Chapter 26 — Ship & Vehicle Design

A craft — a groundcar, a gunship, a free trader, a capital warship — is built the way a weapon is rolled up (Chapter 24): pick a size, set a few numbers in bands, hang some qualities on it, and price it off a base and multipliers. There is no tonnage ledger and no power budget. A craft is a size, an armor value, its weapons, a jump rating (if it's a starship), and a handful of qualities, all gated by Technology Level.

What you don't touch. Customization tunes the dials; it never rebuilds the machine. Every craft, however built, keeps the four-node Hull / Systems damage track, sits on the scale ladder (Chapter 12), and fights player-facing — your crew rolls, the GM rolls only the enemy's damage (Chapter 25). You are choosing how tough, how armed, and how fast within that frame.

This is a GM and downtime tool. The numbers below are bands, not fixed values — choose within them and tune anything that comes out silly. Design a craft deliberately, or use the quick roll-up at the end.

Index§

• Step 1 — Size
• Step 2 — Armor
• Step 3 — Weapons
• Step 4 — Jump (starships)
• Step 5 — Qualities
  • Beneficial qualities
  • Drawbacks (free; each discounts cost)
• Step 6 — Cost
• Worked example
• A short fleet
• Rolling one up
• Naming a hull (optional)

Step 1 — Size§

A craft's size is its scale band (Chapter 12). Size sets the magnitude of everything after it — how much armor and how many guns are plausible, how many crew it needs, and what it costs. Within a band, eyeball the rest: a courier and a bulk freighter are both Colossal, distinguished by their qualities, not a separate size stat.

Crew is how many stations it takes to run well; a craft can be flown short-handed under the under-crewed rule (Chapter 25). Hardpoints is how many weapons it can mount (Step 3).

Step 2 — Armor§

Armor is the flat value damage must beat (compared only within a scale band — Chapter 12). The standard hull is the familiar 24; step up for a warship, down for something civilian.

Each step above standard multiplies cost (Step 6); a step below discounts it.

Step 3 — Weapons§

Each hardpoint (Step 1) mounts one weapon — a turret, a bay, a missile rack, a spinal gun. A craft weapon is just a big weapon (Chapter 24): set its damage in a band around the familiar 8D, and hang any weapon traits on it that fit — Blast and Smart for missiles, AP and Destructive for armor-killers, Auto for point-blank cannon, Scope for long-range gunnery.

Remember scale (Chapter 12): a ship's gun is already an S3 weapon, so against anything smaller it simply annihilates — you don't need exotic traits to hurt a fighter, only to do something special (an area spread, a homing salvo, a shield-piercing lance). Traits earn their keep mostly in same-scale duels. Each weapon, and each trait on it, adds to cost.

Step 4 — Jump (starships)§

Only a starship carries a jump drive, and the standard hull is Jump-1 — one parsec per jump (Chapter 27). Ground and system craft have no drive at all.

A longer-legged ship buys its reach as a quality (Step 5): the Jump Drive 2 or Jump Drive 3 quality lifts the rating to two or three parsecs per jump. Because it costs one of the craft's limited quality slots (and a higher TL), a faster ship gives up some other capability for the distance — reach, in this game, is something you trade for. Higher ratings exist in the Seeder core but are rarely sold.

Step 5 — Qualities§

Qualities are the character of a craft — the tags that make a stealth courier different from a bulk hauler. As with random gear (Chapter 24), a craft's TL caps how many beneficial qualities it may carry; drawbacks are free and each one discounts the price.

Beneficial qualities§

Choose them, or roll on the D66 below. The table is ordered by Technology Level — low rolls are the mundane, low-TL fittings any yard can hang on a hull; high rolls are the exotic Seeder-core systems. Reroll any result whose Min TL exceeds the craft's own TL (a TL 10 system-built hull can't roll up a Jump Drive), and reroll a quality the craft already has.

Drawbacks (free; each discounts cost)§

Choose one, or roll 1D6 for a random flaw.

Step 6 — Cost§

Price falls straight out of the build — take the base cost for the size, apply the TL step, then every build multiplier. No guesswork.

Base cost (by size; also shown in Step 1):

TL step — newer hulls cost more:

Build multipliers:

The first weapon is included in the base — only extra mounts multiply. Work it as base × TL step × every factor, then round to a clean, sellable figure and let brand, rarity, and locale move it (Chapter 28) — a Seeder-core warship is a different purchase on a frontier dock than in the yard that built it. At these prices almost no player crew buys a starship outright; they inherit a debt-ridden hull, win one, or talk their way into command of someone else's.

Worked example§

A working starship for a player crew.

1. Size — S3 Colossal, small end: a free trader, TL 12. Crew 2–4; 1 hardpoint. Base Cr22,500,000.
2. Armor — Standard, 24. (×1)
3. Weapons — one standard turret, 8D, with Smart for a fighting chance against raiders. (first weapon is free; the Smart trait → ×1.5)
4. Jump — Jump-1. (×1)
5. Qualities — TL 12, so up to 3. Take Cargo Hold and Atmospheric (×1.5 ×1.5). One drawback, Sluggish — she's a barge, not a dancer (×0.75).
6. Cost — Cr22,500,000 × 1 (TL 12 step) × 1.44 (Smart) × 1.44 × 1.44 (Cargo Hold, Atmospheric) × 0.75 (Sluggish) ≈ Cr50,000,000 new; a fraction of that as a tired, mortgaged hull.

"Sparrow's Due" — TL 12 free trader. S3, Armor 24, Jump-1. One standard turret (8D, Smart). Qualities: Cargo Hold, Atmospheric. Drawback: Sluggish. A patient hauler that can land on a world, carry a hold of goods, and just barely shoot back.

A short fleet§

Ready-made builds to drop in or reskin.

Rolling one up§

For a quick NPC ship, salvage find, or encounter, build by die instead of by choice:

1. Size — 1D6: 1–3 S1, 4–5 S2, 6 S3 (or set it to the scene).

2. Tech Level — 1D6, read your size row. Bigger, jump-capable hulls run newer; backwater vehicles run older. TL sets the quality cap and gates which weapon traits and qualities are legal, so roll it before Steps 4 and 6.

   1D6	S1 Vehicle	S2 Heavy	S3 Starship
   1–3	TL 9–11	TL 9–11	TL 12
   4–5	TL 12	TL 12	TL 12
   6	TL 12	TL 13–15	TL 13–15

   For an exact figure in a two-or-more-TL band, roll 1D3 (9–11 → 9/10/11; 13–15 → 13/14/15); TL 12 is fixed. The band is also the quality cap: TL 9–11 → 2 · TL 12 → 3 · TL 13–15 → 4.

3. Armor — 1D6: 1 a step down, 2–5 standard for its class, 6 a step up.

4. Weapons — fill 1D of its hardpoints with standard mounts; roll a weapon trait (Chapter 24) on one of them, rerolling any whose Min TL exceeds the craft's TL or that doesn't fit a gun (melee-only traits).

5. Jump (S3) — Jump-1, unless it's something special.

6. Qualities — roll 1D for how many beneficial qualities, capped by the TL band in Step 2, then roll each on the D66 table in Step 5 (reroll repeats and anything above the craft's TL); on a count of 1, also saddle it with a random drawback (roll 1D6 on the Drawbacks table).

7. Name it, fly it. Roll a hull name below; price it with Step 6 if anyone's buying.

Naming a hull (optional)§

A ship earns a name the way it earns a reputation. Crews name by their trade — a hauler is christened for luck and ledgers, a warship for resolve, a free hull for whatever gallows joke fits. Roll D66 and read the column matching the hull (or roll 1D6: 1–2 Civilian, 3–4 Military, 5–6 Free / Salvage). Rename any prize you take — a salvaged hull rarely keeps its dead crew's name.

Dress it however the hull wears it — a possessive, a registry tag (MV, a world-guard prefix, a Chapter 34 house mark), or nothing at all. The plain name is the most common.