Externals

External Modules (Variable Cost) Your military has identified a pressing need for flexibility and have stockpiled a large number of self-contained systems modules that can be easily attached to a given unit prior to setting out on a mission. In practice you may build an External Systems Module for any given unit at half its base cost which may serve a number of different roles. For a cost of 5 SP your externals may be (re)configured into one of five of the most common fittings as listed below. If more are desired beyond this it costs an additional 1 SP per added capability.

These represent things such as ablative armour plating, bolt-on anti-aerospace guns, sensor or ECM pods, etc. Due to the need to be easily taken on or off any given unit they tend to be more vulnerable to being damaged. If a unit with an external systems module comes under attack, the external pod can be destroyed even if the host unit survives. In this event a new one will have to be built to replace it. A module’s current ‘setting’ must be recorded whenever the host unit deploys; any capability that an external module is not simulating is considered to be back home at base/carrier or the equivalent.

Standard fittings

Weapons

Shields

Armor

Rockets/Ground Mobility

Sensors

Note that units do not need to be fitted with external modules; it is perfectly acceptable to run a unit ‘clean’ with no externals at all if there is a shortage or the mission doesn’t call for them. External modules provided to a power that does not have the trait (or the ability to use that specific module) are ‘fixed’ as a single role that must be chosen upon transfer.

Additionally, external cargo, tanking and hangars can be built and used, but due to the rather bulky nature of these, they are fixed in their purpose. The External Modules trait is not required to build and use these.