Hazard Team

[Troy_Of_Borg]

Has anyone made stuff based on Star Trek Elite Force games.

Just like to know.

I have been thinking of making them in the near future.

After I get Elite Force 2.

[Tobian]

As a concept it's quite a good one as it means you can put together a group of 'newbie' characters, straight out of the academy as it were, and put them right into the heat of the action, rather than have to build in excuses why they seem to be in command of the starship

The only thing I disliked about Elite forces (1 - I have not played 2), from a technical standpoint is the 'pattern buffer' idea, since it makes no sense, even if it makes the game simpler.

[redwood973]

While I have heard of the game, I do not know anything about it. What is a "Hazard Team?"

[Lancer]

And what's the "pattern buffer" idea?

[Dan Gurden]

A Hazard Team is a specially assigned away team. Living and training together, the group is designed to take on the most dangerous away team missions. those with a high probability for combat...

this protects the senior bridge crew from unecessary risk as they are also cross trained and assigned for technical skills, and the like. Thus they can be assigned even when you dont need a Commando team.

It is exactly the same concept as the Old StarFleet Battles idea of a Prime Team, and while good for a starting group does then cause the problems of how to get rid of them once the characters have been promoted into the Starship Chain of Command and now find it difficult getting on the Away Teams...

Yes its a good idea, and one I am implementing (as a specialisaed Away team, rather than the Special Forces concept of the Hazard Team, but thats just the way I see Trek)...

The Pattern Buffer is a small belt device that stores equipment and weapons as a transporter pattern until required when it can be materialised. Allowing Team Members to carry an awful lot of gear... Rather than limited to a Phaser/Tricorder Combo.

This is a Very small unit, and while we know that TNG Transporters and Pattern Buffers are roughly 3 times the size of a Human Being (just look at the tech manual, and say to yourself "and thats without a power supply"), This means that for Standard Trek Tech, yes the Pattern Buffer is unfeasable... but for advanced tech (like the Holo Emitter) it is not so bad... I wouldn't allow it, but it might become a MacGuffin in one of my games...

The only real problem with the ideas resented are that they go against the grain of the TV Shows, and that is, I suppose, the worst that can be said. Because they are both very good concepts.

But for me. Trek. Is the main crew, the hroes, doing pretty much everything and leading their valiant crew through the danger, armed with nothing but a Tricorder, a Phaser and their Wits and Imagination...

[redwood973]

They should have named it something else. . .Hazard Team makes it sould like a damage control team.

[Tobian]

Yes basically I couldn't have put it better myself the pattern buffer thing really does stretch balievability, but then the type 1 shuttles have no where near the space available for a pattern buffer either, though in that instance it is strictly an emergency transporter, so it may not have a pattern buffer at all (as the Cardassian teleporters on DS9 didn't initially) bt then that comes full circle

Yes technically the concept goes slightly against the grain in in a technical sense, because usually the heroes go. But in a lower level character campaign it gives them an excuse to get into the action. Being an ensign on a big ship could be boring - or dangerous if you're the 'red shirt of the week' assigned to protect the captain!

One possible workaround for the pattern buffer idea would be to have the availability of an object, such as a Borg internal transporter node, preprogrammed to beam items too and from the ship; which is fine so long as no one raises the shields (you could use the spaceship rules of the two D6 matching to detemine if it's still passing through) - and like the portable EMH emmitter, it wouldn't be able to be replicated because it was too advanced.

[Ergi]

On the pattern buffer:

In Voyager (one of the DaVinci episodes) and Nemesis we have seen that a an experimental transporter can be extremely small. I don't like that, it just feels wrong that something that small could have such powers. But apparently it is possible to build a pattern buffer that small. The main problem I see in using it to store things, besides the energy issue, is that E=m*c². This means that everything stored in the pattern buffer should increase its mass.
Better speak with your ship's doctor about spine problems before putting a 50 kg weight on your belt.
And, as I've said in an other thread some months ago, you better be careful not to enter an area flooded with radiation impairing your pattern buffer unless you have already taken out all equipment you might need.

[Tobian]

"One" the 27th century Borg drone had an internal transporter device, though of course it needn't have had a buffer so to speak, and it was 27th cenury technology!

There was an episode of Voyager - the one with the Devore imperium; where they simply diffuse the mass of the people into an empty space, possibly suspending them in subspace somehow. To me this made no sense, as we have been told before that people can only retain in a buffer for so long, before their pattern Degrades (Except Scotty, but then he always defied the laws of physics despite his claims!) So supsending them outside of a buffer seems too much. Now this could work, if you took that at face value, but then again you come back on yourself because how do you 'carry round' a bunch of loselelly associated ionised particles - any disruption to the area would mean something might be damaged or destroyed.

If the Device was just a replicator you again come accross the problem of energy and mass. A Replicator can transform a thing of equivalent mass to another thing of equivalent mass.. so again where do you put your mass!

the other option which I am loath to point out is that it is simply in subspace, and it is essentially a subspace paradigm connected to your belt - yes we are basically talking a magical bag of holding, or tardis like effect. Now we have seen such phenomenon - there was a pocket solar system inside a subspace fold in Voyager.. but the problem always comes back to the immense ammount of energy you need to create such a thing - and how on earth would you transport it!

I ignore that 'thing' in Nemesis as it was not explained nor makes any sense for all of the above reasons !

[Polanski]

RRT all the way

[Jesse Heinig]

I like hazard teams, but given the current relations between Viacom and Activision (that is, the lawsuit), I don't know how much Paramount would want to support them.

[Tobian]

They are unlikelly to appear in any published form from Decipher, unless they are heavily modified, as at the end of the day, Decipher don't hold an Activision liscence (so far as i know?)

If you want to run them in your own game and come up with character backgrounds and edges etc which are either just for yourself or for the rest of us on the web then that would be cool

[Mac417]

I have to agree with Polanski... Rapid Response Teams are already established in Decipher Trek, albeit minutely, and they effectively fit the role of Hazard Teams. I saw the Elite Force comic from DC/Wildstorm and the first thing I thought was "RRT."

--Mac

[Capt. Anderson]

In my campaign the HAZARD Team is just a more heavily armed version of an away party that are only used on Galaxy class starships. I even wrote the stats for the HAZARD suits seen in the Elite Forces game.

I see the RRT as a larger military orginization that is deployed in much larger numbers.

[BouncyCaitian]

Federation Rapid Response Team = FRRT = really annoying Acronym which all more earthy types will abuse to amuse to no end.

I prefer Special Operations Teams or Groups. Simple straighforward, and relatively neutral title.