Adventures for a salvage team

WaterAndWindSpirit · 08-13-2017, 11:37 AM

Okay, so in a universe with two factions at war and spaceships and magic and psionics, one faction has the following salvage laws:

1) Commercial shipments must declare a route and at what points and times in that route the ships must contact local authorities to indicate the shipment is still on it's way.

2) Should a shipment miss a communication, the legal owner can send a search operation, either from their own crew or from freelancers to find the cargo. Such a search is a contract that can be either search or search and rescue, the difference being that a search contract only entails the legal obligation to find the shipment and communicate it's location and search and rescue obligates all reasonable efforts to bring back the shipment. Should a search party make efforts to recover the cargo without being ordered too, it is considered good commercial etiquette to award them a bonus. (Say the cargo ship just had an engine failure and you find the ship and your engineers help fix it, it is good etiquette to pay for the parts and the work hours of the engineers and offer a bonus, and most companies will do so and those which won't get a bad reputation in the salvage business).

3) Should a shipment be lost for one galactic week, it is considered lost and the company can organize a salvage mission.

4) Should the company legally claim the shipment as lost after it has been found but moving it would be too much bother for them, or because they don't have the funds to recover it, or should the shipment be legally lost for a galactic month, any salvagers are legally entitled to claim it of they can find it and recover it.

5) The ship and whatever parts that may still be used are considered part of the shipment, while rescuing the ship's personnel and passengers (if any) from whatever hazard they were stranded in qualifies the rescuer for a bounty, regardless of the stance the company has on the cargo. The bounty is issued by whatever civilian authority the personnel/passenger were citizens of, and can only be claimed if they were in a hazardous situation (if there was an engine hiccup that caused a one day delay before reaching range of a comm relay it doesn't count).

What adventures can arise for a professional salvage crew with the following laws?

ericthered · 08-13-2017, 03:58 PM

This is a great setup. A lot of the "stupid cargo" plots from space trader games work even better here. The first set of ideas I have:

Pirates decide to set up shop outside of a system. Ships are going missing fairly reliably. The pirate ship is defeated, and suddenly there is a free for all race to pick up as many of the bad ships as possible. Though proactive PC's may brave the danger of the pirates early, or even try to make a deal with them: protection money for being left alone.

A ship carrying a load of alien creatures (read monsters) had a mishap. The people on it need to be saved, and hopefully the rare and expensive killers can be coralled. Variants include killer nanobots, a mysterious crystal that shuts down starship drives or engages in mind control, and plants that damage ship systems through super-growth.

A rich shipment has gone missing. Ordinarily, they would be recovered by a hired search party, but the company is currently non-functional because [non-relevant reason]. Its well known exactly when the goods become fair game, and a half dozen salvagers know it must be them!

ericthered · 08-21-2017, 11:51 AM

A ship has a defect that makes its gravity reverse for 10 seconds every hour or so. The crew are all either dead or severely injured from falling at unexpected moments.

The ship is haunted by a vengeful ghost the PC's must appease, evade, or evict. somehow.

An explosion has distributed the debris from the ship far and wide. And its militarily significant cargo. The PC's must find the black box with data about how all of this happened.

WaterAndWindSpirit · 08-21-2017, 11:59 AM

I like the ghost one.

I also like the military shipment was blown to hell and we need to find out how. The black box with recording is only valuable to those who want to know what happened and probably encrypted, and to encourage salvagers to cooperate, since military cargo are serious business, they could offer a bounty to every salvager who can prove they were searching for the black box once it has been found.

fredtheobviouspseudonym · 08-21-2017, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericthered

A ship has a defect that makes its gravity reverse for 10 seconds every hour or so. The crew are all either dead or severely injured from falling at unexpected moments.

IIRC this is known as "grav pong." If the cycling of gravity is erratic this is even more problematic. Salvagers with cat DNA ("always land on their feet") are at a premium . . .

Quote:

The ship is haunted by a vengeful ghost the PC's must appease, evade, or evict. somehow.

Doesn't need to be a ghost. A computer gone wonky is all too believable and quite deadly.

ericthered · 08-21-2017, 03:57 PM

A physical but sneaky saboteur would work as well as a ghost or rouge computer.

The "pay every salvager who goes looking" plan sounds like it'd have some interesting loopholes. Not that military contracts are known for being loophole free.

***

The ship turns out to be smuggling human caro. Or worse, aliens that aren't humans and are somewhat controversial. If they turn them in to the authorities all assets of their contract will be seized and they won't get paid. Do they smuggle the occupants the rest of the way in? Demand more money from their client?

jason taylor · 08-21-2017, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericthered

A physical but sneaky saboteur would work as well as a ghost or rouge computer.

The "pay every salvager who goes looking" plan sounds like it'd have some interesting loopholes. Not that military contracts are known for being loophole free.

***

The ship turns out to be smuggling human caro. Or worse, aliens that aren't humans and are somewhat controversial. If they turn them in to the authorities all assets of their contract will be seized and they won't get paid. Do they smuggle the occupants the rest of the way in? Demand more money from their client?

If the employers were the type to be trafficking and they had slaves aboard the ship would they be the sort to trust someone with that who didn't know who they were?

Suppose instead the captain was a deep-cover agent infiltrating a known slaving network. Assuming him to have CoH: basic decency(that's not really a CoH under most circumstance but whatever), he has to do his job without blowing his cover or at least fail in a way that won't leave his boss angry.

08-13-2017, 11:37 AM	#1
WaterAndWindSpirit Join Date: Oct 2014	Adventures for a salvage team Okay, so in a universe with two factions at war and spaceships and magic and psionics, one faction has the following salvage laws: 1) Commercial shipments must declare a route and at what points and times in that route the ships must contact local authorities to indicate the shipment is still on it's way. 2) Should a shipment miss a communication, the legal owner can send a search operation, either from their own crew or from freelancers to find the cargo. Such a search is a contract that can be either search or search and rescue, the difference being that a search contract only entails the legal obligation to find the shipment and communicate it's location and search and rescue obligates all reasonable efforts to bring back the shipment. Should a search party make efforts to recover the cargo without being ordered too, it is considered good commercial etiquette to award them a bonus. (Say the cargo ship just had an engine failure and you find the ship and your engineers help fix it, it is good etiquette to pay for the parts and the work hours of the engineers and offer a bonus, and most companies will do so and those which won't get a bad reputation in the salvage business). 3) Should a shipment be lost for one galactic week, it is considered lost and the company can organize a salvage mission. 4) Should the company legally claim the shipment as lost after it has been found but moving it would be too much bother for them, or because they don't have the funds to recover it, or should the shipment be legally lost for a galactic month, any salvagers are legally entitled to claim it of they can find it and recover it. 5) The ship and whatever parts that may still be used are considered part of the shipment, while rescuing the ship's personnel and passengers (if any) from whatever hazard they were stranded in qualifies the rescuer for a bounty, regardless of the stance the company has on the cargo. The bounty is issued by whatever civilian authority the personnel/passenger were citizens of, and can only be claimed if they were in a hazardous situation (if there was an engine hiccup that caused a one day delay before reaching range of a comm relay it doesn't count). What adventures can arise for a professional salvage crew with the following laws?

08-13-2017, 03:58 PM	#2
ericthered Hero of Democracy Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: far from the ocean	Re: Adventures for a salvage team This is a great setup. A lot of the "stupid cargo" plots from space trader games work even better here. The first set of ideas I have: Pirates decide to set up shop outside of a system. Ships are going missing fairly reliably. The pirate ship is defeated, and suddenly there is a free for all race to pick up as many of the bad ships as possible. Though proactive PC's may brave the danger of the pirates early, or even try to make a deal with them: protection money for being left alone. A ship carrying a load of alien creatures (read monsters) had a mishap. The people on it need to be saved, and hopefully the rare and expensive killers can be coralled. Variants include killer nanobots, a mysterious crystal that shuts down starship drives or engages in mind control, and plants that damage ship systems through super-growth. A rich shipment has gone missing. Ordinarily, they would be recovered by a hired search party, but the company is currently non-functional because [non-relevant reason]. Its well known exactly when the goods become fair game, and a half dozen salvagers know it must be them! __________________ Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!

08-21-2017, 11:51 AM	#3
ericthered Hero of Democracy Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: far from the ocean	Re: Adventures for a salvage team A ship has a defect that makes its gravity reverse for 10 seconds every hour or so. The crew are all either dead or severely injured from falling at unexpected moments. The ship is haunted by a vengeful ghost the PC's must appease, evade, or evict. somehow. An explosion has distributed the debris from the ship far and wide. And its militarily significant cargo. The PC's must find the black box with data about how all of this happened. __________________ Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!

08-21-2017, 11:59 AM	#4
WaterAndWindSpirit Join Date: Oct 2014	Re: Adventures for a salvage team I like the ghost one. I also like the military shipment was blown to hell and we need to find out how. The black box with recording is only valuable to those who want to know what happened and probably encrypted, and to encourage salvagers to cooperate, since military cargo are serious business, they could offer a bounty to every salvager who can prove they were searching for the black box once it has been found.

08-21-2017, 03:57 PM	#6
ericthered Hero of Democracy Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: far from the ocean	Re: Adventures for a salvage team A physical but sneaky saboteur would work as well as a ghost or rouge computer. The "pay every salvager who goes looking" plan sounds like it'd have some interesting loopholes. Not that military contracts are known for being loophole free. *** The ship turns out to be smuggling human caro. Or worse, aliens that aren't humans and are somewhat controversial. If they turn them in to the authorities all assets of their contract will be seized and they won't get paid. Do they smuggle the occupants the rest of the way in? Demand more money from their client? __________________ Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!