FACTORES O PROBLEMAS
3.8 Análisis de la familia de Normas ISO
C h a p t e r F iv e
couldn’t answer because its transmitter is not strong enough. Other celestial bodies, nuclear and man-made EM interference, and transmitter/
receiver antenna placement also affect wireless range.
Emergency Wireless Handset: These handsets are capable of short-term planet-side transmissions capable of reaching ships in orbit. They only have battery power available for two minutes of talk time, due to the enormous amount of power it takes to transmit their signal. These units are standard equipment in small craft, such as Viper and Raptor, part of their emergency ejection survival kits.
Hand-Held Wireless Communicators: These small transceiver units allow parties to speak to each other over short distances. Commonly referred to as walkie-talkies, they allow a user to talk and walk or perform other activities at the same time. Military walkie-talkies are usually more powerful (two-mile range) than their civilian counterparts (quarter-mile range).
Portable Wireless Transceiver: These units are used by the military when establishing a semi-permanent base camp during planet-side missions or exercises.
They have an effective range of 50 miles and can communicate with ships in orbit above their position.
The bulk of this system is contained in a backpack-sized unit that can be easily carried. Maximum range requires that a small dish antenna be set up.
Shortwave Wireless: This communication is generally one way, with powerful transmitters broadcasting a signal over an entire city or planet, or throughout a fleet of ships. News organizations use this form of wireless; the first reports about the Cylon invasion came through shortwave wireless. These transmissions are always broadcast within a certain bandwidth, and receiver units are usually only capable of picking up signals broadcast along that bandwidth.
Services
Before the Cylons invaded, life was pretty easy, ‘specially for those with money. Services like limousines, drying cleaning, house painters, maid service, and day care were all available throughout the Twelve Colonies. Travel was also a snap. Some people even took cruises out in space, aboard fancy liners like Cloud 9.
Now everyone has to do with what limited resources can be found, and nearly every able body is needed for work details. Services are much more low-key. Survivors got better things to do than dog walking,
nail polishing, or birthday party magic tricks.
Laundry: No one likes wearing dirty clothes.
Every ship in the fleet has at least basic laundry capabilities for its crew and passengers. Ships
like Galactica and Cloud 9 have huge laundries that are staffed by ship’s crew and run non-stop 24 hours a day. Laundry service throughout the fleet is free, but it can sometimes take a few days to get clothes back.
Military members are used to this, civilians less so.
Always write your name, room or bunk number, and ship somewhere on your clothes!
Mail: Sending a letter from Qualai, Caprica to Leonis City, Leonis was just a matter of a couple of days. That came to an end with the fall of the Colonies.
President Roslin has, in an effort to make things as normal as can be, ordered regular mail service between the various ships of the fleet. It’s now possible for a crewman on Galactica to send a letter to his honey on the Gemenon Traveller, though how the crewman found the time to court a girl on another ship is hard to say.
Medical Care: Basic medical care is easy to come by, as pretty much every ship has a doctor among the crew. By order of the President, medical services are free to all survivors. Basic care covers things like physicals, medication for minor illnesses, and on some ships, even minor surgeries. Advanced medical care is another thing entirely. The only ship in the fleet with the facilities for major medical care is Galactica.
This has set Dr. Cottle and his staff working overtime.
Unless it’s a flat-out emergency, the waiting list to see Galactica’s medical staff about major medical issues is weeks long, and getting longer the more time the fleet spends searching for a place to settle down.
Recycling: Used to be recycling was a matter of conscience and “saving the planet.” Now finite resources dictate recycling as a means of survival.
Water is filtered clean whether it was used in the head or to wash a Viper. Biological waste is used as fertilizer on the few ships that have the capability to growing things. All paper is pulped and reused. People are finding new ways to use things that would have been trash to them before the invasion. Recycling is on everyone’s mind, and new ways of recycling things are quickly disseminated throughout the fleet when discovered.
Unique Equipment
& Upgrading
The quartermaster cannot always scrounge up a given item, and some necessities are in short supply.
Still, just because something is unusual doesn’t mean it’s unavailable. You may want equipment that is not listed in this chapter, or you might want something upgraded, altered, or refitted to better suit your needs. When this comes up, your Game Master is the final arbiter of what is available and what can be built.
Gear
Here are some guidelines for creating or adjusting equipment.
s T e P o n e : d e s C r i b e i T
Figure out exactly what it is you want. Think about the description, decide what exactly you want it to do, and then talk it over with the GM. He needs to decide if it is something that he’ll allow in the game.
Hopefully, he says yes, and then you just need to work out the details.
If the device or piece of gear is allowed, how will the character get it? Can they build it? Buy it? Find it?
If what you want is something that the GM rules is commonly available, and is simply not described here, you can probably purchase it, or even scavenge it for free. Unless you’re lucky and it is free, there’s more work to do.
s T e P T w o : b a s e v a l u e
In a post-holocaust society of refugees, the value of goods is hugely important. You may not be able to buy it with cash, but you still need to assign it a value.
Anything that can’t just be picked up off the floor or out of a trash bin needs a value.
The easiest way to price new equipment is by comparing it to something that already has a value. Is the gear merely something that should be common, but isn’t on the lists of equipment? The GM sets a price he thinks is fair, based on the value of comparable goods. This is the “base value” of the item, and in some cases, that’s the final value as well.
If the new equipment is actually a combination of multiple items that already exist, combine their prices to find the base value. Then take an extra look—in addition to combining the functions of other items, is it also better than them? Is it smaller and more convenient? More durable? More powerful? If that’s the case, the combined base value should be adjusted.
s T e P T h r e e : i m P r o v e m e nTs
If the gear you want is “better” in some way, base value must be modified to get final value. The modifier used depends on the level of improvement desired.
The suggestions below should be altered by the Game Master if an individual situation calls for special consideration. If they feel a particular improvement should cost more or less than given here, apply a different modifier.
These modifiers also apply when upgrading standard, listed equipment. Want to take a standard
pistol and improve it by extending the clip and fitting it for explosive ammunition? Want a miniaturized computer that is just as powerful as the normal laptop version? Use the standard price as the base value, and modify accordingly.
Minor or “Flavor” Improvements: If the only improvement is a single extremely minor change, or the modification is purely aesthetic in terms of game mechanics (e.g., a pistol with five extra feet added to the range increment; a combat knife with a hollow handle containing a tiny fork, spoon, and mess kit; a waterproofed shirt), the Game Master should either modify the value by x1.1, to represent a very slight increase, or let it go at the base value. Some things aren’t worth sweating over.
Basic Improvements: Improvements that provide a single basic, low-level, but potentially significant bonus (e.g., +1 Step to the damage die of a weapon; a significant increase to the range increment of a gun;
a first aid kit with special supplies that add +1 Step to the user’s First Aid Skill rolls; a “survival pistol” that includes a GPS tracking unit or an emergency radio) should come with a modifier of x1.5.
Significant Improvements: Alterations that add major functions or abilities to a device (e.g., combining two or more important pieces of gear; miniaturizing a gadget by 50%; adding advanced stealth capabilities to a ship; giving a weapon +2 Step to its damage die or +1 Step to its attack rolls), or that include more than one basic improvement, apply a modifier of x3 to the base value.
High-End Improvements: If the changes made to a piece of equipment are drastic (e.g., extreme miniaturization; made “impossible” to break; more than a doubling of range), or many completely separate devices are being combined together, the GM should apply a modifier between x5 and x10. He should disallow improvements, at any price, that he feels are unfair, would break the story or the fun of the game, or go against the flavor or background of the Battlestar Galactica universe. Being able to create unique and interesting equipment is not a license to introduce technology that the Game Master feels should not exist or is unavailable to the characters.
Inferior Quality: Modifiers are also used to downgrade equipment. Want a shoddy, out-of-date, or backwards version for some reason? In those cases, use a modifier of x0.75 (for only moderately out-of-date equipment) to x0.1 (for extremely old pieces of junk that barely work).