Repairs, Maintenance, and Salvage

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This chapter covers repairing a damaged ship during and after a fight, yard repairs and their prices, jury-rigs, salvaging wrecks and selling what comes out of them, and finding parts. The maintenance schedule and the consequences of skipping it are in Chapter Twelve.

Damage and Repair

Hull Damage, System Damage, Hull Points, and System Points are defined in Chapter Three, which is the only copy. Damage counts up: Hull Damage accumulates toward the ship's Hull Points, and System Damage toward its System Points. Repair removes damage from those tracks.

For repair purposes, read the ship's Hull Damage against its Hull Points:

System Damage has no yard-only level. It can be repaired in the field at any amount.

The GM narrates damage as it lands so the crew can decide what to protect: the port screen emitter housing is gone and the damage-control board is screaming, not "5 Hull Damage and 1 System Damage to Defensive Control."

Repairs During Combat

Emergency Repair

Emergency Repair is an Engineering station action; its full action block is in Chapter Fifteen. It removes System Damage only, never Hull Damage. Its difficulty:

Emergency Repair removes damage faster than the full repair rule (each Boon beyond the first removes 1 more System Damage, where a full repair removes 1 per net Success). That is a Void Drifters rule for combat and does not change field or yard repair.

Damage Control

Damage Control is an Engineering station action (Chapter Fifteen). It stops one ongoing effect: a fire, a breached compartment, or a spreading cascade. Its difficulty:

The Automatic Repair Cap

Some systems remove System Damage without a crew check: a Damage Control component at rating 2 (Chapter Ten), the Repair Drone Network, and the Military Damage-Control Grid (Chapter Eight). All automatic sources together remove at most 1 System Damage per round. A ship with more than one gains no extra removal; their other effects still apply. Emergency Repair is a crew action, not automatic, and is not limited by the cap.

Boon Dice that repair-support systems add to crew repair checks do not stack. A check takes the largest single bonus.

Repairs After Combat

Emergency Patches

An Emergency Patch makes a system that was put out of action work again until proper repair. It removes no damage.

Check: Craft, at the Emergency Repair difficulty above. Time: 1 hour.

Success: The system works until the end of the next encounter. Each 2 Boons extend it by one more encounter.

Failure: The system stays out of action. The engineer may try again.

The GM spends Banes on a patch as follows:

• The patched system adds 1 Heat each time it is pushed.

• The system works, but the ship takes 1 System Damage at the end of the next encounter.

• Using the system takes an extra Maneuver from its operator.

• Checks using the system under pressure add 1 Bane Die .

• A connected system stops working until the end of the next encounter.

• The patch fails at the worst moment of the next encounter, chosen by the GM.

Field Repair

Field repair removes Hull Damage and System Damage with the crew's own work and parts, away from a yard.

Limit: Hull Damage can be repaired in the field only while the ship's Hull Damage is no more than half its Hull Points. A ship with Heavy hull damage needs a yard before any of its Hull Damage can be removed. System Damage can be repaired in the field at any amount. A hull with Kharos Signature damage control may make yard-only repairs in the field at Hard (Chapter Five).

Requirements: A Workshop module for Hull Damage. System Damage can be repaired without one, one difficulty step harder.

Check: Craft. Each net Success removes 1 Hull Damage or 1 System Damage, and each 2 Boons remove 1 more (the core repair rule).

Parts: Each point of damage removed uses parts costing half the yard rate for the ship's Scale (Yard Repair, below). Without parts, the check removes nothing.

Time: One check takes 4 hours on a Scale 2 to 4 ship, 8 hours at Scale 5, and 16 hours at Scale 6 or 7.

Ammunition. A ship with an Expanded Fabrication Shop can reload one kinetic weapon's ammunition with a day's work and a Hard Craft check. The feedstock costs 5% of the weapon's price.

Repairing a Critical Hit

A Critical Hit (Chapter Fifteen) stays until it is repaired, and it keeps adding +10 to later Critical Hit rolls. Repairing one is a Craft check with the time, tools, and parts the work needs.

On a success the Critical Hit is removed. On a failure it remains and the parts are kept. Banes may consume parts or add a day; a Calamity damages a connected system (1 System Damage). A yard repairs Critical Hits with no check.

Jury-Rigs

A Jury-Rig makes a system work with unsuitable parts. It is a Craft check at the field repair difficulty, with no parts cost. On a success the system works and gains one complication, chosen by the GM or proposed by the player and approved by the GM. Use one Mixed-Builder failure mode from Chapter Ten, or one of these:

• The patched drive works but leaves a visible signature: Signature Management checks add 1 Bane Die .
• The salvaged navigation suite finds established seams but adds 1 Bane Die to locating Frontier seams.
• The rigged weapon mount jams on any attack with a Calamity ; clearing it is an Engineering action.
• The field-welded hull section holds pressure but counts as 1 lower Armor on that facing.

On a failure the system does not work and the parts are kept for another attempt.

Stress. The first time each encounter a jury-rigged system is pushed (Boost Power, Overburn, Hard Burn, or a hit on that system), the engineer makes an Average Craft check. This takes no action. On a failure the system goes offline until rigged again. On a Calamity the ship also takes 2 System Damage as the rig fails into the system it was bridging.

Yard Repair

A yard removes any amount of Hull Damage and System Damage with no check. The price is the yard rate per point of damage removed, for the ship's Scale, at a major independent station. Apply the location modifiers in Chapter Twelve.

The ship pays docking for every day it spends in the yard (Chapter Twelve).

Scale of the bill. Repairing three quarters of a hull's Hull Points costs about three quarters of that Scale's monthly running costs:

Cut-rate work. A crew may take a cut-rate job at 75% of the yard rate. For each system or hull facing repaired this way, the GM rolls a d6: on a 1 it gains the Persistent Bane failure mode (Chapter Ten).

Repairs That Need Special Facilities

Some work needs more than a commercial yard:

• Military Composite armor and military screens or electronic warfare need a military-certified yard or a black-market specialist with the materials and manufacturer codes.
• Gravitic and phase systems need Caliphate or military support in most cases.
• Builder-specific failures that need proprietary tools or firmware access need an authorized yard of that builder.
• Systems with the Parts Dependency failure mode follow that mode (Chapter Ten).
• A core system rebuild (replacing a reactor, Sublight Engine, or Slipstream Drive) is a Long-Term Ship Project (Chapter Ten), not a repair.

Worked Example: After the Fight at Merrow Gate

The crew's high-hours Model 20 (Hull Points 18, System Points 13) breaks contact with 11 Hull Damage, 4 System Damage, and one Severe Critical Hit, an Engine Hit that costs 1 Speed.

In the fight. The engineer spent her last action on Emergency Repair, Average , and removed 1 System Damage. The ship is at 11 Hull Damage and 3 System Damage.

In the field. Hull Damage 11 is more than half of 18, so the hull cannot be touched until a yard has it. System Damage 3 is a quarter of 13 or less: an Easy Craft check with the Workshop aboard. She rolls 2 net Successes and removes 2 System Damage in 4 hours, using 400cr of parts (2 × 200cr). The Engine Hit is a Hard field repair with 1,600cr of parts; the crew decides to leave it for the yard.

At the yard. Two days out, the yard at Merrow Gate quotes the bill at the Scale 4 rate of 400cr a point:

The yard repairs 12 points of damage at 5 a day (3 days), and the Engine Hit takes 2 of those days alongside. The bill is a little under one freight month (9,600cr) and nearly five months of the crew's margin (Chapter Twelve). Without the Critical Hit it would have been 4,980cr.

Salvage

A disabled or derelict ship is a resource: weapons, modules, core systems, cargo, and sometimes information.

Universal law. A ship that is broadcasting a distress beacon, or has living crew aboard, is not derelict. Stripping it is piracy.

The Three Steps

1. Extraction. One Craft check per component, at the difficulty below. Each check takes 4 hours for a weapon, a one-slot module, or cargo, and 1 day for a multi-slot module or a core system (2 days at Scale 5, 4 days at Scale 6 or 7). On a success the component comes out in its condition (Chapter Ten). On a failure it stays in place and the crew may try again. On a Calamity the component is destroyed.

A Salvage Rig adds 1 Boon Die to extraction checks; a Heavy Salvage Rig adds 2 instead. A Kharos salvage system attempts Severe extractions at Hard (Chapter Five). Maneuvering to grapple or secure a drifting wreck is a Pilot check, Average in open space and Hard in debris.

2. Assessment. The crew learns each component's condition without a check. An Average Craft check finds hidden defects and any failure mode it carries. Finding a hidden tracker on a military component is a Hard Electronics check.

3. Integration. Installing a salvaged component in the crew's own ship follows Installing a Module or Long-Term Ship Projects (Chapter Ten).

The GM spends Boons and Banes on extraction checks as follows:

• Extraction takes half the time.
• A Damaged component comes out Working (it was less hurt than it looked).
• Serial numbers and logs are scrubbed: the component carries no Authority Heat from its origin.
• The crew finds one more useful component, chosen by the GM.
• The component comes out one condition worse than it looked.
• The work takes twice as long.
• The salvage is detectable: authorities or the owner's agents learn of it within a week.
• A connected system on the wreck turns dangerous: a power spike, a gas leak, or armed ordnance. The GM sets the hazard.
• The wreck is not what it seemed: survivors, planted evidence, a corporate claim, or a trap.

What a Crew Can Strip

Without the requirement, the crew may still try at Severe ; any Bane on that check damages the component one condition.

Salvage Value

This is the one rule for what salvaged components sell for. A ship sold whole is priced in Chapter Twelve.

A Working component sells for 45% of its new price, multiplied by the condition multiplier of the ship it came from (Chapter Twelve: Factory new ×1.00, Serviceable used ×0.55, High hours ×0.35). Use the ship's condition before it was disabled; when nobody knows, use High hours.

Military components have no legal market outside sovereign channels. A fringe buyer pays the fringe figure, and the sale is a fact about the crew that someone may learn later. The GM may treat it as a lead for an Authority Flag (Chapter Ten).

Worked example: a prize. The crew disables a high-hours KR-41 raider fitted with two Autocannons (9,000cr each), a reactor rated +2 Power Capacity (13,500cr), and a Workshop (18,000cr): 49,500cr of components new. Stripped and sold through a broker, the Working components fetch 49,500 × 45% × 0.35 = 7,796cr, and the stripped hull sells as Hull only for 433,000 × 0.12 × 60% = 31,176cr. Sold whole through a prize court (Chapter Twelve) on a Salvage Title, the ship fetches 433,000 × 0.25 × 60% = 64,950cr. None of these repays the crew's 110,250cr starting mortgage; the best is about three fifths of it. A Scale 5 prize sold whole (a KR-51 at 288,000cr) does, and is a campaign event to be planned for.

Salvage at Scale

A crew of three to five without a Heavy Salvage Rig cannot strip a large derelict in one visit. A Scale 6 or 7 wreck with capital weapons and military modules needs heavy equipment, a larger crew, or many days on station; each day on station is a day for the wreck's owners, scavengers, or the reason it is drifting to arrive.

Salvage Law by Power

Irnan Directorate. Salvage rights are filed with the nearest relay before stripping. A crew that does not file may be charged with unauthorized salvage if the owners can be identified.

Funtari Confederacy. Frontier salvage is practical. The Confederacy asks that crews file within a reasonable period and declare military hardware.

Shoiyan Concord. The Concord tracks manifests closely. A salvaged Concord ship with listed cargo creates paperwork obligations.

Jaziri Caliphate. Derelicts in Caliphate-adjacent space are Caliphate property until proven otherwise.

Antaean League. Salvage is commercial. If someone bought the salvage rights first, the crew is trespassing on a business arrangement.

Part Availability

Builder Parts

Builder-matched parts install as Native and carry the builder's Signature properties where they apply.

Where the builder's parts are not stocked, an established port orders them in 1d6 days.

Generic Components

Generic commercial components are on sale at almost any port. They are not builder-matched: replacing a native system with a generic component is an Open installation (Chapter Five), and the component gives no Signature benefit. They are the frontier crew's default.

Military and Exotic Components

Availability by Territory