Cargo Handling

[Father Fletch]

Cargo Handling; This is the bread and butter of most characters. Even you routinely gloss over the boring details, the reality of bill of lading, Haz-Mat labeling, non-standard packets and customs hassles having to do with whether the boxes are the right color there is great role playing potential in those Big metal boxes.
The recent shut down of the West Coast (USA) ports has also highlighted the politics and money involved in cargo containers. Your characters can run into union organizers/breakers, port owners and shippers in the course of their merchant activities. This is also where a Noble character with skills in Liaison and Administration or a Merchant with skills in K/Imperial Shipping Regulations and Streetwise can shine. Want to slow down a competitor ship? Walk over to the loading dock and bring attention the numerous safety violations undoubtedly happening.
For the ships locker:
1. Cargo Skids/Lifters. How many aboard and do the characters do the loading or do the local longshoremen do it?
2. Cargo Lifting Exo-Skeletons ala 2300 AD or aliens. DO you have one? (I’m sure TJ will sell you one cheap, only driven by a little ol’ Villani lady who only used it on her monthly milk run along a well patrolled main between sub-sector capitols)
3. How do you unload a Scout courier? (CT/Traders and Gunboats design) By hand?
4. Is there a special ship’s locker just for the cargo deck?
5. How much work does it take to switch from bulk to container to low berth to liquid shipping? Do you do so often? How much extra gear do you have aboard to do so? Or do you need to pay each time in port that you want to switch?
6. Do you trust those cargo 'bots to not damage the hull, cargo hatch, bulkhead?
Adventure Idea: The characters are recruited to lobby a local system that is thinking of switching to the Imperial Ministry of Commerce standards. The players need to contend with a competing standard (Zhodani, Hiver, K’Kree, etc.) which has it’s own lobbyists. There might be Anti-Imperial protests (Think WTO Seattle). Again the Nobles and merchants can shine here. The other characters need to spy, do black bag work, use those non-lethal skills.

 

[Bruce]

Fletch,

I like the way you think!!!
And people say that merchant campaigns can be boring. Your ideas there seem to include all types of crew types that would be played.

What if the players are recruited to escort a union boss to the meeting and the union boss is assinated. The players are blamed and are on the "lamb" so to speak until they can prove to the authorities, the unions et al that they did'nt do it. And to wit, WHO did it?
Local buisnessmen who don't like the fee structure of the union? Another union boss who wants to move up? The lone gunman union member who hates this guy cause he's messing with his wife...
Oh yes, just the layers of the economy that you could explore.

Bruce
The behind the curtain man

 

[RabidVargr]

Moving cargo on deck: Had an overhead lift, basically a tick tac toe shaped rail on the celing, and a heavy duty cable and hook that would lift and move the cargo.

For unloading the scout, on most worlds, they used grav fork lifts. The pallets were a heavy duty plastic (lasts longer than wood) and had plenty of strength.

And for that one time we caught Trader Jim, we just made him and his crew slide it up and down a ramp. Took em a while. Think Egyptian slaves working the pyramid. Too bad we let him go, the crew loved watching!

RV

 

[tim_manley]

heh...I ran a game one time where I actually role-played them packing in the cargo. When they finally took off the load wasn't secured properly and they ended up with some problems....that'll teach 'em for having a boat full of mercs and a scout pilot/nav with a Navy engineer....heh...heh...

I would also role-play customs and some of the admin crap that most gloss over.

My players actually starting trying to get an Admin skill or a Jack-o-T skill so they can do cargo handling and deal with the paperwork.

One time I was playing an NPC milking for a bribe and just being pretty immobile. The player never thought to offer the guy a bribe, and stopped role-playing, got pissed and called me a god-damned spread-sheet GM.

Thing is -- if you want to be a merchant, that's the crux of the game. I think those type of games can be fun as hell; especially when you're doing speculative trading and/or even smuggling. But, some folks just want to gloss over that part and...

oh well....

 

[Tarn]

I once heard the phrase "Aristocracy of labour"... How about a house of nobles whose powerbase is representing labour at court (Sorta like the Hoffas).

A corrupt union is a powerful enemy, especially if cover more than one starport. Maybe even an entire subsector. With the labour leaders paying the subsector nobles to look the other way. Or just terrifying them... or may just apathy on the part of the administation... or the mobbed up union is providing dockyard security against a outside enemy (like the italian mafia in New York during WWII). The best part of this type villian is the fact that not every member is corrupt... most are just working joes but there is one with a knife itching for you back.

Another story would revolve around a "seafarer's" union. The player's would be ship crew members who are trying to unionize the ship crews throughout a (sub)sector. Or maybe just on one company, or one world. Bosses, merchants and governments usually take a dim view of this type of activity. Lots of secret meetings, being followed, being hunted even... in attempts to shut down the organization. Fights in courts to win legal rights, in bars against scabs. Spys trying to find out who the organizers are. Low-tech "non" lethal battles on picktet lines (riot cops vrs strikers). Running gun battles (armed strikers versus company security). All of this to win a decent employment contract.

Time to see "on the Waterfront" again.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Tarn:
A corrupt union is a powerful enemy, especially if cover more than one starport. Maybe even an entire subsector. With the labour leaders paying the subsector nobles to look the other way. Or just terrifying them... or may just apathy on the part of the administation... or the mobbed up union is providing dockyard security against a outside enemy (like the italian mafia in New York during WWII).

The subsector nobles might actually *encourage* "mafia unionism". The alternative, after all, might well be people you can't buy off.

Just think: if you were a subsector duke, who would you prefer were running the starport unions - organised crime or the *Ine Givar*.

Alan Bradley

 

[Shadowdancer]

Three words: Sopranos in space.

 

[Tarn]

Tukera vrs A noble backed subsector union...

I see blood... lots of blood.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Fathr Fletch posted-"Cargo Handling; This is the bread and butter of most characters. Even you routinely gloss over the boring details, the reality of bill of lading, Haz-Mat labeling, non-standard packets and customs hassles having to do with whether the boxes are the right color there is great role playing potential in those Big metal boxes.
The recent shut down of the West Coast (USA) ports has also highlighted the politics and money involved in cargo containers. Your characters can run into union organizers/breakers, port owners and shippers in the course of their merchant activities. This is also where a Noble character with skills in Liaison and Administration or a Merchant with skills in K/Imperial Shipping Regulations and Streetwise can shine. Want to slow down a competitor ship? Walk over to the loading dock and bring attention the numerous safety violations undoubtedly happening.
For the ships locker:
1. Cargo Skids/Lifters. How many aboard and do the characters do the loading or do the local longshoremen do it?
2. Cargo Lifting Exo-Skeletons ala 2300 AD or aliens. DO you have one? (I’m sure TJ will sell you one cheap, only driven by a little ol’ Villani lady who only used it on her monthly milk run along a well patrolled main between sub-sector capitols)
3. How do you unload a Scout courier? (CT/Traders and Gunboats design) By hand?
4. Is there a special ship’s locker just for the cargo deck?
5. How much work does it take to switch from bulk to container to low berth to liquid shipping? Do you do so often? How much extra gear do you have aboard to do so? Or do you need to pay each time in port that you want to switch?
6. Do you trust those cargo 'bots to not damage the hull, cargo hatch, bulkhead?
Adventure Idea: The characters are recruited to lobby a local system that is thinking of switching to the Imperial Ministry of Commerce standards. The players need to contend with a competing standard (Zhodani, Hiver, K’Kree, etc.) which has it’s own lobbyists. There might be Anti-Imperial protests (Think WTO Seattle). Again the Nobles and merchants can shine here. The other characters need to spy, do black bag work, use those non-lethal skills.'
___________________________
I'm with bruce in this! Yer simply a bloody genuius. Where do we send the brib-er, donation again?"---Lefty Schlepkowicz, Vrasstadt Downport Longshoreman Local 1201.

 

[dean]

How about meeting with other ships in the dead of space to do a little forgery on the tariff papers or on the "sealed container" labels?

Or how about illicit cargo transfers at the edges of the system (meeting with the shadier side of the grey market)?

And handling that cargo in zero-G or low G environments (a disneyland for accidents if untrained)?

Transshipments into low orbit in order to bypass customs laws (balkanized planets)?

Missing your departure because of union strikers or bureaucratic bs?

Whee!

Dean

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Here's a more high tech approach to cargo handling but it worked well in a story I was writing

The ship's cargo hold was called the "Graveyard" because it was full of individual low berths...transporting a few hundred colonists as corpscicles. Now then, at the tempratures the berths were kept at turned the berths essentially into superconductors. Superconductors in a magnetic field float

So in a control booth, by manipulating mag-lev conduits in the storage racks, floors, walls, and ceiling of the hold, they crew could maneuver one or more of the berths by remote control any way they wished.
Given a little modification I'm sure it would be a useful approach to more standard cargos.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Tarn wrote-"Another story would revolve around a "seafarer's" union. The player's would be ship crew members who are trying to unionize the ship crews throughout a (sub)sector. Or maybe just on one company, or one world. Bosses, merchants and governments usually take a dim view of this type of activity. Lots of secret meetings, being followed, being hunted even... in attempts to shut down the organization. Fights in courts to win legal rights, in bars against scabs. Spys trying to find out who the organizers are. Low-tech "non" lethal battles on picktet lines (riot cops vrs strikers). Running gun battles (armed strikers versus company security). All of this to win a decent employment contract."
____________________
Time for you to read "Heavy Time" by CJ Cherryh--Belters, unions, labor, a war impending..all of what ye wrote of and then some!

 

[Liam Devlin]

Dean posted-"How about meeting with other ships in the dead of space to do a little forgery on the tariff papers or on the "sealed container" labels?

Or how about illicit cargo transfers at the edges of the system (meeting with the shadier side of the grey market)?

And handling that cargo in zero-G or low G environments (a disneyland for accidents if untrained)?

Transshipments into low orbit in order to bypass customs laws (balkanized planets)?

Missing your departure because of union strikers or bureaucratic bs?

Whee!'
______________________
Ahhh, the gray trade--smuggling! Repackaging cargoes and the like...yer on the right track there Dean. Semi-quasi-legal less than legal incomes.. you can make a campaign out of that alone!

 

[Father Fletch]

Have recently heard about possible "Homeland security" electronic "unforgeable seals/stamps" that the DOD will require on all incoming cargo containers into the USA. I imagine there is some sort of equivalent in Traveller. Another job for your sneaky Pete/hacker character types in the game

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by Father Fletch:
Have recently heard about possible "Homeland security" electronic "unforgeable seals/stamps" that the DOD will require on all incoming cargo containers into the USA. I imagine there is some sort of equivalent in Traveller. Another job for your sneaky Pete/hacker character types in the game

Pedant warning.

DoD won't be requiring such things, becuase DoD isn't responsible for inspecting commercial cargos entering the US. That job is the responsibility of the Customs Service. Customs is likely to be moved into the new Homeland Security Department (not part of DoD) whenever it is formed.

(Sorry, you just hit a topic close to where I work.)

In Traveller, it's not clear who has such responsibilities. GT introduces (or expands) the Starport Administration (SPA), which may have the job in combination with local customs. Requirements for bonding probably vary with the destination world and the place of origin. Figuring out which tags you need to go from one planet to another half a sector away could be a challenge, if you're into that sort of thing.