so i need an opinion on the number of advanced benefits you can install in shipboard workshops

in the book it says 3 advanced benefits and:

"the workshop's owner can use one of the ship's unused hard points to increase the number of advanced benefits it can sustain by one."

does that mean if my ship has 6 hp, I can install a total of 9 benefits using all 6 hps, or does it really just mean that a single hp can be used to raise the number of benefits from 3 to 4? (the wording is a bit unclear to me)

it would seem weird to me that a yt-1300 for example could be made into a bigger workshop than a homestead workshop (3+6hp vs 6 advanced benefits)

IN my mind it means that you can spend a maximum of one, just one, hard point. And then you can have one additional benefit.

Hmm, I read it as not having a limit. If you can talk you party in to giving up all they're cool ship upgrades for shop bonuses go for it.

The homestead vs ship size makes sense to me because of the description. basicly the homestead workshop is jut your garage out back. decidely smaller than a cargo ship.

I'm currently playing the technician in the group though so I might be biased.

I want to say it's a one time only thing, but considering how valuable hardpoints are I don't think it's unbalancing to allow more.

i was thinking maybe the first hp can be used as normal, and every additional hp used for these advanced benefits also reduces the encumbrance capacity of the ship a bit, like the additional workshop installations take up actual space on the ship

i was thinking maybe the first hp can be used as normal, and every additional hp used for these advanced benefits also reduces the encumbrance capacity of the ship a bit, like the additional workshop installations take up actual space on the ship

I wouldn't bother with that, on a vehicle HP are far more important than Enc. Enc is largely a story element.

Personally I would go anyway with 3 workshops on our freighter, one for med, one for computer and one for mechanic, costs no hardpoints and those sil 5 freighters have space, space, space. ;-)

And yeah, Enc on the bigger freighters represents storage room for your stuff and not really cargo space anyway. You can just attach a whole cargo container to the downside of those freighters anyway, sometimes severals, 100 tons of cargo, but you can not store neatly all that stuff INSIDE of the living space, that is what imo encumbrance mostly is telling us.

On 5/17/2016 at 7:23 PM, SEApocalypse said:

Personally I would go anyway with 3 workshops on our freighter, one for med, one for computer and one for mechanic, costs no hardpoints and those sil 5 freighters have space, space, space. ;-)

And yeah, Enc on the bigger freighters represents storage room for your stuff and not really cargo space anyway. You can just attach a whole cargo container to the downside of those freighters anyway, sometimes severals, 100 tons of cargo, but you can not store neatly all that stuff INSIDE of the living space, that is what imo encumbrance mostly is telling us.

Something likely significant: the text in the Workshop rules are always phrased as 'the character', 'the technician', 'the PC', never 'a character', 'a technician', or 'a PC'.

These workshop benefits seem to only work for one character, the one it is customized for. Assuming the 20 encumbrance limit of equipment is also the size of the shop (a charitable estimate), that's 60 for all three, and 60 each if you want every PC or any given NPC to be able to gain the benefits. This can add up very fast, even on big ships, if everyone needs to work. (What follows is just musings for fun, this was the only point I was making.)

Consider the Cybership Corvette that is also in Special Mods. The entire vessel would seem to be one gigantic, specialized workshop, but it is not said to grant any workshop bonuses. To get them the surgeons, implant makers, and programmers would still need their own shops. The vessel's encumbrance is 1500 less than the stock corvette it is based on, so enough for 75 pre-built shops (assuming 20 encumbrance each). The crew compliment is 135 including medical staff. Average listed crew for this size corvette (30-165) is 98. This leaves 36 medical staff with 2 shops each, plus one chief cyberneticist with all 3, little more than 1 in 3 people on-board. Granted, these are NPC characters who are in serious business. Most PCs are either strictly small-time or the chief cyberneticist.

This does lead to an interesting side note for players and GMs who wonder about cost: a Cybershop with added weapons to match the base corvette costs 148000 credits extra and has two fewer hardpoints. 148000 / 75 = 1973 credits, or a rough minimum of 2000 credits to get one workshop. It also implies that the Cybership has two hardpoints that were used to improve workshops.

3 hours ago, Ssabak said:

This does lead to an interesting side note for players and GMs who wonder about cost: a Cybershop with added weapons to match the base corvette costs 148000 credits extra and has two fewer hardpoints. 148000 / 75 = 1973 credits, or a rough minimum of 2000 credits to get one workshop. It also implies that the Cybership has two hardpoints that were used to improve workshops.

You are doing more math and thinking more about the ship than the developers did.
Extracting this kind of information does not work like that as the gear is designed on a whim, besides your base is flawed as well as the CR90s encumbrance rating and crew are maximum values, not attainable at the same time, while ironically there is way more cargo space on the CR90 based on the special capital ship rules for cargo and capitals. And lastly the whole thing on the CR90 is clearly an industrial workshop in the first place.

TLDR: The game has a narrative, not simulationist focus, you better read the books with that in mind.