ACME
Four guys that look like they are straight out of a cyberpunk holo approach you. You allow your fingers to brush past your holster to assure you that your blaster is still handy if this goes sideways.
The one with the short cropped spiked pink hair starts talking, “Oi pal, my names Archibald and these are me mates Christos, Matthias, and Evan. We saw you flying past all that debris out there and thought we might have something to offer you. We’ve been working on a design that uses your ship’s electrostatic barrier to send out a magnetic pulse creating a charge on all the surrounding debris and your electrostatic field then changes polarity to push everything away from your ship’s hull. The timing and strength of these magnetic charges need to vary based on your speed and the relative velocity and material components of the debris in your vicinity. We designed a magnetizing filament and database of essential information pertaining to this challenge. The resulting device, which we named after our quartet, is the ACME Repulsar.”
Intrigued, you ask, “What’s the energy draw on this?”
The one with the large gauge piercings, you think his name was Matthias, speaks up, “That’s the real beaut of the magnetizing element. It’s so efficient, you’ll hardly even notice a power draw and all the computational work is done using solid state systems, it’s just tapping into your passive sensors to read the data you were already collecting. Your holovid projector probably draws more power.”
You let out a low whistle, “Very nice gentlemen, how does this affect me if I want to do some scavenging?”
The one with a spider web tattoo coming up his neck and wearing lots of leather straps that each holster various techno-gadgets, Evan maybe, starts talking, “I’m a scavenger myself and that is a limitation to the Repulsar. If you want to do some scavenging work you’ve got to turn it off, else you’ll never get close enough to it.”
“That’s about what I figured, but how much space will this take in my ship’s hold?”
The other three glance at the one with long hair. When you look him in the eyes you can see that he has digital overlays on his contacts. “I did a lot of the physical layout and construction. I tried really hard to keep it compact without compromising on its intended purpose. It requires one standard cargo space and most of that is for housing the magnetic element. I think we’re all proud of the design. This is the first thing we intend to put the ACME stamp of approval on.”
The other three just nod their heads in agreement.
“So how much are you asking?”
Archibald speaks up again, “We’re looking for 2,000 quid, take it or leave it. It’s a point of pride, the four of us have already agreed we can’t take less.”
Do you purchase the ACME Repulsar for 2,000 credits?
Yes, pay the men their 2,000 credits and install your new ACME Repulsar.
No, discard this encounter card, and continue on with your turn.