Ship's Locker Equipment

[Spinward Scout]

Hi Everybody!

I have an upcoming campaign in a few weeks, and I was wondering what does everyone think is a good standard ship's locker? I'm most likely running the game around TL 13 or 14.

Thanks!

Scout

 

[Secrect Cow Level]

If it is a civilian ship, then it should have weapons and equipment easily obtained by civilians (carbines, shotguns, autopistols, and vacc suits). If you're running a military or merc campaign then military equipment is in order (gauss rifles, plasma guns, combat armor, and don't forget the grenades!).

 

[Spinward Scout]

It's going to be a Scout/Courier. The character types I told them I needed were: a Muscle Man, a Medico type, and a Pilot/Engineer. The group seems to like these ideas. Your basic adventuring Ship & Crew.

Later,

Scout

 

[tjoneslo]

You mean the box on the ship that contains the broken tools, loose screws, nuts, half eaten sandwiches, random collection of disassembled weapons, loose ammo for guns which no longer exist, dischared powercells, cans of dried paint, erased data holocrystals, various expired ships licences, life support equipment for alien races which live half way across the Imperium, ruptured seals, outdated vacc suit repair kits, vacuum tubes, computer parts which fit no known computer system, leaking fluidic control systems, outdated engineering manuals missing vital pages, bits of wire too short to be useful, anchor chain, 2 meters of Dannam silk dyed colors even a Vargr would find clashing, metal shavings and the mold you're pretty sure is in a different place every time you open the box?

 

[Spinward Scout]

Yes! That just gave me some great ideas!

Thanks,

Scout

 

[tjoneslo]

Everyone seems to assume that the ships locker is a neat clean place which contains only the equipment needed to make the next mission go perfectly. Like the compressor/rebreather masks, vacc suit repair kits, hull breach repair kits, rescue balls, fire extinguishers, the fix everything Engineering tool kit, spare parts for every machine ever made plus the instruction on how to install them, oh and a weapons locker with more weapons than the one from The Matrix.

In disucssion with people who actually lived on ships (sea going, not space going), the locker was the collection point for all the stuff which may be useful later, but in reality is simply forgotten about. Until later when it is viewed as useless, but no one seems to have the time to clean it out.

In older days the ships locker also contained various luxury items (food, candy, holovids, drugs, etc) which the crew could buy off the captian during the voyage using their salary for the current voyage. Since salaries were paid at the end of the voyage, the really vicious capitan tried to arrainge it so the crew owed him money by the end of the voyage forcing the crew to sign on for another trip to pay off their debts.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Excellent! Even more great ideas! The ship that they are going to get, they are going to win in a card game. It's about a 100 year old S/C & needs a lot of fixing up, annual maintenance, a new Jump Drive, etc... and now a ship's locker filled with junk & stuff that may actually be useful if examined & cleaned up. : ^ 0 Now I'm coming up with ideas for a nice random table.

Thanks!

Scout

 

[kafka47]

What about a nice bioagent that is deadly to the Ship's Beaker? From the left over fermentation ionized, and exposed to Jump Space from the the bottles of stale Scout Brew?

Or how about a treasure or really old star map? Could be worth something or could just be junk?

A statue that looks human but has some noticable differences. Searching through the Library Data catalogue they come across a reference to extinct minor human race that died out -200 0000 half way across the galaxy from their present position. Yet analysis on the statue reveals that it less than 200 years old.

Old data logs that can lead into the next adventure.

BTW, you know once you compile this table of yours and give us all credit. You must hand it over to BITS for 101 Ship's Lockers!!

 

[Spinward Scout]

Or would that be 101 TidBITS? : ^ ) Great ideas! Definitely going to credit everyone!

Scout

 

[Spinward Scout]

Ship's Locker Table (v1.0)

Contributions by: Secrect Cow Level, tjoneslo, kafka47
Compiled by: ScoutCadet469

(Roll 2d6)
2 Tool
3 Item
4 Weapon
5 Equipment
6 Part
7 Animal
8 Food
9 Growth
10 Book
11 Relic
12 Other

Currently working on a table for each one, since our database server is down & I don't have anything else to do. : ^ ) I think the "Other" category should cover just about everything else.

Scout

 

[Spinward Scout]

Working on this is reminding me of when I got interested in The Secret Government Warehouse. I don't know if anyone on the board has seen GURPS Warehouse 23, but I'm pretty sure most of you have seen the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the guy is pushing the crate with the Ark of the Covenant through this warehouse. Well, the big rumor is that the government DOES have something like this, and I spent a lot of time playing around with it for a game that I never played. Things that could have been in the Warehouse:

The Ark of the Covenant (of course)
Blue Thunder prototype
Thor's Hammer
Bigfoot
all of Niccoli Tesla's works
and so on

And I had the caretakers be Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa, and Jim Morrison. Never did anything with it. I think I still have it sitting on my hard drive at home, tho.

Later,

Scout

 

[Uncle Bob]

The Ships locker can also contain clothes, either new to replace clothes worn out or as discarded items. Also, if a crewman is killed or jumps ship any belongings not claimed by his mates could end up in the locker.

So, cards and dice (straight or crooked), entertainment programs, ⌧ography, picklocks, musical instruments, books, etc. And this being a scout not everything is as it appears.

Or, perhaps personal items of a suggestive or salacious nature. That could suggest that a previous crew either had a lot of fun or were so perverse the current crew spaces their bedding and liberally wash the ship with lysol. Or both

 

[Simon Jester]

Most American houses have their equivalent of a Ship's Locker. It's called the Junk Drawer. It's that place, usually in the kitchen for easy access, where all the remotely useable debris of life tends to wind up and just never really gets thrown away. Look in your own, and see what I mean.

Simon Jester

------------------
-If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.

 

[Gatsby]

Somewhere on that random chart must be a high probability of 'The item you needed last time you looked in the locker'.

Gats'

 

[Shadow Bear]

Then again there could be the last crew member who went into the ship's locker looking for something and got locked inside.

 

[bryan gibson]

it might be worth noting that in at last one instance in my military career,a buddy serving on a destroyer immediately following a refit found that the ships locker was inhabited by a large, mangey critter, both ill of temper and dubious of pedigree.(after a year on board, the crew had a betting pool as to the actual nature of the beast, which was only really seen in the aftermath of a series of random attacks, instigated by the retrieval of equipment from the locker.The best bets were a really big rabid rat,"some kind of cat" and the favorite, a possum. Following a particularly vicious attack when the animal went after a female nurse in passing, the marines hunted the beast mercillessly, to no avail. It was finally brought down by a mechanics mate who beat it to death with a three foot pipe wrench. It proved to be an enthusiastically feral rhesus monkey complete with collar which had escaped its owner in Seattle.)

I have used this notion with great success: crew bamboozles a deal on a decrepit ship, crew takes possesion, crew opens door, hilarity ensues.

Comic rliefis but one goal, one group couldnt catch and so made a default ships mascot of it; niether need the critter be so mundane as a monkey.

imagination,boys, that the ticket.

 

[phydaux]

yeah, but in traveller, it's just much more simple.

think "Mote in God's Eye."

dust off. once in orbit, don vacc suits. open all airlocks and hatches. half an hour later, search the ship.

if it's still alive, plot a course for the center of the star and abandon ship!

 

[kafka47]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by phydaux:
yeah, but in traveller, it's just much more simple.

think "Mote in God's Eye."

dust off. once in orbit, don vacc suits. open all airlocks and hatches. half an hour later, search the ship.

if it's still alive, plot a course for the center of the star and abandon ship!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Houston, I think we have a problem. Damn that thing's sentient! Look at that! Its turning the ship around.

Sir, the ship is charging its main weapons.

Question? How fast can a ships' boat go?


I haven't run a good bug hunt adventure for a while. The best one was where the bug, was merely the precursor to a bigger invasion by something far nastier.

[This message has been edited by kafka47 (edited 06 November 2001).]

 

[phydaux]

remember "Charmax Plague"?

 

[phydaux]

by the way, i just reread the first post. now, i play GURPS traveller, but that asside, this is what i had listed as the contents of our ship's locker for the last campaign i was a player in:

6 Air Mask
6 Air Tank
6 Rebreather
6 CBR-Rated Filter
6 Respirator
6 Reducing Respirator

14 Rescue Ball
14 Air Mask with Mini-Air Tank and Rebreather


2 Sensor Visor Binoculars
2 Atmosphere Tester
2 Chemsniffer
2 Inertial compass
6 Medium-Range Communicators
2 TL 12 Rad Scanner

30 2 months Food Tablets
6 Vapor Canteen

6 Cutlass
6 9mm Autopistol
2 9mm SMG
3 1000 rounds 9mm Ammo
2 Shotgun
1 100 rounds Shotgun Ammo
2 7mm Rifle
5 100 rounds 7mm Rifle Ammo

6 Vacc Suit

1 Basic Engineering Tool Kit
1 Basic Mechanic Tool Kit
1 Basic Armoury Tool Kit
1 Basic Electronics Tool Kit

2 T-64 Technicial Robot
1 Robot Software Package

1 5 Ton Forklift
1 48 Ton Grav Lifter

2 Emergency Medkit
2 TL 12 Medscanner
30 Plastiskin
20 Hypercoagulin
20 Revive
10 Antirad
30 Quickheal
20 Genericillin
20 Purge
5 Torpine
5 Fast