General What's initially in the Ship's Locker ?

[CaptRet]

I'm interested in hearing others' approach to stocking the Ship's Locker when players first create their characters and receive as mustering-out benefits either a ship outright (often partially mortgaged, or perhaps on loan from the Scout Service), or ship shares to put towards acquiring a vessel. So in your universe, does it come stripped and the players have to buy everything initially (and quite expensive that)? Or is there standard on-board equipment ? Or do you allocate a certain credit amount with which the characters purchase items and initially stock the Ship's Locker (with later purchases being permitted as funds subsequently allow)? The first edition Mongoose Core Rulebook seems to allow anything within reason (leaving it up to the referee), but cautions against abuse; the second edition seems to have eliminated that provision (I suppose it was too much like a "Bag of Holding," to use an old D & D reference). So what do you do ? And does it vary by type of vessel ? (I'm thinking Yacht, Free Trader, Scout, Safari Ship, and the other common forms of Trader).

 

[kilemall]

Basic crash survival kits, medkits, spare repair kits.



Ship security guns, snub guns/accelerators and maybe one laser pistol.


Vacc suits, including one heavy rad/armor suit per engineer. Spare oxygen/rebreathers.


Radio/reflector distress beacons (auto ones in the ship too, but this would be a solar/radiological deployed one).



Light suits of the bubble/light pressure suit variety spread throughout the ship, 1 per stateroom and more in common areas.



One minimaker with .1% of ship value worth of supplies pre-loaded.


Could be abused, stuff sold off, etc but I have ship inspection/certification, the safety stuff has to be replaced and in functional order annually, or no passenger passage rights and greatly curtailed freight options.

 

[ffilz]

I've generally had them pretty stripped. Scout ships might have some vacc suits in there. In my recent game, I've only had one Free Trader run, and actually that we played out as the player was given title to a Free Trader that had been abandoned. I really didn't include anything in it's ship's locker.

Playing Classic Traveller Books 1-3, there isn't that much on the equipment list, and I prefer not to go wild with equipment, so the ship's lockers probably have various stuff for repairs and such, but players really should be responsible for their own weapons, tool kits, and armor. Other than that, I'm ok with a ship's locker containing a few vacc suits.

 

[Condottiere]

Wand of Wonder, Locker of Ships.

Depending upon interpretation of ship plans, you get a free tonne of capacity from the bridge allocation; anything more could be pulled from cargo.

I do have a project earmarked for this year to explore the contents of that one tonne capacity, which could vary from a morgue to a locked gun safe.

 

[agorski]

Freelance Traveller 46 has an article: The Ship’s Locker: Limiting Without Specifying, that has rules for determining if something is available without listing items ahead of time.

On a larger ship, you might have separate vacc suit lockers near air locks and a separate arms locker or armory.

 

[kilemall]

Freelance Traveller 46 has an article: The Ship’s Locker: Limiting Without Specifying, that has rules for determining if something is available without listing items ahead of time.

On a larger ship, you might have separate vacc suit lockers near air locks and a separate arms locker or armory.

The Rocinante's armory/prep room outside the airlock might provide a model.




That's a warship where it is assumed all on board are loyal crew or guests under one form of control or another. For a passenger/mixed ship such a room would be locked, smaller and to the side.

 

[infojunky]

Ah the perennial Ship's locker question. Otherwise known as "What's in your lazarette?

Please note Traveller's "Ship's Locker" tends to encompass all the working stowage across the ship, thus tools, cleaning and maintenance supplies, random sets of environmental gear. Pretty much all the things that are required for the orderly normal operation of a ship.

Consider that there will be tools and materials for patching hull beaches in every compartment, alongside fire suppression gear. there will be a couple of largeish 1st aid kits in central protected compartments as well. Toolkits will be in areas that will they will used in. Lockers for environmental gear will be near the various exits from the hull.

 

[CaptRet]

The Rocinante's armory/prep room outside the airlock might provide a model.




That's a warship where it is assumed all on board are loyal crew or guests under one form of control or another. For a passenger/mixed ship such a room would be locked, smaller and to the side.

Interesting, but I think that as a model, the Rocinante's armory might give the beginning Traveller too big an advantage (unless playing a military campaign where they assumed to be members of a standing military force or mercenary unit). Displays fairly advanced weapons in plenty, and I think those vacc suits were military-grade armored suits (something like Combat Armor or the Boarding Vacc Suits in the Mongoose CSC) vice civilian vacc suits. I was thinking more along the lines of a civilian craft perhaps with emergency suits (one per passenger ?), maybe one heavy-duty suit for space-walk repairs (where rads would be a concern), basic medical supplies/first aid kits, two to four weapons for shipboard security (pistols, maybe a shotgun and/or accelerator rifle), necessary tool kits for ship (including computer) maintenance and fabrication of parts, maybe a couple of communication devices for a ground party. Maybe other real vacc suits would belong to the individuals.

 

[kilemall]

Interesting, but I think that as a model, the Rocinante's armory might give the beginning Traveller too big an advantage (unless playing a military campaign where they assumed to be members of a standing military force or mercenary unit). Displays fairly advanced weapons in plenty, and I think those vacc suits were military-grade armored suits (something like Combat Armor or the Boarding Vacc Suits in the Mongoose CSC) vice civilian vacc suits. I was thinking more along the lines of a civilian craft perhaps with emergency suits (one per passenger ?), maybe one heavy-duty suit for space-walk repairs (where rads would be a concern), basic medical supplies/first aid kits, two to four weapons for shipboard security (pistols, maybe a shotgun and/or accelerator rifle), necessary tool kits for ship (including computer) maintenance and fabrication of parts, maybe a couple of communication devices for a ground party. Maybe other real vacc suits would belong to the individuals.

Most players I know want the good stuff, even if they can't have it right away. But more a model for building the ship locker around the airlock, even if quite a bit smaller.


Perhaps one unexpected location for a civ ship would be a big airlock built into the main access hatch for the cargo bay, with the ship's locker in a little outfitting cul-de-sac against the wall and locked equipment/arms storage. Away from the passengers and separate to bridge or engineering or crew access, and passengers normally should have no business down there.

 

[sabredog]

A survival kit for each crew member (required but not always complete kits - sometimes the box is empty or has often been looted for items "needed" by someone and the empty box returned).

A few guns and Blades, usually some Snub Pistols, a shotgun or two, and sometimes there is more than one magazine of ammo for each.

I scatter Vacc Suits throughout the ship plans so each bulkheaded section has an emergency locker with enough suits for the crew duty stations in it. Engineering has two suits, bridge has one per crew station (usually 3-4), etc.. The lockers also have adhesive hull patches and some small medical packs.

If any are in the Ship's Locker it is probably because they are old suits cannibalized for parts and then tossed into the locker since they staill might have some useful bits to use later.

As with all things "old ship" crew members would be wise to check these suits to make sure they are +in good working order. You wouldn't want to shake out a random suit you grabbed when the hull integrity alarm goes off only to find moths flying out of all the little holes in it. Or that the tanks are empty.

Anyway, the shp's locker will always have the toolkits listed in the rulebooks, maybe a chainsaw and/or plasma cutter, and whatever things previous players have said they added to it in a prior incarnations of the ship. Yeah, I often recycle old Scouts and Free Traders that way to save myself some work in pre-campaign prep. It has led to amusing situations when I haven't read the whole list and the players have had some interesting and highly illegal things stashed and then forgotten in the pile.

Like that time they were excited about finding a working FGMP deep in the the pile while they were in port - then had to figure out how to get it off the ship (and back on again) because they were turning the Scout over to base personnel in like five minutes for its annual overhaul. No power pack, an FGMP-14 but nobody has a suit to use it with, but jeez - they hung onto that thing like it was life itself cuz, well, It was an FGMP, man!


A ton of space is a lot, but since I've also found players will often completely forget the ship's locker exists at all after a little while, I've been tempted sometimes to have some small beasties hatch in there and cause some minor mayhem in Jump. Or a body....yeah, bad smell...goes away...then a couple of Jumps later they open the hatch to get a fuse or something and a stowaway's corpse pours out.

 

[martletsquire]

I guess I was always the jerk GM in the room. If used, ships came pretty stripped, maybe with patch kits and spare parts in the power room, but no suits or guns or toolkits or sensor-packs or, yeah, anything fun.

New ships would be outfitted as per customer's agreement. With corresponding increase in price for those who wanted a fully-loaded locker, power room with spares, extra filters, linens, food, etc.

Derelicts were the exception-ish. If abandoned, then the abandon-ers would be assumed to strip vacc suits, survival equipment, coms, guns, ammo, food, or whatever seemed sensible.

Only once did the players find a fully loaded ship. With the extra added bonus of a plague (nothing comes free...)

When I was a player, I made sure my character got at least a basic suit as soon as possible, and also made sure to purchase (or receive as retirement bonus) all the supporting toolkits to match the appropriate skills.

As a GM, I made sure to check that the players paid for restocking consumables in their various kits, else I would ding them when something came up. "Oh, sorry, your supply of welding rods was used up last trip. So how exactly are you welding that patch on?" "Man, too bad you didn't renew your first aid kit when you should have, looks like you're going to be using dirty sheets for bandages." "So your character has repair skills, but you don't have a basic or advanced tool kit, and the last guy in the engine room took his tools with him. And your last name isn't McGyver…"

Yeah, I was THAT type of GM.

And my characters? Usually their rooms were so stuffed with whatever they could pocket, pickup or scrounge, well, they could get to their beds and the fresher...

 

[sabredog]

I can't think of a time when the players got a brand new ship from the yards unless it belonged to a patron they were ferrying it to, so I always thought the equipment clutter was part of the character of the ship. Someone else owned it, and being larger than a used car, it had all sorts of leftover equipment laying around.

Why? Because the original owners tended to either A) retire rich and didn't need the stuff anymore, B) traded up and got a new ship with all the new stuff, or C) for assorted reasons bordering on the morbid, didn't need the ship or anything in it anymore. Simplistic perhaps, but enough to rationalize my filling in the blanks of "what's in a used ship's locker?" and trying to make each ship experience feel normalized and real for a game that has starships as a focus of adventuring. Regardless of how I might do it the players almost always tended to treat the ships as other characters, so they deserved some "character".

Besides, there was always plenty to spends their Credits on once they had a ship: fuel, life support, routine maintenance and overhauls, repairs, upgrades, weapons, consumable weapons, ATV's and Air/Rafts (players can burn through a lot of these)..........

Rarely did I encounter someone who said, "OOOOO, the locker has an SMG and an old Vacc Suit! Whoo-hoo!!" Mostly, if they relied on what was in there to save them it was a Hail Mary thing in a time of desperation.

 

[Selandia]

I always understood the Ship Locker to be the ship's lockers. The engine room will have the maintenance and repairs tools as a matter of fact, the vacc suits will be stored handily near the EVA airlock (as oppose to casual entry) the janitor stuff near the staterooms, the armoury near the bridge (guns to be purchased) etc …

I guess each Ref will decide his style of play, but unless you want to have a game of "Quartermaster in space" having the fitting out evening dedicated to purchasing mops and buckets might be anti climatic… but then this is your game… Of course, some adventure related choices will take a lot of pondering: weapons on Safari ship, Wine cellar content on Yatch ...

Obviously, gear dependant successful task rolls are dependent of care in fitting out: "..hugh...cptain ... we forgot the can opener" … "were the hell is the fire extinguisher"... "anybody got the 1/8 Allen key?" As QM is not a skill, I suppose that this is reflected in the basic task relevant skill. Lower the skill of a department's head more likely you are to have forgotten or overlooked something.

Have fun

Selandia

 

[sabredog]

It can be whatever you want it to be, obviously, but the rules do give a description if you need that. Security and emergency lockers scattered around a ship are an obvious thing that is done even today, just with life rafts and vests in stead of rescue balls and vacc suits.

There is a rule somebody came up with around here that had a dice roll to see if a desired item was in the locker or not based on the ships size or something, but I prefer to just list out the 5-10 things it has, plus the suit and emer lockers in the ship plans (I make my own of those, too, so detailing is easy as I go) as part of the campaign prep. Players rarely hop through a lot of ships that they own themselves, so I don't have to worry about doing that for each ship in the campaign. Just common sense in those cases like, "The liner is on fire and going down! I open an emer locker and what is inside?"....suits, rescue balls, extinguishers, and survival kits.

It's really only the adventure-class ships that can be expected to have "Ship's Lockers" for the players to dig around in. As someone else said, they are probably just intended to be a catch-all room for things common sense says would be there if the players didn't think of it in advance. Some prefer to detail it for various reasons - I do it since I recycle player-available ships like Free Traders, Scouts, and such, so it's fun to see what players have written down that they'd added to the pile.....and I also sometimes have used the room or contents as small adventure side-seeds if so inspired.

It, like so much of any game, is whatever you have fun making of it. I like designing ships, drawing plans (even the ones I goof up), and detailing what the ships is like and how it behaves - to me a ship has always been another kind of NPC with its own history (good and bad) that is often drawn from the adventures prior player crews had in it. Provided the ships survived those adventures. Every campaign started is always pushed forward a decade or so in my ATU's future history anyway, so it only makes sense to draw on prior histories of prominent PC's, NPC's, and ships. What has been thrown in a locker and forgotten is part of that.

Once, long ago, a crew found a black box with a tiny blue LED-like light glowing under the surface. They didn't know what to do with it, and were worried about what it might do so they tossed it in the Ship's Locker until they could get some expert to check it out. Of course they forgot about it as they got involved in other adventures. So it sat their, under musty flak jackets, enviro suits, and other things players bought or scavenged and forgot about later.

I reviewed the ship record a log time later and saw the note about a "Black metal cube with blue light found in alien ruins". I let sorted the list of stuff alphabetically and the box drifted near the top where the next set of players saw it at one point. They decided to sell it to an NPC regular who tramps around where a lot of my adventures happen and he later sold it to another group of players in my most recent campaign. They fiddled with the thing and in the stateroom of one guy, the box opened and a tiny bit of folded space unfolded to reveal that the box had been holding a tracked ATV.

Yes, it trashed the stateroom, tore up the corridor and pushed out through the hull to stick out of the side of the ship (which was fortunately landed at the time) like a splinter. The PC made a Dex roll and managed to barely survive the experience, though his friends had to cut him out of the wreckage.

Now, this group just cursed, vowed to never either A) buy anything like that from another shady alien tramp captain, and B) never tamper with alien artifacts on the ship again. They cut up the ATV for parts for their own vehicle and patched up the ship hull. The scrap pile they left behind had the insignia painted on the ATV of a Scout Deep Exploration Cruiser that had vanished near a star that is on current charts as being without a planet....but really does, and the box with the ATV was a clue....but they never asked if the thing had any distinguishing markings or anything at all, just "take any weapons off it and scrap it for parts...and don't touch anymore alien boxes!"

So that's thread someone needs to pick up somehow later I guess.

 

[infojunky]

Once, long ago, a crew found a black box with a tiny blue LED-like light glowing under the surface.

I am in the process of stealing this and filing off of the serial numbers...

 

[Enoki]

When it comes to ship's lockers I usually have several included on the ship. These vary in size but on a typical Far / Free Trader type ship they're usually about the size of a stand-up locker (maybe 12 to 18" wide and deep by about 5 feet tall).

One is for arms. It's nothing more than your typical locking gun locker. The players can fill it as they wish.

Another is for damage control. It has some basic patch kits, a fire extinguisher, CO2 absorbers, that sort of thing. Most of the time it is ignored until something goes wrong then the players find that most of the stuff in it is expired (often badly expired), or missing.

An optional one is an abandon ship locker with several escape balls, very basic survival suits, that sort of thing. Again, unless the players bother to check, the stuff is of questionable age and usefulness.

They can have a parts locker or two scattered about to fix stuff that might break. This is optional. What's in it is up to the players mostly.

The reason many have expired, missing, inoperable, stuff in them is that the player(s) bought / got the ship when it was 20+ years old and this stuff can be assumed to have been aboard when it was new. So, after 20 years it simply has expired as nobody ever looked at it. If an inspector came aboard to check the ship against regulations, I usually assume he opens the locker, sees it's full of stuff and checks it off. Unless there's some reason for me to think that the NPC inspector is anal retentive and a nit picker, that's how that goes.

By running it this way, when there is an emergency, it becomes a Chinese fire drill. The players don't know where the locker with the gear they need is for sure, and then they have to deal with the iffy quality of the stuff inside. Usually that occurs once, after which they pay attention to this stuff for a few sessions then go back to complacency and the cycle repeats.

 

[sabredog]

I am in the process of stealing this and filing off of the serial numbers...

LOL - enjoy!

 

[SpaceBadger]

When I'm GM, or if I'm designing a ship, I may specify some standard items that should be in the various lockers. Plus if the Players buy (or otherwise obtain) stuff and put it in there, then that's in there.

Beyond those, I like it to be non-specific, so that if some item is needed, then if I as GM am convinced that it reasonably should be in there, then it's in there. Or maybe I roll to see if it's in there. Or if I'm not certain as to how many they should have, I'll roll for quantity.

The reason for the unlisted items is that the players are not really experienced spacers, and neither am I. There are sure to be items that we don't think of including on any list, that would really make sense to have in there. I'm into fun and good stories and verisimilitude, not punishing players bc they forgot to write down PLSS for their vacc suits or ammo for their guns.

Here is another thread from several years ago where we discussed Rules for Contents of Ships' Lockers.

 

[CaptRet]

SpaceBadger, thank you so much for posting this link. In particular, I found Carlobrand's list very informative and quite useful.

 

[Enoki]

When I'm GM, or if I'm designing a ship, I may specify some standard items that should be in the various lockers. Plus if the Players buy (or otherwise obtain) stuff and put it in there, then that's in there.

Beyond those, I like it to be non-specific, so that if some item is needed, then if I as GM am convinced that it reasonably should be in there, then it's in there. Or maybe I roll to see if it's in there. Or if I'm not certain as to how many they should have, I'll roll for quantity.

The reason for the unlisted items is that the players are not really experienced spacers, and neither am I. There are sure to be items that we don't think of including on any list, that would really make sense to have in there. I'm into fun and good stories and verisimilitude, not punishing players bc they forgot to write down PLSS for their vacc suits or ammo for their guns.

Here is another thread from several years ago where we discussed Rules for Contents of Ships' Lockers.

Whereas I see this not as a way to punish players but a way to create tension and problem solve. They are going to need 10 of item X that is supposed to be there but they have five and two of those are questionable. What do you do?

Sure, there are GM's that give the players little challenge and the game ends up more of a feel good romp where the players shoot stuff and end up with lots of cash and whatever else they want, but I don't see that as a worthwhile game. I prefer they have to work harder to win.