Any suggestions on salvaging rights?

[cheshire]

Hmm... these are interesting ideas.

If you leave your droid on the ship, is it abandoned, since there are no living beings? So many interesting possibilities.

Also, an in-tact ship in deep space would be a bit different than in the waters. We have to navigate through real space, where Star Wars ships navigate through hyperspace. Thus they don't present AS MUCH of a navigational hazard. Still... leaving your ship alone in deep space with no real protection is just begging to have it stolen.

Still, most salvage is probably going to be ships that are less than 100% in tact, for someone to completely abandon the ship, then the logs will probably reflect some reason why or if they plan on returning. I mean, if someone's hyperdrive has failed and the backup with it then they'd probably make a note of it in the log, and then return. There's got to be a law of some sort of statute of limitations as to when a space vehicle is considered officially abandoned.

Alternatively, if a salvage vessel finds a ship that belongs to an active corporation lost for less than one standard year, that vessel may be towed to an Imperial impound. The salvage vessel gets a standard cash allotment for the valuable function of keeping trash out of space. Of course the Imps pass the cost on to the corporation trying to get their ship out of impound. Kind of like illegal parking.

The more I think about this, this idea could easily be an article for a D6 publication. We can continue fleshing these ideas out, provide some adventure hooks, and then someone could write an adventure for this.

Already the adventure hooks are going through my mind:
- Salvage vessel comes on a bunch of years old space debris, and does a mass collection. In sorting through the trash they find a military grade space-ejection suit with a dead body in it. The identification card reveals a man who had a distinguished military career. One whose career lead them to win a major election/appointment to an office three weeks ago. So, if the man with the credentials is dead, who is the man in office?

- An old spacer is a long-time friend of the party. He's a washed-up has been, and kind of the spaceport joke. When the party is away doing a run, the old man dies, leaving his few meager possessions to the party. There's a set of mysterious coordinates showing the location of a major salvage he never got around to picking. It's full of military grade equipment, and it's never been registered. So, do they pick the wreckage? If so, do they sell to middle-men, or fence the stuff themselves? Even if they manage to pick the more discreet equipment, someone is bound to figure out what they're sitting on. Then how will the arms dealers and other black marketeers deal with them?

- During an illegal salvage, the party finds a nav computer with jump coordinates to a hidden rebel base. Do they sell the information, keep it, or give it to one side or the other?

- The party finds a ship partly in tact, drifting with power but expended life support. No life signs. All escape pods are still in their bays. When the board the vessel they find that the vessel was smuggling military-grade droids. The droids had killed the crew, and now they will try to exterminate the new boarders and cut off every chance of their escape.

The possibilities for this are endless!
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[kinfo_howlingwolf]

Tons of great ideas, appreciate it everyone!

A lot of them sound good, gotta see what I can shoehorn into our campaign.

[cheshire]

[garhkal]

[Raven Redstar]

Craft: Gallofree Yards GS-100 Salvage Ship
Affiliation: General
Type: Medium Freighter
Scale: Starfighter
Length: 50m
Skill: Space Transports: GS-100
Crew: 2, skeleton: 1/+5, Gunners 1
Passengers: 20 (Droids)
Cargo Capacity: 140 metric tons
Consumables: 1 month
Cost: 190,000 (new), 95,000 (used)
Hyperdrive Multiplier: x3
Nav Computer? Yes
Space: 1
Atmosphere: 140; 400 kmh
Hull: 6D+1
Sensors:
Passive: 15/0D
Scan: 30/1D
Search: 80/2D
Focus: 4/3D
Weapons:
2 Medium Laser Cannons (Fire-linked)
Fire Arc: Turret
Crew: 1
Skill: Starship Gunnery
Fire Control: 1D+2
Space Range: 1-3/12/25
Atmosphere Range: 100-300/1.2/2.5km
Damage: 4D

Did someone ask for a salvage ship? It's got it listed in the name!

Although taking a look at the slow speed, slow hyperdrive, low cargo capacity, why does this thing cost nearly 200,000? It's a piece of junk!

Anyone have any ideas for a low crew compliment medium freighter that might be able to function in the same capacity as a salvage ship?

What are some "must haves" for on-board equipment? Tractor beam? Cutting torches? I could see having some long grappler arms equipped with cutting tools. Or, would the salvagers do more of a Firefly type thing where they space walk to bring in salvage?
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RR
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[Crimson_red]

[quote="garhkal"]

[kinfo_howlingwolf]

Well I would definately think a universal airlock or two would be a wise addition. Various repair droids along with a eg-6 or two for powering up systems.

What about a worker bee pod similar to Star Treks construction ship? Hooked up similar to an escape pod as well?

As far as the rules we were dsicussing earlier I like most of them but in our campaign I see it as the government not caring as much who salvaged it, they would just want someone to clean all the merc garbage out from around the planet. Don't think they want their navy frigs and corvettes stuck sweeping up after a spacebar fight. Would maybe even comission a company to clear it out then have the mercs split the bill?
In the stormzombie book did they mention anything there about how salvage is regarded? I totally see the Empire freaking about a star destroyer getting towed and chop shopped but probably not that much about a busted down dodge neon on side of the space highway.

[garhkal]

[Raven Redstar]

After looking around through Gry's pdf, I think I like the L19 Heavy Freighter and the Space Master Medium Transport

The L19 is quite a bit cheaper even at new cost with a crew requirement of only 1 and 10 extra tons of cargo capacity. It's faster and with all the money you save, you could stock your cargo hold with the 20 droids the GS has for passengers. The L19 also can stay out twice as long.

The Space Master comes in used at a little less than the new cost for the GS-100. It's faster, and has over 100x the cargo capacity. It also has the consumable capacity to make it a perfect choice for deeper space missions.

On the subject of Salvage rights, I was just wondering if anyone played the Serenity RPG. I would think that the rules may have some rough guidelines that we could borrow for our imperial totalitarian regime. The Alliance from Firefly seems like an evil enough government to borrow from.
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RR
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[cheshire]

[Grimace]

Definitely some neat ideas floating around in here, waiting to be salvaged.

Keep it up, Pit crew!

[CRMcNeill]

IIRC, the concept behind the Gallofree was from the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy. In the first book (I don't have my paperback copy, but it starts on page 83 of 212 on my .pdf copy), there is a scene entirely devoted to a salvage ship poring over the aftermath of a space battlefield, specifically the wreckage of an ISD. There is some mention in this section of something called the "Historic Battlefield Protection Act" (or something), but this is several years ABY, so it may not be applicable for the time period of your campaign.

There is also a sidebar in the Imperial Sourcebook regarding salvage activities (page 104), which covers salvagers picking over the garbage that Imperial ships dump when they go to lightspeed. It seems this is a completely legitimate business, where salvagers recover partially expended lots of supplies that were dumped before being fully used, repackage the partials into full lots, then sell them back to the Navy at regular price.

In both cases, the salvagers use droids to do most of the work, either supervising by remote from their base-ship or supervising the droids in person in a space-suit.

For the PC, there are some great options already available for salvage work, such as the Vagabond Suit (Gundark, page 61) or the EVA Vacuum Pod (Galladinium, page 54).
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

Good point on the HBFPA.. But i would love to know when that came into being.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

[jmanski]

Infochants with salvage locations (like battles and collisions) would be important.

Selling the goods would be something to consider also. Especially the wide range of stuff one would find. Military gear would be a different sell than, say, foodstuffs or works of art.

Adventure Idea: the PCs get information about a ship to salvage, track it down, and find it has sensitive military hardware, but it has a very specific use. It is very valuable, but very hard to sell.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?