First of all, an apology. Strictly speaking, this is an AoR question rather than EoE, but there's no GM subforum for AoR, so here goes...

My players will soon reaching Contribution Rank 1 and I've suggested that they have a think about what they want as their support element from the Alliance when that happens. As I expected, the leading suggestion at the moment is a ship - they've played the Beginner Game scenario and are currently working through Operation: Shadowpoint, so the only ship they have at the moment is the Lambda -class shuttle they captured with the base.

Now, per the rules, if they ask for a ship or vehicle it can have a Rarity of no more than 3 plus their Contribution Rank, which means they can't have anything higher than a Rarity 4. What I'd like to give them is a YT-2000, because I like the ship and it's more interesting than another generic YT-1300. However, the YT-2000 is Rarity 5.

Now, of course, I'm the GM so I can give them anything I want to. However, I think it would be more fun to give the ship a sting in the tail to balance out the fact that it's a bit better than what they'd be expecting to get at this point.

The idea I have is that the ship they get will have, until recently, belonged to a smuggler who sold out an Alliance base somewhere. He didn't survive the experience and the Alliance grabbed his ship. I was thinking that there could be a concealed smuggling compartment on board that the Alliance never knew about, with Something in it. Any thoughts on what it could be (or alternative ways to mess with them)?

It could be something that's dangerous in its own right, or something that will excite their interest and lead them into harm's way. That shouldn't be too difficult, one of my players (who just happens to be the main pilot) has a curiousity level that puts most cats to shame. For example, the PCs have just been on a hunt on Dxun with the Onderon Beast Riders during which they were warned to stay away from a particular area as it houses the tomb of an 'ancient evil' - this player is already planning her Lara Croft outfit. (For those of you who aren't familiar with Onderon and Dxun, the tomb in question is that of Freedon Nadd, a very nasty Sith Lord from the Bad Old Days, who may or may not be entirely gone. Did I mention this PC is Force-sensitive? Bwahaha *polish Evil Overlord hat* bwahahaha.)

-A hidden storage compartment with a sought after item pertaining to a players obligation, that's what I would do. So in the case of the force sensitive pilot, perhaps he finds remnants of a sith holocron that's giving him directions to a lost temple.

-Perhaps the next of kin of the previous ship owner is coming to look for their family member who is now missing, there only clue being the transponder on their family member's ship (which now the group has).

-The former ship owners employer is looking for their money or shipment, hidden away in the ship somewhere.

-an invitation for the Granee Noopa,

-I like to leave somewhat inconspicuous items as loot rewards for my players. The most recent of which, the groups gunslinger has found a disruptor pistol from a fallen Trando. He hasn't had the time to inspect it however, or he would have noticed the genlock on it. The pistol itself has a history, known to be owned by a particularly nasty assassin who is being hunted by the family/friends of his victim. The only way for them to recognize and identify the assassin is by his pistol.

- perhaps there is a treasure map hidden within the ship or drawn on the ship hidden in plain sight. The map could link your group into the jewel of yavin or beyond the rim campaigns or one of your own design.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head. Dunno your group makeup, I'm sure you can tweek the ideas above to fit.

Some suggestions from page 33 of my catalogue of shinies if you want to give them a YT-2000 with some drawbacks in addition to mysteries and hidden compartments:

Bucket of Bolts effects
Worn out systems and fried connectors
Add an automatic Threat to one or more skill checks using using the starship’s system, affecting for instance pilot, computers, mechanics or gunnery.

Ripped mesh tape and rusty bolts 1-4
Decrease Hull Trauma Threshold by up to 4.

Exhausted generator couplings 1-3
Poor power systems decrease System Strain Threshold by up to 3.

Fractured skeleton
Poorly maintained chassis reduces the armour by 1.

If the crew has a droid or droid PC, I would have a droid virus in the recharging room/socket, that will make the droid prone to develop more personality quirks, which might even promote him to join the Droid Revolution (the virus is spread by IG 88 or MasterCom, or something like that...).

A wookie full body wash and blow-dry booth.

A crate of Rodian ear wax.

A bottle of Gand moisturizing eye drops.

Pilot's a force sensitive? How about Professor Huyang ?

Well guess you could even have a ship that is designed for Gand, it is set up to make an ammonia filled atmosphere rather than an oxygen one.
Maybe has a shrine room to whatever religion, some ancient thing of the ancestor of the Gand or other species. Maybe not force related but does grant some reason to go meet people that are connected and just a chance to make some allies.

I'd put several things in the smuggling compartment.

Start with some odds and ends of personal but little intrinsic value, a spacer's chest full of personal effects the smuggler didn't want to go missing should he be boarded by pirates or the ship get burglarized.

• Holos of family
• A desk toy his brother made for him out of droid parts
• His dad's old flight jacket
• Autochef programming for mom's gooberfish pot pie.

Then move up to something with a R rating that he didn't want confiscated at a customs checkpoint but also is of little use outside of narrative.

• A couple doses of Lesai
• A questionable transit permit allowing the ship to travel to the planet LasStorom in the corporate sector without paying noncompete shipping tariffs (good only for LasStorom and only along the Kintal trade corridor.)
• Some bottles of Graoovian Whiskey, banned through most of civilized space due to it's alcohol content AND it's hallucinogenic effects, most likely gotten as payment for something.

Finally, wrap it up with something mysteriously mundane

• A small security case containing a single 20 credit game token (nonrefundable, not legal tender) from Klalala's Arcade on the Wheel.
• A cheap blaster with a nonreplaceable powerpack and the safety pinned in the on position.
• A big floppy hat.
• A YT-1 (yes, 1) codecylinder chain with three unmarked code cylinders.
• A high quality storage case containing a hydrospanner and a dataplaque that simply says "Mayor."

What I did for my PCs' first ship was make the default environmental settings unfriendly and a bit unnerving. The lighting is brick red and pulses slowly, the temperature is set to a comfortable (for a Trandoshan) warm desert afternoon. The ventillation blows hard all the time, making a lot of noise and blowing around small bits of refuse randomly. The settings are so much to the non-standard that the regular controls don't adjust them anymore, they've been bypassed a dozen different ways. Mechanically all this gives a setback die to any check involving detailed visual work or fine control of light objects (like wiring). As well, a couple strain just for being on the ship for a long period due to the heat.

Lastly, to make for an entertaining long-term problem, all the recent fixes were done with wires coded outside a human's visual perception. A human or near-human looks into a patch job and sees 40 wires, all the same color. A Trandoshan sees the deep infrared variations of color. So a couple setback to dealing with those systems that were repaired until the wiring is replaced by something more standard.

Maybe your smuggler liked really fresh food. And there's a hidden compartment somewhere the player's haven't found yet. And it has a couple dead animal (we hope) corpses in it. The stench will grow over time until the PCs finally find the compartment and thoroughly clean it out. The reason the ship stinks is because there's a small vent into the compartment. And there almost certainly isn't a live version of the nasty food animals roaming around in the ventilation shafts now...

I like a few of the comments here.

To me, the obvious one is that the ship is damaged, maybe even heavily damaged. Landing struts stick, engine is only giving half thrust, old wiring, rust, even the remnants of a mynock colony. I'd even say that a few systems/weapons were taken off because the previous owner had financial troubles.

Something that can take time and credits to repair, but can also be made into something that the group/team wants as their own. This way the group gets a ship, the players get a nice side project, and the GM can get some inspiration.

The hidden compartment is actually a cubby hole with a hammock and a few knick-knacks. A stowaway lives here, hiding when the PCs are around and sneaking out at night to eat, explore or WATCH THE PCS WHILST THEY SLEEP!

The stowaway will have to be a bit crazy to live like this and endure the twelve hours (or more!) at a stretch they stay hidden in there. Or they could simply be something alien enough that prolonged sleep / stillness is less of a thing for them.

Possibilities are:

* A mad Jawa. It regards the entire ship as Utini (despite being too big to carry away) and sneaks out at night to repair things / adjust them how it likes. If the PCs leave food out for the Jawa, it will keep things in good working order (Boost dice). If the PCs mistreat it or attempt to look under its hood, it rewires the refresher to blow backwards, switches hot and cold dispensers for food, etc.

* A lost Huttling. It is afraid and does not speak Basic. At night sometime, a PC gets the impression something is moving in the room, just the other side of a table, but they see nothing. Huttling is good because it can have several little access hatches hidden away so it can appear or disappear at will. A PCs pet cat or equivalent, has not been seen for days.

* An orthodox Gand who prays most of the day in his secret compartment, thinking about whatever it is Gand think about. At night, he silently walks into a PC's room and stands there watching. Every night, he stands one step closer. He wears a hooded cloak so on camera, he just looks like a strange mishapen figure.

* Jar Jar Binks. He remains on the run since the fall of the Republic and is waiting to see if the PCs are bombad enough to help him. Any time a PC acts aggressively toward Jar Jar, roll four challenge dice and on a Despair some clumsy accident by Jar Jar causes the PC to shoot him or herself in a comical fashion.

* The smuggler's simple-minded son. He is Force sensitive and pretends that his finger can talk, occasionally waggling it whilst rasping "redrum. redrum".

The previous owner was a collector of assorted exotic animals, they are all dangerous in bsome fashion. Some are more intelligent than others, say a monkey type thinker to basic insectoid. Well the ship is bought at auction or some other manner. Most if not all of the animals are loose. The old owner was consumed by a large boa/anaconda type critter, it somewhere in the ventilation digesting. All of these critters are illegal, that Empire doesn't like aliens much, but endangered species is another thing.

You could take elements from the above climate control issue here too.

Perhaps some roach like critter likes to chew on the material the hydraulic hoses are made of. Another species is like a parasite, tatoine sand jacks, a flea like creature that like to Infest hairy races. Another critter could be naboo slime bloat, it infests a persons moist areas, eyes, nose, mouth, snout, sinuses. It causes runny nose and itchy eyes. These were on some of the exotic critters, they perhaps died and so the parasites migrated eleswhere on the ship.

You could have pest species like, rodents, cockroaches or something like that.

You could layer on the family/friends/coworkers/etc coming to look for the family member too.

KSW

I put a Jawa Mechanic on the ship, who was there, when the PCs commandeered her from an attacking pirate (quite an Obelix experience in itself). The first clue was a verminy bad smell all over the ship; then there were strange clunking noises coming from the maintenance and life support shafts. After some time they found Pataki, the Mechanic.

They decided to keep him, despite the odour, although every NPC entering the ship has been complaining about the incredible smell, they've discovered. Even the acquisition of several cleaning and recycling droids mitigated the problem only in part.

Also, they might have a hidden weapon turret, with a highly illegal weapon installed, of course.

I was thinking of a couple of new ones; the ships is always getting tagged by various graffiti artists, sorta like the character from Star Wars: Rebels.

Or the ship is covered in some strange mold/fungi/ or something else that makes the ship look like it has some shaggy hair.

The ships is covered in some kind of (smelly/sticky/slimy) residue that resists all sorts of cleaners/washes/fire/etc. It can only be soften by re-exposing it to the same stuff. The ship was swallowed by one of those giant space worms and was partially digested or the ship was sprayed (like a male cat would do) by the same space worm like creature.

I know those may seem nasty, but they can lead to some PITA situations for the PCs.

KSW

Alright I have a few more.

The ships appliances just don't work right except for one PC. The Toilet won't flush right, the microwave oven cooks or undercooks all food, shower only hand out cold water or hot water, except when the PC is setting up the temp for there wash it has the right temp, but once they step in watch out. The ships light constantly flicker and music will start.

The ship has a virus and a few bad electrical connections here and there, the water lines get pinched in the shower as they run underneath the shower floor.

I sure we can come up with other messed up appliances like there, perhaps the ship has, and yes as wonky as this may sound, windshield wipers that come on at the worst time, spraying cleaning fluid on the cockpit windows.

A bad garbage disposal system would be interesting too.

KSW

A bad garbage disposal system would be interesting too.

KSW

What's that tentacle coming out of it?

My party just bought space-worthy pets from a shady place, that turned out to be killer droids in crafty disguise. This kind of surprise could already be waiting on your ship

* Jar Jar Binks. He remains on the run since the fall of the Republic and is waiting to see if the PCs are bombad enough to help him. Any time a PC acts aggressively toward Jar Jar, roll four challenge dice and on a Despair some clumsy accident by Jar Jar causes the PC to shoot him or herself in a comical fashion.

I love it! Jar Jar Binks: terrible for the movies... Awesome for the RPG.. now I see Lucas' genius in this