Starting Starship Types and Modifications limits

[Johnfrum]

Howdy all,

First time poster, and very happy to find this forum. I played the original game way back in the late 80s, and I've happily rediscovered it. I'm lucky to have a good deal of the modules, especially 'Tramp Freighters'. I'm in the process of working up a beginning starship for the characters using the rules in 'Tramp Freighters' and I have a few questions:

1. In the rules, I can find no reference to how much 'credits' characters should have available to modify their beginning starship - just that characters should design their own ship. I have no problem with this, but I imagine a lot of characters might go the high end route with x 1/2 hyperdrives, super shields and sublight speed. Any recommendations/house rules on limits?

2. For the generic YT-1300 template (in both the 2nd Ed rules and Platt's Starport Guide), no maneuverability score is listed. Would it be 1D or 0D?

3, Finally what starships would you recommend for beginning characters? Any particular templates that anyone has enjoyed using?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

[Whill]

Howdy all,

First time poster, and very happy to find this forum. I played the original game way back in the late 80s, and I've happily rediscovered it. I'm lucky to have a good deal of the modules, especially 'Tramp Freighters'. I'm in the process of working up a beginning starship for the characters using the rules in 'Tramp Freighters' and I have a few questions...

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Howdy back! Welcome to the forum, John.


1. In the rules, I can find no reference to how much 'credits' characters should have available to modify their beginning starship - just that characters should design their own ship. I have no problem with this, but I imagine a lot of characters might go the high end route with x 1/2 hyperdrives, super shields and sublight speed. Any recommendations/house rules on limits?

In general, characters start out with the credits listed on their template or whatever amount seems fair to the GM based on the type of character they are. No, the money they all start out with combined is not normally enough to even buy a stock light freighter, let alone a modified one.

So how do they get a ship and pay for modifcations? The easiest way is that they start with a debt, a la the smuggler template. The main reason for this is game balance. If one player (usually the captain) owns the ship, then he has a debt as a disadvantage to balance out the advantage of owning a very expensive piece of equipment that no other character owns. And who says that the debt has to be a legal one through a financial institution? Especially if the ship is illegally modified beyond code, it is likely that the debt is owed to a loan shark or crime lord. See the Tramp Freighters chapter on loan sharks for more info.

However, that is not a hard rule and it is completely GM discretion. You could say that all the PCs invested in the ship and all co-own it. Maybe they still owe a debt for it as a group too? Or maybe they have a bounty on their heads as a disavatage to "pay" for the ship? And if they all equally own shares in the ship, then there really isn't any game balance to worry about so you may rule there doesn't even need to be a debt or other disadvantage at all. Of course a sole owner can be the captain by default or choose one, but if a group owns the ship then the captain would probably have to be democratically elected by the players.

But if they have a debt, the higher the value of the ship means the higher the monthly payments are to pay for it. Think about it: in this real world you are limited to what value of car you buy on loan by your means to make payments. It's the same general concept for starships.

Either way, then you can just come up with a credit amount limit they have to design their ship. I recommend some kind of limits because otherwise they could just go crazy and make an invincible ship with an outrageous value. A ship like that would be a very valuable mark for pirates and shipjackers.

I think you have the right idea of letting your players co-design the ship, even if the characters had nothing to do with the modifications in-universe. I usually let my groups design their own ships because they develope a more personal attachment to it, compared to the GM just handing them a sheet of pre-determined stats and saying, "here's your ship."

For my next smuggler campaign (inspired by the Minos Cluster Campaign) I think I'll have some stat maximums that they can't exceed regardless of cost, but no credit limit to the overall design. They will have a debt for the ship equal to the value of the stock ship plus the modifications they put into it. The better the ship, the higher the debt. So they'll have to balance their desire for a good ship against their perception of the complications that having a heavily modified ship and a higher debt brings. A higher debt means higher monthly payments, so they may not want to go too hog wild or their ship may get reposessed if they can't make the payments. In reality, the adventures will be scaled by me to what they end up with, so it really doesn't matter exactly how good the ship is, the total credit value of modifications or the amount of monthly payments. The debt will include a story factor of their debtor requiring them to keep operating in one sector of space as a deterent to them trying to run on the debt, and also keeping them involved in the going-ons of this sector (an original one designed by me). Of course, there will be a few high paying jobs taking them out of the sector that are just too rich to pass up, so we will still have several adventures out in the greater galaxy.


2. For the generic YT-1300 template (in both the 2nd Ed rules and Platt's Starport Guide), no maneuverability score is listed. Would it be 1D or 0D?

No maneuverability means 0D. You'll notice that most freighters (with minimal defensive abilities against pirates and such) were not designed for fancy flying so a lot of them don't have any maneuverability. A good pilot can compensate for that.


3, Finally what starships would you recommend for beginning characters? Any particular templates that anyone has enjoyed using?

The Corellian YT-1300 is a standard in the RPG, just because of the Falcon. After my first Star Wars campaign, I steered away from using that just to be different than the movies. I highly recommend Stock Ships if you can get a hold of a copy. It has 15 other stock freighters with costs, stats and deckplans, so your players would have other choices to start with as a basis in designing their ship. If you can't get a hold of that, then another suggestion is to find a ship (even a modified one) in an adventure or sourcebook and maybe we can come up with stock stats and a cost.

I hope all this helps, and good luck with your game.

[Johnfrum]

Wow, thanks very much for the reply. I think I'll start the character out with a pretty decent 'starter' ship and debt: The Broken Spanner from 'Stock Ships'. After a few adventures, I'll give them the opportunity to upgrade by playing the 'Heavy Lifting' scenario from Instant adventures. Their payoff from Nawnan the Hutt will whatever they manage to negotiate the job for in kind i.e. a starship. I'll let them design it and any extra cash will go to spice or other goods that they can sell (and a lead to another adventure).

Of course, while Nawnan will keep his part of the bargain, one of his associates might put a tracker in the ship in the hopes of getting it back, so a number of bounty hunters could keep showing up....

[Whill]

Sounds cool! Of course PCs can always save up for the modifications they really want but didn't start out with.

[Griffon86]

Hello John,

Whill makes some very good points about starting ships in the Star Wars RPG. Until they can pay for one, don't give the characters anything for free...and Whill makes that point about debts, loans, interests, and the inevitable bounty hunters. Roleplaying solutions to these problems can help drive a campaign...look at how the bounty on Han Solo's head drives his decisions and Boba Fett's involvement in Empire Strikes Back and the first half of Return of the Jedi.

If you're starting the heroes as full-fledged Rebels, you might have the Alliance provide a ship...with the roleplaying caveat that they're part of a military organization with discipline and orders that limits what they can do and where they can go. A Rogue Squadron-style game fits this paradigm -- everyone gets an X-wing to play with, but they're stuck going on set missions and such.

Personally I built acquiring a starting smuggler starship into the initial scenario of my campaign. The first scenario centered on making a deal with a crime boss for the ship. I started with the original stats for the base YT-1300 and modified it a bit: I boosted Maneuverability to 1D (kind of need that for this kind of campaign), gave them an underpowered laser cannon in the dorsal mount, then gave them an overpowered (6D damage) "mass drive cannon" in the ventral mount...except every time they powered it up, it drained all the power from one other randomly determined ship's system (hyperdrive, shields, maneuverability jets, the other weapon). Made for some interesting moments, and gave them something to work toward in terms of fixing and improving their ship.

Just one approach.

Best regards,
Peter