Salvaging ships - military & otherwise
- Thread starter NW_Paul
- Start date
Interesting thread - as one parting contribution, I'll throw out that it is at least implied in the module that the PC's can obtain use of this ship for themselves.
As a reference, please note the following from page 43:
"Battlefield Salvage: The area of space where the Battle of Two Suns was fought could have starship wreckage, both of Kinunir class ships and of other ships involved, in salvagable condition. Serviceable parts for the restoration of the Kinunir could be available."
As a reference, please note the following from page 43:
"Battlefield Salvage: The area of space where the Battle of Two Suns was fought could have starship wreckage, both of Kinunir class ships and of other ships involved, in salvagable condition. Serviceable parts for the restoration of the Kinunir could be available."
There are really three different, though related, threads here. One is what canon has to say, another is whether that is plausible in-universe, and the third is whether it is a good thing for the campaign to give the PCs a Kinunir or a substantial fraction of the value of one.
Hans
When giving PCs an apparent treasure like a Kinunir you can always turn it into a Three Kings type story. They know the location of a salvageable ship but aren't likely to have the resources to actually salvage the ship themselves. Gathering resources to perform the salvage operation might draw undue attention and if they managed to find the ship someone else may have also found it. Even if they managed to repair the ship the crew complement of the Kinunir is 11 officers and 34 ratings, a handful of PCs may not be able to actually operate the ship even if they get it repaired.
Instead of giving them the whole ship they might be able to salvage some parts (maybe the computer with valuable data) and hock that. They could also sell the location (with sensor logs as proof) to a group that would be able to salvage and use the ship. In either case they don't get their own colonial cruiser to play around with but do get to pay off some of their ship's mortgage or get some loan sharks off their backs.
Three Kings.
SPOILER: Three soldiers in the first Persian Gulf war find a stash of gold bullion but then run into problems actually transporting it over the Iran/Iraq border. It turns out gold bricks are super heavy and carrying one let alone many gold bars is a challenge in and of itself.
Peter Schutze
SOC-12
three kings is a movie about a modern (2003 Iraq war IIRC) treasure hunt by a couple of SoF types
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keep in mind that the salvage / prize value of the Kinunir would be based on the condition it is currently in or the insured (depreciated) value depending on who pays
Thats still going to be quite a chunk of change but not 10% or even 1% of *new* price as the above posts suggest
I'd be offering 1d100th of 1% if they returned it to an imperial base of any kind or maybe 1/10th of that for the sensor logs and condition survey .... which should work out to something in the hundreds of thousands of credits .... plus some imperial "thank you" vouchers if they roleplayed the handover well (and showed respect to the dead)
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keep in mind that the salvage / prize value of the Kinunir would be based on the condition it is currently in or the insured (depreciated) value depending on who pays
Thats still going to be quite a chunk of change but not 10% or even 1% of *new* price as the above posts suggest
I'd be offering 1d100th of 1% if they returned it to an imperial base of any kind or maybe 1/10th of that for the sensor logs and condition survey .... which should work out to something in the hundreds of thousands of credits .... plus some imperial "thank you" vouchers if they roleplayed the handover well (and showed respect to the dead)
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
Sounds like a sequel to Kelly's Heroes.
Or a remake. I don't recall any reviews mentioning that. However, this does make for a good plot idea for some campaign adventures. The heroes of Kelly's Heroes are a very interesting group of characters, and think they could translate well into Traveller characters (I've seen Kelly's Heroes twice, but haven't gotten around to Three Kings yet; I thought it was a reference to the Christmas song, We Three Kings of Orient Are, lol.) You could set them up as a merc outfit, let them get the gold, and then throw in the A-Team concept of constantly being chased by the authorities (in this case, for a crime they really did commit)... Several of the KH characters were tank crew, so ATV skill; some infantry; some supply and logistics.
1) The Merc Ticket---setting up the contract, which will take place in a war on a balkanized world (the best kind of planet IMHO for Merc Ops)
2) The first battle
3) Discovery of the gold/other treasure
4) Getting the gold/other treasure
5) The government who hired the band LOSES the war
6) The government who won the war wants the gold/other treasure back, so they send out agents in pursuit, military police types, complete with uniforms.
Variants on old themes, of course. Whatever the pcs acquire, however, must be pretty substantial in either monetary value or cultural value, to keep these authorities chasing them across the galaxy. It will probably also damage their rep for being mercs, making it harder to get good contracts. Anybody who does give them a contract will risk the wrath of the government whose mps are after the band, possibly to the point of risking international interplanetary warfare.
Gordon
For 1d100th of 1% of its value, I'd either take it across the nearest border and sell it in Arden (or the Extents), or just shrug and continue on my way. After dismounting the Black Globe generator and enough of the weapon systems to sell outside the Imperium to make it worth the bother.
Note, though, that the Imperium is a government. It can do whatever it damn well pleases as regards salvage - give you 10% of list, 1% of list, same percentages of depreciated value, or just "Hey, thanks man! We've been wondering what became of that ship!"....
Oh, and heya, Hans - been a very long time since the TML....
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
There are several major issues with salvaging something as complex as a ship.
First, many of the systems would be very complex. There may or may not be prints, documents and, other stuff that you can use to even figure out the system. Next, comes parts. Getting these may be next to impossible unless you have them custom made. Some may be next to impossible to reproduce and require total replacement instead. Then there is the scale of the repairs.
On the whole, it would require a huge pile of cash and alot of technical expertise to keep a large ship operational let alone salvage one with alot of odd and "foreign" technology.
In a game setting if you did have some PC's that knew their stuff and you put them in a position where they had to get things running it might be possible to get a ship limping along in some crippled state where the players are mostly just trying to stay alive and keep the ship moving. Sort of a McGyver / SG Universe situation...
First, many of the systems would be very complex. There may or may not be prints, documents and, other stuff that you can use to even figure out the system. Next, comes parts. Getting these may be next to impossible unless you have them custom made. Some may be next to impossible to reproduce and require total replacement instead. Then there is the scale of the repairs.
On the whole, it would require a huge pile of cash and alot of technical expertise to keep a large ship operational let alone salvage one with alot of odd and "foreign" technology.
In a game setting if you did have some PC's that knew their stuff and you put them in a position where they had to get things running it might be possible to get a ship limping along in some crippled state where the players are mostly just trying to stay alive and keep the ship moving. Sort of a McGyver / SG Universe situation...
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True, but if the computers can be booted, and haven't suffered radiation damage, most starships carry their own technical plans with them. (At least most Imperial Naval and Scout vessels do or should).
Sounds like a great test of player ingenuity and resourcefulness!
It doesn't mean they should be allowed to succeed, of course, but they could always make the attempt. Maybe they'd even learn something useful...
And many players wouldn't feel right unless they've managed to irritate someone powerful, like a large interstellar government...:devil:
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
Likely so, but I would still expect these computers to be more like industrial and military special purpose ones. That is, they use some odd programming language or a variant of some industry standard like PLC "ladder logic" used in many industrial machines:
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_4/chpt_6/6.html
In such a system here, there are two sides to making it work. The first is the computer and program itself. The second is the physical equipment it operates. So, you get the computer to boot and it runs to some line of code where it gets an error and stops. You find that this is some relay or switch located somewhere on the equipment. You then have to find the actual relay and troubleshoot that to fix the equipment to make the computer run. This can be very frustrating on complex systems as the component locations are not always obvious or shown in tech manuals (been there done that...alot).
So, if you had a character that was good with computers but had no skills in electronics or mechanics they would only be able to easily tell you the system isn't working an the line of code that is causing the problem. That doesn't fix the system though. Removing the offending code or bypassing it somehow might also prove very dangerous.....
Then there is the common problem that the tech manual you have doesn't match the physical system as installed; particularly on equipment that has been in service for a while. This is very common. I've run across situations like one manual has a troubleshooting section with the necessary diagrams for testing while another manual on the exact same system didn't.
Or, where you have a manual for something mundane and ubiquitious to many pieces of equipment or ships. This manual doesn't tell you how to really find and fix the exact equipment you have.
So, in play you could have all sorts of issues come up that the characters have to resolve one frustration after another..... Great pain for great gain....
Most definately true. However, this may apply more directly to the larger 'combat only' military ships. Smaller ships (under 10-20000 tons??) will have a wider array of programming and usability, to suit their particular missions.
And any ship which might be operating in frontier regions (scouts in particular) would tend to have 'standard' parts (whatever that may mean for the particular region of space), in order to facilitate quick repairs in 'backwater systems', where the better parts may be hard to get quickly.
Oh, isn't that the truth! I could tell a few stories about working on OLD printers in the mid 90's... but I don't want to suffer from flashbacks and nightmares. :rofl:
Of course, if one of the pc's is a former navy/scout technician... more power to them.
Of which the PCs with star ship computer experience will be familiar with...
I tend to have the same setup IMTU. Outside the Imperium or in an area where Imperial law is loose gets dicey. A lot depends on the culture ( say if Free Traders dominate the local area possession is ownership ), the corruption level of the local culture. The less corrupt, the more likely to keep possession, the more corrupt the likelyhood of loosing salvaged vessels and/or winding up in jail. One the other hand, the more shady the government the easier to get a clear title. IMTU I have many 'flag of convenience' governments beyond the Imperial border who'll for a consideration will license & flag your vessel whether it docks on it's flag world or not. All perfectly legal. In my original Spinward marches campaign, I used Tarsus as a 'flag of convenience' planet for traders operating on both sides of the Imperial border.
In whatever TU you work, you can figure a Universal TU that apply to the OTU and every MTU: jurisdictions are jalous of their jurisdiction and apply their rules and only their rules, unless bilateral agreement allow the inclusion of another jurisdiction's rules into the rules applied by the court of a jurisdiction.
When a N-K MIG is landed in S-K, it it returned to N-K because the N-K law did not authorise the pilot to defect?
When the Imperial diplomats wish to plug a leak that is considered a crime in the Imperium, why can't they if the leak is in Zhodani or Swiss territory?
Every navy is likely to put some form of reserve on its secret, including those embodied in its material. In my mind that is UTU. The Kinunir will be considered Imperial space and its recovery, in the mind of the Imperium, is subject to Imperium's law. Now, some other state may be generous about buying it from you. Outside the Imperium, you may consider operating a Kinunir legally.
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As to the money argument: The ammount of money represented by a ship, Kinunir or otherwise, is huge. The size of the treasure is also the case of every pirate campain. By the way, a salvage operation usually involve a huge ammount of capital and risk and the reward should be commensurate. Of course, if the objective of your player is to stop adventuring, let them trip upon a treasure trove and have a season of gaming towing it back to the market through hordes of thiefs and crooks, make a sale retire and roll new personnages.
May I point that any character that own a ship to adventure may sell his ship and retire before the adventure start?
A pilot that work at 6,000Cr a month for 40 years will earn before taxes less than 3MCr in a lifetime. A single 400 t fat trader sold on the black market represent a lifetime of earning for a mutinous half crew.
Selandia
When a N-K MIG is landed in S-K, it it returned to N-K because the N-K law did not authorise the pilot to defect?
When the Imperial diplomats wish to plug a leak that is considered a crime in the Imperium, why can't they if the leak is in Zhodani or Swiss territory?
Every navy is likely to put some form of reserve on its secret, including those embodied in its material. In my mind that is UTU. The Kinunir will be considered Imperial space and its recovery, in the mind of the Imperium, is subject to Imperium's law. Now, some other state may be generous about buying it from you. Outside the Imperium, you may consider operating a Kinunir legally.
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As to the money argument: The ammount of money represented by a ship, Kinunir or otherwise, is huge. The size of the treasure is also the case of every pirate campain. By the way, a salvage operation usually involve a huge ammount of capital and risk and the reward should be commensurate. Of course, if the objective of your player is to stop adventuring, let them trip upon a treasure trove and have a season of gaming towing it back to the market through hordes of thiefs and crooks, make a sale retire and roll new personnages.
May I point that any character that own a ship to adventure may sell his ship and retire before the adventure start?
A pilot that work at 6,000Cr a month for 40 years will earn before taxes less than 3MCr in a lifetime. A single 400 t fat trader sold on the black market represent a lifetime of earning for a mutinous half crew.
Selandia
shadowcat20
SOC-12
Ok, the characters found a limited run military ship and salvage it. Do they get the cash?...OR....They have had a tech 15 black globe (military hardware) to look at, They have studied the ship while trying to fix it. There are military ciphers in the comp system plus possable military information. ...AND...there was a malfunction of the safeguard program making for a very bad publicity story.
I am sure they are going to get a less than warm welcome in some areas and even if they get the reward collecting it could be very difficult to say the least. Sounds like months of fun gaming to me...:rofl:
I am sure they are going to get a less than warm welcome in some areas and even if they get the reward collecting it could be very difficult to say the least. Sounds like months of fun gaming to me...:rofl:
IMTU, the 3I won't buy the Kinunir back from you or allow you to salvage it, since they can just take it back, but they will give you a finder's fee of maybe a couple MCr.
shadowcat20
SOC-12
Keep in mind the ship has 3 air rafts @ 12 tons for 1.8 Mcr, a Grav Apc @10 tons for 9.3 Mcr,and a 35 ton Pinnace @ 21.7 Mcr. This just small craft. Add 10 tons for a fact 1 Black Globe@ 400 Mcr, a Fact 5 Nuke Damper @ 8 tons 30Mcr, a Mod 7Fib Comp @18 tons 100Mcr for some parts. Then there are the arms, armor, and assorted gear for 35 marines at TL 15.
Who needs the ship itself? With the exception of the Marines gear and the pinnace you get 541.1 Mcr for 58 tons of cargo. Add 35 sets of Battledress and Fusion guns plus parts and spares and the Pinnace you are looking at a lot of credits for around 100 tons of cargo.
Oh Yeah, the AI program on the comp and all the other programs have value also. Even at 10% of value the party is rich.
Who needs the ship itself? With the exception of the Marines gear and the pinnace you get 541.1 Mcr for 58 tons of cargo. Add 35 sets of Battledress and Fusion guns plus parts and spares and the Pinnace you are looking at a lot of credits for around 100 tons of cargo.
Oh Yeah, the AI program on the comp and all the other programs have value also. Even at 10% of value the party is rich.
