8 printers are already being used to make aircraft replacement parts on demand. a tl9 printer will be quite capable, a tlA printer will be magical, and by tlB we might be into "replicator" territory.

 

[Dulinor]

You don't require Players to have complete knowledge of what's in a MedKit, do you? You don't require a Player to have real-life medical knowledge if they are playing a Surgeon, if they aren't in any way a Medical person in real-life, right? Why would you require a Player to have real-life knowledge of what's required for a Ship's Locker if the Player isn't a real-life Space Traveller?

Amen, brother.

 

[Carlobrand]

Exactly. Which is why my bias toward Method #2 should be obvious. The ship's locker contains everything that reasonably should be there, in reasonable quantities. If the Players want to make sure of something, they can buy it and add it to the locker.

OTOH, Players who want to go the full accounting method of noting every item they think they will possibly need, then "OOPS we forgot something because we are not real spacers and didn't think about that," get little sympathy from me.

You will cut slack for players who can't be bothered to keep accounts but not for players who can? Interesting.

I am not going to punish a player for trying to be thorough. Try or not, he isn't a spacer/surgeon/spacecraft-engineer/fill-in-skill-here. On the other hand, I will only go as far as allowing what I think a reasonable person with that set of skills would be expected to have. If the game is held up because the guys didn't bring diving gear - well, they'd best go buy some diving gear. If it's a serious problem, there are shortcuts. Maybe they'll overhear a group of miners doing the CB thing, and one of the miners happens to have what they need, for a price. Sidequest!

Of course, you could have Tingle show up and offer to sell them what they need.

 

[McPerth]

I think its easier to base this whole concept on what kind of ship and crew you are dealing with than some hard and fast rule about what is or isn't in a "ship's locker."

Instead you base it on the type and age of the ship, its state of repair, and the skills of the crew.

Most of the crew doesn't have vac suit training? Why would they have vac suits? Even if they did, they're going to have lots of issues with using one starting with getting the thing on.

Your "engineer" has a couple of level 1 skills? He gets a very basic tool box that maybe has what you need. If the part doesn't exist on board he sure isn't making it even if a machining center / part maker exists on the ship.

The ship is a 30 year old merchant of some sort that hasn't been serviced lately and the Captain is nearly broke? Probably don't have much in the way of whatever you need on board.

One crew member is a steward 1... If the ship has a galley its stuff from packages and the "microwave." Doesn't matter that the galley is a fully equipped restaurant level one. He doesn't know what half the stuff does.

A new ship, one owned by a corporation, or a warship will have better equipment aboard.
An engineer with level 1 to 3 skills in a range of stuff has a huge selection of tools and knows how to make parts.

A steward level 4? This guy complains there's too much vibration on the ship to cook a soufflé for dinner and demands the Captain shut the engines down. He can use the restaurant quality galley.

Most of the crew has good weapons skills? Weapons are available. They have next to no skills then they have a couple of whatever to defend the ship.

That's really considerably simpler than having pre-concocted lists in detail for everything. This way you do or don't have what you need for the situation you are in based on the situation your party and the ship are themselves in. Amateurs are unprepared, pro's are.

I use the abstract way (whatever seems to be reasonable) modified by what you tell here (so, the better your engeenreing crew, the beter the parts/tolos on your ship's locker.

I asume there's a mínimum stuff in the ship's locker given by law (bare mínimum), insurances, etc..

To guive yo uan example, when I obtained my driver licence (I think that has changed since) there was a mínimum stuff you need legally in your car, as a sapre weel, tolos to change it, spare boubles for the lights, spare glasses if the driver needed them ,etc..., and some other things insurances required (fire extinguisher, etc) for some kings of insuarnces. Off course the list for a starship that spends so much time out of contact and help will be quite longer...

 

[Blue Ghost]

Ship's locker; it depended on the group's situation. If they were a legit group (no troubles with law anywhere) then the ship's locker served as a weapons' locker as well, and all their salient gear was stored there. Otherwise they kept their various weapons stored in their cabins, and the locker usually contained auto-shotguns or somesuch--nothing fancy.

Other gear that players had bought for themselves they kept in their cabin, though sometimes someone bought something to help the group (say an atmospheric tester), and that would be understood to get stowed in the locker.

 

[rancke]

I would very much like a list of standard ship's locker content that I could give to my players. Anything not on the list their characters would have to procure themselves. I don't have the time and interest to make up such a list, though, so I go with the "common reasonable items are there, I'll roll for less common items" approach.


Hans

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Merely ask and ye shall receive.

I would very much like a list of standard ship's locker content that I could give to my players. Anything not on the list their characters would have to procure themselves. I don't have the time and interest to make up such a list, though, so I go with the "common reasonable items are there, I'll roll for less common items" approach.


Hans

Well Hans, if you are interested there is this one I have been assembling, Ship's Locker Contents List (Draft 1)

 

[SpaceBadger]

Well Hans, if you are interested there is this one I have been assembling, Ship's Locker Contents List (Draft 1)

There was also someone's thread (Carlobriand?) a few weeks ago with extensive listing of emergency supplies that might be required onboard by regulatory fiat.

 

[Orr]

I've always gone with a mixture. First, the locker is stocked with specific items by me as the GM. Next, the locker is added to by the players through cash purchases of specific items. Finally, the locker is given a cash allotment which players can charge basic and/or common sense items against with me as the GM having final say.

The last has never turned the locker into a Santa Claus machine or Bag of Holding. It used because we are playing at being engineers, pilots, and doctors instead of actually being those things. There are going to be items people forgot to stock in good faith and that their characters would have remembered to stock.

I've never had any real arguments over just what basic and/or common sense items may be. A gunner will get the electronics spares he needs for repairs, but not a laser focusing array, for example. No one ever wanted to claim they had infinite ammo either.

I guess it comes down to a matter of trust between the players and GM. The players need to trust the GM not to mess with them for no real purpose by insisting that all vacc suit patches have run out and the GM needs to trust his players not to take advantage of a locker stocked with money to pull a jump drive coil out of their hat.

As for not wanting to use the "stocked with money" method because it smacks of accounting, just what does some anal retentive 12 page list with every conceivable item and it's quantity smack of if not accounting? :rofl:

 

[Patron Zero]

Just my take on the subject but one might think there is some agency operating inside the Imperial Navy much like our world's contemporary Coast Guard.

That said, such an agency would inspect starships in the way civilian and commercial sea-going vessels are so 'regulated' as to requirements for crew and passenger safety.

More often than not, the inspections would happen while the ship is in port, dirtside or docked to an orbital facility but such occurring 'randomly' than as an observed protocol prior to departure from said locations.

A given that for a vessel to be 'licensed' to operate inside Imperial space, a seal or documents of inspection-safety compliance would be aboard much like the little window stickers states-provinces issue for automobiles.

As with said affixed windshield decal, unscrupulous vendors could issue such for just the cost of the paperwork involved rather than the mandatory cursory inspection being properly done.

 

[aramis]

My rules for the Ship's Locker...
it's got, at start:

• 1 maintenance hatch key.
• 1 rescue ball for each bridge crewman.
• 1x 2m LS hose for each bridge crewman.
• 1 ship's manual set, "printed", small print etched into vacuum stable plastic.
• 1 magnifier with light, so you can read the manual set.

Anything else, you need to pay for.

The Engineering Locker includes

• 1 maintenance hatch key.
• 1 rescue ball for each engineering crewman.
• 1x 2m LS hose for each engineering crewman.
• 1 ship's manual set, "printed", small print etched into vacuum stable plastic.
• 1 magnifier with light, so you can read the manual set.
• 1 engineering tool kit, poor quality.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Would a Patron provide equipment? Or just funding?

 

[rancke]

Would a Patron provide equipment? Or just funding?

Is a tree tall enough?


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Is a tree tall enough?


Hans

Why, yes, yes it is.