I've been looking at the stats for the Ghtroc 720 Light Freighter from the Beta to see if it's still appropriate for PC use. There are four items that I feel need to be looked at:

1) The vessel is currently listed with a Sensor Range of Medium. While this is not unheard of on a Size 4 vessel, it is a bit higher than average. Should it stay Medium or be reduced to Short?

2) The Encumbrance Capacity is listed as 100. It appears than several of the vessels increased this value by approximately +100%. Does a revised EC of 200 seem reasonable?

3) The Armor is listed as 5.This seems very high for a Size 4 ship. Should it be reduced to Armor 4 or even Armor 3?

4) The twin light laser cannons are listed as Dorsal (all weapons on size 4+ in the Beta needed to be Dorsal or Ventral, but this is no longer the case). Should this weapon retain the Dorsal designation or just be Forward?

1) I'd keep it at medium I think, unless there's a good reason not to. It might reappear in the future, so then we'll see some revised stats, perhaps. For now, keep it there, or decrease to short if it gives your players too much of a head start/warning when customs is trying to sneak up on them

2) The cargo capacity was increased for many ships during the beta, see page 11 here. The Ghtroc's was increased to 250.

3) I also reacted on that initially. Decreasing it to 4 should suffice I think, if you feel it is necessary. I don't.

4) Isn't it a turret? In that case I still think it should be listed ventral/dorsal for 4+ although I haven't checked this in the corebook, all in all I don't think it matter much.

1) I'd keep it at medium I think, unless there's a good reason not to. It might reappear in the future, so then we'll see some revised stats, perhaps. For now, keep it there, or decrease to short if it gives your players too much of a head start/warning when customs is trying to sneak up on them

2) The cargo capacity was increased for many ships during the beta, see page 11 here. The Ghtroc's was increased to 250.

3) I also reacted on that initially. Decreasing it to 4 should suffice I think, if you feel it is necessary. I don't.

4) Isn't it a turret? In that case I still think it should be listed ventral/dorsal for 4+ although I haven't checked this in the corebook, all in all I don't think it matter much.

Re: #4 - The standard weaponry on the Ghtroc 720 is not a turret. It is a fixed mount that fires forward. I'm not much of a fan of Dorsal/Ventral distinctions on non-turrets myself as they just seem unnecessarily restrictive.

Right, if its not a turret then I don't see much point in dorsal/ventral placement for a silhouette 4 ship. Except for the narration part of climbing up, instead of down, or whatever, into the gunner station, unless its fired from the cockpit... at which it only matters if you want the laser shots streaking across the cockpit to bathe it in red laser light for a short moment...

The weapon looks to me to be mounted in the same manner as the turret of the Y-wing. It defaults to locked forward, but it appears that the mount could be reworked into a full (dorsal) turret if assigned a dedicated gunner.

Oh, lastly, does 98,000 credits for the Ghtroc 720 seem a bit too cheap? This vessel is better than the YT-1300 in almost every way aside from lacking the CEC name brand and a hard point.

Oh, lastly, does 98,000 credits for the Ghtroc 720 seem a bit too cheap? This vessel is better than the YT-1300 in almost every way aside from lacking the CEC name brand and a hard point.

That's the stock price for the Ghtroc 720 since the WEG days, and it's been carried over in every edition of a Star Wars RPG since them. There's quite a few ships that outperform the YT-1300 that canonically have a much lower price tag, with the Nova Drive 3-Z and Kazellis light freighter being stellar examples of this, both costing well under half of the YT-1300's asking price.

The Ghtroc is a great ship, but I don't particularly like it as a PC starter ship for a two reasons. The YT-1300 is a faster ship, and uses 2 turret mounted laser cannons compared to the Ghtroc 720's Double Laser Cannon, which is fixed in a forward facing position.

There is a one possible encounter in a published adventure with a Z-TIE and and a possible Sentry droid at the same time. If the Z-TIE can maneuver behind the a Gthroc it suddenly becomes a lot harder for the PCs to win because that can't fire behind them using the Stock version of the Gthroc 720.

YT and Ghtroc are both speed 3. Lack of a turret is an issue, likely one of the first that players will modify the ship to address.

YT and Ghtroc are both speed 3. Lack of a turret is an issue, likely one of the first that players will modify the ship to address.

Actually, after rechecking, the Beta does list the Dorsal Mounted Twin Laser Cannon with Firing Arc All. So, it appears that in the FFG version - or at least the one that players can get* - does have a turret mount. To follow the current naming scheme for weapons, it should thus be listed as One Dorsal Turret Mounted Twin Light Laser Cannon.

And that makes the default Ghtroc 720 even more attractive to me!

* Note that, in a similar manner, the provided sample of the YT-1300 deviates from the 'standard' loadout of one dorsal turret mounted twin medium laser cannon by instead mounting both a dorsal and a ventral turret each with only a single medium laser cannon.

OK, after playing with it a bit, the Beta version of the Ghtroc 720 compares a bit too favorably to the YT-1300 for my liking. I'm presenting my house rules version here if others wish to use it.

Ghtroc 720 Light Freighter

SILOUETTE SPEED HANDLING

4 3 0

DEF. FORE/PORT/STARBOARD/AFT ARMOR

1/ - / - / 1 3

HT THRESHOLD SS THRESHOLD

28 15

Hull Type/Class: Freighter/720

Manufacturer: Ghtroc Industries

Hyperdrive: Primary: Class 2. Backup: Class 15

Navicomputer: Yes

Sensor Range: Short

Ship's Complement: One pilot, one co-pilot/engineer

Encumbrance Capacity: 250

Passenger Capacity: 10

Consumables: 2 months

Cost/Rarity: 98,500 credits/5

Customization Hardpoints: 5

Weapons: One Forward Mounted Double Light Laser Cannon (Fire Arc Forward; Damage 5; Critical 3; Range [Close]; Linked 1)

OK, after playing with it a bit, the Beta version of the Ghtroc 720 compares a bit too favorably to the YT-1300 for my liking.

So why exactly can't you get over the fact that the YT-1300 isn't the end-all and be-all of light freighters?

Most groups are likely to choose the YT-1300 anyway because of it's similarity to the Millennium Falcon, and in-universe the YT-series are much better sellers due to reputation and CEC's marketing.

It's very much a case of Mac vs. PC, with Macs (Ghtroc 720) generally having better performance but PCs (YT-1300) being far more common due to marketing and public perception.

Honestly, no changes need to be made to the Ghtroc since it's fine as is. The YT-1300 is generally the baseline of what a light freighter should be able to accomplish, not the apex of light freighter design. There are going to be ships that will make the YT-1300 look sub-par, they just won't be as readily available as the "common stock freighter".

OK, after playing with it a bit, the Beta version of the Ghtroc 720 compares a bit too favorably to the YT-1300 for my liking.

So why exactly can't you get over the fact that the YT-1300 isn't the end-all and be-all of light freighters?

Most groups are likely to choose the YT-1300 anyway because of it's similarity to the Millennium Falcon, and in-universe the YT-series are much better sellers due to reputation and CEC's marketing.

It's very much a case of Mac vs. PC, with Macs (Ghtroc 720) generally having better performance but PCs (YT-1300) being far more common due to marketing and public perception.

Honestly, no changes need to be made to the Ghtroc since it's fine as is. The YT-1300 is generally the baseline of what a light freighter should be able to accomplish, not the apex of light freighter design. There are going to be ships that will make the YT-1300 look sub-par, they just won't be as readily available as the "common stock freighter".

It's not that I "can't get over the fact" of anything, and as that goes, you can just piss off now if you're going to act so **** hurt on this topic.

The fact is that the EotE stats given in the Beta don't seem entirely appropriate. In particular the Armor rating of 5 is way beyond what it should have, and the existing fluff indicates that it is supposed to be have greater maneouvrability than the YT-1300, so I gave it that. The lasers have always been fixed-mounted until the Beta stats came up. My Ghtroc stats are far more faithful to everything we've seen of it than the Beta write-up.

The fact is that the EotE stats given in the Beta don't seem entirely appropriate. In particular the Armor rating of 5 is way beyond what it should have, and the existing fluff indicates that it is supposed to be have greater maneouvrability than the YT-1300, so I gave it that. The lasers have always been fixed-mounted until the Beta stats came up.

So are you going to drop the extra laser cannon and defense dice from the EotE version of the YT-1300 too? After all, going by your logic, FFG got it wrong since a stock YT-1300 has only every had a single laser cannon and no shields. Same with the Firespray-31 which is rather undergunned compared to prior versions (only having autoblasters instead of full-bore linked blaster cannons). Or how about the Z-95, which EotE gave laser cannons to when prior sources list the ship has having "triple blaster cannons." And a bunch of ships now have costs a lot lower than what they had originally.

The point is, if you're going to get pissy about a ship that's traditionally been better than the YT-1300 in all prior editions of Star Wars, why limit it to just this one specific instance, since by extension of your so-called logic, FFG has bungled several other ship designs by breaking with the prior write-ups.

Though I suppose you'll pitch just as much of a hissy fit that the HWK-290/Moldy Crow is being re-classed as no bigger than most starships, even if that's got the official backing of the Lucasfilm archives.

Fact of the matter is that FFG has proven willing to change the status quo on several other cases, only a few of which I've mentioned. I'd almost be curious as to why only the Ghtroc has gotten you so riled up compared to all the other changes that FFG's made that you have to declare their version to so utterly wrong, but I'm just chalking it up to my initial suggestion that you're just "hurt" that the YT-1300 isn't the "bestest of the best" regarding light freighters, as your reply certainly does seem to validate that.

I am not sure if either of the ships we are discussing are stock models. I would say adjust them to suit your story.

For those wanting to join the discussion but lacking the original FFG stats from the Beta, here they are translated into the newer statblock:

Ghtroc 720 Light Freighter

SILOUETTE SPEED HANDLING

4 3 -1

DEF. FORE/PORT/STARBOARD/AFT ARMOR

1/ - / - / 1 5

HT THRESHOLD SS THRESHOLD

28 15

Hull Type/Class: Freighter/720

Manufacturer: Ghtroc Industries

Hyperdrive: Primary: Class 2. Backup: Class 15

Navicomputer: Yes

Sensor Range: Medium

Ship's Complement: One pilot, one co-pilot/engineer

Encumbrance Capacity: 250 (after updates)

Passenger Capacity: 10

Consumables: 2 months

Cost/Rarity: 98,000 credits/? (not provided in the Beta)

Customization Hardpoints: 5

Weapons: One Dorsal Turret Mounted Double Light Laser Cannon (Fire Arc All; Damage 5; Critical 3; Range [Close]; Linked 1)

I am not sure if either of the ships we are discussing are stock models. I would say adjust them to suit your story.

True, but I'm trying to "get back to basics" as much as possible. While I'm willing to concede that most of the adjustments I suggest are not absolutely necessary, I do feel that a base Armor 5 is inappropriate for this vessel. I would suggest Armor 3 with Maneuverability 0 for the stock model, but for the 'stock modified' version for PCs, Armor 4 with Maneuverability -1 is acceptable.

I also feel pretty strongly on the standard weapon being forward mounted as this has always been a key feature/bug of the class.

Sensor Range: Medium really doesn't matter that much to me, but it seems that Sensor Range: Short is typical for Silouette 4 ships. Still, I'll concede that perhaps this is one of the improvements made in the 'stock modified' versions for PCs, so I'll let it go.

The cost of 98,500 credits (a slight adjustment from the Beta that puts it in line with earlier sources, just as the credit cost of the YT was adjusted from the Beta to conform to earlier sources) and Availability 5 could probably have a special rule that the Availability of this ship is adjusted inversely to the normal modifiers for Primary Core/Other Core/Colony or Inner Rim/Mid Rim/Outer Rim as this ship was supposed to be particularly popular in the Outer Rim but it never really caught on in the inner regions.

My compromises for a 'stock modified' Ghtroc 720 available as a starting ship for PCs would then look like this:

Ghtroc 720 Light Freighter

SILOUETTE SPEED HANDLING

4 3 -1

DEF. FORE/PORT/STARBOARD/AFT ARMOR

1 / - / - / 1 4

HT THRESHOLD SS THRESHOLD

28 15

Hull Type/Class: Freighter/720

Manufacturer: Ghtroc Industries

Hyperdrive: Primary: Class 2. Backup: Class 15

Navicomputer: Yes

Sensor Range: Medium

Ship's Complement: One pilot, one co-pilot/engineer

Encumbrance Capacity: 250

Passenger Capacity: 10

Consumables: 2 months

Cost/Rarity: 98,500 credits/5

Customization Hardpoints: 5

Weapons: One Forward Mounted Double Light Laser Cannon (Fire Arc Forward; Damage 5; Critical 3; Range [Close]; Linked 1)

The freighter I like is the ILH-KK Citadel class light freighter. That thing is a beast.

That said I would say armor 3 or 4 would be more believable for a Ghtroc 720 Light Freighter but it is possible the stats from the beta were test stats or represent a up armored version of the ship.