Ship Talk

By Spatula Of Doom, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

With the last of the Career books out, and the two location book, and all of them having at least a couple of vehicles, and most of them having some attachments, there's a lot of vehicles and mods out there even if you're only talking about Edge.

Everyone's got a ship, it is after all a central concept of Edge of the Empire.

Everyone who's combed through the books probably has a favourite ship.

What's yours?

What's your favourite attachment?

Do you have any custom attachments that you and your GM have noodled out?

We've come up with one custom attachment. The Pressurized Universal Docking System (PUDS). It's main purpose for us is docking a snubfighter to a Sil4 ship. It includes fuel and power lines, is flexible and configurable to attach to many different cockpits or hatches, and with upgrade allows quick attachment and release and ease of access.

The note about light freighters having external clamps is a little vague about how it works. This one not only makes sure you don't have to do a space walk in the middle of combat to get aboard your Headhunter, but lets you get aboard and un-dock in 1 turn.

Avail 4, 1HP, 3000 cred, 4 manoeuvres to dock and exit and vice versa can be trimmed down to 2 with 2 mods.

Our first ship was a Lancer Pursuit Craft. It's quick, and it's special rule is good if you only have one gunner. Sadly it's not a good flier with -2 handling, not a good war ship with 2 armor, 1 defence in 1 zone base, and low hull trauma and system strain. It doesn't even make a good hauler with 60 enc and only a total of 6 people capacity including crew. 3 hard points can be used to ameliorate some of the problem, but I'd say it isn't enough to save the class.

Our current ship is a YT-2400 that we bought to be a good go anywhere do anything ship. We crammed those 5 hard points full of Advanced Targeting Array, Cloaked Smuggling Bays, Encrypted Computers, Gunner Droid Brain, High Output Ion Turbines, Pressurized Universal Docking System, Security Measures, and a Slicing Computer. We also replaced the decent basic weaponry with a quad laser and a pair of heavy laser cannons, meaning we can punch at longer range (especially with the Advanced Targeting, sniper shot) and probably can make full use of all those linked qualities.

I think it hits all the notes except one of the stealth type systems, but we're trying to avoid becoming hunted by the empire just because of what we're flying in.We didn't bother with a piloting or astrogation droid brain since we've got an Astromech Droid NPC who can be the backup on each of those if the appropriate PC isn't around.

Favourite Sil 5 ship? C-Roc from No Disintegrations.

Still debating internally what the best fighter or Sil 3 ship is.

Edited by Spatula Of Doom

Loronar E9 is my favorite Sil 4 ship. For Sil 5 I like the hard lines of the gozanti but the engine layout (and stats) of the C-Roc.

We may have just found a C-Roc in the PbP I'm in. Fingers crossed.

What book is the Loronar E9 from? What about it makes it great?

Side note. I know it wouldn't be all that efficient from an engineering standpoint, but I do like the look of the C-ROC's sloped prow.

Big fan of the Baudo-Class Star Yacht, however I've yet to try it out in game. But it's the ship I most want to get my crew onboard...

25 minutes ago, Spatula Of Doom said:

What book is the Loronar E9 from? What about it makes it great?

Side note. I know it wouldn't be all that efficient from an engineering standpoint, but I do like the look of the C-ROC's sloped prow.

I think the E9 is from the scout book. It has good stats but I really like looks of it. I'm a big fan of symmetry in my star ships. I have a hard time with the 1300 and 2400 due to thier offset cockpit. It's just wrong to me.

My 300+xp Rigger loves his Gat-12h Skipray Blast Boat. Left the Ions on it, Ripped out all the other weapons, (Gm has a rule that taking out a weapon gets you a Hardpoint back) Than Installed a Twin Light Turbo Laser on the turret on top, With the Oversized weapon Mount DC. Increased sensor Range to long, and Advanced Targeting array. Ripped out in the interior and replaced all crew stations with droid brains, and My tiny little Chadra-Fan has all the space he needs, PLus a few ranks in Speak Bianary, For the blue dice when ordering the droid brains

11 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

I think the E9 is from the scout book. It has good stats but I really like looks of it. I'm a big fan of symmetry in my star ships. I have a hard time with the 1300 and 2400 due to thier offset cockpit. It's just wrong to me.

Enter the Unknown Page 61

Found it, thanks Grifter. The E-9 is indeed a nice looking ship (I think one of the ships in the original XCom game looked exactly like that). The write up also makes it seem like it's a nice ship to live in. Stats are Okish, but I suppose you can't expect too too much from a starting ship priced ship and I do like anything with better than Short sensor range.

XGrifterX. Is upgrading the sensor range an attachment in one of the books, or is it a custom attachment?

The Skipray is dfinitely a nice fighting boat. The hit to handling and system strain from the Oversized Weapon Mount is a bit rough, but the jump in firepower that you get when you move up into turbo laser territory is pretty dang big. It does practically beg for that Advanced Targeting Array. Not sure I'd allow something that big as a turret, but eh no big.

It wouldn't make a good party ship with the low encumbrance and no passenger capacity (crew 5), but as a solo/duo ship, or something to take into a fight rather than a big clumsy cargo hauler, I'm sure it does just fine.

Edited by Spatula Of Doom

Right now we are doing an AOR campaign with each player controlling multiple characters in different units throughout the sector. Our capship unit is on an MC30C with my character as chief engineer while our fighter unit is a mix of A-Wings and E-Wings, with my character in an E-Wing, on a MC80 Liberty that also has an NPC X-Wing units and an NPC Y-Wing unit while our fleet unit is one DP20 2 Nebulon-Bs,, a Marauder Corvette and a CR90 Corvette plus another MC30Cand an MC40A as the flagship with a mix of X-Wings, Y-Wings, and A-Wings on the carriers. More Y-Wings then anything else. my character commands one of the Nebulons. Our last Edge Campaign was a mercenary group based on a Starbolt with a mix of Starhoppers, T-Wings, and R-41s.

My favorite ship class so far is the Kossak, though I'm curious about the Active class mentioned in Lead by Example because I loved the Legends Legacy Ardent class and they are both KDY Fast Frigates so I'm hoping there are some similarities.. Like the Active basically being a predecessor design to the Ardent not as powerful but a very similar concept.

I started my players out in an e9-explorer with the stats of a yt-2400+1 speed, and an ion turbine on top of that.

With they're permission I had a czerka hit squad blew it up in a docking bay and one pc (rightful heir of about 10% of czerka stock) used hi father's unlimited funds credit stick to impulse buy a highly modified consular class cruiser (hybrid of consular cruiser and raider corvette stats, speed 4 plus ion turbine for speed 5). Part of my criteria for a ship is that I can get a deck plan for it, anot her ison a base speed of 4 or higher.

I like the hwk-1000, and the aggressor assault fighter

4 hours ago, Spatula Of Doom said:

XGrifterX. Is upgrading the sensor range an attachment in one of the books, or is it a custom attachment?

Upgraded Comms array, Its in the core for AOR. Pg 239 Of said core says Comm range is usually equal to ships sensors. So that is what I have always used for upgrading the sensor range.

So I really think the HWK-290 is a bit of a hidden gem.

It's a "light freighter" that's silhouette 3 and moves and handles like a fighter, but has space for 4 people and 75 encumbrance and is even got more hull trauma and system strain threshold than most fighters. Sure it starts out unarmed, but with 5 hard points you can give it whatever weapons loadout you like, and still have more hard points left than most fighters.

How much?

70,000. Not bad. Load it up and it'll be a bit pricey, but you'll get one heck of a ship out of it.

The sil 3 mandi shuttle from "friends like these" far out classes the hwk-290.

How so?

I love the C-Roc for Sil 5. Sil 4 I would have to say the HWK-1000, unless I can include homebrew which would be the XS Light Stock Freighter. For a fighter I like the Mandalorian Fang Fighter.

58 minutes ago, Spatula Of Doom said:

How so?

Silhouette 3

Speed 4

Handling +1

Def 1/-/-/1

Armor 4

Ht 25

Ss 15

Hyper drive x2/none

Navicomputer: none-astro mech Droid socket

Sensor range: long

Crew 1 pilot, 1 copilot

En 75

Passengers: 2 prisoners

Consumables 3 months

Hard points: 1

Medium lasers, forward, damage 6, critical 3, range close, linked 1

Proton torpedo launcher: forward, damage 8, critical 2, range short, blast 6, breach 6, limited amo 3, slow firing 1

4 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Silhouette 3 Speed 4 Handling +1 Def 1/-/-/1 Armor 4 Ht 25 Ss 15

Hyper drive x2/none Navicomputer: none-astro mech Droid socket Sensor range: long

Crew 1 pilot, 1 copilot En 75 Passengers: 2 prisoners Consumables 3 months

Hard points: 1

Medium lasers, forward, damage 6, critical 3, range close, linked 1

Proton torpedo launcher: forward, damage 8, critical 2, range short, blast 6, breach 6, limited amo 3, slow firing 1

2 more armor and 7 more hull trauma than the HWK and 3 less system strain.

Slap a pair of medium lasers and a proton torpedo launcher on the HWK and you'd still have 3 hard points to spare, rather than 1.

Strange to see something that small with such a big sensor range.

Hmm it's pretty comparable.

How much does it cost?

7 minutes ago, Spatula Of Doom said:

2 more armor and 7 more hull trauma than the HWK and 3 less system strain.

Slap a pair of medium lasers and a proton torpedo launcher on the HWK and you'd still have 3 hard points to spare, rather than 1.

Strange to see something that small with such a big sensor range.

Hmm it's pretty comparable.

How much does it cost?

135000 (but this is a modified version, no stats for stock version)

Don't forget the astro mech Droid socket is included

Edited by EliasWindrider

Yea, I'm not sure if that's a positive or a negative.

You need to have an astromech droid available in order to jump to hyperspace, which is an extra expense, and may be lost/separated from.

On the other hand you've got something that can do the astrogation for you, or aid with it.

Given both ships can carry multiple crew and passengers, I'm not sure an astromech is strictly necessary.
I'd call it a wash.

That is almost double the price though.

Edited by Spatula Of Doom

And astro mech Droid socket opens up a whole lot of options. Strain recovery, repairs, back up pilot, weapons operator, let's say you put quad laser cannons and a gunnery Droid brain it means you can fire all 3 weapon systems in a round while the pilot concentrates on flying.

Astro mech socket is worth 2 hard points according to stay on target

2 hard points is better than a thing that takes up 2 hard points, since you can pick and choose what goes in those 2 hard points.

Well I don't think the astromech will be doing much in the way of repairs while locked into the socket, and gunner/astrogation/piloting droid brains cover all the other bases without taking up a hard point, so...

Oh and at the price difference between ships you could put all three brains and comparable weapons, and still come out with plenty of money for more upgrades.

Edited by Spatula Of Doom

If there is an astromech pc in the party then it's certainly worth it

Do you require an astromech socket in order for an astromech droid to do ship stuff like astrogation or mechanics?

Not mechanics, astro gating is up in the air, but they'd have to have that little whirl jack R2 always plugs into, but those are pretty standard. If it didn't have a Droid socket I would put a set back dice on pilot and gunnery checks during combat,