This has been asked before, but I'm asking from a specific angle.

I can't really seem to find a good answer in the book, so I'd like to hear some opinions on this.

My players have a YT-2400 (sil 4, encumbrance 140) and want to put a vehicle in the hold for them to run around in on planet. Think the atv like vehicle on Serenity in the Firefly series. There are a couple of problems with this.

1. There isn't a vehicle like that (minor issue really)

and more importantly, 2. How much can the YT fit, and how big.

I mean, do I need to have the retrofitted hangar bay to even fit something in like a land/air speeder? And what about Speeder bikes? I would think they could shove a couple of those in the hold and still have plenty of space. And what's even going to bake your noodle more is when you start asking how much encumbrance one of those bikes or aforementioned air/land speeders take up. All of those have encumbrance values of their own, but nothing to suggest how big or heavy they are outside of the vague silhouette value.

Thoughts?

I recall that in the WEG D6 system YT-1300s had a cargo capacity of 100 metric tons. As for volume, that's harder, but figure a cargo hold that's maybe 3 metres high and something like 8 x 8 metres large.

whatever you think would work, and fit. Obviously the biggest issue would be how to get the craft in and out.

My suggestion is to get a bigger ship. The Serenity was around twice the size of YT-2400

Storage space on starships has been a wonky issue since the WEG days.

Prior to FFG using "Encumbrance Value" for their ships, it was just tonnage. But that didn't always mesh up with the floor plans and how much space they had available. I seem to recall a few ship designs that had a lower tonnage score than the YT-1300, but far more room to put stuff, and at least one or two instances of the opposite being true.

Truthfully, I'd treat the question of "just how much stuff can I cram into my freighter" about the same as Star Wars in general treats questions based in hard science... that is, ignore it in favor of plot and what feels appropriate.

Tonnage (WEG) or Encumbrance (FFG) makes far more sense than volume as it more correctly reflects the limits of the engines to actually lift the ship.

Think of it like planes used today. Their cargo capacity is more limited by mass than by volume because unlike a car or truck, you can't just cram it full of any random thing (gold vs wool being a great example) and expect the plane to take off. So, just because it has spare room (volume) doesn't mean it has power to fly with more mass (Tonnage or Encumbrance).

Encumbrance is supposed to a combination of mass and volume, not just mass.

Judging from this:

You could probably fit a couple Hummers in there, something like the atv in Serenity should fit…barely

Exactly.

I find it odd that the rules mention encumbrance but no sort of weight/encumbrance value of the item in question. Its great knowing my players YT-2400 can carry 140 encumbrance (whatever that is) but what is the encumbrance value of a crate of blasters? Of a speeder bike? A crate of foodstuffs?

I can't find anything in the rules that addresses this.

In fact, I can't find anything in the rules that addresses silhouette value a ship can carry outside of the aux hangar bay attachment. Only there does it seem to be mentioned, and that is when the attachment is on the ship. So if I have a ship without an AHBA, does that mean I can stuff anything in the ship that is 3 silhouette less? 4? What's the rule? It doesn't seem to be clearly defined.

I can eyeball it and make it up as I go along, of course. I'm a competent enough GM to pull that one off. But I was wondering if maybe I was missing something in the book, or perhaps someone else knows.

Keep the comments up guys, I feel with some good discussion we can get this solved.

Did you read the huge thread on this same topic with a ton of opinions and math?

I don't think mass should really be a consideration. The mass of the ship itself dwarfs any cargo it could hold, unless *maybe* it was stacked with solid gold or lead. Anything beyond that (like, say, an atomically small neutron star ) becomes a plot device.

I don't think mass should really be a consideration. The mass of the ship itself dwarfs any cargo it could hold, unless *maybe* it was stacked with solid gold or lead. Anything beyond that (like, say, an atomically small neutron star ) becomes a plot device.

I think that people are thinking mass is going to matter in the same way it does with loading aircraft IRL. It is possible to overload an aircraft, so it may be possible to overload starships based upon aircraft.

The problem is the game doesn't list encumbrance for some items. I'll demonstrate this with a few examples.

Scenario 1:

The players in a YT-2400 raid a pirate base. The pirates just hit a huge shipment of weapons, and they haven't moved them yet. Inside the base there are 9 crates of weapons. How many can they fit into that YT?

Answer: We don't know, really. We know the encumbrance capacity of a YT-2400 is 140 (whatever units 140 is said to represent). But we don't know how much a crate is. Obviously, the easy answer here is for me the GM to just assign some sort of random value of say 20 to each crate. Meaning 7 crates can fit on the YT. But I'd rather have a value.

Scenario 2:

Inside that pirate base is also 7 speeder bikes. How many speeder bikes can they fit into the YT?

Answer: Again, we don't know. There is nothing in the rules that tells me they can even put one in. The only blurb about putting vehicles in a starship is listed on the Retrofitted Hanger Bay (P. 271), and the RHB can only be put on vehicles of Sil 5 or greater. Meaning that YT can't even equip it. So does that mean you can't fit a vehicle on it since the RHB is what allows you to store vehicles on a ship?

A speeder bike is about the dimensions of a motorcycle in real life, except slightly longer. You can fit a motorcycle in the back of a pick up truck. So if you can't put one in the cargo hold of the YT, what can you put in there? What does that say about the cargo hold? It's less then the back of a pick up truck? And if that's true, how am I putting 7 crates of weapons in it?

Okay so assuming you can fit one on the YT, how many can you fit? The speeder bike does not list an encumbrance value for how much it encumbers something (I don't want to say weight, because that gives the wrong impression).

Scenario 3:

That pirate base is pretty well stocked. They have a cloud car too. Can that fit into the YT?

Answer: No? Why not? It is silhouette 2 just like the speeder bike. But we all know from watching the movies that a cloud car is significantly larger then a speeder bike. Logically you can't just roll one of those up the ramp. The lack of an encumbrance value for the cloud car itself is only one of the problems here. Logically, silhouette doesn't make sense sometimes.

Scenario 4:

Instead of a YT, the players chose a Wayfarer as the starting ship. It has a RHB equipped and they have inside the ship two Z-95s for two of the players to jump into when space combat starts to protect the ship. The Wayfarer has an encumbrance cap of 850 units. With two Z-95s already on board, how many crates of weapons, speeder bikes and/or cloud car can they fit into that transport?

Answer: See what I'm getting at here? Because we don't know what the encumbrance value of a Z-95 Headhunter ship, we don't know how much of the cargo bay is even in use. Compounded by the lack of an encumbrance value for the speeder bikes and cloud car, it becomes a guess for the GM to figure this out, instead of cold, easy to determine numbers.

How about x10 for silhouette 2 equaling 20. 300 for silhouette 3. 4000 for silhouette 4, etc.

Scenario 1:

The players in a YT-2400 raid a pirate base. The pirates just hit a huge shipment of weapons, and they haven't moved them yet. Inside the base there are 9 crates of weapons. How many can they fit into that YT?

Answer: We don't know, really. We know the encumbrance capacity of a YT-2400 is 140 (whatever units 140 is said to represent). But we don't know how much a crate is. Obviously, the easy answer here is for me the GM to just assign some sort of random value of say 20 to each crate. Meaning 7 crates can fit on the YT. But I'd rather have a value.

Check the book again, I'm having trouble finding it but I'm pretty sure it mentions the encumbrance difference for crating items.

Scenario 1:

The players in a YT-2400 raid a pirate base. The pirates just hit a huge shipment of weapons, and they haven't moved them yet. Inside the base there are 9 crates of weapons. How many can they fit into that YT?

Answer: We don't know, really. We know the encumbrance capacity of a YT-2400 is 140 (whatever units 140 is said to represent). But we don't know how much a crate is. Obviously, the easy answer here is for me the GM to just assign some sort of random value of say 20 to each crate. Meaning 7 crates can fit on the YT. But I'd rather have a value.

Check the book again, I'm having trouble finding it but I'm pretty sure it mentions the encumbrance difference for crating items.

Yeah, that's what I thought too, but I can't seem to find it.

Scenario 1:

The players in a YT-2400 raid a pirate base. The pirates just hit a huge shipment of weapons, and they haven't moved them yet. Inside the base there are 9 crates of weapons. How many can they fit into that YT?

Answer: We don't know, really. We know the encumbrance capacity of a YT-2400 is 140 (whatever units 140 is said to represent). But we don't know how much a crate is. Obviously, the easy answer here is for me the GM to just assign some sort of random value of say 20 to each crate. Meaning 7 crates can fit on the YT. But I'd rather have a value.

Check the book again, I'm having trouble finding it but I'm pretty sure it mentions the encumbrance difference for crating items.

Yeah, that's what I thought too, but I can't seem to find it.

Keep looking, its in there, I've used it. I remember because I was surprised how little it changed the enc of heavy blaster rifles

It's under encumbrance in the Gears and Equipment chapter. It touches on it lightly, basically halving, I think, the stored items' encumbrance - although that might be a comment from Sam Stewart during an Order66 episode. Although the CRB does state that a shipping crate takes somewhere around 5 or 6 encumbrance. I discussed this in a recent blog post over here.

Would help if you had a page number. I hate books with poor indexes. I'll keep looking but I've been back and forth in the equipment chapter with no luck. Could be that I'm just old.

Regardless, it still doesn't help with the fact that no encumbrance value is given for vehicles.

EDIT: thanks Jegergryte, found it after reading your blog. I think 5 or 6 for a shipping crate is a bit low, but perhaps its a small crate. Its comparing it to a repeating blaster rifle or a heavy toolbox. Those aren't that big, so I assume the (small) crate would be roughly the 3'x3'x3' ish. Or perhaps 4', but not much bigger. Bigger crates would have to be more, obviously, but it at least gives me a base to work from.

Still doesn't help with vehicles, =(

Would help if you had a page number. I hate books with poor indexes. I'll keep looking but I've been back and forth in the equipment chapter with no luck. Could be that I'm just old.

Regardless, it still doesn't help with the fact that no encumbrance value is given for vehicles.

Page 152: "Large or heavy items such as cargo crates, repeating blaster rifles, or a heavy toolbox, are valued at 5 to 6." It is not exact, but does give some idea.

I cannot recall page number, AFB, but its under the Encumbrance heading, towards the end of that section in the chapter. I think Encumbrance is pretty early in the chapter.

Encumbrance for vehicles ... I don't know if its needed really. Although a x10 multiplier ofsilhouette could make sense, I mean since characters are 5+Brawn=Enc ... a speeder taking up 20 makes sense, perhaps a speeder bike could take up less, like 15, but around there somewhere is a good idea.

Sorry dremaa, you ninja posted me while I was making the edit. But thank you.

I guess a x10 multiplier per point of silhouette would be a decent rule of thumb if silhouette wasn't so **** vague. I'm good with a speeder bike being 20... but a cloud car? It also gets weird the further you go up. The YT is Sil 4... so 40 encumbrance? It holds far more then that.

Running it exponentially doesn't help either. 10^2 is 100... that's a heavy speeder bike. That z-95 headhunter? 10^3 for 1000... so that's no good.

Would help if you had a page number. I hate books with poor indexes. I'll keep looking but I've been back and forth in the equipment chapter with no luck. Could be that I'm just old.

Regardless, it still doesn't help with the fact that no encumbrance value is given for vehicles.

Page 152: "Large or heavy items such as cargo crates, repeating blaster rifles, or a heavy toolbox, are valued at 5 to 6." It is not exact, but does give some idea.

I don't think that's what I was talking about. Like I said the reason this is bugging me is because I remember guesstimating the enc for x number of heavy rifles in a crate when writing an adventure, then two days later finding the actual rule and going back and changing what I'd written to match. I remember originally thinking for the desired enc I'd put like 5 rifles in a crate and then going back and changing it to like 2 or 3.

Part of the issue is that the specs in the book are more "guidelines" than specifics. The individual vehicles could differ in size, shape, etc. Maybe you could use the passenger capacity to use as a guideline for fitting vehicles? If it can fit 6 passengers, maybe you could fit 3 speeders/cloud cars (each with a silhouette of 2)?

I don't think that's what I was talking about. Like I said the reason this is bugging me is because I remember guesstimating the enc for x number of heavy rifles in a crate when writing an adventure, then two days later finding the actual rule and going back and changing what I'd written to match. I remember originally thinking for the desired enc I'd put like 5 rifles in a crate and then going back and changing it to like 2 or 3.

It also talks about "10 loosely carried incidental items have an encumbrance value of 1. If they are stored in an effective manner (such as a bowcaster quarrels in a quiver or crystals in a pouch), then 20 incidental items have a value of 1." Is that more what you were thinking of?

I guess a x10 multiplier per point of silhouette would be a decent rule of thumb if silhouette wasn't so **** vague. I'm good with a speeder bike being 20... but a cloud car? It also gets weird the further you go up. The YT is Sil 4... so 40 encumbrance? It holds far more then that.

Running it exponentially doesn't help either. 10^2 is 100... that's a heavy speeder bike. That z-95 headhunter? 10^3 for 1000... so that's no good.

Yes, of course, I see the problem. This is why, I guess, the retrofitted hangar bay has a silhouette capacity value.

I mean, I understand why people want some guidelines on this, but I figure it's already there, its sound reasoning - as with the retrofitted hangar bay, it states that common sense and reasoning should inform as to what vehicles can fit inside another, regardless of whether silhouette a silhouette 3 should fit inside that silhouette 5 starship or not. If that silhouette 3 starship shouldn't fit into the silhouette 5 starship by judging how they look, are designed and size comparison, then that silhouette 3 won't fit inside, end of story.

I'd say most speeder bikes would fit in a YT-1300 or 2400 easily, a couple of speeder bikes even, although these would not be easily or quickly unloaded for use, as opposed to having a hangar bay. Landspeeder would really fit through the cargo loading ... orifice.

The whole idea with these abstract values is, as many has pointed out at earlier occasions, to focus more on story, narration and fun, than book keeping. While I'm not opposed to some book keeping and running numbers, I'm also happy with lack of mechanic and deterministic values and absolutes that allows (or disallows) something that does not (or does) make sense.

Sorry dremaa, you ninja posted me while I was making the edit. But thank you.

I guess a x10 multiplier per point of silhouette would be a decent rule of thumb if silhouette wasn't so **** vague. I'm good with a speeder bike being 20... but a cloud car? It also gets weird the further you go up. The YT is Sil 4... so 40 encumbrance? It holds far more then that.

Running it exponentially doesn't help either. 10^2 is 100... that's a heavy speeder bike. That z-95 headhunter? 10^3 for 1000... so that's no good.

actually, running exponents works ok if you use base 5 instead. 5^2=25 for a speeder, 5^3=125 for a fighter, 5^4=625 for a light freighter... i think those are pretty good generalities/guidlines.