Trying to get a little input from those of you who already have the game. I've created a new rule for Ship Stores, and wanted to see how it looked to others and get your opinions. This is another stat that goes on the ship record sheet along with crew moral and crew population. As a note, some of the effects such are ship board sickness and weary machine spirit are based on rules in the RT core book.

SHIP STORES

The explorer's ship holds enough supplies and fuel to last about 6 months or so for smaller hull types and up to several years for some of the heavier hulls before needing to resupply. The supply of the ship is represented by a scale of 100 to 0, with each point representing a number of days (depending on the hull type) of travel away from port without making aquisitions to resupply. As the supplies began to dwindle, misfortunes can happen that hamper the ship and crews efficiency and moral.

A ship may ration its supplies, making each point worth double the number of days, but in doing so, the ships moral is reduced by 1 point for every day spent on rations. (this is an area I'm trying to decide on. My other option would be every point of ship stores spent on rations reduced moral by 1 point)

To resupply, the ship must find a suitable anchorage and spend time and money resupplying. As a ship is brought up to full supply compacity, it losses effects to moral, speed and maneuverability (accept those lost to damaged components), but must still make aquisitions to gain new crew and make repairs.

HULL TYPE SHIP STORES COMPACITY

• Transport: 1 point of ship stores equals 4 days
• Raider: 1 point of ships stores equals 1 day
• Frigates: 1 point of ship stores equals 2 days
• Light Cruiser: 1 point of ship stores equals 6 days
• Cruiser: 1 point of ship stores equals 8 days

ANCHORAGE RESUPPLY CAPABILITES

• Uninhabited World: Acquisition (not required) Supplies Gained (2 per week, Max 10)
• Inhabited Undeveloped World: Acquisition (-30) Supplies Gained (5 per week, Max 20)
• Inhabited Lightly Developed World: Acquisition (-20) Supplies Gained (10 per week, max 30 )
• Inhabited Heavily Developed Word: Acquisition (-10) Supplies Gained (20 per week, No Max)
• Shipyards, Forgewords, Spaceports: Acquisition (0) Supplies Gained (30 per week, No Max )

SHIP STORES LOSS EFFECTS

• 100 : Normal Operations onboard the Ship
• 60: Weary Machine Spirit: Successful (Challenging +0) Tech-Use test or ship suffers a damaged component.
• 50: Shipboard Sickness: Successful (Challenging +0) Medicae test or the ship losses 1d5 population
• 40: Weary Machine Spirit: Successful (Hard -20) Tech-Use test or the ship suffers -1 to speed and -10 to Maneuverability and suffers a damage component.
• 30: Shipboard Sickness: Successful (Hard -20) Medicae test or the ships population and moral are reduced by 1d5
• 20: On Reserves: The ship suffers a -1 to speed, -10 to Maneuverability (in addition to any already imposed), and losses 1d5 moral
• 10: Running Low: The ship suffers a lose of ammo on a role of 97-100 during Shooting, Moral is reduced by 1d10 and crew is reduced by 1d10.
• 0: A drift and starvation: The ship has run out of all stores and can no longer move or maneuver under it's own power and has no ammo for weapons if they havn't already ran out. In addition, the ship will suffer 1 loss of crew population and a loss of 2 to moral every day it is a drift.

As an alternative to the scale of 100 to 0, I thought about about the scale being set by the hull type, so every point would equal 2 days, and those ships with higher capacity would see a number much higher, for example 200 stores points for a transport, 300 for a light cruiser, and 400 for a cruiser. But doing so would cause the effects table to have to be changed around and probably make things a bit more complicated.

Another note: A ship that takes the Extended Supply Vaults component doubles the number of days a supply point represents. (still thinking on this one)

Medical stores, weapon stores, food stuffs, cargo to think of a few.

Interesting idea. When I get the core book I'll compare notes with you to see what else we can do.

It was my thought that the ship stores stat would represent all of the consumable products aboard a ship: ammo, food, water, fuel, meds and such. Cargo never really entered my mind, though it would be an interesting angle to have the ship starting to break into their profit cargo's to get supplies. I'm sure those the cargo belonged to wouldn't be happy.

Having an affect that would cause a loss to player Profit factor each day would be a good damage effect. The cargo hold of pirate loot gets damage and stuff starts leaking out essentially. Alternatively it could just make Profit checks for equipment more difficult if you feel lowering the stat as too powerful... or both for severe ship store damage.

Also like the Medicae test penalty, perhaps have one for tech use or ship repair checks. Wrenches, tools, and replacement parts get damaged or lost.

Have an effect that reduces crew weapon effectivess or armor protection... weaponry and armor has leaked out of the ship or has been damage, leaving few or badly damaged pieces behind.

Instead of one large table for all effects, if you want, you could break it into 2 tables. The first table is to determine what is lost/damaged: ammo, food, medical supplies, etc.

The second table would then be based off the damage and show the severity ("problems" table). Each time the ship store takes damage, you roll on the first table and apply the first effect on the "problems" table. Anytime you roll a result from the first table again, you move up the "problems" track for that specific item. That way, you could have a situation where ammo is getting low, there's some slight loss of fuel, and medical supplies have all but run out.

Just a few suggestions.

Some good suggestions there. I'll have to set down tonight and see what it looks like with the two table approach. As far as profit points being lost if you break into cargo supplies, I think the best solution would be for the profit loss to come from those gained for the particular Endevour. So if it's worth 4 points, you may end up with only 2 after it's over (or - a couple of points from your starting profit if the endevour went really bad as the PC's make up for what was lost or the status/reputation is knocked down a notch for not getting the job done)

What does the word "compacity" mean?

It's called working without a spell check.

Any progress on the 2 table system?

I have yet to put the table together. Been busy getting ready for playing our first game of RT this Sunday. That also means I have between today and sunday to fine tune the ship stores system before we play.

I'm thinking that the negative effect of rationing supplies is too drastic. I think most crews are made of sterner stuff and can handle a bit of rationing. Perhaps -1 morale per week of rationing OR -1 morale per day of rationing after the first month.

Additionally, crews can make a morale check to avoid the penalties, indicating that an elite crew doesn't care as much and is used to the rigors of space travel while a greener crew would want to cry for their mommas if they didn't get enough grog and hard tack.

Thoughts?

Good point there about the moral. I do think a crew of 20,000 cramped crew members would lose moral with rations in place. The line I was trying to ride was between a captain choosing to ration his supplies in order to stay in the void a little longer but taking a chance on suffering an angry crew and ultimately a possible mutiny if they are forced on rations for too long. A week on rations reducing moral by 1 might not be a bad idea. It could still make a deep void trip low on supplies and rationing harder and yet not be to dramatic of a loss on the shorter term runs.

One thing that could be cool is that having the option of sending a character to do "damage control". So if morale is low, a captain like character can head down to the deck and make skill checks (or role play) to boost morale up or reduce the negatice affect. If there's a loss of medical supplies, sending a cleric to do some checks could reduce the penalty and so on. Of course the cost of this would be time, and being down a crew member. Just a thought.