There are five Technician subskills: Operate Machinery. Repair, Detect Alarm/ Defense, Deactivate Alarm/ Defense and Open Locks. A techkit is needed for all these subskills except Operate Machinery.
OPERATING MACHINERY AND VEHICLES
Success Rate: 50% + skill level
Operating a vehicle includes starting it, driving it and using it to do anything it was designed to do. The chance to succeed includes the possibility that the technician may need to bypass a locked ignition to start the vehicle. Obviously, if the vehicle is damaged or out of fuel, it will not start until it is repaired or refueled.
A technician gets one chance to operate an unfamiliar vehicle. If the technician has driven this type of machine before, he can start it and drive it automatically. A technician can try to operate any ground or water vehicle. regardless of his level.
Note that this skill (Technician) automatically includes the following vehicle skills: Vehicle, Atmospheric, Vehicle: Ground, and Vehicle Cycles. Refer to those skill descriptions to learn what kinds of vehicles can be driven by level.
REPAIRING MACHINERY
Success Rate: 40% + skill level
Technicians can repair vehicles, large and small machines. and electrical equipment (including video and communication devices). They can not repair computers or robots. Technicians use the standard repair rule.
Besides repairing vehicles that have been damaged in combat, the referee can include mechanical breakdowns on random encounter tables. This is recommended if the characters are on a long cross country journey, where a breakdown is likely and the nearest repair shop is Several hundred kilometers (or light-years) away. When a vehicle breaks down. roll 2d10 on the following table to determine what has happened:
VEHICLE BREAKDOWNS
2d10 Die Roll | Effect |
2 | broken axle or hoverfan* |
3 to 5 | broken driveshaft or transmission• |
6 to 10 | minor engine failure |
11 to 15 | minor drive train failure |
16 to 17 | broken suspension |
18 to 19 | major engine failure. repairable* |
20 | blown engine, not repairable** |
• This breakdown takes twice as long to repair as a normal breakdown.
•• A blown engine can not be repaired in the field. In a shop, it takes four times longer to repair than a normal breakdown.
GADGETRY
Success Rate: 10% + skill level
The technician can jury-rig repairs or otherwise build gadgets from makeshift pieces and parts. For example, the technician needs to repair a vehicle but does not have the correct parts on hand so he uses this skill to jury-rig something that will work, at least for a while. This skill can also be used for scavenging parts to build something such as a simple engine or a wheeled sled.
DETECTING ALARMS/DEFENSES
Success Rate: 60% + skill level - alarm level
Technicians have a chance to detect security alarms and defenses. The following table lists the types of alarms and traps and their levels. This same table is used with the Open Lock and Deactivate Alarm/
Defense subskills.
SECURITY DEVICE LEVELS |
| Description | Level |
| Trip wire or other crude detection method | 1 |
| Radioactive, seismic, beam and intense light scan | 2 |
| Odor or normal video scan, pressure sensitive and mechanical detectors | 3 |
| Enhanced optics, parabolic, UV and sonar scan | 4 |
| Motion scan, sound detectors | 5 |
| Voice recognition scan | 5-6 |
| Radar, shape and skin prints scan | 6 |
| Retinal scan | 7-8 |
| Brain scan | 9 |
| Full body scan | 10 |
DEACTIVATING ALARMS/DEFENSES
Success Rate: 40% + skill level - alarm level
Once a technician has detected an alarm or defense. he can try to deactivate it. If the character fails, the referee must decide whether the alarm goes off; if the roll was missed by only a small amount. the alarm might not have been triggered_
OPENING LOCKS
Success Rate: 50% +skill level- lock level
A technician can try to open locks without the necessary "key." The level of a lock usually is the same as the level of any nearby security devices, but the referee may change this. The referee should reduce the chance to succeed if the lock is on a safe or security vault.
LOCK LEVELS |
| Description | Level |
| Mechanical lock | 0-5 |
| Grey card lock | 1 |
| Blue card lock | 2 |
| Prog-locks | 2 |
| Electrical locks | 2-4 |
| Green card locks | 3 |
| White card locks | 4 |
| Silver card locks | 5 |
| Red card locks | 6 |
| Personalized recognition lock | 6 |
| Black card lock | 7 |
| Gold card lock | 8 |
| Baton locks | 5-10 |
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