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Cargo Questions

#1
I really love the concept of freighters in Silent Death. So, naturally, Kashmere Commonwealth is my favorite sourcebook. But there is one thing I couldn't find – maybe it's just sloppy reading on my part, but how do I determine the cost of different cargo types?

As detailed in the book, different cargo types have different cargo loss die. That makes perfect sense. But how do I "buy" cargo in a campaign?

And is there an expanded explanation of how cargo will work in a Silent Death campaign? I would imagine having a point system, where different cargo types have different worth would make sense. Especially if you could spice up a regular campaign game with cargo runs where successfully destroyed or saved cargo would yield points.

Is there such a thing and I have just missed it or is this a case for some houserules?

Curious what you guys think.
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#2
(01-17-2019, 04:45 PM)Orange Lantern Wrote: I really love the concept of freighters in Silent Death. So, naturally, Kashmere Commonwealth is my favorite sourcebook. But there is one thing I couldn't find – maybe it's just sloppy reading on my part, but how do I determine the cost of different cargo types?

As detailed in the book, different cargo types have different cargo loss die. That makes perfect sense. But how do I "buy" cargo in a campaign?

And is there an expanded explanation of how cargo will work in a Silent Death campaign? I would imagine having a point system, where different cargo types have different worth would make sense. Especially if you could spice up a regular campaign game with cargo runs where successfully destroyed or saved cargo would yield points.

Is there such a thing and I have just missed it or is this a case for some houserules?

Curious what you guys think.

I found the rules for cargo to be unnessary cumbersome.  My thoughts were:

1. like normal fighters a crit means you lose a PD and a decoy plus a critical
2. Use the crits to determine cargo hits and also usual critical results.

If a critical was marked off apply the damage of the weapon causing a critical to the Cargo slots.  If it did 4 damage and triggered a crit then 4 cargo slots lost, if it was 30+ damage that caused it then remove 30+ cargo slots.
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#3
(01-17-2019, 04:45 PM)Orange Lantern Wrote: I really love the concept of freighters in Silent Death. So, naturally, Kashmere Commonwealth is my favorite sourcebook. But there is one thing I couldn't find – maybe it's just sloppy reading on my part, but how do I determine the cost of different cargo types?

As detailed in the book, different cargo types have different cargo loss die. That makes perfect sense. But how do I "buy" cargo in a campaign?

And is there an expanded explanation of how cargo will work in a Silent Death campaign? I would imagine having a point system, where different cargo types have different worth would make sense. Especially if you could spice up a regular campaign game with cargo runs where successfully destroyed or saved cargo would yield points.

Is there such a thing and I have just missed it or is this a case for some houserules?

Curious what you guys think.

Orange Lantern,

Excellent question. When I was drafting out the Campaign System some years back I ran into the same problem. No, it isn't your imagination. The rules for cargo outlined in Kashmir don't really cover that aspect of things very well.  Actually, there are a lot of problems with that book that I won't go into here. But messing with the campaign system revealed a few.

Your suggestion of a "point system" is pretty much what we decided on. Here's the relevant passage from the last draft of the Campaign System:

"At the beginning of the campaign, each side is allocated a
fixed number of cargo units. Before the campaign starts,
players must distribute all cargo units among bases and
transports. These cargo units represent generic supplies, parts,
fuel, etc. At the end of each campaign turn, both sides draw
from their cargo reserve to replenish and repair their ships. If
supplies get low, the remaining ships will begin to degrade
because they cannot be fully repaired. One unit of cargo
“unpacks” into 5 BPV of repair or replenishment for fighters
and gunboats."

So "cargo" is totally generic; no distinction between food, fuel, or lemon-soaked paper napkins. We do make an exception, however, for replacement ships. One can't unpack however many BPV from generic cargo and decide that it's a Thunderbird or whatever. We also have a table that shows how much it costs to maintain various tonnages of ships on a per-mission basis (except for warhounds, which are maintained on a bi-weekly schedule).  We also had a whole bunch of supply ships, military freighters, tenders, etc. in mind.

I'd love to dust this off, if we can find some people to do some serious playtesting. 

Any takers?

MXSavant
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Certe, Toto! Sentio nos in Kansate non iam adesse!

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#4
Thanks for the illuminating answers. That got me a lot of material to work with. I especially like the cargo hit simplification suggested by Smurf. I will most likely steal this. Wink In conclusion, I will probably go for a houseruled solution too, taking your input into account.

If you're interested, I will come back and post what I could agree on with my group and how it worked out.
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#5
(01-28-2019, 03:57 AM)Orange Lantern Wrote: Thanks for the illuminating answers. That got me a lot of material to work with. I especially like the cargo hit simplification suggested by Smurf. I will most likely steal this. Wink In conclusion, I will probably go for a houseruled solution too, taking your input into account.

If you're interested, I will come back and post what I could agree on with my group and how it worked out.

Great! Glad I could help. Thanks to your post, I've added the most recent draft of the Campaign System to the download page as a free .pdf. Feel free to use it, but please do send me some feedback. Most of that system remains woefully under-tested.

Cheers!
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Certe, Toto! Sentio nos in Kansate non iam adesse!

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