The Federation, and most other spacefaring civilizations, are societies where few things are scarce. Many common items can be replicated or assembled from replicated components, meaning that few people experience situations where the right tools for a specific task are unavailable.
In game terms, most ordinary items take the form of an equipment trait, where the item’s name is the name of the trait (see page 251 for more details on traits). An equipment trait allows the owner to attempt tasks and activities they would not usually be able to attempt, or reduces the Difficulty of a task by 1. A tricorder, for example, enables the character to attempt tasks a tricorder would logically let them do, such as scanning for items that cannot be perceived by the naked eye, and makes tasks a tricorder would assist them with easier, such as analyzing the details of an environment.
Most items do not have individual or specific rules. Descriptions of a wide range of common items can be found later in this chapter, to provide guidance on how they work.
Obtaining items
Acquiring most items is not particularly difficult. Even a small starship has many convenient storage compartments containing a wide variety of commonly-used tools. Shipboard replicators can produce other items, or parts for those items, in a matter of moments.
A character always has access to their standard issue equipment. The presence of those items is assumed, and characters don’t need to take any additional action to be carrying those items. In addition, some items will be necessary for the task ahead; the gamemaster should grant these items for free. A common example of necessary items includes environment or EVA suits, without which a character cannot survive in certain environments.
Characters wishing to take items beyond standard issue must retrieve them from storage, replicate them, or otherwise spend time to collect them.
If the situation is not time-sensitive, or cannot get worse by spending time preparing, retrieving gear can be done for free: the character states which equipment they wish to obtain, and obtain it.
If the situation is time-sensitive, or could deteriorate by spending additional time preparing, obtaining equipment has a cost: the character states which items they wish to obtain, and then must spend Momentum to retrieve them.
OPPORTUNITY COSTS
Spending Momentum to obtain an item is an opportunity cost: time spent gathering extra items steals away potential opportunities the crew may have, or even creates opportunities for the situation to get worse. Whenever an item has an opportunity cost, it is listed as Opportunity X, where X is the amount of Momentum spent to obtain the item. Opportunity costs are an Immediate Momentum spend (see page 260)—meaning the Momentum spent does not have to come from a successful task, and can be paid for from the group’s Momentum pool or by adding Threat.
If the item is standard issue, or otherwise easily obtainable, the opportunity cost is 0.
If the item can be easily replicated, or is found in specific storage lockers, it has an opportunity cost 1. This is common for most engineering tools and medical equipment.
If the item is particularly bulky or cumbersome, highly specialized, or requires significant effort to set up, it has an opportunity cost 2. This covers items like bulky environmental gear, tools used to move heavy or volatile cargo, and items found in a specific lab or storage unit, or which must be replicated and assembled.
Any item which would be rarer or more inconvenient to obtain can only be obtained at the gamemaster’s discretion, usually through use of a task: perhaps to create or assemble a highly specialized device, or to negotiate to use a one-of-a-kind item that someone else needs for their own work. It may even require inventing a new device, potentially requiring several tasks or a challenge to create.
Tools which are more specialized or more difficult to obtain may provide more valuable benefits in the right circumstances: a medical tricorder provides a trained user with useful information about a patient’s health, but a detronal scanner can provide detailed genetic analysis that a medical tricorder cannot. There aren’t as many detronal ship as there are medical tricorders, so the more specialized tool has an extra cost to obtain.
ESCALATION COSTS
Some items—most commonly weapons, destructive equipment, or anything that signifies aggression—may have an additional cost, called an escalation cost. Escalation costs are paid by adding Threat, to reflect potentially escalating an uncertain or dangerous situation. Items with an escalation cost are listed with Escalation X, where X is the amount of Threat added when the item is obtained.
If the item is a small sidearm, such as a hand phaser (type 1 or type 2), knife, or other single-handed blade which can be holstered or sheathed, or if armored pieces are part of your standard uniform (such as with Klingons and Cardassians), the escalation cost is 0.
If the item is large and imposing (such as a large melee weapon like a bat’leth) or demonstrates an expectation of greater-than-normal danger (such as heavier body armor), the escalation cost is 1.
If the item significantly increases the combat effectiveness of the character—such as a rifle, heavy weaponry, explosives, or personal forcefield projectors—the escalation cost is 2.
Items may have both opportunity costs and escalation costs.
Multiple Items
When a character obtains an item, they obtain one of that item. If they wish to obtain additional identical items, they must pay the opportunity cost for each one.
Escalation costs are not increased in this manner. A single escalation cost is paid regardless of how many of a specific item is obtained, but if a character wishes to obtain multiple different items, they must pay the escalation cost for each of those different items, where applicable.
Standard Issue Gear
A few items are so ubiquitous among Starfleet personnel that the rules assume their presence as a matter of course. The items a character gains as standard equipment during character creation are regarded this way. For non-Starfleet characters, this list of standard gear may differ—Klingon warriors customarily wear armor, for example, and several cultures use disruptors rather than phasers—but most of these differences are minor. The gamemaster determines these variations in unusual cases.
It also falls to the gamemaster to determine whether a given item’s effects are assumed (and thus already included in the Difficulty of a task, or the ability to attempt the task in the first place), or if using the item affects the task further. If an item’s effects are assumed, the absence of that item usually makes tasks more difficult or even impossible.
Carrying Capacity
Characters can only carry so much at any one time. In addition to their standard equipment and any equipment the character is wearing, a character may carry up to two items at once, or a single large item (or two-handed weapon). A character may also wear a single suit (armor or an EVA suit). A character may try to carry more than this, but each additional item imposes a trait (Overburdened) on the character, which hinders the character’s physical activities and may prevent them from taking certain actions (you can’t wield a weapon if your hands are full, for example).
Personnel Support
While not technically equipment, personnel can be used in a comparable manner—a team of engineers or scientists can help a character, making tasks easier or allowing them to attempt activities they could not perform alone. And, just like equipment, characters can obtain assistants with relative ease, so long as they’re willing to take the time to gather those personnel.
A team of personnel—a half-dozen or so personnel from a single department—can be obtained in the same way as a piece of equipment. It serves as a trait in the same way as an item of equipment, with the name of the trait noting the specialty of the team (such as Science Team or Medical Team), and has opportunity cost 1.
Security teams, which are more likely to be useful in combat as they are armed, also have escalation cost 1.
Personnel used in this way are distinct from supporting characters—a team advantage represents a group of assistants, while a supporting character is an individual with more involved rules (see page 146).