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Scumbarges and Spacecrafts

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Sat, 2012-09-01 10:53

Wintermaster Wintermaster's picture

Scumbarges and Spacecrafts

Alright, I've been enjoying the EP for a while, but asking a few friends what kind of a game they'd like to play they asked me to run a game about a group of Firewall agents aboard a spaceship. Preferably a fast courier ship they've somehow laid claim to, travelling between colonies. I am expecting this ship to mainly be a 'get to the place you need to be in actual flesh' within the Inner System. Possibly having several days of time skipped in between destinations, possibly some occasional play of a day's worth of time in the journey, just to keep people on their toes. Is there something freaky aboard from the last destination? Are we missing something important? Is everything okay or are we going to be in trouble if we don't act now? I was wondering if anyone got advice where to acquire some 'blueprint' for the ship interior, how big a ship generally should be (figuring the team is 4 people so likely just enough space for them, etc), what kind of nasty little surprises I should include, if I should try and make their ship central to their struggle too, or if I should largely avoid tossing trouble about the ship in particular their way so they wont be constantly tired fixing up a yet another mess with the ship in question? I'm not planning on ship-to-ship combat, more than likely the player character's ship would rather be forcibly docked and things would turn into a boarding action (I think in such conditions, energy weapons or melee weapons would prevail. Closed cramped quarters and a preference to not leave holes in the hull), so could run those by standard rules. Well, I'd really appreciate pointers, helpful ideas, or even mean critisism as long as its also constructive. I want to keep the players interested, and I did promise to try and fulfill their wish as long as it would not be overpowered.

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"Yes I am new here. We were all new once, and I aim to learn fast, I only ask that you have a little patience when dealing with me. Thank you."

Sat, 2012-09-01 12:47

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

A scum barge is likely far

A scum barge is likely far too large for the team: these are flying refugee camps, cobbled together from cargo containers, empty fuel tanks and random shuttle parts. They are also slow. A fast courier is nice, but expensive to maintain: you need to buy your antimatter from somewhere. Of course, as a cover it is great... and the ship itself is a weapon of mass destruction. I would suggest a somewhat retrofitted small transport ship.

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Sat, 2012-09-01 13:14

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

Because of the potential of

Because of the potential of antimatter as a weapon of mass destruction, unless they are members of a big organization that can be held accountable (basically, governmental), they probably wouldn't be allowed close to any habs for security reasons (they'd have to park far away and take a shuttle, and perhaps submit to scans/searches to make sure they're not bringin some onboard the hab). One possibility is antimatter could be controlled by a trusted third party. Maybe some sort of limpet fuel shuttle would attach to the fast ship and come along for the ride. All antimatter would be stored on the limpet ship and transferred as needed. It provides a usable source of antimatter for private individuals, but it also means you might be bringing a group of workers directly controlled by Jovian Republic interests along for the ride.

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"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

Sat, 2012-09-01 14:41

BOMherren

One thing to remember is, any

One thing to remember is, any ship sufficiently fast to be interesting is a weapon of mass destruction. If it can get you from Mars to Luna fast enough to maintain plot cohesion and continuity, then it can be sacrificed as a kinetic missile to wipe out half the population when you get there. I should think the antimatter itself is a secondary concern. Another thing it might be worth mentioning is that Egocasting is actually sort of a balance mechanism in EP. You get a lot more bang for your CP if you invest in Morphs and gear than if you invest in Ego skills and abilities, but the flip side is that you lose it all when you Egocast. That said... You could probably get one of the trusted inner system powers to impose some sort of control mechanism upon you, to prevent the WMD-thing. For example, get the Planetary Consortium to station a permanent monitoring and security AGI on board (in its own computer, complete with a dead man's switch and QE communicator) and to vouch for you. Then, for any situation where you do need your players to do something illicit, you can have them use their Firewall resources to subvert the control mechanism.

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Sat, 2012-09-01 14:59

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

A ship turned into a kinetic

A ship turned into a kinetic weapon is going to provide plenty of warning to their target when they don't engage a decel burn. An antimatter bomb is much more surprising (and very portable).

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"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

Sat, 2012-09-01 15:00

Gantolandon Gantolandon's picture

There is one problem with

There is one problem with traveling by your own ship - it's almost impossible to do that stealthily. Everyone will know they're approaching before they even see the habitat and the better ship they have, the easier they are to identify. Hell, even buying an antimatter-powered courier ship without drawing attention could be an adventure itself. And someone will try to track it just in case. If they really insist on having a ship, it's much better for them to have a decrepit transporter. Maybe they could set up a cover for themselves - a small ore extraction business, for example. Engage in some low-scale smuggling as a food for someone who finds their activity suspicious. Make some parts of its mesh easy to hack, but install hardwired, hidden overrides for all major systems. This way no one will look at them twice.

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Sat, 2012-09-01 15:14

BOMherren

NewtonPulsifer wrote:A ship

NewtonPulsifer wrote:
A ship turned into a kinetic weapon is going to provide plenty of warning to their target when they don't engage a decel burn. An antimatter bomb is much more surprising (and very portable).

You're right, the antimatter bomb is probably the bigger threat. Still, even if you have a week's advance notice that HMS Bad News is heading for your crowded, stationary satellite...

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Sat, 2012-09-01 17:37

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

If you're looking for layout

If you're looking for layout for just one ship, I'd probably nab a well-known one like Serenity (and adjust it for micro-gravity). You can find ship layouts in a few books, like traveler, but it gets complex and it's harder for players to imagine. Serenity probably has a bazillion pictures and maps you can pull without your players needing any further explanation.

Sat, 2012-09-01 17:52

Wintermaster Wintermaster's picture

Thank you Nezumi, and I thank

Thank you Nezumi, and I thank everyone else as well. I'll take heart of the advice given and give the group a more suitable, slow-moving ship if they want to make their travels in the inner system between habitats occur that way, and I did mention to them egocasting but they aim for a game where they visit a habitat and then leave again towards the end to explore, perhaps responding to some emergency messages. I'm going to be careful about the whole issue of anti-matter being risky too close to the planets for corporations to really permit it easily. Nezumi, I think I'll just pull up some material from Serenity for this, it'll be easier on the players to understand too in the end. They have no plans to try and play a game where they land on planets anyway. The reason I mentioned scumbarges initially (well at least in the title) was that I considered them being part of a small group of Scum roaming along on a vessel barely put together, at least on the surface, but getting things through Firewall upgrading it along as time goes forth. Anyhow, I've received a lot of help in a short period of time, and I am grateful for everyone's assistance.

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"Yes I am new here. We were all new once, and I aim to learn fast, I only ask that you have a little patience when dealing with me. Thank you."

Sat, 2012-09-01 17:59

#10

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Yep, the part the players

Yep, the part the players will deal with is going to be the interior. When thinking of the the rest of the ship things can get rather large: most of it will be reaction mass tanks, heat radiators, power plants and fiddly bits like sensor clusters. Here is one I did for a game: http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/nagaidrawing.png As for the WMD aspect of ships, just remember that all habitats will have point defences "against meteors". Actually doing a 911 with a spaceship requires dodging their lasers - and they have strong incentives to be good enough to take down even pretty big objects.

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Sat, 2012-09-01 20:07

#11

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

The Venture Star Interstellar

The Venture Star Interstellar Vehicle from James Cameron's Avatar is a good one too if you're going for a more "plausible" style of ship. Just scale it down to suit. http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Interstellar_Vehicle_Venture... [img]http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100127043621/jamescameronsavatar... EDIT: Here's a good link with more info on plausible designs: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesigns.php The more plausible designs are definitely more functional than pretty.

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"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

Sat, 2012-09-01 19:55

#12

NewAgeOfPower NewAgeOfPower's picture

As Arena Said

You're unlikely to get to use your spacecraft as a missile against any of the major powers; The Martian Batteries, the Jovian Battlefleet, and the Titanian moon-fortress things... Even small habitats have SOME anti-meteor capability.

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As mind to body, so soul to spirit. As death to the mortal man, so failure to the immortal. Such is the price of all ambition.

Sun, 2012-09-02 00:28

#13

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Is there a reason you put the

Is there a reason you put the components in the order you did? I'd assume the crew compartments would be forward of the fuel reserves, so the fuel serves as radiation shielding.

Sun, 2012-09-02 03:58

#14

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

In this case distance works

In this case distance works as a fine shielding, since the reactor is separated from the crew compartment and radiation goes down with the inverse square of distance. The compartment, which is mainly inside the fuel tanks (the sketch is not really well labeled) is protected from solar and space radiation by the tanks. Using the fuel tanks as a crew shield is very practical: I realized it when we played with another ship design in an earlier game, http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/bilder/eurydice2.jpg - here the tanks were behind the crew section, which meant that for solar storms the ship had to be reoriented. Also, putting as much of the mass near the centre of mass make your ship easier to turn.

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