I'm curious from both players and GMs, what was a creative way your group got a ship?

Mainly for those that had groups start without a ship. I think there are hundreds of ways to do it of course, but I want to know your favorite memory of getting a ship! Whether it was outright saving and buying it showing off the hard work that had you earn it, building it even if that's possible in your game, stealing one maybe from the empire or pirates, or whatever else!

We captured a ship from slavers who attacked a village we where protecting.

Inherited is one of my favorites. Gives plenty of reasons for the ship to have lots of quirks.

The PCs assisted an archaeologist on one of the modular encounters from the Hutt book. In a vault of a long dead Hutt they were sent to find they discovered the title to an old ship that was located in the underworlds on Nar Shaddaa. They then traveled to Nar Shaddaa and into the dark underside of the smuggler's moon where they had to follow an old private grav train station's line to the stop of an ancient residence. Once there they dealt with some nasty things in the dark and fetid pools of water, and claimed the ship that was in a long forgotten landing shaft.

My PCs were escaping from the spice mines of Kessel. There were only 3 ships available to get off the planet: A Wayfarer, a YT-1300, and a Firespray.

I've never had a chance to do these, but

Be a group of young provincial characters that win their first ship through a raffle/lottery at something similar to a country fair, with the ship provided to the fair by a "mysterious benefactor." Key plot points would involve repairing/improving the aging ship and discovering exactly why the unknown owner disposed of the ship in such an unusual manor.

or

Be hired by a company and provided a ship and products that the PCs are then rep for the company as they travel from system to system. Add in a healthy dose of company/office politics with workplace humor for a unique campaign. Key campaign moments can involve the groups first unsanctioned missions and an inevitable break with the company.

We stole one after deciding to steal a data pad containing ship override codes from a guy we were going to hire to steal the ship for us.

My PCs were escaping from the spice mines of Kessel. There were only 3 ships available to get off the planet: A Wayfarer, a YT-1300, and a Firespray.

It seems like that trio is always in every port with the doors unlocked and keys in the ignition.....

My players were attacked by pirates in a yv-929. They surrendered immediately and let their ship be boarded, then ambushed the boarding party and rushed the attackers' ship.

Convince the party from whom we're stealing the ship that we have to get the ship out of here before a party comes along to steal it.

Also, look, quick! A distraction!

Bought 4-5th hand with a loan.

What? We're not always space hobos.

I think my players are going to get a contracted company vehicle.

The PCs assisted an archaeologist on one of the modular encounters from the Hutt book, in the vault of the Hutt they found the title to an old ship that was located in the underworlds on Nar Shaddaa, they then had to descend to an old private grav train station off of a ancient residence, deal with some nasty things in the dark and fetid pools of water, then claim the ship that was in a long forgotten landing shaft.

This must have been a grand adventure. Bravo Zulu.

My group won their ship in a game of sabacc. The twist is that the previous owner cheated to let them have it. It's haunted, and he needed dupes to pawn it off onto.

Be hired by a company and provided a ship and products that the PCs are then rep for the company as they travel from system to system. Add in a healthy dose of company/office politics with workplace humor for a unique campaign. Key campaign moments can involve the groups first unsanctioned missions and an inevitable break with the company.

Have you played Traveller? You kinda just described the default campaign.

The party is on a capital ship or a space station that has taken critical damage and is caught in a planet's gravity. The only way to successfully escape is to navigate to the hangar bay and "requisition" whatever craft they can before the area burns up in the atmosphere.

My party were the crew of a ship, the (NPC) Captain/Owner got executed by the Imperials and the party found themselves inheriting his ship, his Astromech, a secret stash of Glitterstim they hadn't known was aboard, a debt to the Black Sun and a lightsaber. They also found themselves very wanted by the Imperials. Details here.

Be hired by a company and provided a ship and products that the PCs are then rep for the company as they travel from system to system. Add in a healthy dose of company/office politics with workplace humor for a unique campaign. Key campaign moments can involve the groups first unsanctioned missions and an inevitable break with the company.

Have you played Traveller? You kinda just described the default campaign.

I have been in a couple traveller campaigns over the years, but they never involved being part of a company representing their products. Once was a "We're Pirates" campaign and the other was a "Tramp Freighter/Merc Jobs" campaign, which I guess is what this could evolve into although when I suggested it I was leaning more towards it evolving into corporate intrigues and office backstabbing campaign.

Once my PCs raided a slaver base, freed the slaves and gave them the slavers' ship. That was all around fun

In an old D6 campaign we found a ship in an abandoned test facility in an asteroid field. Same campaign we ambushed pirates and ion cannoned the crap out them then took their ship. We also got ourselves invited aboard a space-pimp's luxury yacht/flying brothel, then initiated a hostile takeover, plus a few repossession jobs. Fun times.

I had my PCs steal one from a Clone Wars Memorial.

In our current game, I pitched this idea to my GM and he decided to run with it: My PC is an astromech droid that was the sole survivor of a ship crash. Using parts salvaged from other wrecks on the planet, it carried out its last orders to repair the ship. It then sat there without orders for an indeterminate period of time before deciding to fly the ship away and find new crew who could give it orders.

The game basically started with the other PCs getting dumped on a space station, whereupon I got to roleplay my droid approaching them and offering them crew positions, including pilot and captain. It wasn't until they got onto the ship that it occurred to them to ask why the ship was only operated by a single droid...

We borrowed a group of fighters and a frigate from my character's great-grandfather's memorial museum once. (He had bee a ship designer and had arranged for his memorial museum to be stashed with working versions of all the ships he had designed.)

Another time we found ourselves fleeing from the Empire in a timeline where the Empire won Yavin and snatched some ships from a spaceport before fleeing to Dagobah. Unfortunately one of the other character's ignored me when I advised him not to steal Boba Fett's ship and Fett tracked it to Dagobah forcing us to abandon it and flee.

Start of a campaign involving ex-Imperials. One PC was a Stormtrooper, another a Lambda Shuttle pilot. Pilot had just landed and unloaded passengers or cargo at a certain landing platform on the forest moon of Endor. Nearby standing guard on the platform was a Stormtrooper suddenly roused by reports of Rebel infiltrators nearby. As the place began to explode (see Ep. VI), the pilot and stormtrooper rushed to the shuttle, took off, received damage, crashed in the forest. After repairs and fending off a few Rebels who came to investigate, they blasted off again, dodged a few Rebel starfigthers, and jumped to hyperspace to begin a life of smuggling and soldiers for hire during the New Republic.

The shuttle was later traded in for something less ex-Imperial.

My PC's were hired to "retire" an old crew that had gone deep into debt with a Hutt, and once that job was complete, their employer had a ship, but no crew so bingo bango, abracadabra new ship for the crew.

So, in our first group, one of the players started with our first ship. We kept that one, but we kept adding to our fleet.

In one case, we had some pirates attack us, and we fought them off and then offered to let the crew join us in the “Cult of Sven”. He had really, really good social skills, and could charm the pants off a Hutt.

in one mission, we found the place where they were making the first prototypes of the Dark Troopers. A Rebel strike team came in and set up explosives to wipe out the mysterious box, and after they left then we disabled the explosives to find out what was inside. Then we stole bits off the Dark Trooper, and re-set the explosives to take out the remainder.

We also stole a couple of ships that had been parked there, including one large cargo ship. The other ship was a luxury yacht that had been used for drug transport, and we continued to use it for transporting various unsavory things.

We were building up quite a nice little fleet, at the time that campaign ended and we started over with F&D.