Inspired by Captain Ahab's Pequod (Of Moby **** Fame), I realized that I could absolutely make a whaling ship. Behold, a monstronsity worth shuddering:

Raider Fore

Ordnance Tubes

Ordnance Experts

Harpoons Missiles

Engine Booster

Raider Aft

Ordnance Tubes

Ordance Experts

IG-RM Thug Droids

Harpoon Missiles

Harpoon Missiles

Engine Booster

Construction Droid

Captain Needa

Impetuous

So, you do your best to use the engine boosters to broadside the enemy. The Fore section Recovers or Reinforces. The Aft section TLs. Your poor TLed victim will suffer at least one, maybe 2 (unmodified) primary weapon attacks, followed by 1-3 Harpoons, depending on which arcs you get them in. The Harpoons are modified by the Ordnance Experts, who provide 2 hits on each shot, and the IGs, who turn one of those hits into a crit to trigger the condition. This works because, of course, you don't have to spend the TL to fire harpoons. If you kill the guy before you've fired all your Harpoons, Impetuous allows you to acquire a new target and keep going. Needa and the Construction Droid help keep you alive.

Now, technically, I don't know if I can have 2 Ordnance Experts and 2 Engine Boosters. They are limited, but the Squad builder lets me do it because they are different ship cards. Even if I can't have doubles, I think it's still crazy good.

Oh good lord this website censored the title of the book...

I find myself humming "we're whalers on the moon..."

The good:

• Ordnance Raiders are always a good thing. Pairing it with missiles which don't need to spend target locks to fire is doubly good, because managing your target locks essentially replaces managing energy.
• Ordnance Experts are also good because unlike gunnery team they don't drain energy. They are once-per-round, so it's not going to "provide 2 hits on each shot" but will give you a hit on two of your harpoon shots.
• Both Ordnance Experts and Engine Booster are Limited, so no, you cannot have two of them (but you can substitute one ordnance experts team for a gunnery team with pretty much the same effect).
• You do move after all small craft (in fact as a PS4 corvette you move after everything except another enemy corvette), so theoretically you shouldn't have a problem with range acquiring locks. I normally recommend a sensor team but thinking about it I guess it's not actually that important.
• IG-RM Thug Droids are a brutal pairing with harpoons.
• Needa is a good idea - hitting rocks hurts epic ships like heck - but if you need the slot for something else a Seismic Torpedo or two does the job just as well and might hurt the enemy into the bargain.
• The one crew I'm not convinced by is construction droid. Yes, spending a point of energy to 'fix' a damage card sounds cool, but since you're doing a recover action, all you're doing is spending energy to fix hull damage and not fix shields (unless you've got enough energy to bring your shields back up full and fix hull damage, but unless your ship is optimized for energy generation I can't see you being able to do that more than once, tops) which isn't that big a deal when you're specifically not allowed to fix critical damage.
• For the same price, I'd be very tempted to take a Weapons Engineer.
  • When your battle-plan is 'fire a broadside of harpoon missiles' being able to fire them at two targets is good. You can whomp on one of them and then shift targets with impetuous, but this way you can engage two targets and actually spend your locks to modify the shots, which may be important against something elusive like an Interceptor, Protectorate or Silencer.
• Alternatively, a Rebel Captive is a great deterrent against enemy aces, or Agent Kallus is a great upgrade if you expect to face an enemy capital ship (which fortunately is now mandated by the new epic FAQ)
• Don't forget to have Ishmael in his little boat alongside (Captain Jonus, TIE Shuttle, Systems Officer, Swarm Tactics, Lightweight Frame)
• Beware of Jamming Beams and Scrambler Missiles! They are the one thing in recent waves which can utterly cripple an ordnance tubes corvette. Having a targeting synchroniser somewhere is a good backup plan.

Oh! I love that Ishmael idea! Throwing EM emitter on to protect him, and giving him Ysanne, Wired, Systems Officer, provides for a very survivable little boat who makes the Pequod absolutely vicious. Then I can fit 3 Harpoon Rhoboats too, all of whom can use Jonus' ability. Harpoons everywhere!!

And thanks for the clarification on some of those upgrades!

You can do it almost as well with a Corvette

Mwahahahaha

2 hours ago, Greebwahn said:

You can do it almost as well with a Corvette

And if Ezra is in your squad somwehere, you can put Maul on the capital ship for what amounts to a free target lock on EVERY ATTACK (remember, epic ships can't have stress, so as soon as Maul stresses for the rerolls, the stress just falls away)...

• Corvette (Fore) - 72 points
  • Harpoon Missile x2
  • Ordnance Tubes
  • Weapons Engineer
  • IG-RM Thug Droids
  • Ordnance Experts
• Corvette (Aft) - 55 points
  • Harpoon Missile
  • Ordnance Tubes
  • Maul
  • Engine Booster
• Ezra (Sheathipede) - 23 points
  • Wired
  • Baze Malbus
  • R3-A2
• 150 points total

5 hours ago, emeraldbeacon said:

And if Ezra is in your squad somwehere, you can put Maul on the capital ship for what amounts to a free target lock on EVERY ATTACK (remember, epic ships can't have stress, so as soon as Maul stresses for the rerolls, the stress just falls away)...

• Corvette (Fore) - 72 points
  • Harpoon Missile x2
  • Ordnance Tubes
  • Weapons Engineer
  • IG-RM Thug Droids
  • Ordnance Experts
• Corvette (Aft) - 55 points
  • Harpoon Missile
  • Ordnance Tubes
  • Maul
  • Engine Booster
• Ezra (Sheathipede) - 23 points
  • Wired
  • Baze Malbus
  • R3-A2
• 150 points total

• No need for the engine booster. A raider is very much "this side towards enemy" but a CR-90 wants to fly broadside on, so engine booster becomes less useful (it also means you'll be recovering rather than reinforcing)
• For the same reason, corvettes tend to like longer range guns like turbolasers to try and blow the front off an incoming raider before she reaches range 3.
• Consider the Tantive IV title - taking an extra Team (Engineering Team) and Crew (Targeting Co-Ordinator) means you can get an action-free sensor lock every turn when doing a straight manoeuvre (think of it as an epic version of a K4 droid!), freeing up Ezra to do Ezra things and stopping the corvette needing to waste actions target locking (and providing the power to support a construction droid if so inclined).
• Again, consider a gunnery team. Even with Maul aboard, a guidance chips analogue is not a bad thing.

I never even though about Maul! I love it!