So i saw some of the topics here about people being "married to their ships" or how the comodore is difficult to pull off thematically in a party. Commodore of a Lambda shuttle woohoo! But the former is an easy fix, if theyre married to their ship make more challenges oriented towards ship to ship combat. Anti aircraft guns, tie fighters, frigates and pray they dont run into a battleship. Anyway my idea for alternate starting was what about a light cruiser to start with for those who like the idea of that kind of game. Basically a small cruiser maybe around 3 decks with a crew of 100 or so and basically for the space parts of the game it would play a lot like mass effect. Pilot, copilot, gunner, astrogaters, engineering, and captain would be roles the party could fill few optional ones as well. The ship itself would be at least equipped with communications, a medical bay, maybe a science room, kitchen, crews quarters, a lounge or two.

Storywise i think it would fit as well as a light cruiser they would be big enough to play with larger ships but not quite capital sizes and using their ship for combat as well as a nearly self sufficient base of operations yet small enough to avoid the empire's attention everywhere they go. Participating in larger scale ship to ship combat would now be a possibility as well and of course as they game progresses upscaling to capital command could be a thing but id advise sticking to a smaller ship just to make the game go earlier.

Pros:

• Sufficient as a base of operations that moves
• Larger scale space combat
• Small enough to avoid the attention of the empire
• The players dont need to be married to the ship, there is enough crew onboard to maintain a presence without the captain onboard
• Commodore players have an opportunity to shine
• You have a crew for services that would otherwise require a planet stop
• You're a fan of mass effect

Cons:

• You have to keep the crew happy
• You are in for the long haul, you likely wont get another ship like this one
• You cant bring your ship on every planet, you will have to contend with planetary defenses if you try the whole nuke it from orbit tactic
• You wont always be able to fight from your ship, so your non space oriented players will get a chance to shine

*option: Have players have a second character/NPC they can control if you need a player in a certain role during space combat and they arent playing someone capable of contributing for the actual space bits. Like a soldier who didnt take gunnery for some reason or a doctor.

Suggestions for ships:

• Consular class light assault cruiser (nice size and body, Recommended)
• CR90 Corvette (Recommended)
• Gonzanti class armed transport
• Really anything with Silhouette of 5 or less, non restricted (depending) and has a crew of around 200 or less and not upgraded.

*I also recommended homebrewed ship designs to fit the specs post em here if you got em.

Running a game with a cruiser or small capital type ship:

I suggest running a game like this with the understanding with your players that they will not be able to be on their ship for the entire game otherwise Star Wars X-Wing might be more their style. Other than keeping the crew happy they are responsible for their well being and their duty to the rebellion if youre doing a rebel game. With a ship this size it will be very tempting to bully their way into various situations so establishing that despite their ships size and fire power they will be quickly out gunned on most civilized worlds between planetary defenses and the imperial navy who will be quick to respond to such a threat. Their smaller size and speed will be vital to staying alive, a star destroyer will rip their little cruiser to pieces in a matter of minutes. A shuttle to go down to planets if they wish to leave their ship in space. For space combat sections i recommend putting a mix of different encounters in various space terrain/phenomina including a large mixture of fighters and bombers, other ships of a similar class and occassionally needing to run from a battleship or carrier class ship. Civilized worlds will employ planetary defenses of planet to ship guns, fighters that can be quickly deployed and any imperial military in the area will respond and slicing a ship can in fact knock out a hyperdrive preventing escape. A few boarding encounters will contribute to the game but remember, their ship is also their home base you do want them to feel some degree of safety while on board where they can lick their wounds, restock on ammo and perform modifications.

The only thing out of place with the Commodore spec is the name. The bonuses work just as well on a freighter as they do on a capital ship(although they're probably better there)

it was mostly me brainstorming up something fun inspired by the mass effect game

I actually do something Similar with my Group. Each player has Two Character, One Key Member of the Bridge crew on a CR90. The Cr90's main Goal is the Transportation and insertion of a Covert Ops Group. The Other character that wach Player has is a member of the Covert Ops Team.

It only really gets confusing and Overwhelming when they do a boarding action.

I think that a Marauder class corvette would be perfect, since it has a not too big crew (177) heavy armamanet and a hangar bay for 12 starfigthers and 2 shuttles. It also has a nice look, not too far away from the Normandy for those interested in the Mass Effect feeling.

Btw for a real mass effect feeling mixing force powers with commando or engineer gives a very nice Vanguard/ Sentinel copy.

Yeah, so far im thinking that with a bit of modification and homebrew i can probably convert age of rebellion to mass effect tabletop. Maurader would probably work really well too

My group often prefers starting with a small ship then moving to bigger ones, a task force , or both as we get promoted. Usually if we've been promoted to command of a task force after having been shifted from a smaller ship to a larger one then all or some of the smaller ones that are still intact often end up in that task force.

One thing I've noticed in the other Commodore topic is people claiming that starter level characters shouldn't be in command of capships. I disagree. most capital ships IRL aren't captained my officers holding the rank of Captain they are commanded by officers with the rank of Commander or Lieutenant Commander. (Which in fact came from Lieutenant Commanding). Command of a small capital sized ship like a Consular, or Gonzanti could easily be the first posting of a young officer who just finished training, especially if he or she did very well in training and some new ships of the appropriate class are entering service, either recently purchased, captured, donated or perhaps stolen from impound or a salvage yard.

Here's a list of the ways I could easily see a new officer ending up in command of a larger ship like a bigger corvette or a frigate for the Alliance.

1: They played a key role in capturing the ship like Piggy did to Night Caller or like my first RPG character to captain a capital ship did (He scored the D6 equivalent of a crit which knocked out the frigate's portside anti-fighter weapons, and it surrendered a couple of rounds later.)

2A: The ship belonged to them or they commanded it and they brought it with them when they joined the Alliance (Mostly Corvettes and transports but there are some older frigates in civilian hands.. Also works for Imp defectors but they would probably be in smaller craft at a starter rank.)

2B: They or their family either donate all, or a large portion of the money or resources used to buy or construct the craft.

3: They find some ships adrift which are salvageable and are offered command of one in gratitude. Or perhaps they have a few friends in scrapyards or impound yards that are willing to look the other way and cover up the disappearance of a few ships.

Edit: Can't believe I forgot one, especially this one.

4: Attrition. Everyone above the officer in question is killed or incapacitated during a battle and they take command doing well enough that they are allowed to keep command of the ship. Best done on a Sil 5 vessel or a sil 6 with a small crew requirement. Having the first scene of a campaign open mid-battle just as that officer takes command of the ship for the first time can be a lot of fun in my experience.

I'd rename it the Army/Navy Officer that way it doesn't sound like they're supposed to be some kind of capital ship commander if not of a fleet.

I agree about the need for a mobile base especially as that seemed to be the Rebellion's MO in the last few dark horse comics.

Was a name change suggested whilst this was still in Beta?

Just because a career is named Commodore doesn't mean that anyone with that career has the military rank of Commodore. It can just as easily be a junior officer like a Lieutenant junior grade who is just starting out on his military career. Someone like that wouldn't be given command of a capital ship right out of the gate, but would have to earn his way up through several smaller commands.

Yeah, ive done a game with a ship on this scale before. It was in eberron with an airship big enough to house a gryphon roost and a crew of like 50 or so. It worked really well especially since we couldnt take our ship everywhere but it made for some interesting encounters plus it was fun to command people around. I was the captain as an artificer (magic/mechanical genius) so i dont imagine it would be much different here and its easier to boss around npcs than it is other players.

Nice. I've only played a few non-space setting RPGs but a lot of my capital ship CO characters either started with a lot of engineering talents, or started with some and gained a lot more as time passed. And my all time favorite PC was a Engineer/Ship Designer/Capital ship CO/Jedi which is probably the closest I've gotten to an artifcer captain.

I think it is will be a good idea to let one of the players play as commodore/Captain. I see the possibilities here.

It will be able to cover space battles better.

I will be little bit like Star Trek where the captain go with the crew down to the planet to do the different mission. And at the same time players can be pilots in fighters to defend the ship.

Everyone have possibilities to shine and lots of new fun to discover.

As others have remarked junior officers don't get command of a ship right away, the earliest, for a small ship like a corvette or similar (like a Gozanti or Consular light cruiser ), they get it as lieutenent-commander, which is a middle lever officer rank (like major in the army). So to be more realistic an officer crew of PC could start in different deprtments and work their way up , working under the NPC ship commander (which eliminates the potentially tricky issue of a PC -the ship's captain- having autority over the rest of the party); the pc crew could get command of smaller npc teams or, if one is a pilot, command the starfighter squadron or a detachment of it.

All in all i think the Marauder corvette is the best option as it allows ship battles, but also can be used for starfighter missions and ground missions with shuttles.

Actually IMO I still think that a Gozanti or a Consular would more likely be commanded by a Lieutenant or in some cases even an Ensign rather then a Lieutenant Commander because the crews are small (Standard crew compliment is 12 for a Gozanti and 9 for a Consular. Most PT Boats were commanded by Lieutenant or Lieutenant Junior Grade officers and they had slightly larger crew compliments then the Gozantis and Consulars.

The larger Corvettes and heavier ships are probably commanded by Lieutenant Commanders or higher under most circumstances but I'm sure there are at least a few exceptions.I doubt much smaller then a Cruiser would rate a full Captain unless a Commander was promoted to Captain but left with his old ship.

I agree Rogue and i believe that Gozanti and Consular are very good ships, their only drawback (and the main reason i wa suggesting the Marauder) is the lack of hangar ans strafighter/shuttles options. So the party is permanently stuck on the ship unless it lands on the planet to disembark the party. It is doable (the Normandy did it everytime in Mass Effect) but i feel that having a shuttle available could be a more versatile option.

True though if I'm reading the modification rules correctly you could install a upgraded retrofit hanger bay mod and get a shuttle and a couple of fighters in. It starts with capacity five and can only carry Sil three or below on either of the ships in question but can be modded to capacity 10 and carry up to sil 4 if I'm reading the retrofit hanger bay add-on correctly.and you could fit two such bays on either ship.

Yeah a hanger bay of some kind would be much better either fitted on or built in i imagine such a large ship is difficult to find parking for or can be anyway

I had forgotten about he retrofitted hangar bay, good catch.

As for parking, don't know about the Consular but in Rebels we see the Gozant landing easily so i'd gess it's not such a problem, but could be uncommon.

Yeah I'm ninety nine point nine percent certain that we see Consulars land in The Clone Wars, and we see a number of ships larger then Consulars land in The Clone Wars and the Prequels.

I think it is will be a good idea to let one of the players play as commodore/Captain. I see the possibilities here.

It will be able to cover space battles better.

I will be little bit like Star Trek where the captain go with the crew down to the planet to do the different mission. And at the same time players can be pilots in fighters to defend the ship.

Everyone have possibilities to shine and lots of new fun to discover.

Yeah my group does that a lot in bigger battles either putting most of the characters who are in command of the group's main ship either in fighters or in command of smaller capital ships or transport craft for the fight though some of our members like serving in lower ranking roles on the main ship during combat.

I had forgotten about he retrofitted hangar bay, good catch.

As for parking, don't know about the Consular but in Rebels we see the Gozant landing easily so i'd gess it's not such a problem, but could be uncommon.

I just thought of something else. The AOR Core book lists the three most common pods for a Consular to carry. If your GM is ok with it why not use a hanger pod that carries 2 to 4 fighters?

No reason why not.

We're looking at running an Imperial Fleet campaign for a few games - a Nebulon B with a hangar refit - so 2 x 12 TIE fighters and a bay with a Lambda and two Sentinals plus a pair of AT-STs for troop landing shennanigans.

Big enough to feel awesome and able to play carrier, troop transport and battleship, small enough to run scared from an actual cruiser.