I’m about to start the first actual play session of my online campaign tomorrow (beyond setting and character creation). We are going to be playing in the default class 2 starship setting. I realized that my players have decided to begin with 3 vehicles, which by standard rules means 3 out of 4 slots in the cargo bay will be filled. They don’t have a LaunchPad workspace that could free up the flyers, and taking that would sacrifice a Navigation work-space, which can also be very important. They will also probably want room in their cargo bay for salvage operations.
The choice of taking 3 vehicles is not necessarily a bad one. It has its benefits: three different craft that can be used in different environments and situations, and its drawbacks: the need to space and service all of them.
This leads to an interesting conundrum. As the GM, I do want space within the craft to matter. Class 2 Starships generally don’t have the larger carrying capacities of their Class 3 counterparts.
Having to decide what to leave behind and what to take should be a decision they’ll have to make. However I also don’t want their choice to have vehicles to limit their choices in the long run.
Any advice? Anybody had trouble with this before? Is this an actual problem or is this the system working as intended?
I guess that gives them a strong incentive to do an acquisition to get a bit more space in their cargo bay.
Do the players realize that without the Launchpad or Survey Workspaces the vehicles will be difficult to use?
Per the vanilla rules, vehicles are “inaccessible” while stored as Cargo and must be unloaded to be used. This means that if the crew say, wants to use one of their cars, they would have to first:
1. Land
2. Move the container off the ship
3. Unpack the container
4. Assemble and fuel the thing, if necessary
The advantage of Survey’s “motorpool” and Launchpad’s “hanger” is that vehicles can be kept unpacked and ready to use. Without them, the crew’s vehicles are essentially ‘packed and ready to ship’, protective padding and all. Just imagine an airplane in the Millennium Falcon. Yes it fits, but not with its wings on, and even if there was enough space to assemble it inside, you certainly aren’t going to be flying it out of there.
If they’re really jonesing for extra room, they could upgrade one of their Shuttle or Groundcar/Quad Walker vehicles with Transport. That way these vehicles in the Survey or Launchpad workspace can hold cargo (even another vehicle!) and be ready to cart it somewhere.
Having played a pilot in PbtA games I have to say that unless you the MC and players want to make a racing or heavy exploration game, I’d advice to ask players to reduce amount of vehicles to 1 ground and 1* flying max. Simply because vehicles quickly get marginalized in story games I’ve played.
As to how to deal with the situation, you can make a new workspace possible to buy, maybe that can even be first few sessions, are the players already making deals to acquire it?
Andrew has a very good point to make players realize that they are not a carrier yet.
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I don’t know what is your party theme, but there are rules for group skill in far beyond humanity. If they want to play a specialised explorers or galactic racer team you can decide on vehicle skill being a group one (which means all of them have it for free). I’d still ask players to then change some of their workspaces to accommodate for that.
As MC I also don’t have a problem with a shuttle or flyer being attache and ready to use in external docking* port if* player accept the risk of van be easily shot off in space combat.
*edited