Maintenance on the Go!

[zero]

Just a character/skill question - In my new Pbp "Star's End" over at the Ctech forums for the Cstars supplement, we're going on a 5.5 month voyage to the Kuiper Belt on a loaned ship for the job.

I have a worry about maintenance, as the players wont be stopping for monthly checks, its a straight shoot with some drop-tanks for the Power plant and a shizload of coasting and on-board life support.

*cough* anyway, I wanted an NPC on their ship to do the maintenance for them, so they dont have to worry about any systems going on the fritz as they enter the Belt.

How would you guys go about this and which skills would be the most important? I figure levels in Mechanic and Engineer, probably. I ask as I want this ship's maintenance crew member to be a fully fleshed npc with their own character sheet. I also want to know what they should roll when theyre going about the job of servicing the ship too.

 

[rust]

My choice of skills would be Computer (to find the necessary informations
in the technical manuals stored in the computer's database), Engineering
(any specialization, the Level 0 in all the others is more important), Me-
chanic (for the easy repair jobs), and of course Vac Suit and Zero-G.
Maintenance should probably be Easy while the ship has gravity, and Rou-
tine under zero-g conditions.

 

[BP]

You're in charge of any 'maintenance' incidents... not sure why you would 'have a worry'!

I don't have CStars, so this is based on Core:

Spacecraft operations provide for a monthly roll to determine random damage off the combat damage tables, IIRC. Assuming you are role-playing some of that 5.5 month in-system voyage, you might want to customize things a bit.

A table unique to your ship systems should be easy enough to make - just use 1d6 or d66 for equal chances (or X chances out of total) or Nd6 (N>1) for bell shaped probability (i.e. middle numbers = greatest likelihood). One table for item - one for nature of failure, perhaps (descriptive or equivalent to combat damage rating).

Use task checks for resolution - just like you would use with any other attempted actions - or use the combat repair rules if you are using the combat damage.

Expect spare parts have been purchased (priced by tons).

 

[AndrewW]

You could have it where the NPC on occasion needs the help of one of the players, which gives them something to do during the journey. Of course things breaking down can lead to all sorts of adventure possibilities.

 

[GJD]

"Who are you?"
"Aahm Scruffy. The Janitor."
"I've never seen you before?"
"Been here all the time. Yup."

 

[phavoc]

How would you guys go about this and which skills would be the most important? I figure levels in Mechanic and Engineer, probably. I ask as I want this ship's maintenance crew member to be a fully fleshed npc with their own character sheet. I also want to know what they should roll when theyre going about the job of servicing the ship too.

Engineering - 1 & Mechanical -1 for sure. Basically they are going to be doing standard mainteance, replacing parts (within reason) as needed. They won't have anything available to do major work since they won't be able to carry the parts.

Jack of All Trades - 1 might be useful, to cobble together something. Not sure about sensor/computer skills. Maybe Electronics -1 to do repairs on the electrical portions.

Most engineers on sci-fi shows seem to be characters in some way. You can give them an accent, make them female (with an accent!), or even give them some odd phobia or disability (like they can't go in open space because of some fear, or maybe they are partially crippled and work best in gravity under 50% or something like that.

 

[locarno24]

How would you guys go about this and which skills would be the most important? I figure levels in Mechanic and Engineer, probably.

Mechanic
Engineer
Computers
Jack of All Trades
Physical Science (Electronics)
Vacc Suit

In varying ratios.

If you don't want them to have to do maintenance, then they don't. However - this could come back and bite you when you want to use maintenance requirements as a stick to drive them with elsewhen on the campaign; if you allow them to do it themselves, fairly easily, once, they'll say "well, we'll just do it again, then."

If you think that could be a problem, you have three possibilities;

1) Don't do maintenance. On a 6 month, unmaintained stretch, you'll take an average of just under two damage. That's not the end of the world, especially if they can fix it after it fails.

2) Allow 'monthly maintenance' but make it very challenging (DM-3 or worse) to count as doing the maintenance, and throw in a few EVA excursions and trips into the reactor areas as part of it - after all, this is normally yard time when the ship's stationary and everything's off. Add an NPC (Scruffy!) if you don't want it to be too difficult for the players.

3) Assume the ship has been rigged for a long voyage; A number of difficult mechanic and engineer tests, and an investment of maintenance effort lets you ignore a number of month's maintenance in a triangular numbers fashion:

i.e. one block of effort ignores one month's maintenance (as normal). Ignoring a second months will need that block plus two more.
Ignoring a third will need three more than that, and so on.

As a result, going five months without maintenance will need the same amount of time working on the ship as 15 monthly checks - note that if it's not their ship it needn't necessarily be them doing the work; you can just claim it's been done (and they wouldn't necessarily be competent to do it themselves). Also, you could only partly cover the trip with preliminary work, so there's still some risk of failure towards the end of the trip, it's just that major breakdowns become less likely.

 

[alex_greene]

Haul a lot of food supplies and, of course, spare parts aplenty.

 

[zero]

We're already hauling huge amounts of supplies though due to space the food is quite spartan :lol:

Ok, so if I did the damage rolls for missing maintenance as normal and then if something comes up, get the NPC to repair it, right?

Btw, the only difference in Cstars to normal Trav are the char gen rules and added madness rules, otherwise everything is the same as Traveller.

 

[rust]

Ok, so if I did the damage rolls for missing maintenance as normal and then if something comes up, get the NPC to repair it, right?

Right, but I do not see a convincing reason why you should have to deal
with the "missing maintenance" at all, at least not in the form of just ano-
ther boring routine roll of the dice. You could just assume that the NPC is
doing his job, mention it occasionally as "fluff", and otherwise introduce
the technical problems only when they contribute to the story. Without a
meaningful connection with the story the entire maintenance thing seems
a bit like introducing a die roll for the quality of the day's meal or the en-
tertainment value of the tridee movie the crew watched that evening.

 

[locarno24]

Without a meaningful connection with the story the entire maintenance thing seems a bit like introducing a die roll for the quality of the day's meal or the entertainment value of the tridee movie the crew watched that evening.

Agreed. The damage from maintenance is more something to provide you with activity for the player characters; 'such and such a thing has blown out and requires an EVA to fix it' actually provides the potential for something slightly dangerous and challenging; otherwise you might as well go "....five and a half months later" and skip the coasting elements of the voyage.

 

[zero]

Ok, thats great. Thanks alot! (Cant speak much of what they will face in those months though, they might read this thread 8) )

 

[Treebore]

Want some real world perspective? From submarines? What is probably the most real world equivalent of space travel?

We routinely went 90 to 120 days between being in port. We did "preventative maintenance" the whole time, and some fixes, as needed. The military has data sheets on what is most likely to fail, and we stocked repair parts accordingly. I am sure the agencies in Cthonian Stars would have similar data. Especially for space travel.

Odds are almost all the work is going to be "preventative" in nature, changing filters, lubricating, checking readings, cleaning (most people are completely unaware of how much "dust" just human bodies create, let alone other equipment parts/components). Odds are also highly in favor that anything that does break will have the needed repair parts in inventory.
Due to that equipment data I mention above.

An Engineer is likely not needed for most of this maintenance, probably not even repairs. The manuals are very good, so anyone with a good basic understanding of reading, reading logic diagrams, and schematics as well as using basic tools can likely do the job. It would definitely be better if they are trained in Mechanics and Electronics to be sure. Having an Engineer on board to consult as needed would definitely be helpful, but likely not critical. Unless the power/maneuver system itself is failing some how, or some other ship wide system fails, but that is highly unlikely.

Navigational systems, and likely any targeting systems, are highly reliable, and as long as preventive maintenance is competently carried out, there should be no problems under normal operating conditions.

In fact, all systems should be highly reliable. Its a basic requirement for Submarines, and is likely the same requirement for space ships.