NOBODY: By the end of May, Eli and Surge have completed their survey and quite a bit of the repairs and upgrades ahead of schedule. Eli is significantly pleased with their progress.
NOBODY: Eli has gotten to the point where he is going to require some parts and materials that are not available on board. There's a good chance that some of the materials will not be available in Circle City. The schedule contains a list of the parts and the reasons they are needed, as well as estimated costs totalling approximately Cr15,000.
NOBODY: On an upbeat note, Eli and Surge have determined that it should be fairly safe to attempt to open the safe on the ship. Before this is done Eli would like Vana and Max to be present, just in case. Others can be present at their choice. Eli recommends that we set a date/time to attempt the safe.
GM: Marty, go ahead and send me a roll to open the safe. I will assume that everyong (except Jack) is present unless they tell me otherwise.
NOBODY: Can Eli assist the safe-cracking and possibly give Surge a bonus to open the safe with any of Eli's electroncs/mechanical type skills?
GM: You can help if you have Lockpicking skill.
With everyone else except Jack present on ROCK, Surge goes to work on the safe in the captain's cabin. He takes his time in his attempt but, in the end, is unsuccessful in opening the safe.
GM: You can try again the following day, with a cumulative -2 penalty. You can keep trying each day until your chance of success drops below three. If you wish to do so, go ahead and send me a few more (let's say 4) more rolls.
Surge spends the next few days trying to open the safe but is unsuccessful and finally announces that he simply doesn't have the right tools to open the safe.
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VAMPERINA: "If the survey is done, then the next step is to make a trip into Circle City and get our ID's and any parts that we might need. Eli, what are our options if the parts are not available? Will we need to order them or is the ship spaceworthy enough that we can make a Jump to another system and buy the parts there?"
VAMPERINA: "My suggestion on getting the ID's is to risk a radio contact with Jack and tell him our plans. See if he can get as much arranged ahead of time as possible so that, ideally, we can head down, get our IDs, take our tests, get our licenses, and be out in the span of a few days. I would like to head down the day after the resupply ship visits the mining pod and, hopefully be back and head out in ROCK before they visit the following week. That gives us seven days to get everything done. How does that sound to everyone else?"
NOBODY: "We need to make sure that we have enough cash to fully finance the ID's and to get whatever supplies I've listed. For foodstuffs and such, we need to assume that we might have more than just our bunch on the ship at any given time. I've made an estimate based on assumption that there will be 6 people who need food onboard the Rock at any given time."
VAMPERINA: "Just in the last three months, with Curt helping, we've earned over Cr40,000. With that, and what we had before, hopefully we have enough for the IDs, the licenses, the supplies and the spare parts.
SURGE: "I would also recommend we build up some credits to carry us forward. After we jump we'll need to pay for certain fees whereever we go. Docking fees, expenses in making new contacts and establishing ouserlves in a new system. We should also plan to have some credits to refuel and resupply in the off chance that we can not find work or have no time to stop for work. I'd prefer to have 6 months of operation credit so that our vessel can run without needing to stop to earn more credits. Simply put we should have ample credits for surprises above our next 6 months of operation. In the future I'd prefer a full year but we should probably wait until we get to a system where we can earn better wages."
VAMPERINA: "Once we have our IDs and licenses, we can come back up here and spend a few more months mining to earn some extra cash. I would also like to fill up the fuel tanks of ROCK. We can use the information that Eli has about water sources on Black Moon to pick up another 10 tons in PEBBLE. That will put us at 64 tons which is enough to two jumps. Then, while we are earning some extra cash mining, a couple of people can work full time to find some more ice asteroids to finish filling the tanks."
NOBODY: "Providing that we don't need the cargo space for food and other supplies."
VAMPERINA: "Good points, Eli. We will need the cargo space in PEBBLE for food and other supplies. We'll just have to find more ice asteroids."
SURGE: Steve, could you indicate what I estimate that figure to be at? We have 10,000cr for 6 months of food. What about fuel, medical supplies and repair parts? Also do we need to buy fuel or can we skim it? If we need to buy it what would that cost?
GM: Fuel can be skimmed as long as there are gas giants or oceans to skim from. Right now, with the last ice asteroid that Chase found, the tanks have almost enough fuel for two jumps. Eli estimates yearly upkeep for ROCK and PEBBLE to be about Cr50,000. This includes fixing and replacing equipment that breaks, and performing scheduled maintenance of gear. This cost could conceivably be less with good bartering and good skill rolls by the engineers. I'll come up with a table for this sometime in the near future. Between Jack's trading skills, and Surge and Eli's engineering skills, you could conceivably end up paying a lot less.
NOBODY: Eli points out that we could always move to a far distant area of the asteroid belt and do our own mining. We could potentially fill our hold with ore to trade elsewhere. We can also do some serious scanning and se if we can find any precious metals or oridium worth mining. Plus, we don't necessarily have to do it here. If we get all of the repairs done that I want, we could potentially set down on a less or non-developed world and look around for possible profits. BTW, we are very limited in our starmaps. We really could use a full complement, at least of the Imperial systems.
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NOBODY to GM:
1. Is the survey complete?
GM: Yes
2. Are all possible repairs complete?
GM: Yes
3. How much of the remaining repairs are crucial to the safe and consistant functioning of both vessels?
GM: None. You can safely make at least one jump without any additional repairs or maintenance. However, without the additional repairs and maintenance, you will have to evaluate the systems after each jump to make sure that they are okay for another jump. If you were able to do all of the maintenance that you would like, then you could easily make about 5 to 10 jumps safely before you would feel the need to do another in-depth evaluation.
4. Of the Cr15,000 worth of parts needed, how much is crucial to #3?
GM: None. See #3.
5. What new information has Eli gotten out of scanning all available documentation in the ship? Especially anything we found hidden in the computer archives and on deck 2.
GM: I'm dealing with Surge on the computer stuff since you both agreed that it was his area of specialty. I'll let him update you and what he has found. You have not found any other hidden areas or compartments.
6. Have the ships been scanned/physically surveyed, in their entirety, inside and out? Remember, Eli was literally going to crawl the entire exterior of both vessels to get a complete close scan and physical mapping of each.
GM: Yes.
7. What supplies does Eli feel the ship needs for proper long range functioning. Food, potable water, medical supplies, spare parts, etc...
GM: You would like to be fully fueled. For food supplies, a six month supply is considered normal if you are operating in charted territory, and making frequent stops at inhabited planets. Otherwise a one year supply or more would be better.
8. How much does Eli estimate the cost of #7 to be?
GM: About Cr10,000 for a one year supply of food for six people.
9. What strange and unique equipment has Eli found on/in the ships and where are they located? Did he find any instruction manuals on any of them, hard or soft copy?
The only unique piece of gear that you found was the psionic shield on PEBBLE. You did find instruction manuals in both digital format and hard copy. The hard copy manuals are in a locker in the engineering spaces.
10. Eli would have asked this of Max during one of Max's rare visits to the Rock: "Can we possibly open the cold sleep chamber without disturbing the girl so that we can check to see if any important information or gear might be stashed in there with her?"
GM: Max says that the cold sleep chamber cannot be opened without disturbing the girl.
11. Any weapons or armor on the Rock or Pebble?
GM: Both ROCK and PEBBLE are armored and both have force fields. A list of some of the installed equipment will follow in a separate email.
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CHASE: Motions to Vamperina and says, "Well, no time like the present to pay you back on your loan as I appreciated it when I didn't have it."
VAMPERINA: "No problem. I'm definitely glad that I loaned you the credits."
CHASE: "You know I kinda of wonder what happened to the parents? Any clue on the last login or activities on board? "
VAMPERINA: "From what Surge has said, we just don't have enough information yet to do more than guess. He brought up some interesting questions that we definitely want to try to find the answers to."
CHASE: Chase will go about the ship to see if any internal secret compartments, hidden things or if it appears someone had to leave in a hurry. Specifically looking for anything out of the ordinary.
GM: Go ahead and send me 20 PER rolls. Surge and Eli have already been over the ship with a fine tooth comb but there is always the chance, no matter how slim, that they may have missed something. |