I've decided that I simply don't like the way Smuggling Compartments work. The increase to the Difficulty to find what's hidden inside is fine, but the fact that they reduce the EC of the craft's standard holds is not. Packing extra stuff inside the doors of a car doesn't make the trunk get any smaller, and the filling the hollows under the floors of the Millennium Falcon shouldn't make the cargo bays any smaller either. Further, I don't like that the value (25 EC) is the same regardless of the size of the vehicle. I sure seems to make a lot of sense that I could find more hollow spaces in a Bulk Freighter than in Light Freighter.

So with those two points in mind, I came up with these sizes for Smuggling Compartments (and Cloaked Smuggling Compartments too):

• Silhouette 0-1: N/A (use the Hidden Storage talent if you want a compartment in something this small)
• Silhouette 2: +5 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +5 EC each)
• Silhouette 3: +10 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +10 EC each)
• Silhouette 4: +20 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +20 EC each)
• Silhouette 5: +50 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +50 EC each)
• Silhouette 6: +100 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +100 EC each)
• Silhouette 7+: +200 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +200 EC each)

In all cases, this is additional EC above what the starship/vehicle can normally carry, and anything stored within the EC provided by these Attachments and Mods benefits from the Difficulty increase to find it.

This honestly strikes me as a "best of both worlds" scenario, in that the attachment not only provides hidden storage space, but also allows for extra carrying capacity (bearing in mind that Star Wars ship's cargo/encumbrance are fairly wonky to begin with).

My suggestion would be to carve the bonus EC listed by 5 each to reflect that while you might get some extra storage space from the hidden compartments, you're also having to ensure that said space doesn't stick out and thus remains inconspicuous.

Of course, that's if your presumption that just because modern automobiles have a fair amount of 'wasted space' holds true with Star Wars vehicles as well. Looking at ships such as X-Wings and TIE fighters, the sort of 'wasted space' that would allow for concealed compartments of the nature you're suggesting doesn't really appear to exist, namely that can be installed to 'add' cargo space without being obvious that it's added cargo space.

True, but the game doesnt really handle that sort of thing except by the number of available HP. That goes back to the GM making a judgment call on if you can use that attachment.

Its a nice rule, but a bit of a band aid on an ax wound considering how wonky the vehicle encumbrance works. I tend to just hand wave that sort of thing if it comes up

8 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Of course, that's if your presumption that just because modern automobiles have a fair amount of 'wasted space' holds true with Star Wars vehicles as well. Looking at ships such as X-Wings and TIE fighters, the sort of 'wasted space' that would allow for concealed compartments of the nature you're suggesting doesn't really appear to exist, namely that can be installed to 'add' cargo space without being obvious that it's added cargo space.

I only presume that those spending a hard point on this attachment have such spaces made accessible. Consider the Y-wing. If you put the plating back on, you might squeeze many small items under it.

Something to keep in mind that vessel encumbrance seems to be more an issue of mass than volume: 500 kilograms of spice is 500 kilograms, whether you stack it in the main hold or hide it under the floorplates.

45 minutes ago, Ominovin said:

Something to keep in mind that vessel encumbrance seems to be more an issue of mass than volume: 500 kilograms of spice is 500 kilograms, whether you stack it in the main hold or hide it under the floorplates.

There have been many arguments that suggest the exact opposite, particularly the one where items stored in a container have a lower Encumbrance than the same items dumped loosely into a pile on the floor. As an example, Enter the Unknown gives us Specimen Containers that hold 15 EC of contents (with the added bonus of life support and stasis generators included!) but only take up 5 EC. I doubt that these containers are doing any special magic to the mass of the contents, but they are carefully packaging the volume.

10 hours ago, Ominovin said:

Something to keep in mind that vessel encumbrance seems to be more an issue of mass than volume: 500 kilograms of spice is 500 kilograms, whether you stack it in the main hold or hide it under the floorplates.

See below

9 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

There have been many arguments that suggest the exact opposite, particularly the one where items stored in a container have a lower Encumbrance than the same items dumped loosely into a pile on the floor. As an example, Enter the Unknown gives us Specimen Containers that hold 15 EC of contents (with the added bonus of life support and stasis generators included!) but only take up 5 EC. I doubt that these containers are doing any special magic to the mass of the contents, but they are carefully packaging the volume.

Seconded. The Item "Cargo Scanner" (Fly causal p.50) allows you to fit 10% more encumbrance, "thanks to more efficient organization".This indicates that Encumbrance isn't just weight.

That’s why I hate the Encumbrance system. Combining dimensional space and mass/weight is a dumb approach.

Ships should have a single stat which says what the maximum weight it can hold and still fly is, and than it should have each storage areas dimensions given. So a YT-1300 might have a maximum cargo weight of 10,000kg. Primary cargo hold dimensions(2 entrances 2x1.5 meters each. Total interior space 5x12x3 meters), 2 secondary cargo holds(1 entrance 2x1.5 meters. Total interior space 4x8x2 meters).

15 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

Ships should have a single stat which says what the maximum weight it can hold and still fly is, and than it should have each storage areas dimensions given. So a YT-1300 might have a maximum cargo weight of 10,000kg. Primary cargo hold dimensions(2 entrances 2x1.5 meters each. Total interior space 5x12x3 meters), 2 secondary cargo holds(1 entrance 2x1.5 meters. Total interior space 4x8x2 meters).

Then that just gets way more crunchy for me. Just saying "Oh, this is x encumbrance and you have x left" is so much easier for me and complicates things less.

5 hours ago, ALFRED1182 said:

Then that just gets way more crunchy for me. Just saying "Oh, this is x encumbrance and you have x left" is so much easier for me and complicates things less.

That's the point of the system and it works most of the time. However there are outlier cases which doesn't really make sense. That's the price of the bendable rules. I feel like it shouldn't be that big of a problem, just overrule it in these cases as a GM if it doesn't make sense.

7 hours ago, Rimsen said:

That's the point of the system and it works most of the time. However there are outlier cases which doesn't really make sense. That's the price of the bendable rules. I feel like it shouldn't be that big of a problem, just overrule it in these cases as a GM if it doesn't make sense. 

Well yeah, as a GM if I'm designing a ship for my PCs I'll usually tweak stats to my liking and give reasons, such as reduced passenger space in favor of encumbrance. I don't have a flat conversion for this I just imagine roughly how big the area it's replacing would be and eyeball it from there to whatever makes sense. With narrative rules there's plenty of narrative solutions over just reworking the whole thing into a sub-system.

On 8/9/2018 at 12:29 PM, HappyDaze said:

I've decided that I simply don't like the way Smuggling Compartments work. The increase to the Difficulty to find what's hidden inside is fine, but the fact that they reduce the EC of the craft's standard holds is not. Packing extra stuff inside the doors of a car doesn't make the trunk get any smaller, and the filling the hollows under the floors of the Millennium Falcon shouldn't make the cargo bays any smaller either. Further, I don't like that the value (25 EC) is the same regardless of the size of the vehicle. I sure seems to make a lot of sense that I could find more hollow spaces in a Bulk Freighter than in Light Freighter.

So with those two points in mind, I came up with these sizes for Smuggling Compartments (and Cloaked Smuggling Compartments too):

• Silhouette 0-1: N/A (use the Hidden Storage talent if you want a compartment in something this small)
• Silhouette 2: +5 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +5 EC each)
• Silhouette 3: +10 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +10 EC each)
• Silhouette 4: +20 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +20 EC each)
• Silhouette 5: +50 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +50 EC each)
• Silhouette 6: +100 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +100 EC each)
• Silhouette 7+: +200 EC for the Attachment (2 Mods for +200 EC each)

In all cases, this is additional EC above what the starship/vehicle can normally carry, and anything stored within the EC provided by these Attachments and Mods benefits from the Difficulty increase to find it.

I really wish that you could get away with expressions like 'add 5 * 2^(silhouette-1) encumbrance' in rules text. It's only one exponent! Silhouette scaling really is a bit of a bugger.

Maybe 'gain additional hidden encumbrance equal to 10% of your total encumbrance' plus mods for an extra 10% each? Otherwise an encumbrance 2 sil 2 speeder bike and encumbrance 80 sil 2 cargo skiff have the same benefit. That potential +15/+30 for sil 2/3 is more than the total carrying capacity of most vehicles that size, even when it's a pittance compared to the capacity of cargo vehicles.

Necro-bump, but I'd like to get the forums' thoughts on this compromise:

Instead of adding to the vehicle's encumbrance, what if Smuggling Compartments just didn't take a hard point to install? To use @HappyDaze's illustration, finding room in your car's door panels doesn't steal space from the engine bay.

10 hours ago, StriderZessei said:

Necro-bump, but I'd like to get the forums' thoughts on this compromise:

Instead of adding to the vehicle's encumbrance, what if Smuggling Compartments just didn't take a hard point to install? To use @HappyDaze's illustration, finding room in your car's door panels doesn't steal space from the engine bay.

Kinda depends on your take on things. While you're right about the car, the Enc rating isn't simply a rating of how much physical room it's got, but also it's ability to lift a certain quantity. Even then there's only so much you can work with. I can shove spice in my cars panels all day long, but when I roll up in an empty car that's so heavy the tires are scrapping the wells, I'm just kidding myself.

That said, Enc and cargo space is a really wibbly-wobbly thing, and it's relevance to a campaign is going to be very subjective. So how you manage it is up to you, and house ruling elements of it are probably less likely to cause issues than most other mechanics.

Finally, and this is just me and my point of view, I think a lot of players don't really think about smuggling beyond just shoving things in hidden compartments and hoping for the best. There's a lot of ways to smuggle, and most don't involve hidden compartments at all.

38 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

There's a lot of ways to smuggle, and most don't involve hidden compartments at all.

Very true, and a prime example of this was a Han Solo one-off story with him constantly running afoul of an Imperial customs inspector, who in spite of his certainty that Han and Chewie were smuggling something, never found any contraband on the ship they were flying, no matter how through or detailed of a search he conducted. It wasn't until the very end that he realized the duo were smuggling ships as the ship being flown was different model each time, with Han lamenting that they were going to have drop that particular racket as they'd gotten as much mileage out of it as they were liable to without getting arrested.

Also, Platt's Smugglers Guide for WEG has some very helpful tips for smuggling that don't rely one bit on hidden/secret compartments, and served the character quite well during her lengthy career as a smuggler.

25 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Very true, and a prime example of this was a Han Solo one-off story with him constantly running afoul of an Imperial customs inspector, who in spite of his certainty that Han and Chewie were smuggling something, never found any contraband on the ship they were flying, no matter how through or detailed of a search he conducted. It wasn't until the very end that he realized the duo were smuggling ships as the ship being flown was different model each time, with Han lamenting that they were going to have drop that particular racket as they'd gotten as much mileage out of it as they were liable to without getting arrested.

Also, Platt's Smugglers Guide for WEG has some very helpful tips for smuggling that don't rely one bit on hidden/secret compartments, and served the character quite well during her lengthy career as a smuggler.

That is o e thing that was really great about WEG. So many of the books had really useful fluff. The one on criminal organizations was really good too and had some stuff on smuggling transactions.