I just came across this thread here, and thought I'd start a more general thread on the topic. It needs covering in more detail, I think, because I highly doubt that the sample adventure in the corebook is the only time that Edge of the Empire characters are going to end up with a ship like that. All RPGs have some element of "Loot the Corpses!" in them, where the PCs grab whatever cool stuff the bad guys they just defeated might have, but in EotE quite a lot of NPC adversaries will have a Starship as part of their gear.

Naturally, this can pose a problem for the GM when the price of a starship is considered- even at the low resale prices, a quarter of a starship's value is nothing to be sneezed at. I've some experience of the Traveller RPG, where people would look at how much a starship was worth and wonder why pirates didn't just jettison the cargo and take the ship. Star Wars ships are sufficiently cheaper that things aren't quite that extreme, but they're still valuable, and PCs getting them is something that has to be accounted for. Many times, it's easy to say the ship simply crashed, or blew up, or that Imperial TIE Fighters have appeared on the edge of sensor range and getting closer so you don't have time for salvage. All of these work, but only in the short term. Eventually, either your attempts to keep ships away from the players will become obvious, or they'll manage to get one.

So what's the GM to do?

As strongarm85 pointed out in the original thread about the ship in the corebook adventure, there are solid reasons why PCs can't just take any ship they get hold of. These are the same reasons why people can't just take the car of a guy they just shot and drive around in it in real life. A starship will have legal registration somewhere, with documents showing who owns it. At the very least, the PCs will have to find someone who can fake the right documents and have the ship resprayed or otherwise alter the appearance. This is all going to be expensive, and after "laundering" the ship so they can think about reselling it, the profit margins will be much less. Most of the time, the PCs won't want to bother with all this, and will just find some shady NPC who'll by a starship no questions asked- for a tiny fraction of what the ship is worth.

Then there's the matter of getting the ship to somewhere it can be sold in the first place. If the fight with the ship's previous owners took place at a starport, there's already going to be anything from local Police to Imperial Stormtroopers all over wherever the fight took place in short order. Give up any chances of walking away with that ship. If the PCs are in a position to loot it, then the ship is probably sitting somewhere out-of-the-way. Great, but how do they get it to the chop shop?

Two methods occur. Firstly, have the PCs ship tow it- Star Wars ships seem to be able to sprout magnetic clamps and/or tow cables at will on-screen, so that should be doable unless the ship they want to tow is bigger than theirs. But leaving aside manoevering problems- I'd add black or even purple dice to piloting and astrogation for the increased mass- when they turn up at a spaceport, people will notice. Their ship is towing another- expect someone to show up at the berth asking questions about what happened to the crew of the first ship.

The second method is to simply fly the salvaged ship back. If the PCs have multiple members with Astrogation and Pilot: Space, then assuming the salvaged vessel isn't badly damaged they can take it back that way. Problems solved- unless there's anything else going on (unresolved obligation problems, allies of the deceased ship's crew in the region), in which case naturally throw these at the PCs while the party is split.

But, players being the persistent and ingenious people they are when they scent a big payoff for their PCs, let's say that they get the ship where they want it to be. They then have two options. Sell it, or strip it for parts.

Selling it would ideally just result in Obligation being reduced- I'd knock five points off, personally. The PCs will have to roleplay how this works, of course- just saying "and we use the money to pay off this Obligation" should only work if the Obligation in question is a monetary debt. Enough obligations should let the PCs do this to make it worthwhile, though.

Stripping it for parts should let the PCs pick a free upgrade for the ship, as long as the ship they're stripping wasn't worse than their ship in that area. A ship without deflectors or hyperdrive won't be giving any upgrades to those areas, and a lumbering tramp freighter with a speed of 2 won't allowed any speed boosts. Weapons should be very easy to strip and fit to the PCs ship, though.

Well, these are my thoughts on the subject. What does everyone else feel?

I've had the same concern about the idea just "looting" ships for finances. So my thoughts were along these lines

* Legal Repercussions
As mentioned there is legal overhead. This includes legal problems for re-sellers. The BOSS organization likes to keep track of this, and a group of people shooting around, killing and taking ships makes a mess of things. even if they killed the bad guys. This leads to investigations. The Imperials could become interested in the activities of the players and why ships are constantly moving through there hands.

* Underground Pressure

Ok, so the players take a more underground approach and have safe chop shop to take the ship for some good creds. You could always start putting criminal pressure on the players. keep the sale of the ship away from the chop shop to start. If this becomes regular the crime guys will start putting pressure on the players to do some of the dirty work. Start with less threat and more favour. If the continue If they don't they can sell the PC out to the Imperials, or start being a pain in the rear to them. They can put out the word to others that they shouldn't be trusted(even if it's not true).

* Bad Reputation

The simples is probably just give the players a distrustful bad reputation. Why/How are these guys reselling ships so often. What could they be up to. Sure they could have "saves some slaves" but after so many times of being goodie to shoes, it doesn't take much to sour a notion. "People aren't good" the average civilian is easily persuaded to believe the worst in others. So the group of "Slave liberators" in fact become Ship Jackers that are willing to kill the crew.

My suggestion is just keep on putting pressure on being ship looters. Instead offer a small credit reward for information on ship salvage to the authorities. It has it's own perils, but just leave it less pressure than doing than reselling the ship itself. So they can either have the creds and the pressure, or keep the pressure down and cut on the creds.

anyways those are my thoughts.

If you're the GM, your options are limitless.

The ship at the end of the adventure is not in good shape, and the GM could even say that it's not even spaceworthy anymore. Sure, the players could go get repair parts, but by the time they get back, is the ship still there? Maybe someone rigged it to blow, or some salvagers came by and nabbed it, or a Hutt that was spying on you had his goons ****** it.

Find a crashed ship, make it clear that the cost to repair the ship is more than what they can sell it for.

Have the captured ship come with it's own obligations, and make it clear to the players. The previous owner of this ship angered some hutts, had a bounty on him, and was an enemy of the Empire...you are going to attract a lot of attention anywhere you go. You are going to need to do some major work (majorly expensive). You're going to need to hire some less than trustworthy individuals to modify the ship, paint it, install a black market transponder unit, etc etc. Again, this might end up being prohibitively expensive, and knowing how hot the ship is may heavily reduce the price you can get for it. Or one of the scum you're working with could end up stealing it and selling it for parts.

Like Jayd mentioned, I play to push the looting angle along with selling the info to others who may be interested in recovering the ship.

I just experienced something similar in a Bulldogs! game I GM'd. One of the more experienced and creative players got the idea to not only loot the ship but to dock their player ship in the hanger and pilot the whole mess back to port for profit. I attempted a few diversionary tactics, like trying to disable or blow up the ship, or bring bounty hunters and pirates into play but some good dice rolls and even better roleplay kind of made it where I wanted and needed to give the players the epic "win" so to speak.

With the situation here, I like the idea of obligations coming into play, or flip a dark side Destiny point or two to bring some additional complications into the mix. Say yes, but make it interesting and challenging for them to grab that payday.

If the PC's have the contacts to unload a hot ship, 10% of the book value. Or, if raiding it for parts/upgrades, 5%. Let the PC's take thier pick depending on their skills. If their skillsets are so meager as to afford neither option (q.v. the "money laundering" scene in Office Space), they should polly just move-on and rethink their life-choices...

Also, the first option there would make an excellent segue between adventures.

Another thing to consider is that even among scoundrels and rogues a ship thief is a bit of a pariah.

People might deal with a known ship stealer but they trust them less than anyone else since you never know if their just distracting you to get someone behind you an take your ride (which is probably your livelihood).

The "Lets loot everything" is because of lazy GMs. I had players wanting to return a bounty hunters rented airspeed for the deposit. a simple knowledge role told them that without some attempts at slicing, or a voiceprint/handprint it was not going to happen.

As for the Krayt Fang. A skilled skiptracer will find it, and have full rights under imperial law to impound the vehicle.

If the players want to use it, they will have to change and register their transponder codes with the Bureau of Ship and Services at the minimum.

Again, there are still plenty of opportunities here.

Hutts know exactly what to do with a stolen ship. Right down to the droid Slicer (nick named Hax0r) to call to reprogram the ship transponder. This is a totally easy way to buy off obligation or perhaps exchange for that Disruptor Rifle you've always wanted. 10% payback? Sounds incredibly good.

Scavenging parts is just obvious. What group of beginners wouldn't want another laser cannon? Those cost how much? (Look it up guys.)

I view this in much more utilitarian fashion. Most ships we're talking about are pretty common. Disguising looks is as simple as a lot of paint cans, and welding a few fake repair patches.

Reprogramming a transponder is the ultimate question. Perhaps we just call that 'Formidable Computer' and be done with it? It makes sense. It keeps this out of direct player control until they are much more experienced. They WILL need help to deal with any ship scavenging. If the ship is hot, they got to bring the 'Slicer' to the ship to fix the transponder.

I noticed similar issues between the rules and the example adventures. Don't bother taking on obligation for guns because you'll be positively swimming in guns after your first adventure. There's a crate of Heavy Blaster Rifles in the GM Toolkit adventure.

*sigh* I kind of wish the space ship construction\maintenance rules were more complete. I feel that the best way to really keep the players under pressure at the edge of the empire is to keep them hungry for more. Ship repairs seem to be the obvious solution here. How much does a new hyper drive cost?

*sigh* I kind of wish the space ship construction\maintenance rules were more complete. I feel that the best way to really keep the players under pressure at the edge of the empire is to keep them hungry for more. Ship repairs seem to be the obvious solution here. How much does a new hyper drive cost?

I expect there will be rules like that in a Technician's guide or some such later next year. New game start-ups are always fraught with such delightful antici....pation.

The "Lets loot everything" is because of lazy GMs. I had players wanting to return a bounty hunters rented airspeed for the deposit. a simple knowledge role told them that without some attempts at slicing, or a voiceprint/handprint it was not going to happen.

As for the Krayt Fang. A skilled skiptracer will find it, and have full rights under imperial law to impound the vehicle.

If the players want to use it, they will have to change and register their transponder codes with the Bureau of Ship and Services at the minimum.

Not much information has been provided in the rules to define how someone is identified. A serious flaw to the game IMO... the players are intended to be law breakers who are engaged in illegal skullduggery. Identity is bound to come up. Someone is bound to ask for a little more than a smile from the players.

And if the players should get caught doing something naughtier Han Solo on his wedding night... How do they deal with that? Heaven forbid someone should call up the local Bureau of Ship and Services.

What's to prevent someone from going to the Bureau of Ship and Services and saying, "My name is Degah, I mean Dobah, and I'm giving my ship to deez guys right here." OK... so maybe you're not an Aqualash... The force will smooth that over real quick.

I begin to see a solution for player concerns over their own ship. Register it in someone else's name. (A Good 'in' for obligation.) Have the players be passengers. If they get into trouble, their ship won't likely come up unless the lone surviving Tie fighter pilot fingers their transponder code. If that happens they will a new ship right quick.

Keep in mind, the Empire and most authorities don't have explicit access to a ship's specific transponder codes. Rather, the pilots are provided with a BoSS datapad which they show to customs officials. Since the Bureau of Ships and Services is an independent agency, there's a grey area that can be handled here.