PPP:Personal Equipment

From MegaTravellerWiki

The Penultimate Personal Provisions Project (or PPP) is a project which attempts to classify dozens upon dozens of objects that you would ordinarily see in a full-fledged universe. Obviously, it is far from complete.

My eventual hope is to serve up a complete list of several thousand objects with prices, basic rules, and descriptions.

Contents 1 Rules 2 Master Index 3 Categories 3.1 Chemicals 3.2 Domestic 3.3 Electronics 3.4 Foodstuffs 3.5 Home Furnishings 3.6 Medical 3.7 Personal Arms 3.8 Survival 3.9 Tools 3.10 Transport 3.11 Vestments 4 Central Bureaucracy 5 Copyright

Rules

Cost 

Prices of commodities are always specified in Credits (Cr). There are 1,000,000 Credits (Cr) per Megacredit (MCr). Prices in Credits are roughly equivalent to triple the indicated price in United States Dollars ca. 2007 (e.g., 1 Cr = 3 USD).

Mass

Actual mass of the commodity, in kilograms (kg).

Most Traveller rulebooks use the word "ton", but all measurements in Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller (and perhaps others) are in metric tonnes; do not confuse "tonne" (referring to 1,000 kilograms) with "ton" (referring to 2,000 pounds avoirdupois).

• There are 1,000 kilograms (kg) per tonne (t).
• There are 1,000 grams (g) per kilogram (kg).
• There are 2.20462262 pounds (lb) per kilogram (kg).
• There are 1.10231131 Imperial (short) tons (T) per (metric) tonne (t).

Vol 

The exterior volume of the commodity when it has been fully assembled, in litres (L).

Exterior volume means the total floor and vertical space, including all of the air around the object—as if the object were surrounded in an impenetrable rectangular box exactly big enough to fit around the object without the object rattling around inside. Most objects are not actually completely solid within their exterior volume as this measurement would suggest; however, it is a good rule of thumb for the space required to ship fully-intact objects in boxes.

• There are 1,000 litres (L) per kilolitre (kL).
• There are 13,500 litres (L) per "displacement ton" (dT), the approximate volume of 1 tonne of liquid hydrogen.
• 1 litre is exactly equal to a cube with dimensions of 10 cm by 10 cm by 10 cm (1,000 mL or 1000 cm³).
• 1 kilolitre is exactly equal to a cube with dimensions of 1 metre by 1 metre by 1 metre (1 m³).
• There are 16.387064 millilitres (mL or cm³) per cubic inch (cu in).
• There are 35.3146667 cubic feet (cu ft) per kilolitre (kL or m³)

Ship 

The shipping volume of the commodity when it exists piecemeal, in litres (L). If blank, it cannot be disassembled for shipping. If higher than the normal volume, it means the object cannot be shipped in its standard form and requires additional special packaging to ensure the object remains safe during routine jostling.

BC 

Break Chance: the mishap roll that, if matched or exceeded, causes the commodity to be rendered completely inoperable. For instance, a rifle with a Break Chance of 13 can be destroyed by a lucky Major (3D) mishap or, more likely, a reasonably typical Destroyed (4D) mishap. It could never break as a result of a Minor (2D) or Superficial (1D) mishap.

Master Index

A compiled table of all of the objects is available at PPP:Master Index for quicker reference. This table is sorted semi-alphabetically (similar objects are grouped by first name and then by tech level) and obviously does not include any of the descriptions.

Categories

Chemicals

Chemicals are various mineralogical or manufactured compounds, generally in a liquid form, which are useful for a variety of industrial processes.

• Acids
• Special rules

Domestic

Domestic equipment includes the various handheld or desktop objects that one would find in their home.

• Appliances
• Household batteries
• Paper products

Electronics

Electronics are simple hand-held or wearable devices which accomplish some simple function. They are generally considered distinct from computers.

• Scanning devices

Foodstuffs

Foodstuffs include anything intended to be comestible by biological lifeforms as one of the fundamental aspects of life support.

• Beverages
• Fresh foods
• Dried foods
• Prepared foods
• Preserved foods
• Artificial foods

Home Furnishings

Home furnishings include large-scale electronic devices like televisions and holodisplays as well as basic fixtures and furniture items that are not intended to be moved from their present locations.

• Hygienic
• Entertainment
• Chairs and seats

Medical

Medical includes all objects that are intended specifically for the purpose of recovery or preventive treatment of wounded persons and living beings.

• Hospital equipment
• Life support equipment
• Limb prostheses
• Organ prostheses

Personal Arms

Personal arms are tools intended to give people the ability to harm or kill, whether for self-defence purposes, political purposes, or food-gathering purposes.

• Slug-throwing sidearms
• Slug-throwing long arms
• Melee and thrown weapons
• Bow weapons
• Special rules
  • Jams
  • Concealability
  • Oversized weapons
  • Shotgun shells

Survival

Survival equipment subsumes the basic life support necessary for field operations and includes such things as tents, breathing apparatus, backpacks, lanterns, portable heaters, ice picks, hydrocarbon-powered electric generators, binoculars, and so forth.

• PPP:Survival/Atmosphere
• PPP:Survival/Containers
• PPP:Survival/Electricity
• PPP:Survival/Heat
• Illumination
• PPP:Survival/Shelters
• PPP:Survival/Tools

Tools

Tools include man-portable construction, excavation, and industrial hand tools, mechanical tools, and machines intended for the assembly and repair of machines, computers, or structures. Examples include shovels, picks, hammers, nails, screwdrivers, wire cutters, jackhammers, compressors, and so forth.

• PPP:Tools/Craftsworking
• PPP:Tools/Electrical
• PPP:Tools/Excavation
• PPP:Tools/Industry

Transport

Transport devices are man-scale machines like anti-grav platforms, dollies, and other such pieces of equipment that are intended to make life easier. It also subsumes containers, like barrels and crates. Larger transports, like trucks and ATVs, are beyond the scope of Penultimate Personal Provisions.

• PPP:Transport/Hand-powered platforms
• PPP:Transport/Self-powered platforms
• PPP:Transport/Pallet movers

Vestments

Vestments are items that people can wear over their bodies. This provides a sense of modesty, and also protects against the elements. When danger is foreseen, vestments can also be hardened or thickened in order to protect against animal attack or personal arms.

Central Bureaucracy

• Master "In" Pile

Copyright

Note that objects that appear in canon sources may reappear here, but any actual plagiarism of an existing source will be removed immediately; information you post here must be certifiably not part of any existing Traveller-series product identity.

What this means is that you may list a FGMP-15, but you may not copy the description verbatim from the book: the actual phrase "FGMP-15" cannot be copyrighted and is not specifically identified as a trademark, but the descriptions themselves are covered under copyright.

If at all possible, cite a reference to the actual rulebook instead of reproducing all of the information. This protects (or even enhances) the profitability of the books for Far Future Enterprises, et alii, and helps ensure that this list promotes the Traveller system instead of harming it.

In summary:

• It is not possible to copyright ideas, only context and words. (Ideas are protected by patents, not copyrights.)
• It is possible to trademark names, but few Traveller names are trademarked.
• Thus, it is legal to list canonical objects, such as those which appear in the Imperial Encyclopedia.
• However, it is illegal to copy descriptions of objects directly from the book. (This is plagiarism and copyright violation.)
• It is also illegal to copy the existing description and modify it. (Also plagiarism.)
• It is, however, legal to paraphrase completely. (Provided you cite your source!)
• It is recommended to write descriptions in summary form and reference the actual book wherein the object appears, in order to help protect the existing Traveller products.