I was thinking of the possibility of a group of smugglers/pirates using a (smaller-ish) capital ship as a mobile base of operation.

First, I was thinking of the smallest ship with fighter carrier capacity. Perhaps the Nebulon-B frigate? I am not looking for a firepower base, but merely a ship that can carry, repair and resupply a smuggling/pirate fleet.

Second - and thats the fun part - what would be the consequences of owning that sort of large ship? Are you more likely to be trapped by the Empire? Do you think they could be the target of rival criminal groups that would figure its an easier target to capture compared to Imperial/Alliance similar ships?

How costly is such a ship to operate? How much parts, fuel, crew do you need to keep that thing flying?

Something like this?

A Nebulon-B has a crew of just under a thousand so I imagine it would be pretty expensive to run. It might be more reasonable to, for example have them operate medium freighters, repurposed with hangar bays. Most medium freighters can fit 2 Retrofitted Hangar bays for carrying fighters and the bays can be modded to take medium fighters. It would be easier to scatter them if they come under imperial or rival heat and they are not as high-profile as a bona fida warship. A Nebulon-B costs something like 8.5 million credits, and even the cheaper escort carriers cost ten times or more what a medium freighter clocks in at. They could have a small fleet of such ships as well as a more agile freighter for boarding actions and not have to maintain enormous crews.

One easy way would be to add a certain obligation for "being discovered" and use ressources/upkeep of the ship purely as plot.

0-5 Empire/sec force

6-10 "competitors", pirate groups

That gets raised by certain occurances like doing something risky or lowered when you blow up the competition.

In my current campaign the base of operations is a rebel fleet that is not owned by the players. The fleet is made up of several "fighting vessels" as well as the "habitat vessel" where most living quarters are, that doubles as a carrier, people chill out for downtime in the only cantina of the fleet and it is also the intellegence center of the fleet (not the ship pictured).

Consular class Cruiser might work well for this, with it's boarding pod. Other than that I would certainly vote for a converted medium freighter over a warship. To use a legit warship for this and not be affiliated with a high profile syndicate or the like would require being very very deep in the outer rim, or only targeting other pirates and somehow getting a letter of marque (Assuming that's a thing the Empire did).

The Empire would very much be after you for robbing citizens in a warship. If you left no survivors you might be ok, but news would travel real quick of a Rogue Nebulon-B raiding trade routes and you wouldn't be too hard to track down. Other syndicates would come after you if you acted in their space instead simply because you don't work for them and thus aren't paying your dues. At least as something lower profile you could slip away.

The other option is to go big or go home. I was just reading in the EU there was some guy who got his hands on an Imperial class SD, the only civilian owned one in the entire EU (at least according to wookipedia). Not that he was a pirate, but that's the plan. Go so big that other pirates would be daft to come after you, and just avoid Imperial space, because they'd just send a fleet or two to capture your ship.

Sadly this isn't the Age of Sail where it took a year for news to reach the King and another year for his orders to hunt you down to get back. Much easier to hide from a fleet back then in something as blatant as a warship lol

There are certainly justifiable ways to come to a situation where the players' base of operations is a capship, but you need to carefully consider the implications, and make an informed decision as to the details.

I love the Neb-B, and it's a multipurpose vessel that can easily fill the role. Using it as an example though, there are some issues: as others have stated, any large ship like that has serious crew and upkeep requirements. One way to alleviate the crew requirements is for the new owners (who likely acquired it through shady means, not buying the thing off the lot) to simply gut entire sections/decks of the ship. Especially things like turbolaser stations (which defeat the purposes of piracy, are only useful against other capships, and generally don't justify their massive crew, space, and power requirements outside of a military context). Stripping out and selling off things like this can also help offset the costs of more extensive automation, further reducing crew requirements.

Upkeep is a major concern, and one that should play heavily in the overall campaign. Warships of a legitimate government can pull into a gov't or corporate drydock for repair & refuel on the taxpayer dime, no issues. One owned by anyone on the galactic fringe will need to come up with another option. About the only viable options here are powerful criminal organizations like the Hutts or Black Sun, which will either charge exorbitant rates or flatly refuse, unless the ship is on their payroll (thereby obligating the players' crew to them)...or large shadowports (think starforge station). If they want to go this route to avoid becoming indebted to major organized crime, there's going to be a process: first there's going to be a long process of finding out where the station actually is (staying hidden is their greatest defense, after all), then sending envoys to the station to discuss bringing their ship in (since a military capship popping out of hyperspace on top of a shoadowport is a great way to get attacked), then work out the details, report back, and then bring the ship in.

Of course, the more notorious the crew becomes, the more unwanted attention they will attract, and as such, the shadowports operators are going to start increasing costs and/or flatly refusing to deal with them anymore due to their increased risk. The constant money pit that a capship can be should be a large-scale version of the tramp freighter dynamic, where the crew spends most of their time and money outside of runs on keeping their ride cobbled together, and occasionally splurging on modifications. For a capship, there's going to be a huge outlay of cash early on, just to get it operational for a smaller crew...this should really mean that for the immediate future, they owe...someone...big time and have to pull jobs to work off that debt. Once they're square with them, the ship should really serve to keep them from becoming complacent, always needing repairs and upkeep beyond what they can just directly bankroll, so they're going to need to leverage their skills in return for supplies and services rendered.

Beyond a medium freighter, the most cost-efficient version of this setup would likely be something like a quasar fire class escort carrier, which is basically a flying hangar bay. I've long considered running a game where the players were fighter pilots in a squadron based on just such a ship.

As for the civilian-owned Star Destroyer, that was under the purview of the New Republic, and they made it a point to strip all of the weapons from it before Booster Terrik was able to use it as a mobile shadowport. And Booster only got the ship because that was his price for providing assistance to the New Republic on a critical operation, so it's not like it was a frequent occurrence. Booster also ran into heaps of problems keeping the Errant Venture operating, with large sections of the ship simply being shut down due to lack of viable parts to fix whatever was broken that week.

The Empire, especially prior to the Battle of Endor and (in the new canon) Battle of Jakku, would not stand for letting an independent civilian, much less a group of criminals operating a Star Destroyer, the iconic ship of the New Order. If the PCs did manage to get their hands on something like that, the Empire would spare no expense to either recapture or destroy the 'stolen' Star Destroyer. And in terms of firepower, the Empire wins as they've got a lot more Star Destroyers that are going to be fully armed and fully staffed by reasonable competent crew, where the PCs are probably won't have that same benefit with the one Star Destroyer they do have.

The OP's group might be better off with either the Consular cruiser as was mentioned earlier, or something else that's generally within the Silhouette 5 range. The Corellian Corvette could probably also be modified to convert its cargo space into hanger bays if the PCs want to make use of fighters, as it's noted to be a highly customizable design.

Marauder Class Assault Corvette would be perfect for this.

I was thinking of the possibility of a group of smugglers/pirates using a (smaller-ish) capital ship as a mobile base of operation.

First, I was thinking of the smallest ship with fighter carrier capacity. Perhaps the Nebulon-B frigate? I am not looking for a firepower base, but merely a ship that can carry, repair and resupply a smuggling/pirate fleet.

Second - and thats the fun part - what would be the consequences of owning that sort of large ship? Are you more likely to be trapped by the Empire? Do you think they could be the target of rival criminal groups that would figure its an easier target to capture compared to Imperial/Alliance similar ships?

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Well , the SW Universe is MASSIVE,,, go for it.. the Empire can't find the ship because of PLOT ... the route it uses around various close star systems is a closely gaurded secret known by only a few and rumours/tales/wild stories exist about the ship itself. (think Treasure Planet)

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How costly is such a ship to operate? How much parts, fuel, crew do you need to keep that thing flying?

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OK, for 'realism', which sucks in a SWRPG, you need to think of this or at least jusitfy it TBH..... but..... the pirates would need to be VERY successful to keep the ship running.... or it docks regulary at shadowports for refuelling

Wayfarer with a Retrofitted Hanger Bay?

I think you could keep to Silhouette 5 and be in fairly good shape here.

Hi everyone. Thanks for the feedback.

First, like i said, i dont think the Cruiser would be directly used for smuggling or piracy. It would be more of a mobile base of.operation which would allow for shorter raiding routes. So i dont think the criminals would need to keep the armament on board. Basically turning whatever ship into one large maintenance/salvage/depot.

Could also be used as a meeting place for some smugglers and fences. A mobile minor shadowport of their own. The fact that its mobile just make it less likely to be found out than a permanent shadowport.

Less likly to found customers as well.

From my experience all non fighter ships basically function as moblie bases anyway in play.

But if you want a short list of big enough to store fighters/host a party or 2, while having small enough crew to for PC to mostly man.

Gozanti (just add hangers)

Consular Class Cruiser (agian still need hangers)

Modified Minstrel Class Space Yacht (hangers for 6 fighters, 2 shuttles) 37 crew and 13 guns also is described as lavish.

OR: Nebulon B and it's officially a casino...with associated business just happening next to it.

Check into the old West End Games products. They had the Darkstryder campaign based off a Corellian Corvette, and the Far Orbit Project, based off a Nebulon B. Pirates and Privateers gives some good general information.

The logistics of owning, maintaining, and operating a capital vessel of any kind would be absolutely enormous and expensive, it seems to me. You can't just "park" it anywhere: it would have to be "drydocked" (or whatever the space equivalent is) to make repairs or upgrades feasible; in most cases, it simply wouldn't fit into anything less than a military-grade dock. It would need to be crewed by hundreds of people, just to keep it moving in a straight line. As it would be an unlicensed capital ship, operating outside of an acknowledged military, it would represent a colossal liability to anyone attempting to assist it; its visibility would be a constant threat to whomever was operating near, in, or on it. It would be, almost by exclusive definition, a criminal object, simply because of the threat it represented, and the absence of visible ownership to an assured and transparent power structure. So unless the Hutts or a planetary government was using it as a stationary casino or as part of a contracted system defence force, I'd think your players would want to steer well clear of anything that would make them such a clear target.

Thankfully, there's lots of sub-capital options out there that are much easier to operate.

While a capital ship would be costly to operate a planetary base has it's cost as well. For a criminal organization the must worry about the Empire and other criminals attacking them defensive weapons and a quick escape are necessary. Weapon emplacements and a fast ship ready to take off after dragging as much of the crews wealth along can be very pricey. Not to mention the fact that the weapons will need to be replaced and a new base will need to be outfitted. Also not every one of your men will escape to the get a way ship so you will need to get new goons at the new base. Sounds like a large financial hit to me.

A capital ship, like the Nebulon B, can run away with all the defensive weapons and goons instead of abandoning them. Not to mention not losing your pets and trinkets. It can carry several large hyper capable shuttles, a bunch of fightercraft and larger vessels can dock along side. Certainly it is a bit heavy on the crew requirements but keep in mind those numbers assume the ship will stay in space for a couple years of active combat duty without refit. While a criminal gang may not get into a shipyard to fix it up right they also wont be using it as a real warship. They will just run away from a fight after dropping a squadron or two of fighters that will catch up later so they wont take the same kind of damage.

Now I don't have the ability to generate the statistics since the game is not like more numbers heavy games however it seems to me if a criminal gang had to rebuild a base every two or three years because of Empire or enemy criminal gangs attacking them it would be cheaper to run the Nebulon B. Sure after ten years or so the ship would be trashed out and need a major retrofit but all the wealth saved up from not losing it to raids, not having to build a new base and not having to get new goons they could buy another used capital ship. The bonus of course is not having to get new pets after every enemy attack.

The more I read OP's posts the more I think the Gozanti would be a good fit for the request.

It can't be that hard to maintain a small (Sil 5 or Sil 6) capital ship given that both canon and Legends include independent pirate fleets with multiple such vessels. A challenge maybe but far from an insurmountable one.

How about the Temple-Class from AoR Core: It's Sil. 6, has only 50 crew, costs under 1 M credits, and has got those large cargo modules. And most of all: 6 HP!

If you allowed 3 Hangar Bays, that were at least Sil. 60 worth of Fighters/Freighters, reasonably 120 to 180, up to 360.

It can't be that hard to maintain a small (Sil 5 or Sil 6) capital ship given that both canon and Legends include independent pirate fleets with multiple such vessels. A challenge maybe but far from an insurmountable one.

Can you remind me where we saw this?

Only that comes to mind is the pirates from the Hand of Thrawn duology.

In canon Tarkin mentions at least one pirate fleet and while it doesn't give a full list it refers to multiple gunships, corvettes and frigates.

In Legends as you mentioned the Hand of Thrawn duology has one and the RPG material and various PC and console games included some more.

The Eyttyrmin Batiiv pirates had two dozen corvettes and patrol craft plus around 75 converted yachts, frieghters, and ore haulers and six fighter squadrons before the Empire smashed them.

The Old Republic Codex refers to a pirate fleet that had 28 corvettes and heavy frigates before the Republic destroyed it.

The Lok Revenants had at least 3 large corvette sized cruisers at the beginning of the Clone Wars

Safonne Pendon led a pirate fleet that had 2 DP20s and a CR90

The Rneekii pirate fleet had two Strike Cruisers and an MC40A

The Shadow Wing had a Bulk Cruiser and a trio of CR90s

And this doesn't include the larger organized groups like the Invids, Black Sun's fleet, the Hutt fleet, the Stark Combine or the Zann Consortium.

It can't be that hard to maintain a small (Sil 5 or Sil 6) capital ship given that both canon and Legends include independent pirate fleets with multiple such vessels. A challenge maybe but far from an insurmountable one.

That's the thing, those examples are fleets .

From the sounds of it, the OP's group are your typical band of independent spacers, so they're generally not going to have the kinds of resources that a larger criminal organization would have at its disposal. Having anything bigger than a Silhouette 5 (which itself is pretty big) is going to seriously stretch the resources of such a group of independent spacers to their utmost limits, if not past them.

It can't be that hard to maintain a small (Sil 5 or Sil 6) capital ship given that both canon and Legends include independent pirate fleets with multiple such vessels. A challenge maybe but far from an insurmountable one.

That's the thing, those examples are fleets .

From the sounds of it, the OP's group are your typical band of independent spacers, so they're generally not going to have the kinds of resources that a larger criminal organization would have at its disposal. Having anything bigger than a Silhouette 5 (which itself is pretty big) is going to seriously stretch the resources of such a group of independent spacers to their utmost limits, if not past them.

I didn't really take the OP's first post as implying that the ship would be operated by just the group of PCs...but rather that they've thrown in with a group of some sort, which had the manpower to operate a medium-to-largish base of operations.

Even an outfit like Karrde's gang or something similar, had consolidation been in their best interests, could have probably feasibly retrofitted a Neb-B to serve as a mobile base (and honestly, such a solution, after being run out of Myrkr and helping with the whole Thrawn thing doesn't seem too far out of the realm of feasibility or plausibility.

I definetly do not believe the PCs should own a ship of their own. But just because its their base of operations, it doesnt mean it would necessarily be exclusively THEIR base alone.

Just.. You know, a friendly port run by other scoundrels you trust (or jointly owned in part by the PCs). Something of a Smuggler Coop. The sort of place you could stash some precious stuff, or lay low to avoid the heat.

Hell. That sort of communal group could take the form of an Obligation of its own. After all, they have to pitch in the ship's budget, or defense, etc.. At times.

I definetly do not believe the PCs should own a ship of their own. But just because its their base of operations, it doesnt mean it would necessarily be exclusively THEIR base alone.

Just.. You know, a friendly port run by other scoundrels you trust (or jointly owned in part by the PCs). Something of a Smuggler Coop. The sort of place you could stash some precious stuff, or lay low to avoid the heat.

Hell. That sort of communal group could take the form of an Obligation of its own. After all, they have to pitch in the ship's budget, or defense, etc.. At times.

It all depends on the scope of your campaign. Are you playing a game in which the PC's are trying to build their own smuggling/shipping operation ala Talon Karrde? Or is your game one where the PC's just barely surviving on the edges of space? Either game is a viable and fun campaign to run/play in, however in the first example, the PC's owning ship (or ships) isn't that unlikely, whereas in the latter example, it is highly unlikely for the PC's to own a ship beyond their starter as they are probably scraping just to keep it running.