My first Arcanum character was a magic-spec half-ogre with the rare half-ogre birth background. The chest at the crash site was just useless loot: silver ring, some gems, a weird coin. I didn't think anything of it.

My second is a tech-spec human with the bandit background. When she opened the same chest, there was a suit of large armor inside. Now, obviously, that's something utterly useless to a human, but very desirable for a half-ogre.

I re-started my original character, this time with the elf blood background, I found a suit of medium armor inside. Saving and loading didn't change the contents. I re-started again, this time with the rare half-ogre birth background, and found the same gems and coin as before. I re-started three more times with the same background and got the same loot.

Finally, I went online, and browsing a couple of different forums taught me that the chests in Arcanum aren't actually random (or, at least this one isn't) and are rather based on your gender/race/background. With that in mind, I tried several half-ogre backgrounds. None of them provided large armor, and I eventually got so frustrated that I gave up.

Is there a half-ogre background that guarantees large armor in the crash site chest? Or, at least, a way to trade items between save files? Because it's incredibly dumb that the bandit background is guaranteed a suit of large armor, while half-ogres (who can't be bandits) can't seem to get one.

tl;dr - how to spawn large armor in crash site chest as half-ogre?

I can't really help you (sorry), but I can warn you that your task is a bit luck-based. From my own experience, at least, the randomized loot in chests/crates is based on all four fields on the character generation screen, including name (well, it doesn't seem to be symbol-precise, very similar names can give the same loot, and the loot combinations aren't unique, so different characters can sometimes produce the same loot). So you want to find a player who got the loot with that race and a specific background, and also remembers the name used for that playthrough.

from

http://www.gog.com/forum/arcanum_of_steamworks_and_magick_obscura/a_queston_concerning_the_various_areas_of_this_game/

Due to this, you can exploit the first treasure chest at the crash site. Here are some good character and starting chest item combinations.

Uppercase letters are factored differently!



Good names and the items found
---------------------------------

Leonidas - Male Human Ran With Circus or No Background - ring of protection, some minor magic items, and some valuable jewelry

Blackbeard Blake - Male Orc Raised By Orcs - Magic Great Sword (+8), Small Charmed Chain, ruby, gold

Kor - Male Orc Ran with Circus - Magic Platemail, Charmed Helmet, emerald, minura coin (extremely good)!

Leonidas - Male Ogre Raised In Pits - Ring of Protection

Achilles Roland - Male Ogre Beat Ugly Stick - Large Charmed Leather Armor, charmed dagger, minura coin, ruby, potion of health and fatigue and cure poison, gold

Horace Mann - Male Human Bandit - Charmed Platemail, kathorn crystal, potions

Magus - Male Elf Sold Soul - Magick robes (other resists +20), emerald necklace, emerald ring

Mannox - Male Human Raised By Monks - Magick Staff (Mana 40 FT DMG+12), Charmed Gloves, Charmed Ring, Ruby

Dioxyppus - Male Orc Circus - Magick Chainmail (+10), Charmed Mace

Roland The Titan - Male Orc Circus - Large Charmed Leather Armor(+5), Small Charmed Chainmail (+5), Magick Ring (+10 ele resists)

Parnassus - Male Elf Sold Soul - Charmed Platemail, Small Charmed Platemail, Charmed Helmet

Steve Jobs - Male Gnome Only Child - Small Charmed Chainmail, Charmed Gloves, Magick Ring (+10 ele resists)

Rathiel - Male Elf Only Child - Small Magick Chainmail, Charmed Mace, Magick Staff

Galadriel - Male Elf Only Child - Magick Chainmail, Charmed Platemail, Charmed Sword

Parthiel - Male Elf Only Child - Ring of Protection

Derek Moran - Male Halfling Beat With Ugly Stick - Charmed Small Leather Armor, Charmed Great Sword

Gerard Fairwynd - Male Elf Only Child - Ring of Protection

Thanks for the help, everyone!

My pleasure. Have fun.

Finally got some large armor with a half-ogre character. It took over an hour of trying random names, but I finally got it with a rare half-ogre birth background named Brendon. It's just a suit of unidentified leather, but I'm not keen to keep trying. My human character got some kind of large metal armor, so I know it's possible, but I'm going to just call this a win and get to actually playing the game.