Aircraft Carrier...*Rant on*

[Patriot]

A few months ago , an Aircraft carrier was for sale on E-bay, well, my players have recently ( 2 weeks ago) got this wild hair up there backsides, and wish to buy it and turn it into a base, leaving Chicago, ....This to me is a bad Idea( but we are a democracy, and thay voted thats what they wish to do in game)...I am a bit lazy and dont feel like researching every port of call in the world. Of course this whole thing is led by the player I have ranted about before....and well, I am about on my last nerve.....13 years ago yesterday the team was created, and I have a bad feeling that it , with all its history may die soon..

Besides just straight out exiling the Player, any ideas my friends,

Rich Buckmaster
AKA Patriot

[ghost-angel]

If it's a US Nuclear Carrier (forget the exact class of ship that is) then only a very few ports can actually berth it.

San Diego,
Long Beach
Rhode Island (can actually dock six simultaneously)
there's one city in the NW, Portland or Seattle, forget which.
I believe there's a port in South Carolina, and there is at least one in the Gulf of Mexico.

Other than that - US Carriers don't dock anywhere. They float out at sea and either arilift or get a cruiser to run people back and forth to/from shore.

As for the problem -- oops, someone else bought it. It sank on delivery. It's not really sea worthy, or the engine is done broken - gone.

At some point a game switch from Democracy to Totalitarianism in order for the game to be saved is needed.

[Chuckg]

Not to mention, natch, the millions it will take to provision, maintain, and fuel the thing.

As well as the difficulties of hiring a properly-trained crew.

And worst of all -- beating off the massed piratical raids of the Warlord and every other supervillain mastermind who thinks an aircraft carrier base might be cool. A new version of "Under Siege" to roleplay every week! Won't your players feel so *privileged*!

Play your cards right and you can have them screaming in frustration at themselves -- "WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING?!?"

*evil DM chortle*

[Supreme Serpent]

Depending on the game and the characters, I think that this could actually be pretty cool.

Questions:
*Can they afford the upkeep and effectively crew it, esp with people who can handle being attacked by supervillains and sea monsters every week?

*Are they OK with seperating themselves from their private lives, or do they have the ability to get from Chicago to the carrier regardless of where it is extremely quickly?

If the answers are "yes", then I'd say go for it. Having a powerful hero group with a mobile base could be a real cool thing - "Uh oh, El Presidente, the Justice Foundation Carrier just parked itself outside our territorial waters - perhaps we should reconsider our policies?"

It sounds like the players have a nifty idea, but you're worried about it damaging the long-standing campaign. For that, I offer two suggested options:
1) Let them get the carrier, and somehow get it to the Great Lakes. They park it permanently offshore Chicago, effectively as a neat-looking island base.

2) Start a second game centered around the carrier. I used to have a UN-sponsored hero team called "Task Force", which could make a great name for a team with its own carrier. Give them an UNTIL/SHIELD/etc crew, and put them into the background of your main game, running them as a break from the main campaign.

[Cyberknight]

From what I can dig up, it might be fun to watch your players deal with the 'fun' of having such a 'cool' base. The carrier sold on eBay (based on the details provided by the seller) looks to be one of the Royal Navy's "Majestic" class ships, transferred to Australian service. Watching the heroes' faces when they try to refuel the beast should provide at least a few moments of pure delight...think about the price of a few hundred tons of high-grade fuel oil. Somebody just went from "Well off" to "Poor" in one easy stop.

Once they recover from that shock, introduce them to their new base's thousand or so "DNPC - Competent Normal" ship's crew. 1940's era tech was manpower-intensive, and steam turbine propulsion systems were an order of magnitude worse than most (if I recall correctly, lighting off one boiler was a task that required eight men, and there are *lots* of boilers).

If they're still interested, you might bring up the idea of upkeep. There's a lot of it. In fact, there's a metric TON of it. To make matters worse, the hull in question is ~60 years of age, which makes maintenance a high priority.

In short, start showing your players the down-side to the idea, and I'm fairly sure that they'll decide to go elsewhere...and if they don't, they've just opened up a whole host of plot hooks and one-off adventures for you.

Cyberknight

[lemming]

Warning: I'm going off my known to be flaky memory.

The carrier was an old British one, non-nuclear and if I recall properally took $700,000 to fuel up.
Decent range, could cross the Pacific.
I think the cost was $6 million?

[lemming]

Still for Sale
Not sure where I got the refuel cost, but I was only off by $500,000 on the price of the ship.

Crew would be 1000.

[BoneDaddy]

The joy of floating your heroes and their wards on an antique floating target can't be overestimated. Wouldn't the Poseiden adventure be better with a supervillain added into the mix, and a crew of heroes stuck inside with a crew they feel responsible for?

Dig out the BBB and resurrect The Maine - give him a hundred more points and buy off those activation rolls. Sink 'em, or try to anyway. Having a public, weak home base that is surrounded by an environment deadly to the crew has bad idea written all over it.

All great stories start with a bad idea.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by ghost-angel
If it's a US Nuclear Carrier (forget the exact class of ship that is) then only a very few ports can actually berth it.

San Diego,
Long Beach
Rhode Island (can actually dock six simultaneously)
there's one city in the NW, Portland or Seattle, forget which.
I believe there's a port in South Carolina, and there is at least one in the Gulf of Mexico.

Other than that - US Carriers don't dock anywhere. They float out at sea and either arilift or get a cruiser to run people back and forth to/from shore.

As for the problem -- oops, someone else bought it. It sank on delivery. It's not really sea worthy, or the engine is done broken - gone.

At some point a game switch from Democracy to Totalitarianism in order for the game to be saved is needed.

Bremerton, WA

[Captain Photon]

""Catapult: 1 Mactaggart Scott C – 3 steam powered 8.5 degree launch""

Just picture it! Now your flying characters can really zoom off in a hurry!

Wonder how far it could throw Grond, Ripper and other CU heavies....

[Vondy]

Listen to Nancy Reagan on this one...

[Whitewings]

Vancouver, BC could berth it, but I'm not sure if nuclear carriers are allowed into the port. So I think the thing to do would be to let them buy the carrier - and deal with the problems of owning it. Fuel, berthing fees, feeding and paying the crew (non-trivial, trust me), insurance, licensing, maintenance, etc. Unless someone in the group bought "Filthy Rich" as a Perk, they might not be able to afford the upkeep. And that's without any comic book complications.

[Jack Random]

Well, unless they are willing to cough up the points to make it a permanent base, then I would say make them pay through the nose for it money wise, and the first time some supervillain attacks their base, it's most likely going to go to the bottom. Now if they were willing to actually pay for this with character points, then I would give it a little more leeway, other than that it just ends up being expensive scenery. And we all know how long scenery lasts in the comics now don't we

[lemming]

The carrier in question is a rather small support carrier capable of holding 20 planes.
Dimensions: Overall length 212m; Beam 24.4m (hull waterline); Draft 7.15 m (full loaded)

Oh and the Steam Catapult:

0ne Mitchell Brown steam catapult with a capacity to operate aircraft up to 13,640 kgs, launching them at 110 knots.

[megaplayboy]

The carrier wouldn't need 1000 crew if they weren't planning on flying more than one or two aircraft off of it--probably could cut that number in half. If they just were going to have engine/propulsion/navigation related crew, plus support for them, they might even be able to get away with about 250 crew(about 60 points worth of followers).
In the alternative, if they have the money and a resident Stark-type on the team, they could automate most of the functions and get away with having maybe 5 dozen crew on the ship.
Just to point out, it would be safer for the public for them to have a base outside of the downtown area, anyway. Don't quite see how this really threatens the campaign.