Crew Playbooks (IB)

Starfox's Blades in the Dark hack

For what is more sacred, or more strongly protected by every sanction, than the home of each citizen?

— Cicero, De Domo Sua 109

Base

The standard base is a Spin Pod, a independent living unit meant to connect to a ship or spin habitat to gain spin gravity and other services. A starting base generally needs to rely on its host for life support, energy, and security. As you invest in the base you become more and more independent and can end up as an interplanetary carrier.

☐,☐ Life support

Basic life support recycles air and remains stable for a few days. ☐ indicates you sustain air and water for a prolonged time. ☐☐ extends this to full life support. The food may not great, but it is there.

☐,☐ Power

Basic power is batteries for a day of isolation, sufficient for moving from dock to dock. ☐ Serious battery reserve that can supply you for weeks. ☐☐ A D-D fusion reactor provides full power for years at a time.

☐,☐ Maneuver

The starting base has arcjet thrusters for docking maneuvers. ☐ Ion engines for station-keeping and slow travel. ☐☐ Adding fusion rockets, essentially turning the base into a spaceship, but without artificial gravity. Significant travel requires external reaction mass and shielding; ways top do this are included.

☐,☐ Gravity

This allows you to use a bolo ring to generate Artificial Gravity on Ships. Docking at a habitat provides more comfortable artificial gravity than a a bolo ring does. ☐ Wire tethers and a fabric transfer tube. Functional but vulnerable to operator mistakes. ☐☐ Telescopic truss which is much more stable and less accident prone.

☐,☐ Camouflage

The starting base has a nondescript front and registration that outlines its abilities. ☐ Adds a front camouflaging as a different kind of installation, including schooled registration entries. A deep database search will uncover the deception. ☐☐ A false front and registry entries from a polity, leaving no paper trail corruption to be detected. Requires the help of a friendly or corrupt polity.

☐,☐ Security

This is about physical protection and electronic hardening. The starting base is environmentally sealed with basic protection from physical and electronic intrusion. ☐ Defensive shell provides a buffer against any connection to the host and a central defense around the bridge. ☐☐ Defense in depth with layers and layers.

Assets

☐,☐,☐,☐ Investment

Reduces the base cost of improving Tier, before multiplication. The normal cost to advance in Tier is 8 Credits times the Tier you want to advance to. Investments reduce the base costs, it now becomes (8 - Investment) x Tier. You can have a maximum of four upgrades in Investment, this includes Crew Special Abilities that allow you to count other things as if they were Investments.

Installations

Utilities available in your base.

☐,☐ Quarters

The crew and expert cohorts can camp out in the base with little comfort. ☐ Staterooms for crew and experts, barracks for cohort gangs, limited communal areas. ☐☐ Apartments for crew and experts, staterooms for gangs.

☐,☐,☐,☐ Training

☐ Data drills; allows training of Insight actions. ☐ Gimballed facilities, allows training of Prowess actions. ☐ Networked facilities, allows training of Resolve actions. ☐ Open virtual world, allows Playbook training. Having filled out all four: Instruction Net, allows learning actions to rating four.

☐,☐ Vault

The basic blockchain vault can hold 4 Credits. ☐ can hold 8 Credits. ☐☐ can hold 16 Credits.

☐,☐ Venue

Social areas. ☐ Venue with focus in one area, such as gambling or stage performances. ☐☐ Multi-venue supporting several types of entertainment.

☐,☐ Prison

Needed to hold captives securely at an acceptable level of comfort. Without this you can lock prisoners in a stateroom, but they can access ventilation ducts and electronic connections fairly easily. ☐ A single cell capable of securely holding 2 captives at crew comfort levels and up to four captives if you cram them in. ☐☐ A prison block with half a dozen cells.

☐,☐ Workshop

Every base has 3D printers and design software can run on a Neme. Limited to personal gear and to Quality less than your Tier. ☐ Multiple 3D printers increase capacity, and larger ones allows the printing of personal vehicles. Can design at Quality up to 2 higher than your Tier. ☐☐ 3D printer robots can build structural frames in vacuum, allowing large construction and repair work, tough much slower than a true wharf. Can design at any Quality rating, but print quality is still limited to your Tier +2.

☐,☐ Medical

Everyday medicine includes spray skin used for bandages, various injections as medicine and simple gene therapy, and hardening spray for bracing broken bones. ☐ Basic medical pod, promotes healing and can handle cosmetic gene therapy and age rejuvenation. Can handle "learned" Posthuman upgrades. ☐☐ A number of basic medial pods equal to your Tier and one advanced medical pod. Required for more radical generic alteration, significant changes in height, and initial adaptation to "learn" Posthuman upgrades.

Vices

This allows the practice of a vice inside the base, important for long voyages.

☐ Faith, ☐ Gambling, ☐ Luxury, ☐ Obligation, ☐ Pleasure, ☐ Stupor, ☐ Weird.

☐,☐ Hangar

Shuttles and other small craft can be attacked to hull exits, allowing crew to move into and launch the vehicles. But such vehicles require EVA to be serviced and a ship mounting them cannot enter atmosphere. ☐ A hangar capable of holding a number of small craft equal to twice your Tier. Manual repair work can be done, but nothing fancy. ☐☐ Twice the hangar space and a full repair shop.

Vehicles

Vehicles available to your crew.

☐,☐ Runabouts

These are vehicles for local travel. Any base provides personal scooters for personal travel in only. ☐ Personal vehicles. Terran wheeled and fixed wing. Lunar wheeled, gliders, and rocket hoppers. Micro rocket hoppers. ☐☐ Utility vehicles. Terran wheeled trucks busses, tracked terrain vehicles. Lunar heavy rocket hoppers, shape-memory alloy wheeled terrain vehicles. Micro larger rocket hoppers, low-powered shuttles.

☐,☐ Shuttles

There are no shuttles in the basic base. ☐ A single shuttle for passengers or cargo, carries 2 crew and passengers equal to scale for your Tier (p 221); every 2 seats taken out allows one ton of cargo. ☐☐ A number of shuttles equal to your Tier. Hard to run such a fleet without a Hangar.

☐,☐ Fighters

There are no fighters in the basic base. ☐ A single battery-powered fighter. Crew of 2. ☐☐ A number of fighters equal to your Tier, powered by T-D fusion or battery. Hard to run such a fleet without a Hangar.

Quality

This improves the Quality of the crew's gear in certain categories. ☐ provides quality equal to Tier +1. ☐☐ provides quality equal to Tier +2. This does not stack with improved gear provided by playbooks.

☐,☐ Imperio, ☐,☐ Limes , ☐,☐ Forum

Cohorts

☐ Cohort. This can be taken any number of times, gaining additional cohorts or improving an existing cohort. You can have a maximum of 2 cohorts for each Tier you have.

These are the statistics each cohort has. The first choice; is the cohort a Team or an individual Expert?

☐ Team, a group of lesser allies with numbers equal to scale for your tier (p 221). They have to choose one of six types, Agents social, Engineers construction, Marines combat and breaching, Scientists analyze, Security intrusion and defense, Winghands pilot and crew.

On an operation a team provides Scale, which improves either Effect or Position. They can also do Actions appropriate to their role, dice equal to Tier, to a maximum of 3d. Judge this generously and factor in details such as specialty and background. Outside this area, they roll half as many dice, rounded down.

☐ Expert, one individual that provides competence in a specific field. The initial field is chosen when the Expert is recruited. Experts are more flexible than teams but do not provide scale.

Edges and Flaws

A cohort has the option of starting with one flaw and one edge. As more upgrades are allocated to a cohort, it can get rid of a flaw or gain an additional edge.

Edges: ☐ Armored absorbs damage, ☐ Cross-trained gain an additional specialty, ☐ Elite +1d on all Actions — can exceed 3d, ☐ Fearsome intimidating, ☐ Independent can act on its own, ☐ Loyal hard to corrupt.

Flaws: ☐ Ally loyal to a friendly faction, ☐ Compromised reports to an enemy faction, ☐ Intelligent expert system, animal, non-sentient, ☐ Principled lives by an ethos, ☐ Savage tends to act overreact, ☐ Unreliable Tier roll 1-3 unavailable. 4-5 available for downtime. 6 available, ☐ Wild debauched and loud-mouthed.

Damage Levels

(☐ Armor conditional level, no penalties), ☐ Weak reduced effect, can still give scale or assist, ☐ Impaired cannot act or assist, can still give scale, ☐ Broken cannot do anything, needs command to get away.

Operation Types

Each operation has a general approach and a single key Detail the crew supplies to make the engagement roll. Pick a type, give the detail, and we cut in at action.

Assault

Kick in the door, break the line, or blow the hatch. Direct action against a target.

Detail

Point of attack (where the hit lands).

Examples: breaching a habitat bulkhead, ramming a convoy escort, hard-docking a boarding collar, demolishing a power spine.

Deception

Trick, misdirect, or impersonate to reach the objective.

Detail

Method of deception.

Examples: spoofed transponder and livery, forged cargo manifest, ghost-comm to lure patrols, honeytrap meet at a cantina.

Science

Use research, tools, or prototypes to solve the problem or exploit a weakness.

Detail

Method/device or hypothesis you’ll employ.

Examples: mapping swarm to expose a hidden airshaft, tailored catalyst to foul a refinery loop, resonance scan to crack a safe, countermeasure to blind a sensor net.

Social

Charm, bargain, or lean on relationships until doors open and signatures flow. You work the room—hab lounges, union halls, and magistrate chambers—turning favors and face into outcomes.

Detail

Social connection (who or what gets you in).

Examples: patron’s letter gets you into the gala; a dockmaster vouches you past customs; a union caucus trades their vote; a wake becomes a truce parley; first-contact tea at the airlock.

Stealth

Avoid notice while infiltrating, extracting, or planting something.

Detail

Entry point (how/where you slip in).

Examples: EVA crawl via radiator truss, maintenance shaft from the rimhouse dock, suit-camo through a shadowed crater, silent approach on a dark taxi.

Transport

Move people or cargo safely through contested space or terrain.

Detail

Route (path and conveyance).

Examples: sudden change of ballistic window, run the ice-tunnel under the regolith, low-emission drift past pickets, shield a barge through debris fields.