To expand on the suggestion of a GR transport it is noteworthy that combat retrofits are not uncommon in the Outer Rim where an unarmed transport is just a can of free stuff for pirates unless they have a reliable escort. Apparently the frame is sturdy enough and flexible enough that some pirates even use GRs themselves! Concealed/retractable weapons can make these a more unassuming while having combat capabilities

1 hour ago, nitrobenz said:

To expand on the suggestion of a GR transport it is noteworthy that combat retrofits are not uncommon in the Outer Rim where an unarmed transport is just a can of free stuff for pirates unless they have a reliable escort. Apparently the frame is sturdy enough and flexible enough that some pirates even use GRs themselves! Concealed/retractable weapons can make these a more unassuming while having combat capabilities

I love this! Can't wait to spring that on some unsuspecting players in the near future

Also there's the YT-1300 cargo pusher art floating around too. You could get whatever floorplan you want out of that with plenty of room for a small hangar:

Wow! Thanks a lot nitrobenz! And you are not late at all.

On 8/6/2020 at 2:21 PM, nitrobenz said:

Keep in mind that the VCX-100(Ghost) is pretty unusual in that the attached shuttle is not an aftermarket modification. In universe that shuttle and its little bay was a factory option for transporting small cargo into small spaces.

This is why I find the VCX so interesting: the shuttle and docking area comes standard and fits into the ship without needing a made-shift hangar and without the shuttle just "hanging there" from an airlock. Makes the shuttle much less suspicious (assuming you hide the guns if it has it), and there is no need to explain why the huge overhaul of the ship in the first place.

Btw: My players decided they want to play a Tramp Freighters campaign much more than a rebels campaign (I fear that the Firefly fandom is strong in many of them). So they will begin as independent freighters trying to make a living at the Minos Cluster. So yet more reasons not to have a hugely modified freighter (or they will never manage to repay the loan shark). On the other hand, it seems there will be only one pilot in the group, so the 2 ship scenario seems not as important at the moment, though there are still a few chars in the drawing board.

@LUZ_TAK how many players in the group?

So far, 5, chances for a 6th.

Dramatis personae so far:

- A Duro brash pilot with a gambling problem

- An astromech with kleptocracy tendencies, convinced he is the ship's owner and captain and the rest are unruly passeneger.

- A force sensitive martial artist Cathar

- A robinhoodesque con-man and charlatan human

- 5th player undecided.

55 minutes ago, LUZ_TAK said:

So far, 5, chances for a 6th.

Dramatis personae so far:

- A Duro brash pilot with a gambling problem

- An astromech with kleptocracy tendencies, convinced he is the ship's owner and captain and the rest are unruly passeneger.

- A force sensitive martial artist Cathar

- A robinhoodesque con-man and charlatan human

- 5th player undecided.

So 1-3 droids and 3-5 organics. Shared quarters or are each going to have their own room? Shared quarters opens up the YT-1300 and 2400 as serious options, if they're of the mindset that they have to have their own personal space then the HT-22 that @Cr0aker brought up or a Civilian Gozanti should be seriously considered since it'll eat into the available cargo space of a 1300 or 2400 by a fair bit if all 5-6 have their own quarters. Especially if they have the tendency to accrue "collectables" and equipment that the groups I've gamed with do (the Bag of Holding abuse was quite rampant).

I doubt there will be a second droid, could happen, but slim chance.

I plan on giving the 5 or 6 options for their starting ship, have them consider ship stats, quarters and options, and of course price; the VCX with shuttle should probably be the most expensive one.

My current shortlist includes the Ghtroc 720, the Novadrive 3Z, the YT2200 and the VCX100.

2 hours ago, LUZ_TAK said:

I doubt there will be a second droid, could happen, but slim chance.

I plan on giving the 5 or 6 options for their starting ship, have them consider ship stats, quarters and options, and of course price; the VCX with shuttle should probably be the most expensive one.

My current shortlist includes the Ghtroc 720, the Novadrive 3Z, the YT2200 and the VCX100.

Kk.

How do you feel about this?

Have the group select a starting ship from a shortlist I'll create. I will include classics like the Ghtroc 720, the Barloz, the YT1300. They can purchase it at "used price", plus 10.000 credits in modifications or replacement systems. That is the amount owned to the loanshark at the beggining of the game, plus his interest rates of course.

A "used" ship comes with 2 "quirks" or persisitent problems". They can purchase a "lightly used" ship, at 25% premium over the used price, and has only one "quirk" or a "heavy used one", at 25% discount over used price, and has 3 o 4 "quirks".

How does that sound?

I like the sound of that for a tramp freighter campaign, it gves some good flavor to the starting setup. I assume the quirks will be hidden until the first time they're relevant?

2 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

I like the sound of that for a tramp freighter campaign, it gves some good flavor to the starting setup. I assume the quirks will be hidden until the first time they're relevant?

Im still undecided on that. The droid wanted to be on the ship thru several owners already; he simply came with the ship and stayed with the ship. This has led him to decide that he is the rightful owner and captain and all this organics are just trespassing. If this stand, hard to justify them being unknown

I might tell the droid player and let the other in the dark though

37 minutes ago, LUZ_TAK said:

...

I might tell the droid player and let the other in the dark though

Oooh, I do like that bit of backstory if the new crew gets on the droid's good side they might get some warning, if they tick the droid off they might "forget" those little details.

Also an idea: they're not trespassers, but instead the used-ship sales person is "contracting the crew" (maybe even "selling" them) to the droid, unknown to the crew who thinks they are buying a ship with this droid as a bonus. Then the droid thinks they own not just the ship, but the crew as well! Would that be a step too far? I hesitate to put a character that far outside the main group unless the player wants to be at odds with everyone.

45 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

Oooh, I do like that bit of backstory if the new crew gets on the droid's good side they might get some warning, if they tick the droid off they might "forget" those little details.

Also an idea: they're not trespassers, but instead the used-ship sales person is "contracting the crew" (maybe even "selling" them) to the droid, unknown to the crew who thinks they are buying a ship with this droid as a bonus. Then the droid thinks they own not just the ship, but the crew as well! Would that be a step too far? I hesitate to put a character that far outside the main group unless the player wants to be at odds with everyone.

Nice twist. I'm not fond of boxing the players into something about their background. But will explore this and get back to you.

1 hour ago, LUZ_TAK said:

Nice twist. I'm not fond of boxing the players into something about their background. But will explore this and get back to you.

Definitely something that needs player buy-in to work

Ok, question about the D6 stats of the stock VCX and it's shuttle. There are no D6 official stats that I know of. Would like a heads-up if there are.

I found different fan made stats, most look too good for a stock ship (fanmade stats tend to go over the top).

The 2 sources I'm finding reasonable are:

- Rebels season 1 fan made sourcebook: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3tO4WffOVuTfjkzWm5pdksxaW1yQXYwOHY1bGxSMmJBMkNENlVLNzBOdTVwSVRKUnBhQUU

- This post on Rancorpit: https://rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5000&highlight=rebels+ghost+phantom

Base VCX stats look almost the same, and seem reasonable. But the first one shows the stock VCX without weaponry, which is clearly mistake, and has no stock shuttle stats.

Meanwhile the second one looks fine, maybe too good on the weapons. Specially the shuttle. Looks too armed for its function (always talking stock versions here)

I'm leaning on using the second source, slightly toned down in a few places, and have the shuttle come unarmed (the players can arm it with their starting credits for modifications).

Does this sound reasonable?

On 8/12/2020 at 5:44 AM, LUZ_TAK said:

I'm leaning on using the second source, slightly toned down in a few places, and have the shuttle come unarmed (the players can arm it with their starting credits for modifications).

Does this sound reasonable?

Sounds like a decent call to me to keep it more attainable, but I would toss out a reminder that the VCX is a really nice light freighter and should be a stretch for a starter ship. I don't feel it's out of line for it to be a little too good to be true, like you might have to throw in a couple extra "quirks" at the same price point as compared to the other, older, frames to balance out how much better it looks at first blush.

If you're crew is still mulling options there is always my personal fav of the CEC freighters, the YU-410. (I'll admit, I'm a bit strange in my tastes).

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/YU-410_light_freighter

8 hours ago, nitrobenz said:

Sounds like a decent call to me to keep it more attainable, but I would toss out a reminder that the VCX is a really nice light freighter and should be a stretch for a starter ship. I don't feel it's out of line for it to be a little too good to be true, like you might have to throw in a couple extra "quirks" at the same price point as compared to the other, older, frames to balance out how much better it looks at first blush.

Mhhh I checked the D6 stats and while they are a bit better than YT1300 and the Ghtroc, they are in line with the YT2000 and YT2400.

The big selling point of the VCX for me is the shuttle. But that adds up debt. A used VCX plus used shuttle is 40.000 credits. My personal fav, the Novadrive 3-Z, is half that.

If they start factoring upgrade costs, modding the VCX is twice as expensive too, since most upgrades are based on the retail price (150k vs 60k).

So choosing the VCX is quite a commitment. Mind you, I fully expect they will choose it, mainly because of the shuttle. Thats why I was concerned with the heavy armament the stock version of the shuttle came with. Therefore I was considering it came unarmed, maybe lowering the price tag from 10k to 8k.

10 hours ago, LUZ_TAK said:

Thats why I was concerned with the heavy armament the stock version of the shuttle came with. Therefore I was considering it came unarmed, maybe lowering the price tag from 10k to 8k.

The stock from the factory shuttle definitely would have been unarmed. I don't think it would be completely unreasonable to find one without weapons since the general use case for it is to drop cargo in tight spots where the freighter cannot land, in which case the main VCX can still hold an overwatch position to protect the unarmed shuttle

10 hours ago, LUZ_TAK said:

The big selling point of the VCX for me is the shuttle. But that adds up debt. A used VCX plus used shuttle is 40.000 credits. My personal fav, the Novadrive 3-Z, is half that.

Hence my suggestion that the found VCX-100 comes with extra 'quirks' (I really like that idea, I'll probably bring it up in future campaigns) or maybe is just be really beat up to justify a more comparable cost to the other starters.

On 8/9/2020 at 12:30 PM, Hiemfire said:

So 1-3 droids and 3-5 organics. Shared quarters or are each going to have their own room? Shared quarters opens up the YT-1300 and 2400 as serious options, if they're of the mindset that they have to have their own personal space then the HT-22 that @Cr0aker brought up or a Civilian Gozanti should be seriously considered since it'll eat into the available cargo space of a 1300 or 2400 by a fair bit if all 5-6 have their own quarters. Especially if they have the tendency to accrue "collectables" and equipment that the groups I've gamed with do (the Bag of Holding abuse was quite rampant).

Sounds like a decent size group.

32 minutes ago, LTuser said:

Sounds like a decent size group.

I was an estimation range of the possible character race consistency of @LUZ_TAK 's gaming group. At the time it was 3 who had decided to play organics, 1 who had chosen to be a droid (with an interesting plot motivator twist to their character), 1 undecided as to what they'd be and 1 who was considering joining the gaming group so hadn't chosen what they were going to RP. 6 people total. 1 definite droid with the possibility of up to 2 more. 3 definite organics with the possibility of up to 2 more. The up to 2 more being the same people.