SCOTTY’S TECH MANUAL CHAPTER 5—STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS

Need to slam your players with a Linear or Gated Challenge to keep them busy during a game? Want to toss in an Extended Task to make their lives miserable? Don’t have time to whip up plausible technobabble? Welcome to Scotty’s Tech Manual, a handy resource to help you keep your games rolling while everything is blowing up around your characters.

Maybe a key system has suffered a breach. Perhaps you have been hoarding threat and need a cool place to spend it. This is a creative way to create complications, stacking them on each other to form a Linear or Gated Challenge. As per the game rules, it costs 2 Threat to create a complication, so each step in the challenge costs a minimum of 2 Threat +1 more if the difficulty range is above 2 on any steps in the challenge. [Note: Tasks listed with letters (ex. 2a and 2b) mean that both items must be completed before moving onto the next step.]

How to use this resource

1. Determine the ship system that you want to vex. (This may be because of a recent breach.)
2. Select one of the challenges below.
3. Decide on the length of time (rounds, minutes, hours, days) for each task to take. (Use this to create suspense and make Time into a condition for your campaign.)
4. Inform your players about the steps. (This is Uhura saying, “Captain, we have lost containemt on decks 19-21. Repair teams are scrambling. They should have the breaches sealed in eight minutes.”)

Sample Linear and Gated Challenges for Structural Failures

Secondary Hull Fractured—Minor (Linear Challenge)
1. Order Emergency Repair Crews to Location of Fault. Presence + Command/Engineering with a difficulty 0.
2. Scan Fracture. Reason + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
3. Use Repair Materials. Control + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
Total Threat Spend = 4

Secondary Hull Fractured—Major (Gated Challenge)
1. Order Emergency Repair Crews to Location of Fault. Presence + Command/Engineering with a difficulty 0.
2. Scan Fracture. Reason + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
3a. Initiate Emergency Containment Field Procedures. Control + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
3b. Use Repair Materials. Control + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
Total Threat Spend = 6

Secondary Hull Fractured—Severe (Gated Challenge)
1. Order Emergency Repair Crews to Location of Fault. Presence + Command/Engineering with a difficulty 1.
2. Scan Fracture. Reason + Engineering with a difficulty of 3.
3a. Initiate Emergency Containment Field Procedures. Control + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
3b. Use Repair Materials. Control + Engineering with a difficulty of 3.
Total Threat Spend = 9

Superstructure Infiltrated by Polaron Particles (Linear Challenge)
1. Complete Full Structural Scan. Reason + Engineering/Science with a difficulty 2.
2. Prepare Inversive Particle Pulse from Main Deflector. Control + Engineering/Science with a difficulty of 2.
3. Initiate Pulse to Purge Particles. Reason + Engineering/Science with a difficulty of 2.
Total Threat Spend = 6

Atmospheric Containment Lost on Deck (Gated Challenge)
1a. Emergency Evacuation of Affected Decks. Presence + Command with a difficulty of 2.
1b. Erect Emergency Containment Fields. Control/Presence + Engineering/Security with ship’s Structure + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
2a. Send in Repair Crews. Control/Presence + Command/Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
2b. Activate Secondary Controls Systems. Reason + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
3. Effect Repairs. Daring/Reason + Engineering a difficulty of 2.
Total Threat Spend = 10

Artifical Gravity Grid Offline on Decks (Gated Challenge)
1. Initiate Emergency Procedures for Non-Gravity Environment. Presence + Command with a difficulty 1, assisted by ship’s Structure + Engineering.
2. Evacuate Effected Sections. Presence + Command with a difficulty of 0.
3. Send in Emergency Repair Crews. Presence + Engineering with a difficulty of 1.
4a. Reroute Power to EPS Regulators. Reason + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
4b. Access Gravity Grid Controls. Reason + Engineering with ship’s Structure + Engineering with a difficulty of 2.
5. Recalibraate Artifical Gravity Grid and Restore Gravity. Control + Engineering with a difficulty of 3.
Total Threat Spend = 9

Sample Extended Tasks for Structural Failures

“Unlike normal Tasks, Extended Tasks cannot be overcome in a single attempt. Extended Tasks should be used sparingly, and only in situations where there is additional pressure or tension, such as during combat, or when there is only a limited amount of time to succeed. Extended Tasks use a mechanism similar to how damage is inflicted in combat, to represent activities that will take an uncertain amount of time and effort to complete, which is ideally suited to situations where there is an increasing peril or risk of harm the longer the activity takes to complete.” [Core Rulebook page 90.]

Unlike the Linear and Gated Challenge, I don’t think a GM needs to spend Threat for this. The Gamemaster and Players can negotiate the appropriate Attributes and Disciplines to use.

The Gamemaster decides how long they have to complete this Extended Task.

(For example, the artifical gravity is compromised after a geomagnetic wave impacts the ship. Bodies go flying in every direction as crew members flail about seeking to find a secure handhold. Engineering crews rush around trying to restore artifical gravity. And they have only 30 minutes to do this before the captain goes berserk due to having to catch bubbles of Earl Grey that float in the air!)

Restore Artifical Gravity
Work 12. Magnitude 2. Resistance 0. Difficulty 2.

Here are some other Extended Tasks that you could throw into your game:

Strutural Integrity Field Compromised by Inverse Warp Field
Work 16. Magnitude 4. Resistance 2. Difficulty 3.

Repair Microfractures from Gravitational Anomolies
Work 17. Magnitude 2. Resistance 2. Difficulty 2.

Fabricate Duranium Alloys to Replace Damaged Components
Work 16. Magnitude 3. Resistance 2. Difficulty 3.

Purge Theta Radiation That Is Degrading Hull Materials
Work 19. Magnitude 2. Resistance 2. Difficulty 5.

Retrofit Quarters to Make Ready for Visiting Ambassadors
Work 20. Magnitude 3. Resistance 3. Difficulty 4.

Heat Treat Hull Before Approaching Dangerously Close to Star
Work 20. Magnitude 4. Resistance 3. Difficulty 4.