 August 11, 2009 - 6:46am | Having gassed about cut scenes in the general forums: http://starfrontiers.us/node/3783 I'm starting this thread to work on ideas for using that technique for my running volturnus campaign. Pirate captain Careless (working name) hasn't been seeing to the proper care of his ship (kind of treating it as a rental vehicle that he doesn't own seeing as how the Red Devil himself owns everything) his engineer is very concerned and has been working on overhaul of the atomic engines. The order comes to intercept the Dawn Voyager (1st Volturnus Survey Expedition) in 3 hours but the engineer wont be finished with the overhaul. The captain can either displease the Red Devil by not launching on time or launch over his engineer's objection. the badly maintained engines have the atomic equivelent of a flame out and they emergency land in the desert. The Red Devil has had enough of Captain Careless and send sends Officer Up&Comer (working name) to take a jet copter and assess the situation. if he can get the ship out of the desert he'll become Captain Up&Comer and of course he'll need to explain the Red Devil's displeasure to Captain Careless in a permanent fassion. Cut scene intro is the obviously shadowed and altered video image of the Red Devil discussing the situation with Captain Skragg aboard the Dawn Voyager. The Red Devil wants to know why Captain Careless isn't there and Skragg explains. The Red Devil is not happy and suggests it may be time for a new ship's captian among the Red Devils. Skragg will nominate Officer Up&Comer as he's too ambitious (hungry for promotion) for Skragg's peace of mind. The officer is in the background listening and the Red Devil instructs him to take a number of hands (equal to the number of other players) and .."go see about getting the downed ship back to base and communicate my displeasure with Captain Careless in a permanent fashion, if you please, Captain Up&Comer." says the Red Devil. Officer Up&Comer will have the gyrojet wrist rockets weapon from SFman #1 and a melee weapon his other hands will have melee weapons pluss 1-2 grenades (in keeping with armament seen in the Serrena Dawn encounter -apparently this is a cut throat bunch and they dont trust peon crewmen with guns). The crew of the downed ship is armed: Captain and 1 officer have guns the rest have melee plus 1-2 grenades. The crew will at first be inclined to defend against an all out assualt on their ship and will initially defend their captain, out of fear of him, The players will most likely fail if they dont try to finesse things a little and talk over some of the other crew or get down right sneaky. though Captain Careless will likely suspect something knowing how the Red Devil does things. The down side is that at least one engine is slagged and a total loss- replacing it here in the desert is just not worth it so they'll be forced to strip the ship: pull assault rockets, laser battery, There is a derth of furniture at the pirate base so all furniture and fixtures will be salvaged to use there. This means that Officer Up&Comer wont become a Captain without a ship but by way of consolation he's detailed to take the Dawn Voyager to the Dramune system? to be fenced. This will lead to another cut scene to be played out with the same pirate characters- a militia ship boarding and suspecting false documents of the crew. The system has one Lt in the militia on the take but unfortunately for the pirates they got stuck with the Lt. who's a bit of a prig and doesn't settle for a casual review of the ships papers. A search of the cargo hold turns up nothing but ore but the health inspection by the militia medic turns up all previous wounds recieved by this group of pirates recently (last cut scene) whether as healing scares or as lingering wounds because they weren't dealt with. This makes the LT suspicious as their cover is of a crew on a long run (boring) route but all these scars suggest recent combat. Will the players have to fight the militia or can they talk their way out. Offering a bribe wont be a good idea as the Lt. is a by the book goodie 2 shoes who follows all rules even if his enlisted crew think he's a jerk. Maybe the SOP of this militia is to scrutinize a ship till they find something illegal then act all pissed till they're bribed or to just delay a freighter till the captain greases palms to get his ship moving. so the militia crew may just be happy for the Lt. to buy it as he's cutting into their proffits? There could be a number of outcomes here to this. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 11, 2009 - 6:51am | Later cut scenes: tracking escaped prisoners- something to do with outpost 1 I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 18, 2009 - 9:14pm | Fuel for thouught --- As such, Starn would make a perfect "officer up&comer", recovering the downed scout ship and repairing it in time to overtake the Dawn. After gaining the rank of Captain, his next mission would be to recruit some more help to overtake the next expedition ship that is scheduled to arrive in a few months...and that backstory fits nicely into that background. He even has LVL:1 gyrojet weapons for the wrist rockets and LVL:2 melee weapons. P.S. if you hadn't seen it elsewhere, I may have mentioned a third complex on Volturnus: Sea Port One. Located at the southern end of the dry riverbed, this is their main center of operations onthe ground. It has a warehouse for recieved goods that get issued to the outpost and the mining camp, as well as a full service landing pad (along with auxilliary pads for starfighters), an administration building with subspace radio and radar along with a ground based laser battery, and several docks for a future undersea mining expedition that entails enslaving a waterborne relative to the Ul-Mor (dubbed the Sea-Mor). Slave City One vehicles make frequent supply runs back and forth along the dry riverbed (when the Volturnus expedition attacks the city, most of these vehicles are on such a supply run). |
