Acquiring equipment and game balance

[Thisdan]

Hi all,
again I need some feedback and/or suggestions.
My campaign is now centered on the Darrian Confederation for quite some time and they are at war with the Sword Worlds.
The characters have supported the Darrians in an important battle and received a nice TL-15 ship for their troubles.
Now they want to do some extensive shopping. Lots of stuff TL 14-16 which is available in most Darrian worlds.
If I apply the modifiers from the CSC it is fairly easy to get the stuff. Sure, I can put negative modifiers as referee but first I should be able to explain why and second the likelihood still is high the the PCs will succeed anyway (+1 from attribute and +2 from skill).
Of course I can restrict weapons (e.g. no power armour, no plasma weapons etc.) but there is still plenty of non-military stuff that they can get.
And thanks to trading they have cash aplenty.

This leads me to my second point. IMHO most of the "power" of Travellers comes from their equipment. Even with lousy stats a staggered laser rifle is still vastly superior to an autorifle and so are is a TL14 HEV suit to regular armor. As a GM I try to offer interesting and challenging encounters which includes combat encounters every few sessions. But the PCs equipment is so good that I would have to employ ridiculously strong enemies (power armor, gauss rifles etc.) that I don't fell is realistic.
Sometimes it feels like Lvl 5 characters wield swords and armor +3 if the D&D analogy is permitted.
And this includes also non-combat equipment as well. Here is an excerpt of a shopping list I just received:
BurnerComms: 20xComp/3(TL16/12;62,5) =1250
Software: 140kcr
1x Sec3(TL16/12;20k)
2x Intrusion2(TL16/11;10k) 1x Intrusion3(TL16/13;100k)
Decryptor/4(TL16;50k)
Universal Translator (TL12/25k)

Psi-Finder Binoculars (TL16;10k/1kg)
Densitometer (TL16/14;5k/1,25kg)
Bug Sweeper, deluxe (TL16;125;DM+2;6m)


How do you GMs handle this in your games?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Darrian TL16 is a myth. They have some relic TL16 tech that they won't sell but their local industrial base is no more than TL13. They buy a lot of TL15 stuff from the Imperium.

That's in the OTU.

In your setting Darrian can have a thriving TL16 industrial base - so the PCs can stock up on personal energy shields, plasma rifles, you name it.

 

[Vormaerin]

Gearing up? Primarily with social pressure. Sure, one of my characters has a really badass HEV and a tricked out gauss rifle. But how often are those things she'd actually have with her?

Granted, my PCs are primarily involved in heists and other kinds of urban crime. They mostly are wearing lightly armored normal clothes and using pistols and other highly concealable weapons. They get to break out the badass stuff when they are doing stuff like being out in the wilderness being attacked by crazy alien monsters and the like.

As far as the TL 16 stuff goes, that's just not going to happen in my campaign. The region they adventure in is no where near any source of gear higher than tech 12.

Traveller combat is pretty dangerous once you get away from the pistols and light armor level of gear. Someone with an arc field sword who gets into melee with even the most heavily armored dude is going to murder them in short order. Same is true with the military spec weaponry. My players don't want to get into fights where everyone is using one shot capable weapons. When they bust out the high end gear against humans, its because they are hoping to forestall combat "Don't start anything, because our space marine will kill everything.". If they think the other side is going to shoot back even in the face of that kind of milspec gear, they find a different plan.

As far as sensors and computer programs and that kind of high tech stuff, I don't find it unbalancing. I just don't make that part of the challenge in the story. If they can hack into anything with their 'fresh from Vincennes' toys, then the problem isn't the hacking, its getting to the offline terminal where they can use their hacking. If they can spot everything because of their super sensors, I write the adventure assuming that they spot everything and it is a question of what do they do about it. "Oh no, the planetary governor's daughter is a psychic serial killer. What can we do about it?"

Let the players be badass with their gear and just make the hard parts of the adventure be the *decisions* they have to make rather than the gear centric actions they might take.

 

[Condottiere]

You could have some artisanal workshops crafting technological level sixteen gadgets, though interpreting canon it would seem any remaining ones are artifacts and relics.

 

[Arkathan]

Weapons... or creatures with high penetration trump armor. I used a psionic predatory creature on them last time that ignored non-psi armor and damaged Int and Edu. It caused 1d6 physical damage to the brain, allowing regular medical treatments to work. And they were in cloth armor with ACR's so they weren't cheesing it at all... but they WERE scared.
Reflective armor worn under a vacc suit defeats laser rifles.
You can always find a way to minimize the advantages of a party that is intentionally or unintentionally min-maxing itself.

 

[fvcoulter]

First, anything that the PCs can buy is also available to the NPCs. Second, what are the maintenance costs of that ship they were given?

I do question giving a ship to NPCs in the first place. When a government is happy with you, they give you a nice pretty medal and a title. Anything else they "give" you comes with a lot of responsibilities. But that ship has sailed. (In The Fall of Tinath, the PCs end up with a newly refurbished ship with no payments. But that's because the entire civilization and the banks have all failed. And the only direction they can go is into unknown territory, so they've got more than enough problems to deal with just fueling and maintaining their ship without any maps.)

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

You mention that overpowered equipment is equivalent to D&D characters, which I think is a good way to think about it. It is how Traveller characters "progress" in a sense, as they lack levels as such.
So how do you deal with it in D&D?

There is no need to work against the players for having good stuff, but rather think of it as allowing them to take on greater and more dangerous challenges.

But occasionally, for the purpose of equalising things and denting the sense of being invulnerable, you can include these kinds of things:

(1) as the above poster said, they can now face ever more dangerous enemies who are likewise or better equipped. Keeps its interesting!

(2) have them face challenges that don't need equipment at all, but are more based on social interactions, cunning, and problem-solving.

(3) stuff can be "cursed" - in Traveller terms means it could be malfunction, be sabotaged, or booby trapped. Or if its cutting edge, then its likely to fail at some point, and it is going to be very hard to fix

(4) Their missions have them go to areas where they cannot simply walk about with dangerous stuff (i.e. most worlds). Or have areas with D&D-style "anti-magic shells" which could be excused as shielding or damping or similar tech mumbo jumbo.

(5) Anything involving ship to ship combat is always highly risky, and it matters little what personal gear they have when the ship explodes.

(6) Have the team get separated, at least for a time.

(7) If their reputation becomes great, they will attract competition, assassins, thieves, etc.

And so on.

 

[Garran]

Since it's rather important to answering the question: what kind of campaign is this and what do the PCs typically do?

Some of this stuff might be out of place in a "roaming tramp trader" campaign, but if they're essentially a mercenary group then they've just turned themselves into a special operations force and should get contracts accordingly. Something like The Pirates of Drinax almost expects the PCs to pick up stuff like this as they go, and it won't solve every problem when they do.

You might need to just be up front with them about the fact that you misunderstood Darrian tech level and resources, but otherwise you're probably best off to talk to them about the type of campaign they want to have with all of this stuff in hand. Maybe it's going to go in a wildly different direction than you originally anticipated, but sometimes it's okay to just roll with that.

 

[MonsterX]

I would stop thinking of it like a D&D game. There are no levels, and no levelling up. There are only situations and challenges; trying to have the right gear at the right moment is an important part of playing the game, but you don't carry Psi-finder binoculars around everywhere you go. Well equipped players will have things they carry when exploring a wilderness, things they wear to a dinner party at the Sword Worlds embassy, things they take on a commando mission with their mercenary team. You don't slip into your battledress, grab your fusion gun and psi-binoculars and go down to the pub for a drink. Encumbrance isn't the main issue here, though sometimes it can be. It would be like driving a small tank into the place, and the reaction would be the same, and you would not get your beer.
Owning the stuff is only one part of this. Most of it is pretty specialized, so having it handy when you need it is another. I mean, IRL we can all go out and buy body armour if we want, but it is pretty unusual to be wearing it around. So, if you don't play Traveller like a video game with characters having access to all their stuff in "inventory" all the time, figuring out what to have along in a particular situation becomes a part of the challenge for the players.

The other thing is to give characters' adversaries/enemies agency: i.e. the NPCs aren't just static baddies waiting to be killed, but are actively thinking of ways to further their own agendas. If the characters are high profile, as they are, their enemies will know something about their equipment and SOP, and if the characters are making life difficult, they will take them out. Even if the characters have a tech advantage, lower tech has ways to deal with this, so use them. They would set a trap for the players and kill them all - and there no need be balanced here. If you do this, you should warn the players by ALMOST killing them first, that they've switched from being the hunters to being the hunted.

And yet another thing, there are many challenges and scenarios that don't pit them in combat against ever stronger adversaries. There can be political intrigues, investigations of mysterious objects, spies, saboteurs or pirates sneaking on to their ship in a way the players don't detect. Say, the government has seized their ship for spurious, or not spurious, reason, because of a corrupt official, or someone being mind- controlled by Zhodanis, or just someone playing political games. They have to get it back through bureaucracy or theft, and most of their gear is in the ship's locker. Or maybe the ship seizure fails since the players act quickly, but now they are personas non grata, and re-supply quickly becomes a problem.

Just stop thinking like it is D&D and like tech gear is high-level magic items. Take things sideways, and use your imagination or steal a plot from a sci-fi book, and put the players through that; let them use their high tech toys to solve problems when they can but don't let them carry it all around when inappropriate. There are lots of ways to do this.

 

[Thisdan]

Gearing up? Primarily with social pressure. Sure, one of my characters has a really badass HEV and a tricked out gauss rifle. But how often are those things she'd actually have with her?

Granted, my PCs are primarily involved in heists and other kinds of urban crime. They mostly are wearing lightly armored normal clothes and using pistols and other highly concealable weapons. They get to break out the badass stuff when they are doing stuff like being out in the wilderness being attacked by crazy alien monsters and the like.

As far as the TL 16 stuff goes, that's just not going to happen in my campaign. The region they adventure in is no where near any source of gear higher than tech 12.

Traveller combat is pretty dangerous once you get away from the pistols and light armor level of gear. Someone with an arc field sword who gets into melee with even the most heavily armored dude is going to murder them in short order. Same is true with the military spec weaponry. My players don't want to get into fights where everyone is using one shot capable weapons. When they bust out the high end gear against humans, its because they are hoping to forestall combat "Don't start anything, because our space marine will kill everything.". If they think the other side is going to shoot back even in the face of that kind of milspec gear, they find a different plan.

As far as sensors and computer programs and that kind of high tech stuff, I don't find it unbalancing. I just don't make that part of the challenge in the story. If they can hack into anything with their 'fresh from Vincennes' toys, then the problem isn't the hacking, its getting to the offline terminal where they can use their hacking. If they can spot everything because of their super sensors, I write the adventure assuming that they spot everything and it is a question of what do they do about it. "Oh no, the planetary governor's daughter is a psychic serial killer. What can we do about it?"

Let the players be badass with their gear and just make the hard parts of the adventure be the *decisions* they have to make rather than the gear centric actions they might take.

Thanks, that's great advice! I am trying to have my evenings as multi layered as possible but sometimes there is some fighting going on and then I struggle to provide meaningful oppostion that makes sense. But further down were some good hints about that too.

 

[Thisdan]

First, anything that the PCs can buy is also available to the NPCs. Second, what are the maintenance costs of that ship they were given?

I do question giving a ship to NPCs in the first place. When a government is happy with you, they give you a nice pretty medal and a title. Anything else they "give" you comes with a lot of responsibilities. But that ship has sailed. (In The Fall of Tinath, the PCs end up with a newly refurbished ship with no payments. But that's because the entire civilization and the banks have all failed. And the only direction they can go is into unknown territory, so they've got more than enough problems to deal with just fueling and maintaining their ship without any maps.)

Yes, that is something that occured to me too late. I am now trying to impose more strictures on their funds by increasing their expenditures.

 

[Thisdan]

You mention that overpowered equipment is equivalent to D&D characters, which I think is a good way to think about it. It is how Traveller characters "progress" in a sense, as they lack levels as such.
So how do you deal with it in D&D?

There is no need to work against the players for having good stuff, but rather think of it as allowing them to take on greater and more dangerous challenges.

But occasionally, for the purpose of equalising things and denting the sense of being invulnerable, you can include these kinds of things:

(1) as the above poster said, they can now face ever more dangerous enemies who are likewise or better equipped. Keeps its interesting!

(2) have them face challenges that don't need equipment at all, but are more based on social interactions, cunning, and problem-solving.

(3) stuff can be "cursed" - in Traveller terms means it could be malfunction, be sabotaged, or booby trapped. Or if its cutting edge, then its likely to fail at some point, and it is going to be very hard to fix

(4) Their missions have them go to areas where they cannot simply walk about with dangerous stuff (i.e. most worlds). Or have areas with D&D-style "anti-magic shells" which could be excused as shielding or damping or similar tech mumbo jumbo.

(5) Anything involving ship to ship combat is always highly risky, and it matters little what personal gear they have when the ship explodes.

(6) Have the team get separated, at least for a time.

(7) If their reputation becomes great, they will attract competition, assassins, thieves, etc.

And so on.

Yes, will try to do that more. I just want to keep the challenges believable and not go overboard. And yes, ship-to-ship scares the sh**t out of the players...

 

[Thisdan]

I would stop thinking of it like a D&D game. There are no levels, and no levelling up. There are only situations and challenges; trying to have the right gear at the right moment is an important part of playing the game, but you don't carry Psi-finder binoculars around everywhere you go. Well equipped players will have things they carry when exploring a wilderness, things they wear to a dinner party at the Sword Worlds embassy, things they take on a commando mission with their mercenary team. You don't slip into your battledress, grab your fusion gun and psi-binoculars and go down to the pub for a drink. Encumbrance isn't the main issue here, though sometimes it can be. It would be like driving a small tank into the place, and the reaction would be the same, and you would not get your beer.
Owning the stuff is only one part of this. Most of it is pretty specialized, so having it handy when you need it is another. I mean, IRL we can all go out and buy body armour if we want, but it is pretty unusual to be wearing it around. So, if you don't play Traveller like a video game with characters having access to all their stuff in "inventory" all the time, figuring out what to have along in a particular situation becomes a part of the challenge for the players.

The other thing is to give characters' adversaries/enemies agency: i.e. the NPCs aren't just static baddies waiting to be killed, but are actively thinking of ways to further their own agendas. If the characters are high profile, as they are, their enemies will know something about their equipment and SOP, and if the characters are making life difficult, they will take them out. Even if the characters have a tech advantage, lower tech has ways to deal with this, so use them. They would set a trap for the players and kill them all - and there no need be balanced here. If you do this, you should warn the players by ALMOST killing them first, that they've switched from being the hunters to being the hunted.

And yet another thing, there are many challenges and scenarios that don't pit them in combat against ever stronger adversaries. There can be political intrigues, investigations of mysterious objects, spies, saboteurs or pirates sneaking on to their ship in a way the players don't detect. Say, the government has seized their ship for spurious, or not spurious, reason, because of a corrupt official, or someone being mind- controlled by Zhodanis, or just someone playing political games. They have to get it back through bureaucracy or theft, and most of their gear is in the ship's locker. Or maybe the ship seizure fails since the players act quickly, but now they are personas non grata, and re-supply quickly becomes a problem.

Just stop thinking like it is D&D and like tech gear is high-level magic items. Take things sideways, and use your imagination or steal a plot from a sci-fi book, and put the players through that; let them use their high tech toys to solve problems when they can but don't let them carry it all around when inappropriate. There are lots of ways to do this.

That's true to a degree. Of course they can't walk through the streets of Jacent with their armor etc. on. But everything outside of civilization they have the gear. I made some mistakes in the beginning as we used the trading rules from a previous edition and they became quite rich. So with the low prices in the CSC they can get most of it. And I am trying to not have it spiral out of control with the escalation of ever more well equipped enemies. Doesn't make sense for regular pirates to own gauss weapons anyway.
And of course I try to mix things up with different encounters, that's good advice. But combat always is an option.

 

[fvcoulter]

I would stop thinking of it like a D&D game. There are no levels, and no levelling up. There are only situations and challenges; trying to have the right gear at the right moment is an important part of playing the game, but you don't carry Psi-finder binoculars around everywhere you go. Well equipped players will have things they carry when exploring a wilderness, things they wear to a dinner party at the Sword Worlds embassy, things they take on a commando mission with their mercenary team. You don't slip into your battledress, grab your fusion gun and psi-binoculars and go down to the pub for a drink. Encumbrance isn't the main issue here, though sometimes it can be. It would be like driving a small tank into the place, and the reaction would be the same, and you would not get your beer.
Owning the stuff is only one part of this. Most of it is pretty specialized, so having it handy when you need it is another. I mean, IRL we can all go out and buy body armour if we want, but it is pretty unusual to be wearing it around. So, if you don't play Traveller like a video game with characters having access to all their stuff in "inventory" all the time, figuring out what to have along in a particular situation becomes a part of the challenge for the players.

My players learned that when they land on a (relatively peaceful) low-tech world and go out in full armor and armed for bear, children in large numbers followed them around. "Mommy, come look at the strangers." As a GM, you should be able to make children NPCs into remarkably annoying encounters.

 

[Thisdan]

Thanks for all the answers so far. Dealing with armor and equipment is something I need to figure out better. We like to play as RAW as possible. How do you handle the acquisiton of gear? Strictly by law level? At the black market section there are categories so pretty much everything interesting is military and above. That might do the trick if PCs can't legally buy most stuff and have to use the black market. Seeds for new adventures I think.

On another note, concerning armor again: Traveller seems to be one of the few games where there is no penalty for wearing heavy armor (apart from social restrictions). With some athletics you can go as strong as your budget allows and there is no encumberance or anything giving you a penalty. So naturally at least my players are going for the best armor they can as there is no disadvantage to it. Am I missing something?

 

[fvcoulter]

Thanks for all the answers so far. Dealing with armor and equipment is something I need to figure out better. We like to play as RAW as possible. How do you handle the acquisiton of gear? Strictly by law level? At the black market section there are categories so pretty much everything interesting is military and above. That might do the trick if PCs can't legally buy most stuff and have to use the black market. Seeds for new adventures I think.

On another note, concerning armor again: Traveller seems to be one of the few games where there is no penalty for wearing heavy armor (apart from social restrictions). With some athletics you can go as strong as your budget allows and there is no encumberance or anything giving you a penalty. So naturally at least my players are going for the best armor they can as there is no disadvantage to it. Am I missing something?

If you're an American, think about Texas. What can you do with guns and armour in Texas? (A better question is what can't you do with guns and armour in Texas?) And yet the vast majority of people in Texas are not wearing level four armour when they go to the store. Why not?

You need to enforce those social norms. Just think about how other places do it and enforce them within your campaign the same way.

You know those wonderful conversations you have in a bar that leads you to a profitable adventure? Is that guy going to talk to the guys who's in powered armor and carrying a flame thrower? After an entire session in which your characters can't interact meaningfully with the locals, you might want to mention to the character with the highest intelligence that perhaps acting as if everyone is an enemy might not be the best way to interact with and get information from them.

 

[Vormaerin]

Ultimately, this is an artificial problem. There isn't any need for combat to be "balanced". It just needs to be fun. What "Fun" is will be different at each table. Some players are going to want really nail biting "are we going to win or not?" fights. Traveller's not actually that good at those sorts of fights, because the "good" weapons are quite likely going to kill or hospitalize you if they hit. Your players should be doing absolutely everything in their power to avoid anything resembling a fair fight that is more than fisticuffs.

Again, my recommendation is to make your fights "challenging" by making the players make decisions that matter rather than necessarily be about how much damage your baddies can resist. Do you shoot the guy with the LMG or the guy on the radio for back up? "Sure, you can kill these guys, but the boss is heading for his aircar with his bodyguards screening him, while that other group is dragging the hostages towards that van? What are you doing?" "You realize the leader of the pirates is the Imperial Governor's daughter, you know the one you are supposed to be rescuing? But, yeah, that anti-material rifle you are aiming at her will def get the job done."

Give them things to do in the middle of the shooting that aren't just more shooting. "We need this communications cable hooked up to the main tower. Right there where in that pile of machinery! What about all those guys shooting at us? Yeah, well, there is that. But we still need this cable connected so we can warn the Baron about the Vargr ambush before he's killed."

And if you want big "oh s***, oh s*** fights, give them swarms of chamax or robots or other things that they can vaporize to their hearts content and there's still more coming.

 

[Saladman]

In the abstract, if you got some adventures without that gear, then some with it available, that's playing the game as intended. Easier said than done when it hits all at once though.

What I would look for in your shoes is a way to ration gear purchases out over time. Mechanically that could be with an hours or days increment Broker or Streetwise check to track down just the thing they're looking for. But you should probably pair that with just coming out and telling them out of character you'd prefer to spread things out rather than get them all dumped on you at once.

You can also get ahead of the game by including useful gear as loot, payment or available for purchase. Even better if its not in the book anywhere so it feels special. Place a tube of TL 12 superglue, or a roll of cut-resistant, burn-resistant, anti-entropic packaging twine and see what the players do with it.

And I see my two examples are limited use. Permanent equipment is trickier. Consider using the minor condition on Effect 0 and the offer of success with a major condition on Effect -1 to have equipment need recharged or repaired (minor) or lost or destroyed (major) at times. Though this may take a light touch if you haven't been doing it already.

On guns and firefights, I've established that some worlds take a much different view of stunner tag firefights as compared to heavy weapons firefights. One you walk away from with a fine and time served with a good enough Advocate roll. The other, winning with overkill can take characters out of play just as much as dying if you don't make it off planet afterwards, though of course we'd play that out rather than fade to black.

How do you GMs handle this in your games?

This part won't help you as much, but for the sake of discussion... Last time out I capped TL in my homebrew subsector. TL 12 was the highest, with most worlds lower.

What I was most concerned with was capping off the highest damage dice weapons. The more they blow through armor and still one-shot a character with no medical care option, the more you're playing a different game than what you'd started with. And the greater the burden the GM takes on to prep - if I'd wanted to be running Shadowrun or GURPS I'd already be running Shadowrun or GURPS.

We like to play as RAW as possible.

I'm not convinced that "RAW as possible" is the optimal usage of the Traveller ruleset, or even the originally intended one. Though I do follow the arguments that its interesting to see what emerges from RAW, and that its better to houserule with experience rather than just blindly before you try it.

 

[MonsterX]

On another note, concerning armor again: Traveller seems to be one of the few games where there is no penalty for wearing heavy armor (apart from social restrictions). With some athletics you can go as strong as your budget allows and there is no encumberance or anything giving you a penalty. So naturally at least my players are going for the best armor they can as there is no disadvantage to it. Am I missing something?

Social restrictions aren't just social; if no one will interact with you, you can't buy anything. You can't get jobs, or find anyone to buy or sell merchandise from. The police will follow you around, the sheriff will tell you to leave town. In war zones, obviously it is accepted and maybe in some contexts, like being on guard duty. I would apply big minuses to social rolls, or NPCs would be completely unwilling to interact, depending. Also, the armour will get grotty. The hydration pack will run try and its contents will fill the diaper that the player is wearing, so as not to have to take it off and on every couple of hours. There may be chaffing. Wires and stuff need to be hooked up, and unhooked and these will cause discomfort. Be graphic. Things will break on it if it is used all the time, like maybe straps and stuff, but definitely complex parts like computers, if the armour has them. They can get dust and moisture in them, or cookie crumbs, since I guess they are eating in their suits. If we are talking about sealed armour, it is meant to be worn for a few hours at a time, so it makes sense to reduce players physical stats, and eventually also mental, from extended use.

 

[Vormaerin]

The kinds of armor that are generally available in Traveller are not especially restrictive. Those that are tend to have their penalties largely offset by the Vacc suit skill. So, characters should generally wear good armor if they are concerned about fights.

How much you want to restrict that with "realism" arguments about the cumbersomeness of getting in and out of the heavier armors is really just a matter of personal preference. It isn't any different than allowing folks to crawl around in caves in full plate in your fantasy game. It is a matter of where you find the balance of fun between action and simulation.

In civilian settings, most weapons are going to do about 3D damage and characters can reasonably expect to have around 8 armor. That's pretty well balanced for a dangerous, but not instantly lethal fighting situation.

Obviously, if they are able to run around in armored vacc suits or carapace style, they can get up to like 16 armor, then they can't remotely pretend to be anything other than a paramilitary force looking for trouble. But if they are out in the wilds or whatever, then sure whatever. You'll have to give their humanoid opponents some lower end military grade stuff like explosives, laser rifles, or armor piercing ammo if you want to continue making the fights work out to be dangerous but not insta-kill. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. That's just people being rational. They know that marauders like the PCs can have armored vacc suit type gear, so they'll pick up weapons that can defend against that.

If they are demanding access to Combat Armor and Battle Dress, then they are playing a military campaign and you should give them military grade opponents. Traveller has all that fancy gear because playing Hammer's Slammers is an intended playstyle. Lots of players enjoy that kind of game and there's tons of published material to support it. But it is a distinct campaign style from 'freelance wanderers" or "merchant explorers."

Unless your players are trying some garbage argument like "we have badass super gear and they are just supposed to have hunting rifles and .22 pistols because they are just civilians" then who cares if you are all having fun? Just decide on the tone of the game. If they wanna be the colonial marines, there's always more Chamax out there. If they don't want to play colonial marines, just discuss how they do want the game to play out.