Populate a Ship's Armory for me

[dayriff]

My players got to salvage the armory of a wrecked Escort vessel before making a fast retreat. (I used the deck plans from the P.F. Sloan in High Guard, but it doesn't have to match up exactly.) Nothing should be higher than TL-13. As in the book, I figure a crew of about 112, all devoted to ship's functions. It didn't have any marines or guards.

In addition, a squad of Star Marines was carrying out a boarding action when the ship made an emergency jump (before other squads could join the fun). However, I'm agnostic on how the Marines got taken down- possibly all their equipment, as well as some of the ship's, was effectively destroyed in the battle. This was about fifteen years previous to the PCs salvage op.

Note that the culture that the ship belonged to is slightly fonder than the Imperium of energy weapons and has most of their industrial capacity at TL-10, though they have a fair amount at TL-12 and TL-13.

So how many weapons and of what type do you think would have been in the armory? They hardly needed to have a gun/combat armor for each person on board, but there was probably enough to make a credible attempt at fighting off a boarding action (as indeed they did). I already mentioned laser carbines to the players.

So what cool loot did the PCs get? Naturally I don't want to make 'em rich if I can excuse lower tech weapons/armor.

 

[rinku]

The standard military shipboard small arm is the accellerator rifle. Lasers do more damage, but are more expensive, bulkier and can be defended against with reflec. I'd expect the escort's crew to be equipped mainly with acc rifles and snub pistols, but with a handful of lasers as heavy weapons.

The marines are more likely to have lasers as their main weapon, probably carbines with a section laser rifle. Rocket launchers are also a possible support weapon, as these work fine in both vacuum and microgravity, though you'd need to be careful of backblast. Probably more likely to be one-shot LAW style weapons, since they'd not expect to use them routinely. Breaching charges and probably purpose built laser or plasma cutting equipment would be expected.

Stunners can be expected to be available on both sides - as the preferred weapon for the ship's security crew and as a tactical option for the marines.

The marines will have combat armour, plus the crew would be expected to have a hostile environment suit or two (in case of reactor breaches or EVAs in high radiation). The crew might have some combat armour too, probably for the officers and security staff.

Close combat weapons may be used, depending on your opinions.

Officers on both sides may well have personal weapons. Gauss pistols, laser pistols, antique revolvers, martial arts weapons, etc.

 

[locarno24]

In game terms, an armoury has enough snub pistols for the crew, enough accelerator or gauss rifles for any marines, and a selection of other military equipment like grenades, combat drug packs, combat armour and communications equipment.

So goes the theory.
If there were no specific marines or guards, then I'd have relatively limited 'heavy' firepower.

Possibly accelerator rifles rather than carbines - carbines are more compact (good in close quarters) - which I'd issue at the same sort of proportion of the crew that would be marines if it was carrying any (which it's not). So you'd have a stub pistol or a stunner (probably the latter given your comment about energy weapons) for everyone (100+), and between 1/3rd and 1/10th that number of carbines.

If they've no marines, they don't intend to be boarding other ships and have no place carrying boarding gear. A couple of grenades per guy with a carbine is about the likely maximum.

Add in some light body armour (ballistic vest/protec suit level) and a local radio for most if not all of the crew. The main thing you'd have in fair quantities is stuff like trauma packs - again, 1/3rd to 1/10th of the crew should have immediate access to emergency medical supplies - for operational accidents unrelated to boarding actions if nothing else!




The marines boarding the ship - easiest thing is to quote Mercenary:

Assuming the marines aren't in Battledress, the Boarding Vacc Suit is almost garuanteed to be what you're after - the name's sort of a hint...

A boarding vac suit will have a melee weapon/pistol combination grafted to the cuffs on the suit for the wearer’s use

Given the environment, possibly an accelerator weapon? Depends how the ship was boarded.

Gauss Carbines as the main armament:

Gauss carbines are the favoured weapon of boarding marines because of their size and ease of use.

Given a boarding action against a ship of (potentially) unknown internal layout, things like a Tactical Relay Network are quite likely.

At least one of the squad would be a medic with suitable supplies

Supporting weapons and gear would depend on their objective; if trying to secure the ship intact, then stunners as sidearms, one or two EMP grenades and that's it.

The less they care about collateral damage, the heavier their support weaponry - one to three (probably two) troopers in the squad might carry something nastier; an underslung RAM launcher is the obvious option. Sniper rifles and equivalents like the LAG or ARMP are a bit pointless in a boarding action, but if prisoners are a secondary concern a flamethrower is a fairly useful bit of kit. Some sort of bladed weapon each is inevitable.

If trying to cripple the ship permanently, then each marine would be carrying several charges of plastique or TDX explosive (plus detonators, etc), or (if they were really looking to blow it to pieces) one nominated 'demolitions' trooper would be carrying a pocket nuke. A breaching charge or two on top of this is quite likely.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Ok my go

112 crew so roughly 20 officers and 92 other ranks.

1 tech 11-12 laser pistol per officer, enough snub autos to arm every enlisted man in the case of emergencys. 1 energy cell per laser weapon, 5 clips per snub. Probably about 1-200 round total for the snubs, more if you have several types of ammo (ball/AP/Tranc). One in the gun, two more in a pouch on the holster belt and two in stores plus boxes of loose rounds.

One ship master at arms (senior enlisted) plus 4-5 crew trained in security as there are no marines on board. Call them naval security troopers. These will have access to shock sticks and stunners for MP duties and will be used for boarding party/customs security elements so boarding vacc suits and laser carbines for intimidation and firepower.

Enough acc rifles to arm 25% of the enlisted for combat action or groundside security, body armour to suit (flak/cloth) with 92 enlisted thats 20 not counting the ships troopers.

Portable med kits, 1 doctor plus probably 2 trained medics.

Not at all sure about heavy weapons, that is what the marines are for. Probably a max of enough underslung or carried grenade launchers for just the ships troops. A wide mix of smoke, gas, HE and AP to suit all possible needs though.

Hand grenades, smoke and gas with some HE. Enough to take down a pirate or smuggler crew not fight a war.

Enough tech 12 emergency or rescue vacc suits to equip the engineering damage control teams so 6-8 in total. Otherwise vacc suits for the rest.

All of the medical supplies will be useless as this is 15 years after the ship was lost. Energy packs will be drained, ammo and weapons will need to be warmed and cleaned before being able to be fired. With improper storage and damage caused by long term ultra low temps at least 50% or what is recovered will need to be refurbished/repaired and the rest may be usefull only for salvage. It will take an engineer/weaponsmith to tell however, simply warming up and firing the snubs may cause them to jam or backfire due to metal fatigue etc.

Depending on how much you want them to grab make the damage less or more severe

Also don't forget the lots of other valuable stuff they can grab. Did the ship fire its missile magazines dry in combat or are there still missiles left and now unstable due to age etc. Does the captain have a safe with crew wages and the ships operating fund. Looting the crew lockers for cash and goods. A couple of hours work by a ships engineer to remove turret weapons. Anything nice in the ships cargo bay, any small craft left.

Given time and the right looter mentality players can strip the thing down to the bulkheads till they have no more room to carry loot on their own ship

 

[Jame Rowe]

The marines are more likely to have lasers as their main weapon, probably carbines with a section laser rifle. Rocket launchers are also a possible support weapon, as these work fine in both vacuum and microgravity, though you'd need to be careful of backblast. Probably more likely to be one-shot LAW style weapons, since they'd not expect to use them routinely. Breaching charges and probably purpose built laser or plasma cutting equipment would be expected. Stunners can be expected to be available on both sides - as the preferred weapon for the ship's security crew and as a tactical option for the marines.

I would say Gauss Rifles for the Marines - they're expected to do groundside work as well. Stunners, yes, in all cases for nonlethal work. In addition, the Marines would have heavy weapons - VRFGGs or LMGs with one or two PGMPs - but with tripods and controls for non-battledress units.

The marines will have combat armour, plus the crew would be expected to have a hostile environment suit or two (in case of reactor breaches or EVAs in high radiation). The crew might have some combat armour too, probably for the officers and security staff.

Yes, but I would expect that most of the crew, say 100 or so, would simply have vacsuits.

Close combat weapons may be used, depending on your opinions.

Officers on both sides may well have personal weapons. Gauss pistols, laser pistols, antique revolvers, martial arts weapons, etc.

NO Revolvers! Autopistols! By TL 13 an Autopistol is an antique, so anyone with a preference for antiques would have Autopistols instead of Revolvers!

Sorry for shouting if indeed I was but I've long disliked Traveller's use of Revolvers as the standard antique weapon. In My Not Humble Opinion, autopistols will get much more reliable as tech progresses and completely replace revolvers.

 

[rust]

In My Not Humble Opinion, autopistols will get much more reliable as tech progresses and completely replace revolvers.

I am not so sure. Revolvers have the advantage that one can load the
chambers with different types of ammunition and so have a choice what
ammunition to use against a specific target.

 

[locarno24]

Provided you're going to fiddle around, manually rotating the drum.

Assuming you're only looking at two choices of ammunition (how much specialist stuff do you need, anyway?), then a compact two-clip autopistol with a shot selector to control the feed between the two clips would work perfectly well.


That said, they are mechanically simple. Revolvers are effectively completely replaced now for 'professional' purposes (law enforcement, military side-arm, etc) by semi-automatics, but that hasn't stopped a brisk trade in them for civilian weapons* because they're so easy to use if you just want a reliable firearm and don't care about being able to throw more than six shots at once.

 

[rust]

...(how much specialist stuff do you need, anyway?) ...

What about 2 x anti-armour, 2 x flechette and 2 x tranqu ?

 

[Captain Jonah]

...(how much specialist stuff do you need, anyway?) ...

What about 2 x anti-armour, 2 x flechette and 2 x tranqu ?

Giving you a grand total of two shots against an enemy boarder and 4 bangs that do nothing. If you need to stop and switch types of ammo in a combat like that you started the fight with the wrong ammo.

Take the civi's alive, trancs.
Hostile boarders, AP.
Being issued a revolver from the "starship" weapons locker. Priceless!

Using the weapon is not a factor, that is what the firearms training morning was for in basic

The only reason for having snub auto's on board is as a very cheap weapon that every crew member can be given when on boarding alert or on off ship duties.

As the ships old owners were more laser based the officiers weapons would be laser pistols, possibly a bit more ornate and issued on graduation.

As for the marines. Its a boarding party, guass or laser carbines with a squad ram gunner. Breaching charges and perhaps a guass SAW. No way does a boarding party carry tripod weapons, thats what power armour is for .

If they don't have Power armour then they don't carrry weapons you need an Exo skeleton to fire. A guass plus Rams will take down anything short of a battledress squad of defenders. Smart Rams to take out defended corridors etc. Breaching charges for doors and bulkheads. EMP charges to short out grav traps and computer controled stuff.

If they were expecting battledress defenders they would have most likely used battledress troops to board. Since the base tech is 10 with some 12-13 stuff as well Battledress would be very rare making boarding or armoured vacc suits the norm. Same with PGMPs, with limited tech 13 stuff about they would be fairly rare and reserved for tank busting groundside

Most of the marine kit would be useless anyway. If the only way the defenders had to drop them was grenades the marines suits etc would be wrecked by the blasts. Defenders in vacc suits would tend to have lots of little holes in them plus a frozen mess inside.

 

[locarno24]

If you need to stop and switch types of ammo in a combat like that you started the fight with the wrong ammo.

If you need to switch ammo like that I'd bring two guns. One for making people dead and one for making people not-dead.

If that means using armour piercing ammo against normal targets...well...as the A-Team says, overkill is underrated.

 

[BP]

I like to give them something extra that they can research...

• 

Like, Dormant Space Herpies!, activated by human warmth...

• 

:twisted:

 

[phavoc]

Your armory should be equipped with light armor for the ships personnel designated as boarding parties, and/or trained for combat. Just because you don't have marines doesn't mean you won't have weapons and trained personel "just in case".

So you figure enough weapons to outfit the crew in case of troubles. At TL-12 or so you should have accelerator rifles, some laser carbines, laser pistols for the officers, and gauss rifles for ground actions. Plus a smattering of grenades (explosive and otherwise), breaching charges, a few other larger 'goes boom!' charges for whatever. Then you are going to have miscellaneous equipment like explosive sniffers, night vision gear, etc.

Plus your armory should also contain light equipment and tools plus spare parts for maintaining your equipment. So anything that breaks you can fix out of what you have onboard... within reason.

After 15 years, if the ship is still in orbit and not subject to horrendous radiation, most things are probably going to be pretty-well reserved. Depending on how you see tech in the future, maybe they solved the problem of battery degradation, so all weapons are still charged (or drained) as they were when the ship crashed. Other gear that is not perishable should still be in good working order. There may even be some equipment packed away for long-term storage, which should be in perfect working order. Though if they crashed in an atmosphere and it got into the armory, I'd have fun with the players while they checked out the weapons and found out what was useful and what wasn't. Maybe the explosives are unstable and if picked up wrong or dropped.... boom!

Boom is good!

 

[Captain Jonah]

If you need to stop and switch types of ammo in a combat like that you started the fight with the wrong ammo.

If you need to switch ammo like that I'd bring two guns. One for making people dead and one for making people not-dead.

If that means using armour piercing ammo against normal targets...well...as the A-Team says, overkill is underrated.

Schlock Mercenary. The Seven habits of highly effective Pirates.
37. There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.'

BP. You mean the ship has............ Herpies. Great Film

 

[BP]

BP. You mean the ship has............ Herpies. Great Film

Yep.

Seriously, an armoury is a likely place for inadvertently sealing away stuff (as well as intentionally stashing booze and 'official' contraband...)

 

[rinku]

I would say Gauss Rifles for the Marines - they're expected to do groundside work as well. Stunners, yes, in all cases for nonlethal work. In addition, the Marines would have heavy weapons - VRFGGs or LMGs with one or two PGMPs - but with tripods and controls for non-battledress units.

OP said that they only had some TL13 gear and that they had a preference for energy weapons, so it's up to him how prevalent gauss weapons are. As well, I'd think that lasers trump needlers as a space and boarding weapon because of the recoil issue. Lasers are also better at breaching. If the marines in question are equipped for planetary assault over shipboard operations, slugthrowers are more likely.

NO Revolvers! Autopistols! By TL 13 an Autopistol is an antique, so anyone with a preference for antiques would have Autopistols instead of Revolvers!

Well, the same argument can be applied to modern day. Revolvers are a TL5 technology, over 150 years old, but yet they still remain a popular weapon here at TL8.

The one *indisputable* advantage of a revolver is that they can't jam. Even a simple misfire is cleared by pulling the trigger again; in an autopistol you have to work the action to clear the dud (having said that, this is amenable to a design solution if the action is not relying on recoil or propellant gas to work the feed). But if there is a jam proper, you have a useless weapon until you can work on it.

The multi-ammo thing is a minor issue, though that was the justification for the snub pistol being one, along with it having a large bore. Keep in mind this is in its role as a shipbard security weapon, not a military one. I always assumed the gun itself did the fiddling with the cylinder. Probably a voice activated ammo change command.

I agree that from TL7-12 or so, the autopistol *is* the standard sidearm, until the gauss weapons take over at TL13 (although *at* TL13 there is likely to be just as much reluctance to discard the autopistol as there was to discard the revolver in the early 20thC. Unproven new fangled toys and all that...). However, since the base tech here is not TL13, gauss weapons aren't going to be standard issue, I would think.

Edit: Another point to consider re the crew is the likelihood of mutiny and the expense involved of having weapons for *every* member of the crew. Weapons are issued when needed and otherwise kept secure. I'd have thought enough weapons to equip half the non-security crew fully would be adequate on a ship without marines - they're not expected to be able to resist a serious marine assault anyway. Officers and security crew probably carry a stunner and a lethal sidearm (pistol for officer, carbine for security). Typically most of the crew are going to still be at their normal stations and its the off-duty watch that gets woken up to form temporary troop units and damage control parties.

 

[Vile]

I like revolvers. Revolvers are nice.

 

[Jame Rowe]

Oh yeah, the OP's statement about energy preference.

Hmmm.... So in that case I'd say laser pistols for officers and possibly MCPOs, and laser carbines for security crew and Marines.

NO Revolvers! Autopistols! By TL 13 an Autopistol is an antique, so anyone with a preference for antiques would have Autopistols instead of Revolvers!

Well, the same argument can be applied to modern day. Revolvers are a TL5 technology, over 150 years old, but yet they still remain a popular weapon here at TL8.

The one *indisputable* advantage of a revolver is that they can't jam. Even a simple misfire is cleared by pulling the trigger again; in an autopistol you have to work the action to clear the dud (having said that, this is amenable to a design solution if the action is not relying on recoil or propellant gas to work the feed). But if there is a jam proper, you have a useless weapon until you can work on it.

True, entirely true. My response is to say: but in another 150 years, they may well have figured it out - caseless ammo, electric pistols (look up the O'Dwyer VLE for an example) and so forth. And they may figure out how to overcome the jamming problem for modern ones too.

I like revolvers. Revolvers are nice.

Well that proves it. You really ARE Vile!

 

[dayriff]

Thanks for the suggestions, everybody.

I think I am going to assume the ship was equipped with a ten man regular security squad and enough weapons to outfit about 3 dozen troops against a boarding action in an emergency. (That's a third of the crew after all.)

I think I am going to assume the Star Marines got blown up by frag grenades and combined fire, so most of their equipment is pretty useless. For that matter, the troops fitted out against a boarding action also took a lot of damage from the marines.

The players didn't spend much time in the armory, anyway. They only had a couple of loads of that.

Most of the time of the one guy with vacc suit and zero-G had (about 8 hours) was spent hauling a ton of repair drones out of the other ship, across the surface of the comet, to their ship. Even in microgravity, that was a lot of mass to haul for one guy, considering he had to make hundreds of yards each trip.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Thanks for the suggestions, everybody.

I think I am going to assume the ship was equipped with a ten man regular security squad and enough weapons to outfit about 3 dozen troops against a boarding action in an emergency. (That's a third of the crew after all.)

I think I am going to assume the Star Marines got blown up by frag grenades and combined fire, so most of their equipment is pretty useless. For that matter, the troops fitted out against a boarding action also took a lot of damage from the marines.

The players didn't spend much time in the armory, anyway. They only had a couple of loads of that.

Most of the time of the one guy with vacc suit and zero-G had (about 8 hours) was spent hauling a ton of repair drones out of the other ship, across the surface of the comet, to their ship. Even in microgravity, that was a lot of mass to haul for one guy, considering he had to make hundreds of yards each trip.

Amateurs clearly.

Why not dock to the target or just take up station yards from it with an open cargo bay, your players have no small craft then rig ropes. Get more than one person doing the steali... erm aquisition of available goods.
A good team of players should be able to strip a ship to the bulkheads in 8 hours, clearly either you are being nasty :twisted: or your players just aren't natural looters

 

[dayriff]

Amateurs clearly.

Why not dock to the target or just take up station yards from it with an open cargo bay, your players have no small craft then rig ropes. Get more than one person doing the steali... erm aquisition of available goods.
A good team of players should be able to strip a ship to the bulkheads in 8 hours, clearly either you are being nasty :twisted: or your players just aren't natural looters

The ship they were salvaging was embedded halfway in a rather large comet that was rotating rapidly (it picked up a lot of spin when they collided). They actually had to land on the comet. There are only three PCs, and they insisted on keeping the guy with Sensors on duty to watch for the bigger and much better armed criminal organization salvage ship they knew was coming. Mind you, that worked, they spotted the other ship coming in, and they were able to take off and Jump away before it could do anything to them.

The last PC could have helped, but since he had no Vacc Suit or Zero-G skill, I surely would have made him roll against an accident happening at some point. Basically, they chose to play it safe. It did indeed keep them safe, but they got less loot because of it.