Stofsk & Aaron Do A Landing Party Kit List

[Aaron]

Right, so Chris asked me to ponder what I would equip a landing party with from a military standpoint fo starfleet and I figured others might be interested.

So for the purposes of this thread I'm limiting myself to stuff they have or could reasonably have based on the show. As well as stuff we currently have, as I've never bought the lost tech crap.

I'm hoping to keep it between 50-75lbs and a duration of 72 hours.

A soldiers basic load iow.

[starku]

are you sure you're posting on the right forum

[Aaron]

are you sure you're posting on the right forum

Do you see Batman around here?

[starku]

Touché

[Stofsk]

better here than over there because over there first reply would be 'JUST GIVE THEM BODY ARMOUR OK AND TRIGGER GUARDS'

[starku]

pith helmets

[Aaron]

I am thinking of armour and a helmet but only for fragments and shit. Phasers are pretty powerful but theres still a tonne of crap flying around.

[Veef]

just give them jets with arms

[Sandman]

Personally, I'd implement some form of hazard gear for the purposes of hostile environments, as has been mentioned, though this would depend entirely on the environment. Also some general holsters and things for holding weapons and equipment that don't appear to be 'tiny pockets in the jumpsuit' would be pretty useful. It's all well and good to have an equipment loadout, but you must actually be able to actually carry it in a manner which is as unobtrusive as possible.

Other than that, vary it depending on the mission objectives, the nature of whatever obstacles you're expecting to see (and a couple you aren't), and other such along those lines. A 'standard equipment' loadout would be a little bit off when you're dealing with situations that can range as widely as starfleet's can, since the universe is a big, weird place full of strange new worlds and stranger new life. When your mission can involve a low-gravity moon without an atmosphere one week and a barren, rocky wasteland full of various dinosaur-esque fauna the next, you're going to have to develop less of a generalised system and more of an adaptive series of specialist loadouts simply to keep up with it all.

[Aaron]

Yes, LBE of some variety is a must. Probably a vest.

Certain things would be standard across the board, weapon, mags, water, rations, a small shelter, comms etc.

I'm trying to remember what exactly we had to hump. Not 100% applicable but gives me a base.

[Sandman]

You could implement a portable replicator into the small shelter, reducing some of the weight required for rations and water, and magazines would be very low-weight being pretty much literal 'power cells'. Frees up a lot of weight for other things. And your communication system comes as standard as your uniform's badge.

Come to think of it, they do have some general weight-reduction technology in starfleet which would be useful to possibly implement, depending on how humanoid-portable they can make it.

[Stofsk]

They do have holsters for their phasers, though I can't speak to how good/well implemented they are. In TOS it was a velcro system where all your gear could be put on the belt without much fuss, but I don't know how practical that would be. In TNG they had a cross-draw holster for their phasers, and also a similar system to hold their tricorders.

One other thing, phasers don't seem to ever run out of juice. You might not literally need to carry spare ammunition with you in that case. And when you can call up the ship in orbit and make use of their transporter, it might ease the personal load out stuff somewhat as you don't have to hike for hours a day to get from place to place. But on the other hand, it's not hard to conceive of a situation where you might not be able to rely on that ship in orbit.

I think TOS was better for this stuff than TNG. We did see hazmat suits and hostile enviro suits used a couple times, and other gear that fell outside the 'phaser, tricorder, and communicator' mainstays (like the phaser rifle, the cannon from the Cage, and the mortar from Arena). In TNG they rarely ever got past those three main props. Hell even the small type 1 phaser disappeared after awhile. In DS9 there was this episode where Worf and Jadzia had to hoof it through thick jungle on an alien planet to extract a cardie traitor. Both carried this pissy little back pack that seriously makes me wonder what the fuck you could possibly fit in it. EDIT Well I sort of exaggerate about the small size, but it's tiny in comparison to the kind of packs soldiers have these days. Or the kind you'd have for hiking purposes.

[Zod]

They do have holsters for their phasers, though I can't speak to how good/well implemented they are. In TOS it was a velcro system where all your gear could be put on the belt without much fuss, but I don't know how practical that would be. In TNG they had a cross-draw holster for their phasers, and also a similar system to hold their tricorders.

One other thing, phasers don't seem to ever run out of juice. You might not literally need to carry spare ammunition with you in that case. And when you can call up the ship in orbit and make use of their transporter, it might ease the personal load out stuff somewhat as you don't have to hike for hours a day to get from place to place. But on the other hand, it's not hard to conceive of a situation where you might not be able to rely on that ship in orbit.

I think TOS was better for this stuff than TNG. We did see hazmat suits and hostile enviro suits used a couple times, and other gear that fell outside the 'phaser, tricorder, and communicator' mainstays (like the phaser rifle, the cannon from the Cage, and the mortar from Arena). In TNG they rarely ever got past those three main props. Hell even the small type 1 phaser disappeared after awhile. In DS9 there was this episode where Worf and Jadzia had to hoof it through thick jungle on an alien planet to extract a cardie traitor. Both carried this pissy little back pack that seriously makes me wonder what the fuck you could possibly fit in it.

the phasers can run out of power, but you have to fire them a lot

in that one episode with the neanderthals in tos that worship the american flag captain tracy used up his phasers power packs by supposedly killing hundreds of yangs

also the hazmat suits in tos were kind of lulzy because they aren't hermetically sealed, or sealed at all

[Sandman]

Complete lack of canonicity aside, there was a system in the game Elite Force in which your character basically had a mobile transporter buffer strapped to their belt; pretty much pocket sized, but able to carry a literal armoury. It served as an in-game justification for the fact that you could carry as many different weapons as your keyboard had number keys.

From what we've seen, it isn't too far away from what the Federation already has... since they can and do carry small transporters aboard shuttles and runabouts.

[Aaron]

By small shelter I mean like "each dude carries a half a groundsheet that you zip together to make a small tent."

I'm thinking of stuff that would allow guys to operate without support and things like heavier and more comfortable shelters would be beamed down ala the MI in Starship Troopers.

The phaser packs I'd like to see as the basis of a common power system for a landing party. Run the guns, plug it into a uniform to power a heating or cooling unit, or a tricorder etc.

[Sandman]

They used a phaser pack to power up a shuttlecraft once, if I remember correctly. Or at least its communications system; I haven't actually seen the episode in question, but it shows that they have actually utilised stuff like that in the past as part of jury-rigging, at least.

[adr-admin]

I'd make sure they are armed with compassion, understanding, and a general do-gooder attitude.

[Aaron]

That sounds like socialism

[adr-admin]

communism

but i'm not even j/king

how many times in the show did they need more gadgets to save them?


and how many times did a Kirk or Picard speech save them?


Speaking of Kirk though, he would have been fucking screwed a few times if he didn't have Spock around. Telepathic communication is hella useful too.

[Aaron]

Yes I realise that but thats not what Chris asked me to do.

[Stofsk]

the phasers can run out of power, but you have to fire them a lot

in that one episode with the neanderthals in tos that worship the american flag captain tracy used up his phasers power packs by supposedly killing hundreds of yangs

I know - it was actually thousands of yangs. Still a good effort.

also the hazmat suits in tos were kind of lulzy because they aren't hermetically sealed, or sealed at all

Well if you're thinking about 'The Naked Time' then the lolworthy moment was when the other dude took his glove off.

pretty sure that taking hazmat protection off is a bad idea dude you're doing it wrong

The hostile vacc suit they wore on 'The Tholian Web' was fully sealed though.

They used a phaser pack to power up a shuttlecraft once, if I remember correctly. Or at least its communications system; I haven't actually seen the episode in question, but it shows that they have actually utilised stuff like that in the past as part of jury-rigging, at least.

Yeah Scotty drained a bunch of phasers and used the stored up energy as a fuel source for a grounded shuttlecraft in 'The Galileo Seven'.

I'd make sure they are armed with compassion, understanding, and a general do-gooder attitude.

omfg compassion has no trigger guards !!!

how many times in the show did they need more gadgets to save them?

Quite a few times really. But I'm not going 'lol let's make this shit tacticool' or anything. Even if all you're doing is peacefully exploring planets, you need tools to do that properly. And I wanted a sensible examination of this stuff that I can't get on TOB because every fucker over there wants to turn Trek into SPACE MUHREEENS LOL DON'T WEAR PYJAMAS TO WAR HURRRR

and how many times did a Kirk or Picard speech save them?

The problem there though is it fast becomes a cliche. How many robots did Kirk fool just by constructing a logical puzzle or, hilariously, by acting irrational like in 'I, Mudd'?

And on the other hand, what good was Picard's speech when he was captured by the borg? Pretty useless all things considered.

[adr-admin]

Yes I realise that but thats not what Chris asked me to do.

i'm a troll here to spam ur thread until hijack is successful

[Aaron]

lol

[adr-admin]

the stargate folks always seemed to have some cool shit

ropes, knives, blankets, guns of course


now what gets me about that is they sometimes mention "it's ten miles away from the gate"

and then of course they cut to the next thing

but imagine that, prolly a 3 hour walk or so, lugging all kinds of shit (medical stuff too a lot of times)

[adr-admin]

oh yeah and the magic chocolate they always have on hands