Space Truckers? How about Space Telephone Repair? More Thoughts on the Alien RPG by Free League

The Idea.

While I was writing an article on FTL communications in the ALIEN universe I added a line about broken nodes as a plausible way to make communications take longer. When I wrote that line it occurred to me that it might be an interesting plot thread for a campaign. Surely these nodes do go down from time to time and surely these nodes need to be repaired.

The Job.

The players are in control of the crew aboard a Weyland-Yutani vessel tasked with repairs on the Network. The priority of node repair and thus the remuneration of it's repair boils down to two factors. How important it is to the Network's functionality, and perhaps more importantly how much priority the Company places on the node.

Campaign mode wise this is going to fit closest to a "Space Trucker" theme. Generally blue-collar workers out among the stars trying to make their living repairing Company assets.

At first impressions you might imagine repairing and maintaining the Network would be a high priority for the Company, but due to redundancy in the nodes, this is generally not the case. The Company likes to keep things repaired to maintain that redundancy of course, but the repair of a single node is not a high priority job. Because of this the crews out doing the repairs are often under equipped. Crews relying on older ships and tools to get the job done.

The Missions.

I wanted to build a set of tables to help you as the Game Mother come up with repair ideas, much like we see in the core book under campaign play. We can use the standard job generator on page 341, but we need to set up some new tables to give us some repair missions vs. cargo missions.

Node Level

Node Repair Crew
D66	Node Importance	Description
11-26	Tertiary Node	Low Priority Repair. No loss of Network functionality
31-46	Secondary Node	Medium Priority Repair. Network slowdown in this area of space
51-56	Primary Node	High Priority Repair. Minor loss in Network functionality
66	Series of Primary Nodes	Very High Priority. Loss of Network connection to this area of space. 1d6 node types require repair.

Company Interest

Node Repair Crew
D66	Node Importance	Description	Extra remuneration (thousands of US dollars)
11-33	Highly Interest	The node serves an area of space of extreme interest to the Company. Perhaps a central communication point, or something darker?	None
34-53	Medium Interest	The company sees the node as important, but of no particular interest. Simply a colony node perhaps.	1d6
54-66	Low Interest	The node is far from Company interests. Is the crew bribed by a rival company to repair it ahead of other Weyland-Yutani interests?	3d6

Node Type

Node Repair Crew
D66	Node Type	Description
11-13	Planetary Node	In orbit around a world of interest providing a link to a system node.
14-16	Deep Space Node	A deep space relay node.
21-46	System Node	A node within a star system providing extra-system communication.
51-53	Station Node	A node based on or around a space station.
54-56	Diagnostic Node	Node functions as a aggregation of nearby nodes diagnostic information.
61-66	Black Node	The function of these nodes is classified within the company, they are generally very high priority to be fixed. Node Type is always Primary. Add $10,000 USD to reward.

Repair

Node Repair Crew
D66	Repair Type	Description
11-13	Node down	The node is completely unresponsive. Investigate and repair.
14-16	Part Swap	Parts are sometimes rare, occasionally you need to salvage what you can from one place to put it in another.
21-46	Maintenance	Routine maintenance to keep the Network operational.
51-53	New Node	Deploy a new node.
54-56	Node Vanished	Node is no longer responding, upon arrival the node is gone. Was it stolen?
61-66	Node Destroyed	Upon arrival all that remains is a debris field. Why was it destroyed?

Complications

Node Repair Crew
D66	Complication	Description
11-13	Sabotage	Sabotage is obvious!The node is fixable, but was it abandoned or it is a trap?
14-16	Beacon	A beacon is detected within range of the node, perhaps on a nearby planetoid? Who sent it? Is it an SOS?
21-46	Maintenance	A critical part of the ship is close to failure, it will require immediate attention or result in some catastophic failure on the ship.
51-53	Asteroids	The ship drops out of hyperspace in the middle of an asteroid field. Can the crew navigate the field? Are there pirates hiding in it?
54-56	Intermission	The ship's computer brings the ship out of hyperspace and then wakes the crew. What's the story?
61-66	Derelict	A derelict ship is detected in the space around the node, it is lifeless and cold...or is it?

Rewards

Node Repair Crew Node Crews will be rewarded based on the node repair type plus....
D66	Reward
11-13	First refusal on next Primary Node repair.
14-16	New contact within the a company, perhaps not Weyland-Yutani?.
21-46	Extra monetary reward offered.
51-53	Leaked information of value.
54-56	Debt cancellation.(or credit granted)
61-66	Ship or equipment upgrade.

A Sample.

Now we can use the tables above to generate a few mission ideas for our node repair crew.

1. Routine. Within System. $39,000. Tertiary node. Of high interest to the Company. Black node (Node becomes Primary). Node Down.
2. Normal. Nearby system. $38,000. Primary node. Low interest. Station node. Node destroyed. Derelict ship detected. First refusal on the next primary node repair.
3. Difficult. Within System. $75,000. Primary node. Low interest to the Company. System node. Maintenance. Ship maintenance & Sabotage. New contact within company (Rival?)

There are three ideas generated quickly from the tables above plus the tables on 341 for the core book. I am sure will help to get your brain thinking and imagining any number of ideas and adventures your players might end up in as they roam the galaxy keeping the Network operational, truly a thankless job.

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