 March 24, 2009 - 12:19pm | New here, btw...I had a small taste of SF about 15 years ago and loved it. But as I am sure most of you know, things change when college is over. However, my young children were snooping through boxes and found my Alpha Dawn material and they too are getting a taste. The majority of my RPG and GM experience is in AD&D, so I have some questions that I'd like the communities input on. |
 March 24, 2009 - 3:09pm | Two and three I can answer right off the bat...you can claim the ship/debris as a prize, after an Admiralty Court(or the local Star Law office) adjudicates the claim. The answer to the first question is basically the same process, I think...you take the wreck to the nearest port, and the local authorities adjudicate your claim to salvage rights. As for question four, any irregularities(such as the pirate ship being registered to shell corporation)will be exposed by the investigation into salvage claims. If the owner is found to be a shell corporation, then there is no title to the ship, and salvage rights apply. Finally, the last question. I would guess ninety days would be about average for the investigation, the hearing, the adjudication, and the paperwork necessary to process the claim and formally establish clear title to the persons salvaging the ship/wreck. Welcome to the site, Inigo. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 24, 2009 - 4:09pm | Thanks for the input. That all sounds pretty good. One thing I forgot to ask was about hauling in a derelict ship. Should I assume that you can't jump into the void with a ship in tow? And in what physical manner would they tow a ship? I would think that something as simple as cables (tow rope) would be a bad idea seeing as how the vessels may get banged around during speed and course changes. |
 March 24, 2009 - 6:30pm | Inigo Montoya, on a quest to find the six fingered man? (great flick) I would presume "spoils of war" can apply to most any situation, but the new owners may face retribution from the former organization...moreso for the shell organization scenario. Barring that it shouldn't be difficult securing a salvage or re-title, unless the local planetary government wishes to sieze the vessel as evidence in a war crime etc...each system has a different form of government to answer to and UPF SpaceFleet is no police force so really, anything goes in the freedom of open space. |
 March 24, 2009 - 6:29pm | Welcome aboard from me as well. Yeah, you'd need to tie it down to your ship and secure it against your hull to tow it. You definitely wouldn't want to have it on the end of a cable. You'd stop and it wouldn't and *SMACK*, a new hole in your ship. I would say that you would also be limited to minimum acceleration and turning unless your ship is much bigger than the one you are bringing along side and it would handle like a pig as the mass would be off-balanced for your engines. Since you only mentioned Alpha Dawn and not Knight Hawks that would all be treated abstractly. In KH parlance that would be reducing your ADF and MR to 1. As for a void jump, again I'd say it depends on the relative sizes of your ships. If you are not at least 2 times bigger than the hulk you strapped on to your hull, I'd say it would be very, very risky to try. Better just tow it to the local system. If you are bigger, then it is conceivable that you're engines could handle it. Most likely as PC's you'd be in situation 1 and in fact the hulked ship may be bigger than you!. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 March 24, 2009 - 11:25pm | 1. UPF has jurisdiction here. If there are no rival claimants, then I would expect that you would get full salvage rights within about 30 days, at the most. 2. Yes. And probably even quicker than 30 days. 3. Yes. 4. The shell organization is in big trouble. 5. Rival claimants can spread out a case for months or even years. The referee would have to make a call here as to what this process might entail. It may even involve an additional adventure to gather more pro-PC evidence or to disprove or discourage the other claimant and get them to drop their case. Welcome aboard, Indigo. |
 March 25, 2009 - 12:38am | Welcome to the site- I'd recommend David Weber's Honor Among Enemies novel as it deals with a freigther converted to being a Q ship to deal with the rising piracy in an area that was traditionally patrolled but now all the navy ships are off fighting elsewhere. I believe he used the British navy as a model for the admirlty court and such. Plus its a great novel if in the middle of the series. I dealt with the PCs nuetralizing a pirate boarding party and counter storming the pirate ship by having the local militia show up at the end of the fight when all the heavy lifting was done. I didn't want the PCs to get the ship so the Admirlty Court ruled in the militia's favor that it was a joint capture of the pirate ship and since it was a small fast privateer (Dragon Magazine Thruster class) they decided to buy it into service as a courier and scout ship. I calculated the price of the ship and doled out the standard award of 1% to the crew for capturing it The officers of the star liner got the largest share of that and the PCs got about 700 CR. each. One of them had a serious outburst over not getting his pirate ship but having their own ship would have derailed the Volturnus campaign. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 25, 2009 - 3:33am | ...and there's a fine example of how a planetary government can swoop right in and (legally) take it out from under you. Of course this can have a future effect as well. I had done something similar to a group once. After they built up their skills they returned to the same system a year later and encountered one of the "scandalous" militia's other craft (an armed scout ship, not an assault scout mind you). They swarmed it easily and used it to get close to their former prize, and took it once again, departing the system with two of their militia ships! (this group actually inspired me to pen my role reversal version of the Volturnus adventure) |
March 25, 2009 - 7:26am | I like the entrepreneurial spirit here. What would you suggest, 1/4 of book cost for systems sold to a salvage yard and 1/2 of book price for purchases from salvage yard? How about whole ships value? Say you captured a corvette with minimal dmg to it; where would one find a value range for such things? |
March 25, 2009 - 8:23am | I like the entrepreneurial spirit here. What would you suggest, 1/4 of book cost for systems sold to a salvage yard and 1/2 of book price for purchases from salvage yard? How about whole ships value? Say you captured a corvette with minimal dmg to it; where would one find a value range for such things? You need to dig into KHs rules for ship construction to get the cost of individual components to a ship. When I had the admirlty court price out the privateer to determine the award I used the most favorable numbers to the admirlty court. ie as if the ship had been built at the cheapest construction center possible. you could work up both number having a salvage center buy at 1/4 of the lower number and sell at 1/2 the higher which would allow for some room to negotiate price a little meaning a good PER role would let the PCs buy at close to 1/2 the lower number or to sell at 1/4 the higher number. or if they had a rare part not normally available they could command 1/4 at the higher number. Hope you followed the fuzzy math. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 25, 2009 - 11:33am | Additionally, the Ref can put a supply/demand factor into the situation to increase or decrease the salvage price for any given prize. Within a certain band of reason, this allows great flexibility in the money offered. For example, there might just be a glut of Corvettes floating around out there in SpaceLand. As a result, the calculated price of the ship might have to be lower. Or, none at all, as there is no buyer for the ship. The PCs might have to wait for a better price or even for someone to buy it at all. And, of course, vice versa for a situation where Corvettes are in great demand and are selling like hotcakes. Or you could simply add up all the ship systems and components and be done with it. Cha-ching. |
March 25, 2009 - 12:51pm | I like the entrepreneurial spirit here. What would you suggest, 1/4 of book cost for systems sold to a salvage yard and 1/2 of book price for purchases from salvage yard? How about whole ships value? Say you captured a corvette with minimal dmg to it; where would one find a value range for such things? The ¼ & ½ is a general base that I go by for the Space Rats game. But as mentioned, that can be tailored to suit supply and demand, in which case you can go as low as 1/8 for salvage outfits to buy and 1/4 for them to sell for common goods and 1/3 to 1/2 for a salvage outfit purchase price and 2/3 to 3/4 for them sell for less common or highly sought after items. And again, damaged but repairable goods can be tailored to that model as well...damaged common goods would probably be bought as bulk scrap while a damaged Pan Galactic Eureka atomic drive (+1 to ADF) would command a much higher price than perhaps even a functional standard atomic drive. I would wager a pirate corvette on the civilian market would attract a lot of buyers...for one thing it has an oversized weapon on it (the Laser Cannon, which the rules state can only fit on a HS:5 craft or larger) and a lightly armored hull (again equivilent to a civilian HS:5 hull). But as mentioned, the ref would have to go piece by piece (and only the functioning pieces) to determine a salvage value for a whole craft. So say the laser cannon was destroyed on the vette...well that's half of the attraction of buying the ship gone and unless the buyer has access to a military contractor they'd probably never be able to both acquire and install a replacement system back into that craft (which would result in a performance gain, as the cannon significantly reduces the performance of that vessel). This opens the door for alternate systems, as you might permit a second laser battery in lieu of the lost cannon. The main thing to consider with salvaged and used goods is the age. The KH rules state that for every five years of age, there's a 1% chance of failure or breakdown per voyage. Of course that rule is a general one that applies to an entire ship, so for a haphazardly thrown together bucket of bolts from a salvage yard I mandate a check for each component based on its age, as they will all differ when culling from a parts pool. ½d% isn't out of line for determining the age of used parts. |
March 25, 2009 - 1:58pm | Imperial is right if no one is buying what the PCs are offering they may have to take a much lower price and in walks some desparate colonist farmers who have been suffering from mauraders aka Magnificent Seven and Battle Beyond the Stars. and they're desparte for any kind of ship to defend themselve so as the PCs try to deliver the goods they end up in the middle as unlikely heros. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 25, 2009 - 2:55pm | he used the British navy as a model for the admirlty court and such In the States, the US District Courts have jurisdiction over Admiralty matters. True, Shadow, Spacefleet has no police powers(unless working in concert with Star Law or with authorization from the CoW or the member government being affected), but all the UPF members have accepted Star Law's authority; so Star Law would have authority in these types of situations(especially Rangers and above, who can operate as circuit-riding judges), with any decision being immediately appealed to the Council of Worlds. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
