Ability List & Info

Abilities represent skills and knowledge a person can learn. No one is born with them, but one can train, study and practice in order to gain them.

Some Abilities are capped with either NP or SA.
NP (not possible) Abilities : This means that an avatar without any points spent on the Ability is incapable of using it in any capacity.
SA (simple actions) Abilities : This means that most people not versed in the Abilities still know how to do the most rudimentary tasks for those Abilities. For example, SA Ability Computers and Administration; Simple computer searches and reading through a simple legal document would be possible, but hacking a system or forging documents would not.

Ability Scores:

* Amateur. ** You’re pretty good. *** Very skilled, you can do this for a living. **** You’re an expert in your field. ***** Your skill is unparalleled.

• Administration (SA)

Show spoiler

This Ability lets you cut through bureaucratic red tape, grants the knowledge of which papers to file in order to get things done through the proper channels, and also entails knowledge of the law. The government and the corporations often hide their dirty operations behind facades, but they often leave a paper trail (although a digital one in many cases) and with some effort you can trace work orders, invoices and mining deeds to their point of origin, even when someone has tried to bury them. You can also spot forged documents (digital and physical) and forge documents of your own, given access to the right information and equipment.
Typical Aptitudes:
Drafting a document: Brains
Looking a document over: Attention
Forge a document: Attention
Track/create a paper trail: Brains

• Athletics

Show spoiler

Whenever you need to climb, run, jump, or engage in any similar physical activity, Athletics comes into play. This Ability shows how much time you have spent honing your coordination, nimbleness and speed. It is also vital when moving about in a zero-g environment, and without at least 1 point in Athletics you’re unable to do any advanced movement in zero-g without having to make a roll.
Typical Aptitudes:
Run: Quickness
Jump: Quickness
Climb: Brawn
Swim: Quickness
Throw long distances: Brawn
Throw shorter distances with more precision: Quickness
Desperate and crazy acts, the success of which you have no real way of estimating, like jumping blindly down a shaft where there “should be” a cable some meters down if you remember correctly: Gut Feeling

• Close Combat

Show spoiler

Simply put, you know how to fight with melee weapons or your bare hands. Your fighting style is up to you to determine. The end result is the same: the Ability gives you the proficiency to defend yourself or knock someone out.
Typical Aptitudes:
Dexterous styles: Quickness
Strong-handed styles: Brawn

• Computers (SA)

Show spoiler

In the world of C&D, computer systems are everywhere. They’re in ships, stations, colonies, scanners and more. Every person can use computers, but the actual Ability is needed to write programs and to hack and manipulate them. Computer knowledge is important to anyone wishing to gain access to restricted digital information and those wishing to write or rewrite system protocols.
Typical Aptitudes:
Trace a hacker’s location: Attention
Hack a security barrier: Brains
“Spoof” a location: Brains
Educated password guessing (only simple ones): Gut Feeling
Program/reprogram protocol: Brains

• Driving

Show spoiler

Everyone can steer a surface buggy or a skimmer, but when the terrain gets tough, or when involved in stressful situations such as chases, this Ability is put to use. Driving can at times be the only thing standing between the avatars and death.
Typical Aptitudes:
Stunt driving (taking fast curves, jumping and ramming): Attention
Avoiding sudden obstacles: Reaction
Finding the ones you followed when they suddenly disappeared (Go left! Yes, I’m sure, turn left now!): Gut Feeling

• Explosives (SA)

Show spoiler

With this Ability, you can arm and disarm explosives. You’re also knowledgeable about everyday chemicals and substances that can be combined and made into an explosive. The Explosives Ability also makes it possible to shape detonations (with the right equipment) and assess the blast radius.
Typical Aptitudes:
Designing a bomb: Brains
Putting a bomb together: Attention
Disarming a bomb: Quickness

• Fast Talk

Show spoiler

When you need to lie, negotiate or persuade someone in an informal environment where tact and subtlety aren’t an issue, you can fast talk them. This Ability can be used to drop a pick-up line, haggle with a marketplace merchant or to carouse a party.
Typical Aptitudes:
Talk your way past a doorman: Clout
Come up with a good lie on the spot: Reaction
Get the sense that someone’s lying: Gut Feeling
Make a pass at someone: Clout

• Fringewise (SA)

Show spoiler

If you want to buy illegal weapons, find a smuggler or get your hands on forged travel documents, you can use Fringewise. With Fringewise you know the ins and outs of the criminal world. Beyond getting your hands on illegal goods, you have some knowledge of criminal organizations and can identify groups of raiders by their ship markings.
Typical Aptitudes:
Spotting who might be a criminal in a bar (raider, fence, what-have-you): Gut Feeling.
Notice if someone is planning to mug you or is about to pick a pocket: Attention
Figuring the rudimentary hierarchy of a criminal organization after spending some time with the members (and just observing): Brains

• First Aid

Show spoiler

You know the basics of medical care when it comes to simple wounds. You know CPR, how to stop bleeding and how to prevent infections. You can also set bones and handle trauma. It takes about thirty seconds to administer first aid, or a minute if the damage is severe.
Typical Aptitude:
Stabilize a bleeding wound: Quickness
Set a bone or pull a joint straight: Brawn
Administer simple injections or set an IV: Attention
Treat burns: Attention
Stabilize fatigue trauma (hypothermia, dehydration, etc): Brains

• Forensics (NP)

Show spoiler

This gives you insight into the realm of criminal investigations. You can secure samples, analyze spatter patterns and reconstruct crime scenes. This Ability makes it possible to do a walkthrough of a ship or colony where atrocities have occurred and analyze the site in order to assess how it all played out. Investigators skilled in Forensics are often sent out to investigate the aftermath of VPS in order to elucidate the event. Even though scanners and technology can analyze patterns and calculate a lot of forensic data, they can never grant the most important element: the human aspect.
Typical Aptitude:
Collecting technical evidence from a scene: Attention
Develop a psychological profile (requires some time and the possibility to analyze evidence and two or more crime scenes or case files relating to the offender): Gut Feeling
Interpret blood spatter: Attention
Instruct officers to properly seal off the scene, go door to door and write down witness reports: Clout
Do a snapshot reconstruction (how did they fight, how did the victim and assailant move, etc.): Gut Feeling
Quickly take charge over a fresh scene where everything is in disarray and it’s unclear who is in charge: Reaction
Find a piece of evidence or a lead that is far-fetched, or otherwise make an almost impossible forensic connection: Gut Feeling

• Ghost Line Calculations (GLC) (NP)

Show spoiler

The ghost lines are capricious, dangerous but superior modes of transportation. No one in their right mind will perform a ghost jump before calculating the route. This Ability makes it possible to calculate the jump and ensure it takes the ship to its intended destination. Without calculations it’s...volatile to jump, to say the least.
Typical Aptitude:
Calculate a jump using known lanes (only available in the five core systems): Attention, takes about a minute and the reduction time is 10 seconds. Calculating your own jump lane: Brains, takes 3 minutes, reduction time 20 seconds.
Quick-calculate a jump: Cool, this takes half the normal time, but a failure means that your calculations are dangerously wrong.

• Interrogation/Information Gathering

Show spoiler

When you need information from someone, the art of Interrogation is vital. Interrogation is a blend of soft and hard verbal tactics, the reading of body language and mind games. In order to make use of it, you need a form of leverage. This can be as simple as leaning on a snitch or having a person in an interrogation room. What stipulates leverage depends on the person being interrogated, what type of information one wishes to get and the overall circumstances. Information Gathering is more subtle and indirect, using various low-key methods to glean information.
Typical Aptitude:
Reading a suspect’s body language (if rather obvious) and letting it guide you to their weak spots: Attention.
Gaining a suspect’s trust by relating to him: Gut Feeling
Making the suspect trip over his own words and slip up: Clout
(Information Gathering)
Read between the lines of a conversation: Attention
Subtly weave in questions in a seemingly innocent conversation: Clout
Eavesdropping on a nearby conversation and getting the gist of it in a rowdy environment (like a bar): Attention

• Know-How

Show spoiler

This Ability represents different skills, depending on who makes the roll. First of all, it measures an avatar’s general education outside his field (general history, geography, knowledge of general political climate and the like). It also represents an avatar’s work-related Know-How, both practical and theoretical. For example, there’s no Ability for mining, geology or planet harvest procedure. But if a prospector (who doesn’t have a speck in Science) wishes to make a geological assessment, or evaluate how long it would take to drill down to the core of a planet, he would use his Know-How. A Marine or operative wouldn’t be able to use his Know-How in the same way as this isn’t a part of their Know-How base. A Marine wishing to make an educated guess on how long his stranded squad must wait before a GIC military rescue ship arrives at their location could make a Know-How roll. In the end, it’s the AI who decides how the different packages might make use of their Know-How.
Typical Aptitudes: Varies

• Navigation (SA)

Show spoiler

Either on the surface of a planet or in deep space, this can be a vital skill. In the vast space between ghost lines and planets it’s easy to get lost. Navigation is pivotal for any pilot or driver wishing to travel to new systems or outside the charted routes.
Typical Aptitudes:
Plotting out a course: Brains
Plotting out a course to avoid GIC patrols: Attention.
Guessing which route a certain ship will take when you know their destination and who’s piloting it, judging by their route (GIC, Raiders, CIM, etc.): Gut Feeling

• Politics (SA)

Show spoiler

This gives insight into the inner workings of the political power structure. Who has the most power, officially and unofficially, on Claret and Mondus? Which parts of known regulated space have the greatest SES presence? How would one political side react to a certain action by their opponents? With Politics you’re privy to all these things and can assess and interpret the political climate. You can also use it to your advantage, playing on the prejudice of one side to get them riled up and more inclined to act against the other.
Typical Aptitudes:
Making an educated guess about how a certain forum delegate will cast their vote on a specific question: Gut Feeling.
Picking out a good candidate for a particular political post or event (you have to conduct a bit of research first): Brains.
Listening at speeches and conversation amongst forum members in order to get an overall feel for areas of political interest at the moment: Attention.

• Piloting (SA)

Show spoiler

This entails the actual maneuvering of air/spacecrafts. In the world of C&D, being able to pilot is as normal as being able to drive in our day and age, but doing so under dangerous and high-stress circumstances is more uncommon. Being able to pilot when the shit hits the fan is a lifesaver.
Typical Aptitudes:
Get into firing position: Attention
Getting out of the line of fire: Reaction
Avoid a sudden obstacle: Reaction
Doing something wild and crazy (for example, zigzag inside an asteroid field to avoid followers): Gut Feeling
Catching up to/shaking off someone: Reaction
Chicken race-type situations: Cool
Firing from the helm controls: Attention

• Repairs (SA)

Show spoiler

Being able to fix something that’s broken can save lives in space. A faulty airlock or a crack in the ship’s coreanium reactor can really mess up your day. With Repairs, you can fix computers and busted open hulls as well as COGs, weapons or whatever else needs fixing. In the high-tech world of C&D, this Ability is quite useful and it’s the bread and butter to an engineer or a gear jammer.
Typical Aptitudes:
Fix a mechanical engine problem: Quickness
Fix an electrical engine problem: Attention
Run a system diagnostics: Attention
Track and locate a power drain/surge: Brains
Find an obscure or unlikely problem in an engine or other device: Gut Feeling
Sabotage an engine and make it look like a natural error or breakdown: Brains
Create a blueprint for a device: Brains
Interpret a blueprint: Attention
Using a Nano-Matrix Board: Brains

• Rhetoric

Show spoiler

Where Fast-Talk is a quick, dirty and pushy way of getting what you want, Rhetoric is a subtle, methodical and tactful approach which doesn’t ruffle quite as many feathers. Innuendo, veiled threats and the guise of sincerity make up some of the core elements of this Ability. It can be used to give speeches and to negotiate in the official arena, where tact is of the essence. It also grants the linguistics skills needed to get your message across in writing, and can be used to write such things as speeches, articles and novels.
Typical Aptitudes:
Hold a short and spontaneous speech: Reaction
Write a longer speech: Brains
Give a longer speech: Clout
Write a news article: Attention
Write a fictional short story/novel: Gut Feeling

• Scanners (SA)

Show spoiler

Most people can look at a scanner and get a basic idea of the readout, if it’s a simple enough scanner and if the conditions are ideal. More complex scanners or conditions which can interfere with the scanner or create ambiguous readings require this Ability. Scanners come in various forms. Different scanners, such as LIDARs and energy scanners on a ship and topographical mapping systems carried by miners are just a few examples.
Typical Aptitudes:
Interpret anomalous readings: Attention
Calibrate a scanner to compensate for environmental disturbances (electromagnetic fields, radiation, etc): Brains
Calibrate a scanner to track/find a specific pattern within the scanner’s parameters (getting a movement scanner to track objects of a certain speed or size, have a bio scanner calibrated to scan for a specific bio pattern, etc.): Brains
Figure out what kind of phenomenon might be responsible for disturbing a scanner: Gut Feeling
Hiding/Leaving the dragon tail: Gut Feeling
Chasing the dragon: Attention, each roll takes 30 seconds

• Science (NP)

Show spoiler

Physics, coreanium dispersion, advanced mathematics and similar disciplines are covered by this Ability. If you’re skilled in Science, you can work out theories and perform experiments. Scientists often work on projects relating to the output and use of coreanium and how to harvest planets more effectively. They also engage in genetic engineering and the like.
Typical Aptitudes:
Remembering a piece of information: Brains
Observing a new scientific procedure and remembering the basics: Attention
Continuing another scientist’s experiment with adequate notes and background information on hand: Gut Feeling.
Conducting an experiment: Brains

• Search

Show spoiler

This reflects how well you’ve honed your active perception. You can look for an enemy in hiding, pat someone down effectively or search a room. Anytime the avatar wishes to actively search for something, this Ability kicks in. In cases where the avatar has a chance of discovering something reflexively (the glare of a sniper scope, the click of a mine under his foot), the AI rolls their Attention as an automatic action, representing their natural perception.
Typical Aptitude: Attention

• Security (NP)

Show spoiler

A security system can consist of something as simple as a mechanical door lock, or as complex as the computerized surveillance system of a harvester ship. You can bypass, circumvent and coordinate these systems with this Ability. Even if you’re not good at computers, you can breach most systems as you don’t go through the computers but hook in directly to the circuitry, wires and boards. Security also gives insight into the theoretical and practical layout of a system (including guards, guard dogs, fences and similar things). The Ability enables you to set up these systems to be as effective as possible as well as use that knowledge to effectively infiltrate a secure location.
Typical Aptitudes:
Observe a place in order to assess the best way to plan the security: Attention
Instruct a competent team to install/place security measures according to your planning: Clout
Make an educated guess concerning possible security layouts/systems in place in an installation: Gut Feeling
Personally install security equipment: Attention
Bypass mechanical lock: Quickness
Bypass electronic lock: Attention
Bypass electronic circuitry (alarms, cameras): Quickness
Bypass circuitry under stress (such as when the alarm will be triggered within seconds): Cool

• Shooting

Show spoiler

Rifles, shotguns, SMGs and any weapon that shoots projectiles can be fired using this Ability. You can also maintain most standard weapons and have theoretical knowledge about them, as well.
Typical Aptitudes:
Shooting: Attention
Quick draw and shoot: Reaction

• Stealth

Show spoiler

Stealth lets you sneak, hide and tail someone. It can be useful in many situations. Maybe you want to tail someone in the dark alleys of the Outer Circle in Claret, sneak past a guard or hide from someone? Stealth is all about evasion and keeping a low profile.
Typical Aptitudes:
Tail someone: Attention
Hide: Quickness
Sneak: Quickness
Hide object/person: Brains

• Strategy (NP)

Show spoiler

This Ability is used to plan military operations and is also used when they’re being executed. Strategy is a way to lead troops in a coordinated way in order to effectively beat the enemy. Things such as focusing the fire of a squad or setting up the best attack formation for a fleet can be done by the use of this Ability.
Typical Aptitudes:
Make an educated guess about what an enemy force is planning: Gut Feeling
Plan an ambush or assault: Brains
Make a quick and simple plan on the spot: Reaction

• Void Lore (SA)

Show spoiler

Void Lore consists of facts mixed in with metaphysics and rumors. Space is a very frightening place, especially in the world of C&D. With this Ability a person can theorize and make educated guesses about unconfirmed events. What does the planet harvesting process do to the harmony of the universe? What might have happened to the Cleopatra? What might VPS come from? For nonbelievers, Void Lore is nothing but legends and theology, but for infinitologists, the lore is sacred.
Typical Aptitudes:
Take part in a philosophical debate: Clout
Come up with plausible theory with a scientific slant for unexplained events that borders on the mystical: Gut Feeling
Insight into the creeds of infinitology: Brains

• Xenoarcheology (NP)

Show spoiler

All branches of archaeology are sub-categories of xenoarcheology. The discipline grants the theoretical and practical knowledge needed to find and properly excavate and preserve artifacts, structures and remains of ancient peoples. Beyond excavating objects, a xenoarcheologist is capable of investigating the objects, deciphering symbols and learning the age and meaning of discovered relics.
Typical Aptitudes:
Managing an excavation team during a dig: Attention
Digging out and dusting off a sensitive object: Quickness
Reconstructing an object: Gut Feeling
Deciphering alien symbols on artifacts (each sentence takes about 48 hours if possible and the reduction time is six hours): Brains

• Xenomorphology (NP)

Show spoiler

Simply put, this is the capability to study and speculate on the anatomy and lifecycle of alien creatures. By dissecting a body, a xenomorphology expert can (in most cases, and given some time) understand how the creature works. Ways to kill them and, if possible, communicate with them can also be determined (though not always accurately).
Typical Aptitudes:
Making an educated guess about a certain aspect of a creature’s physiology after a quick glance: Gut Feeling
Performing an xenomorphological autopsy or vivisection: Attention
Cultivating xeno-bacteria or studying cellular growth: Brains