Post by allie on Dec 3, 2021 20:58:09 GMT
My apologies for the disclaimer about "subject to revision": I have only a vague sense of either vehicle design mechanics or submersible statblocks, beyond "big and bulky" and "appallingly bad."
Inspired equally by depot ships and my own boggling at how people get around on Poseidon (there can't be that many friendly native villages with eighty liters of liquid hydrogen conveniently lying around), jumpcraft tenders should be easy to introduce to the setting. They're also very easy to remove, especially when the players need one to get back from wherever they're going.
Some other fun possibilities for jumpcraft tenders include the following:
* Jumpcraft tenders aren't owned by their operators; they're licensed out to the captain and run as an franchise. An offbeat everyday Incorporate campaign could revolve around the players crewing a jumpcraft tender: dealing with the vagaries of customer service, vehicle repairs, the odd cyclonic storm or lesser white attack, and their increasingly heavy-handed manager in Lebensraum or Al-Mamlakah.
* Jumpcraft tender crews make amazing contacts; the job is mediocre enough that they'll accept money to remember who's going where in what. They do, of course, blind spots: what happens during their shore leave, and who's paying another tech to answer the same questions about you...
* Storm season is the peak business season for jumpcraft tenders; many of them set a course for the worst weather on Poseidon, park in open ocean to create aerial escape routes between island clusters, and charge anyone coming through as much (or as little) as they can get away with. Supplies inevitably run low, and the air filters will start to strain when the tender inevitably end ups with an extra mouth to feed...
* Jumpcraft tenders are a crucial part of force projection and everyone knows it; each has enough hydrogen for a flight of VTOLs, or a Gargoyle that loitered too long and needs to get back into space. They're not equipped to defend themselves, however, or at least not yet; if a jumpcraft tender needs to relocate, it may need an armed convoy of escorts...
Inspired equally by depot ships and my own boggling at how people get around on Poseidon (there can't be that many friendly native villages with eighty liters of liquid hydrogen conveniently lying around), jumpcraft tenders should be easy to introduce to the setting. They're also very easy to remove, especially when the players need one to get back from wherever they're going.
Some other fun possibilities for jumpcraft tenders include the following:
* Jumpcraft tenders aren't owned by their operators; they're licensed out to the captain and run as an franchise. An offbeat everyday Incorporate campaign could revolve around the players crewing a jumpcraft tender: dealing with the vagaries of customer service, vehicle repairs, the odd cyclonic storm or lesser white attack, and their increasingly heavy-handed manager in Lebensraum or Al-Mamlakah.
* Jumpcraft tender crews make amazing contacts; the job is mediocre enough that they'll accept money to remember who's going where in what. They do, of course, blind spots: what happens during their shore leave, and who's paying another tech to answer the same questions about you...
* Storm season is the peak business season for jumpcraft tenders; many of them set a course for the worst weather on Poseidon, park in open ocean to create aerial escape routes between island clusters, and charge anyone coming through as much (or as little) as they can get away with. Supplies inevitably run low, and the air filters will start to strain when the tender inevitably end ups with an extra mouth to feed...
* Jumpcraft tenders are a crucial part of force projection and everyone knows it; each has enough hydrogen for a flight of VTOLs, or a Gargoyle that loitered too long and needs to get back into space. They're not equipped to defend themselves, however, or at least not yet; if a jumpcraft tender needs to relocate, it may need an armed convoy of escorts...
