Time to Vent
The good ship Everything needs a way to move air around for the meat sacks that pilot it. The things that eat the meat sacks that pilot it also need a way to move around unobserved. The meat sacks that pilot the ship need a way to move about for those all-too-often times when the bridge is commandeered by hostile forces. It’s three, three, three problems all in search of the same solution – vents!
Rich gamers buy fancy pants vents precast by one of the many fine wargame companies that do such things to separate us hard working types from our well deserved money. Those of us among the hoi polloi make do, as in most things, with cereal box packing. I carve a square out of said cereal packing, and then a whole slew of strips the same length as that square and about 2mm wide. Glue those strips in place, slightly overlapped just like vinyl house siding, and it looks like a directional vent. Here’s three thousand words worth of explanation:
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| 1. Just the square. |
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| 2. Slight diagonal overlap. |
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| 3. All done but the painting. |
The ship has five of these installed, and each will be painted with a different identification number, 1 through 5, stenciled on it. That’s a game decision that comes into play during certain scenarios.
Anything that goes into a vent this turn, pops out on the next turn at a random vent. Roll a d6 and that’s the vent you drop out of. A 6 means you are lost and have to wait until the next turn. In cases where the model really knows the structure of the ship (like the Chief Engineer) the character in the vent may have the ability to bump the result up or down one notch.
Like the dice roll great idea. Vents looks the part as well and with a lick of paint will be just fine.
Cheap way —> best way. The ships getting on nicely