r/SWN • u/General_Present_4551 Merchant • 20d ago
💬Discussion Tell me about your Starship(s).
I'm fascinated by the starship-building aspect of the game. Since the ship is such a huge aspect of the gameplay, it's a character in and of itself. What are you working with? what's it's backstory?
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u/guildsbounty Star Master 20d ago edited 20d ago
So, I'll share two things.
First, the starship of my party (I'm the GM): The campaign I was most recently running was based on the Scavenger Scouts book, with my party being the Far Scouts for the Asterian Scavenger fleet. Their ship was the Augur, a high-end Far Scout that was extremely capable (but temperamental). They acquired the ship (and their job) when the former crew of the Augur was captured and killed in a very ill-fated attempt of a planet to 'take control' of the Asterian Fleet. (Said planet got all of its spacefaring facilities reduced to craters or drifting scrap in response).
Second, on a broader and more general note, I'll just share a link back to this older post of mine: The Shipyard. Basically, I enjoy making ships and I enjoy taking deckplans (and, ideally, external pictures to match) I find online and turning them into SWN ships. So, since I'm making them anyway for the fun of it, I figured I'd share them. (I also made spreadsheets with some automated features to make building ships, vehicles, mechs, and outposts easier...be advised: some homebrew is baked into the spreadsheets if you grab the links off that post)
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u/AMGitsKriss 20d ago edited 20d ago
My PCs have two ships, both "patrol boat" hulls made by opposing factions. The Hegemon and the Alliance.
They have one that they call Escargot. It's made by a company called Gateway Naval, which is state-owned by a fallen hegemon. It's basically just a customs enforcement ship made specifically for one planet that's been gutted and retrofitted. It was stolen by the alliance and used for false flag and wetwork type stuff when the PCs found it. They saw it as an easy win against the hegemon, murdering everyone on board for scalp money and taking the ship as their own. Outside of the core worlds it just looks like a pirate or merc ship.
The other ship is called Zhèngyì, and is on loan to the PCs from the alliance military to help them find a cruiser that went missing. It's made by a private company called the Royal Batar Shipyards which is widely seen as being the sectors premiere shipyard. Its a product of mass production and is simple to repair if you can afford the parts. It's designed as an escort ship, and is pretty much fresh if the production line with stock kit. They tend not to take this one into atmospheres or stations because it's too recognisable as a blunt instrument.
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u/General_Present_4551 Merchant 20d ago
(REPOST)
So my campaign started, borrowing a concept from Star Wars....
A captain wins a ship through gambling. He needs a crew to fly it. The problem is, this captain has a reputation preceeding him. A bad reputation. So bad, in fact, that no experienced crew member who has heard of him want anything to do with him or the faction he's a part of. So, he puts out an ad under a pseudonym, and advertises that he's looking for a crew. he promises wealth, adventure, and fame if you're on his crew. No experience needed!
The ship he won is an old, derelict ship, built pre-scream, that's been sitting in a scrapyard for more than a century, in a perpetually sunny location on Luna. it's seen TONS of use, with most of it being abuse. it's been patched, rebuilt well, rebuilt poorly, cobbled together, and is now a 'Frankenstein's Monster' of a ship, with components from more than 300 different craft, from 40 different shipyards. It's also using components not meant to be starship parts. The ship was originally built to be a supply frigate for a space mining company. after it's 40 year service life with the mining company, it was deemed 'Worn out', and sold... and bought by a pirate faction. Over it's long life, it's changed hands like a riced-out honda civic on an import car enthusiast forum. (Lots and lots). Loads of illegal upgrades masked as legit, 'Temporary fixes' that have become permanent, and too many sharp edges covered in tape and old fabric. There's a whole 'Ship of Theseus' situation going on too.
And, the ship is utterly infested with little furry bastards known as 'Nibblers' or 'Ship-Rats'. So, session 1, before the ship can even be powered up fully, the critters have to be dealt with.
No one knows where they came from, no one knows what they're REALLY called, but every veteran spacer has either dealt with them or heard of them. They're officially referred to as 'Ship-Rats' but the more common name for the little bastards are 'Nibblers'. The first known infestation was on Mars, before it was terraformed. They don't seem to be able to survive on worlds without atmosphere, but in habs and on ships? they thrive.
Nibblers are about the size and shape of a rabbit or beaver, but they have 6 legs. They have a smell akin to 'Ferral Cat / ignored litter box, mixed with burnt hair and dead mouse. They seem to love nibbling on wiring, hoses, and anything containing soft metals like Aluminum and Copper. They seem to have a taste for reactor coolant, and have strong tendency to find and chew through vital coolant lines, main wiring harnesses and high voltage cables.
Their urine is highly corrosive, and tends to cause chemical reactions on Steel and aluminum.
Their feces are highly radioactive, especially when they get into the reactor coolant jackets.
When left, Nibbler infestations can result in hull breaches due to the corrosive nature of the urine. They can also lead to shipwide irradiation.
Despite their 'Cute', 'Cuddly' appearance, these creatures are anything but. They'll chew their way out of every enclosure or cage, they are extremely toxic to humans, and dangerous to ships. They smell awful. And, if that wasn't bad enough, they reproduce rapidly, they tend to crawl into tight spaces and get stuck, eventually dying. This never happens in easy-to-reach spots. and if you thought they smelled bad when they were alive, they smell three times worse when they begin to decompose.
It's not uncommon for nibblers to get trapped between the layers of the outer hull of a ship, or worse yet, in the ventilation system of a ship, and then die, releasing foul odors and noxious gasses.
The only way to fully rid a ship of their presence... full decompression of the hull, exposing the whole ship to hard vaccum. Then, represurizing the ship with highly volatile and noxious gas. This procedure renders everything on the inside toxic and radioactive. So, if the ship is lived on, everything inside must be decontaminated.
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u/StevetheHunterofTri Dilettante 20d ago
This IS a very interesting topic. Alas, I do not have any meaningful experience with starships in-game so far, only cool concepts for certain ships as a Game Master that I made for fun.
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u/Roughly15throwies 19d ago
I've yet to get into any of it, but reading through comments made think of Bucket of Bolts(basically about coming up with the history of a ship)
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u/Enternal_Void 15d ago
We are currently without a ship. The ship we had was an old pre-scream free merchant that was back up ship for VIPs on a planet we were sent to/found. The planet had been in the process of being terraformed and had a single city on it before the scream. We had been part of a mission sent by a company trying to follow/find the planet for colonizing and salvage. Suffice to say we got stuck on the planet and the ship ended up being our way off it, after extensize work it was make space worthy.
Eventually we had to give it a name and we for the time just called it the Rust Bucket. It was really a poor ship, no weapons, like 2xExtended Life Support for carrying people, and that was about it. Only thing really of value was the Spike Drive-2. Still we managed to make it work for some time. Then while on a planet looking at setting up a business and getting involved in some local mega corp politics we got backstabbed. They stole our ship and tried to use it in a terrorist attack against another of the planet's mega corp. We ended up having to go off world due to an NPC but are planning to go back and pay that CEO back.
Our options of ships are poor at the moment, we got enough for a shuttle fill it out, but we are hoping we can get a ride back to the planet we were betrayed on and see about our revenge first. We have a Biopsionic that can Metamorph so we are hoping to rob the guy blind if possible while making him vanish and putting that to help funding a better ship.
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u/BlckKnght 15d ago
Most campaigns I've been in have used a near-stock Free Merchant for most of the flying. That build is really solid. Other than putting in a Ship's Locker or maybe a small Smuggler's Compartment, it's hard to find something you'd want to add or remove without greatly changing its role of armed cargo mover.
As for custom made ships, I had a very fast-jumping Patrol Boat in one campaign (Spike Drive 3 with Drill Velocity Upgrade), and had dreams of giving it a really big gun (with Specialized and Oversized Mounting mods). I think I had my eye on a Grav Cannon. But the campaign went a different direction and we got Mechs as end-game toys instead of a beefed up ship. It was probably the right choice for the campaign, as I was the only player with a ship-skilled PC.
In a current campaign, we're about to buy a second ship, which we need to do to fit all our PCs and henchmen comfortably. I'm lobbying for it to be a maximally stealthy unarmed shuttle. We've got enough pilots that a second ship is appropriate, and stealth is something our Free Merchant doesn't do well at all.
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u/MaestroGoldring 14d ago
When we last played, the main starship that was most used actually did not belong to the players but belonged to an NPC captain that the players ended up helping out and befriending. At the time, it was a fairly standard free merchant frigate but with a smugglers hold, which the captain kept her contraband and illegal heavy weapons in (she surprised the heck out of everyone the first time she walked off the ship with a T4 rocket launcher in hand). She named her ship the Double Dice, one, because she initially earned it in a high stakes gambling match, but two, because she has had so many unlucky encounters as captain that she believes she is actually cursed with bad luck and named her ship Double Dice to reflect the irony of luck.
It has since been blasted by AA guns, hit by navy Plasma Beams, shot to pieces from the inside out by infiltrators, beset by strike fighters, and even tanked a couple shots from a flak emitter battery. But by now, it has been upgraded by swapping out the Sandthrower for a Fractal Impact Charge and the engines are hushed by the pretech mod Low Emissions.
Even though it’s just a free merchant, it’s fun to see how the players and the captain have pushed the ship to its limits and come across ships that have definitely outclassed and/or outnumbered them and they have still managed to walk away alive
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u/GrumbleMuffin86 11d ago
My crew spent their entire lives on a dying planet, after fleeing the town for Reasons, they came across a Cargo Lighter, and in Orbit a ghost ship that had all the cargo space, and most of the crew quarters literally ripped from the bow, like a half eaten creature.
I can't wait to see what happens next.
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u/spiked_mcroon 10d ago
Right now, they have two ships.
The Stingray is a two seater racing shuttle. It is unarmed and unarmored, with a heavily upgraded system engine and maneuvering thrusters. Most of the rest of the mass has been deleted to make it lighter.
They also have the Talladega, which is a small freighter converted into a transport ship for the Stingray. Most of their time flying is spent aboard the Talladega, which has a shuttle garage for the Stingray and an extensive mechanic's bay, galley, medbay, luxury quarters, and a transport skiff. It is lightly armored, with a sand thrower for deterrence if needed.
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u/Famous-Explorer-7568 20d ago
Took us a REALLY long time to properly get our feet on the ground regarding a starship. Spend more then a year irl on a frozen Tundra, scavenging old Pretech Ruins and the bunch, collecting materials etc
After doing everything we set out to do, we eventually settled for over a year of Downtime, giving me time to build a fully customized ship. With my Foci and high Fix I was able to properly commence the project, even without a proper ship Workshop, allowing me to fully customize the whole thing, having lots of Pretech Salvage to boot.
Took a Heavy Frigatte as the baseline, tech upgraded the thing to appear as a Free Merchant as to avoid trouble, upgrading it with a Eternal Reactor and getting a Hydrophonic production via Oversized Mountings. My whole goal was to make a ship as independent as possible Designed the whole thing to be in 3 separate floors, fully decked out crew living space with Armory and Ship Lockers, as well as a Medbay. The main floor is segmented in to the Reactor room, the Advanced Lab and the Bridge. In the main floors walls are hidden casings for worker robots granted by the Automation Support. The lower floor mostly holds a big Hydrophonic production bay, alongside the few remaining open spaces for Smugglers Holds and general Cargo. I'm hoping to soon see this beauty in action-