New Equipment (w/DaiMon BonK)
Survival Vest
During the Dominion War it was found that the standard Survival Suit, while being very modern and effective in most circumstances was not designed for situations of the extended duration which many Starfleet personnel found themselves in behind Dominion frontlines. A case in point being the relative lack of mobile personnel equipment which the crew of a captured Jem’Hadar warship, which had been sent on a important covet mission, had found themselves without after its crash landing. Not to mention the countless crews of smaller shuttles and fighters experienced when forced to crash or land on undeveloped and/or often hostile worlds.
The Suits main problem was that it could not be quickly put on, in fact the suit was meant to be worn instead of the normal duty uniform in when needed. Of course this meant in emergency situations the suit was often left aboard vessels while its crew hastily evacuated it before destruction or its damaging in crash landing. Mid way through the war Starfleet Quartermaster Corps recognized and introduced a new protective garment the Survival Vest.
In fact the ’new’ vest was not new, Starfleet had used similar coats in the 23rd and early 24th century for away team missions. Since the coats official demise many in Starfleet had used similar garments bought at personal expense. The Starfleet QMC realized its own mistake and the that the obvious need was still there and quickly brought back the concept, at first simply reintroducing the older heavy survival jacket in the new black and gray color pattern. However this was not considered satisfactory and a new vest which took in to account the new “smart cloth” abilities of the new duty uniform was introduced in late 2374.
The vest usually came in one of three colors, white, green or tan with several pockets holding survival gear. Built into the vest was an advance homing beacon which gave off a pulse of nano-information on the wearer (such as medical condition and current location) which could be picked up by nearby Starfleet or allied vessels within 1 light year. However by wars end most Dominion detections devices could pick up the beacons signature and most wearers stop turning it on, but it continued to be used by long duration away teams when issued.
The vest comes equipped with a type I phaser, a small first-aid survival pouch, communicator, all purpose compass, MGE, tricorder, 30 feet of .5 inch high tension rope, 1 kilograms of rations (6 days worth), Shelter half and a small water purification unit (6 days duration). As its systems are ’dumb’ the vest requires no power and thus has unlimited duration limited only by the power cells of its equipment. It provides 1 point of armor for the wearers torso and absorbs up to 3 points worth of damage in tears and punctures. Like the survival suit the Vest can be used with a breathing mask.
Survival Vest
Armor: 1
Size: Various
Mass: .5 Kilos unloaded
Duration: Unlimited
DaiMon Bonks market price guide: This survival vest been produced by various civilian manufactures and usually cost 30 to 50 credits on an open market, civilian produced versions tend to lack the type I phaser, Starfleet issued communicator (replaced with a civilian one) and tricorder, (thoiugh you should have no problem finding substitutes) though pockets for them exist typically. Market prices for fully equipped Starfleet issued versions tend to cost high around 100 to 150 dollars
First Aid Pouch
The First Aid pouch is simply a basic medical kit that relays more on tried and true equipment & drugs rather than the standard medical tricorder and more harder to replicate drugs and are able to be replicated in whole. There are two versions of this pouch, survival (usually found in survival suits and vest) and combat (usually issued to RRT and Ground Force personnel). Both pouches grant a bonus to a character with the First Aid (Combat/Wound Trauma) skill & specialization during appropriate skill tests until the supplies it contains run out. Each kit consists of and grants a bonus of:
First Aid Survival Pouch - consists of a Field Dressing sprayer with 5 charges, a Hypo with 5 doses each of an antitoxin, a medium stimulant, and Sterlite and 2 charges each of a medium sedative and Tri-ox compound. This kit grants a +2 bonus to First Aid (Combat/Wound Trauma) skill tests.
Size: 6 inches long, 5 inches wide, and 2 inches thick
Mass: 3 lbs
Duration: limited to contents.
Combat (or Assault) First-Aid Pouch - usually issued to RRT and Ground Force assault troops comes with 2 old style compress dressing/bandages, a dressing sprayer with 2 charges, and a hypo with one charge each of a heavy sedative and Sterlite. This pouch grants a +1 bonus to First Aid (Combat/Wound Trauma) skill tests.
Size: 6 inches long, 5 inches wide, 3 inches thick
Mass: 2.5 lbs
Duration: limited to contents
DaiMon Bonks Price Guide: First Aid pouches usually tend to be wide spread on markets and produce little profit for a true Ferengi, however if you are stuck with these things, and fortunately many warring governments desire them greatly, sell them at a price of 10 (Cardassian, Klingon) to 20 (Federation, Romulan) credits for a box of 10 pouches regardless of their kind and origin, though stay away from the Klingon versions as they only have a Dressing and Hypo with a strong neural paralyzer or sedative!
Shelter Half
A thin piece of smart material, usually made of the same material as the duty uniform though much, much more thinner (.05 of an inch thick) is used as a blanket (as well as a sleeping bag) and one half of a four person pup style tent when joined with another shelter half. Since many shelter half’s come in a natural camouflage pattern many ground troops have come to cut holes in their centers and wear them as a poncho style piece of garment so much so that by the end of the Dominion War Starfleet QMC had began to issue the half with a self-sealing pre-cut reinforced hole for this function.
Size: 3.5 feet wide, 5 feet long (folds into a 6 inch square, 3 inches thick)
Mass: .2 kilos
DaiMon Bonks Price Guide: Shelter Half’s are a favorite of the kiddies nowadays as Federation children want to “live” like daddy and mommy did doing the War when they go camping by sleeping on the cold damp ground, comfy. Sell these suckers for at least 15 credits for a used one and 30 for a new or unused one.
Compass
The age old device used for navigation has little changed save for the materials found in it. Most come with an “astro” directional finding kit to help navigate by the stars as well nowadays turing them into basic naval sextons.
Size: varies from hand held to tripod mounted.
Mass: varies as well from almost nothing to 5 kilograms.
DaiMon Bonks Price Guide: Trinkets, simple and pure, save for some of the larger ones, typically made by Bolians and Bajorans which can almost earned a healthy 200 to 500 credit profit for their tripod mounted versions. If you charge that customer who only walks around your store hoping you will give them something for free charge them a credit, but otherwise just throw it in a good sale as a prize after they buy one of you lottery tickets and ‘win‘.
Other stuff for the survival kit.
Cool ideas!
I had a couple of things you might want to add to the survival kit:
I wonder if 1/2" (12mm) is too thick for the rope, especially if it's only 30' (9m) long. Manufacturers are now experimenting with synthetic spider-silk. This material is stronger than steel and stretches better than nylon. It seems likely that by Federation times, they would have something at least this good. Of course, if the rope is too thin, the kit might need to include special gloves to make it possible to use the rope without injury.
Perhaps 30' of 3/16" cord (good to 500 lbs) and thin climbing gloves?
In the TOS episode "Friday's Child", McCoy's medical kit contained magnacyte nitron tablets. If struck a sharp blow, these ignite. By themselves, they'll burn for several minutes, producing light equivalent to a small torch or several candles. Presumably, they could be used to ignite flammables. Of course, the phaser could also be used for that purpose, but if the survival user is expected to use the phaser for purposes other than self-defense, the vest should probably include an extra power pack. And, of course, the tablets would be of use in the civilian survival vest versions.
You might also add a small flashlight to the kit, with an optional red lens.
When the survival vests are in storage, their tricorders should be linked to some sort of shipboard subprocessor. This permits the ship's main computer to update them, so that they would have maps and other data about likely planets, shipping routes, beacon frequencies and so forth. The 24th century version of the plastic coated map.
Powered equipment should have interchangable power cells, so that you can (if necessary) forgo the flashlight to get an extra day of water purification. And so forth.
Of course, for all this gear, DaiMon Bonk will want to charge a premium price :)
