Help with a series idea

I read the first 2 "A time too.." books a while back (they are complete and utter garbage, but that's a sidenote), and thought of an interesting campaign. In it Picard and Data investigate a galaxy class starship(The Asgard) in a area that had a large ship combat during the dominion war. It's missing a nacelle and has a gash to it's undrside. But is otherwise intact.
My thought is what if Picard put in a request to take a loot at her, and the pc's are sent to investigate the ship. I see sending 24 os so people on a runabout. This would mostly be engineers and operations specialists. Seeing as I have both the tech manual and the deck plans they could be used when the pc's are wandering about. I would probably give the ship to the pc's even though i want to have being relatively inexperienced. Say 2 years out of starfleet acadamy.
What i'm looking for is ideas as to what kind of stuff i can do while they try and repair/bring the Asgard back to operational status. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hmm to me a Galaxy class is a huge undertaking for a crew to be given, with a bare bones! But I guess it's doable.. it would just take them many months!

Largest problem.. the Nacelle.. The Galaxy class warp nacelle is something like 20% of it's mass, it's massive! Yes it looks small compared to others, but small is a relative context! They would have to have some sort of space tug or cargo ship of large size to get them a spare one.. it's simply NOT possible to make one, you would need a Starbase equivalent facility and Vertinium Cortenide ores.. superlatice sintering kilns are problems to make :D

I guess the mystery around her would be a large component.. It would be nice if they had to manually restart everything.. as if something had done all sorts of damage to the computer core or the ODN network.. walking round the ship of that size could be awsome.. especially as you say if you're using the deckplans.. gives you an excuse to try it all out :D

A few things I thought of when I read your post:

1. If I were you I would complicate things by introducing a time limitation of some sort. Maybe there is some sort of stellar phenomenon (black hole, etc) that the ship is drifting towards...or maybe something on the ship is going drastically wrong (a messed up warp core or something). Either way, I would try to have the PCs working against time to jack up the tension some.

2. I would have your team be part of some larger salvage/repair effort and have something happen to the rest of the team so that your party has to finish the job. This can relate to #1 above, especially if the danger is especially threatening.

3. Related to both of the above you might also explain the small team you're working with as being the only personnel available in the limited time. A larger, better equipped team say from Utopia Planitia or a Starbase might be on the way but your group is the closest...

As to challenges onboard ship there are many possibilities...depending a great deal upon the circumstances of the ship's initial evacuation. Could there be people still alive aboard that your team might rescue? Could there be a Dominion team that is trying to do the same things as your group? Or maybe Ferengi or Orion pirates? Prisonsers accidentally left in the security section? Escaped animals from a science lab?

Just a few thoughts...

A thought:
Refer to the TOS episode: Doomsday Machine.

The USS Constellation is found adrift, no crew (except her CO, found later), and no power.

Various damages include shattered bridge (had to use Aux Control), de-polarized antimatter, slagged impulse control system (replaced with Warp control system, for sluggish but useable controls) and slow recharge for the ship's systems from the impulse generators (used to maneuver and fire off a phaser bank, no idea about shields).

If there is a missing nacelle, address the problem of setting up a warp field capable of moving the ship to a nearby starbase in a resonable amount of time with a reasonable (definitions vary in this case) degree of safety.

Are there hull breaches? If so, is there power to the emergency force fields? If not, are the characters wearing environment suits? If not,and even if so, be prepared for someone to go for a walk outside, if they open the wrong door (a la Harry Kim when Voyager was 'twinned').

Are there chemicals spilled out of the normal containment? (plasma coolant)

Is the ship structurally sound enough to survive a flight under its own power?

Where are the crew? Did they abandon ship? Did someone take them then decide to come back for the ship? (did not read the book so bear with the question)

Was there an auto destruct initiated but interrupted by damage to the computer? If they repair the damage, will the countdown restart, and do they have the authority to override the sequence?

What else might the ship be carrying? ST:SCE had the USS Defiant (Constitution class) carrying an unknown (then) weapon used on a Klingon outpost. Turned out to be a Tholian weapon. Is there something else here that someone wants, or wants to keep lost?

Is the ship bait for a trap?

All this and more can be used in a story like this. I might have to try it myself.

R/
Archr