I'm looking at converting some WEG and d20 ships over for use in EotE and I'm stuck on some borderline cases.Most of the ships I've seen listed for Sil 4 are <40m in length. For Sil 5, I see the the GR-75 is 90m long, the Wayfarer is 82m long, and the Starwind is only 50m. I know that Sihlouette is fairly abstract, but is it possible to have a vessel in the 40-60m length range that is still Sil 4?

Its really a narrative term... I'd look at the ship's specs. For example, I'm keen on short ships with tall bays. And its not like we're moving tons, its encumbrance. Sil-5 represents entry level capital ship weapons and reduced maneuverability. Mean that its more than just size that's determining that.

My 2 cents.

So, basically, if it behaves like a light freighter but is just a little overgrown, it might still be OK at Sil 4. The Barloz Medium Freighter is 41m long and it should be fine at Sil 4 despite 'medium' being in the title. There is also the CEC YU-410 at 44m long which is noted as being "big for a light freighter" but is still meant to be Sil 4.

I was looking at the line of Ghtroc/Novoil Freighters - Cargo Duchess (91.3m), Cargo Countess (72.6m), and Cargo Baroness (53.9m) (from http://deckplans.00sf.com/Main/Galleries.html). While the Duchess and Countess are certainly Sil 5, I was hoping to squeeze the Cargo Baroness into Sil 4, but I'm not sure if it would be appropriate.

Considering what you said about "fairly abstract" Silhouette, that "point defense" rules are simply that a capital ship's Silhouette is one less for the purposes of firing certain weapons (that is, for the purposes of determining the attack difficulty due to the attacker and defender's relative difference in Silhouette), what UHF described, and that the Luxury 3000 is also 50 meters long like the Starwind-class yet deemed Silhouette 4, it seems to me that ship length is neither the sole nor even determining factor in Silhouette.

(I imagine that we're both reading the same WEG book, Pirates & Privateers which is how you're deriving these ship lengths? I'd double check them against Wookieepedia in case of subsequent retcons in later media.)

I ran into this issue when coming up with a Tartan-class patrol cruiser (I chose to convert from The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide for Saga Edition using these guidelines) and I decided that it came down to what I wanted the ship to be capable of in game mechanics... which meant Silhouette 5 and Speed 4, allowing it to keep pace with anything in the EotE CRB except for a TIE fighter while its use of laser cannons would qualify it for the "point defense" rules; it's treated as Silhouette 4 for the purposes of attack Difficulty, which means an effective difference of one or none for the purposes of attacking (and thus Average instead of Hard), while its regular Silhouette of 5 means an effective difference of one or none for the purposes of being attacked by Silhouette 4 starships!

(The subsequent discussion in that thread about changing the stat block by downgrading the cannons or adding the Advanced Targeting Array and/or mods thereof as part of the standard Tartan-class design were hypothetical possibilities but not directly pertinent to this thread except as a factor if you choose to use "game balance" as a factor in determining Silhouette for "borderline cases".)

The biggest issue of Sil 4 vs. Sil 5 will ve felt by the pilot. The pilot of a Sil 4 vessel can attempt a great many maneuvers and (with Speed 4+) an action that Sil 5 ships cannot.

In that case, I'd take the ships' WEG d6 Maneuverability and Speed and/or their WOTC d20 Dexterity and starship scale speeds into account, since length isn't a "solid", consistent determinant of Silhouette so long as the Luxury 3000 or the Starwind-class aren't errata'd.

I've put the breaking point between Silhouette 4 and 5 at around 50 meters in terms of size, with the YZ-775 falling under Silhouette 5 due to it being a bit more of a gunship with full blown turbolasers rather than being an actual transport like most of the YT series of ships, but I could see this being Silhouette 4 as well to give it more maneuverability by way of having two Pilot Only maneuvers/actions and being more accurate against starfighters.

Going by the official stats, it would seem that they support this notion, with the Starwind-class pleasure yacht being Silhouette 5 and measuring at 50 meters.

I'd argue that Medium freighter in name is a Medium freighter. Medium freighters are clearly built to haul a lot of stuff. Light seem to be a bit of everything, but not much of anything. The YT-1300f has a several small cargo holds, and no easy way to load them. Medium freighters are designed to handle larger cargo loads, and have easier loading capabilities.

Lets be clear, if you pick the the Light Freighter performance, you should also expect the Light Freighter carrying capacity. A Medium freighter can maneuver less, but carry more (like Fighters), or arm itself with illegal Turbo Lasers.

What I'm saying is that you need to pick it based on the specs, not the silhouette. You can muck with the numbers a little, its just narration after all, but you can't have light freighter performance while hauling a huge number of large containers.

If you wish to really challenge that, then I'd argue that cost should go up dramatically, and hard points should go down. The implication being that in order to achieve high performance, medium\large ship, you need to use advanced\military (finicky?) technology, and use up ship resources (i.e. hardpoints imply some sort of power consumption?) to get it to work.

By the way that is more or less is in the Haynes description for the Millenium Falcon... It has a salvaged military hyperdrive, and its finicky, and in its case uses hard to get parts.

Check out this layout;

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/65982/Future-Armada-Lakota

I'd call it a medium freighter... (I'd claim its a converted military transport.)

It has a reasonable crew compliment (adventuring party size), its forward cargo hold and easily deploy a space fighter, and its main lower hold can pretty much do whatever you want. Including being converted to a hanger. Its got big doors fore and aft, and a wide space in between. The ship layout is very nice for roll playing.

I'd argue that Medium freighter in name is a Medium freighter. Medium freighters are clearly built to haul a lot of stuff. Light seem to be a bit of everything, but not much of anything. The YT-1300f has a several small cargo holds, and no easy way to load them. Medium freighters are designed to handle larger cargo loads, and have easier loading capabilities.

Lets be clear, if you pick the the Light Freighter performance, you should also expect the Light Freighter carrying capacity. A Medium freighter can maneuver less, but carry more (like Fighters), or arm itself with illegal Turbo Lasers.

The Barloz Medium Freighter appears to contest your first claim (since it's really a light freighter in all but name) and is fully supported by the second claim (it has light freighter capacity to go with light freighter performance).

1972 Chevy Impala Station Wagon

What about a compromise? For those freighters that hover on the border between Sil-4 and Sil-5 that you're uncertain about, if they're the same size as the Wayfarer, then Sil-5 is certainly more appropriate. If it is close to that size, Sil-4 may be reasonable, but I'd make sure that its bulk and momentum would make it unwieldy for a Sil-4 ship. The YT-1300 base has -1 manoeuvrability, so a bigger Sil-4 ship would be at least -2, if not -3 to represent how sluggish it is hovering on the border between Sil-4 and Sil-5.

The issue I brought up is that we have two ships with the same length (not similar, same) but different Silhouettes in the EotE CRB (Luxury 3000 and Starwind-class), though you at least propose a solution similar to mine (taking maneuvering into account and perhaps lowering its Handling if it's a Silhouette 4).

I'd argue that Medium freighter in name is a Medium freighter. Medium freighters are clearly built to haul a lot of stuff. Light seem to be a bit of everything, but not much of anything. The YT-1300f has a several small cargo holds, and no easy way to load them. Medium freighters are designed to handle larger cargo loads, and have easier loading capabilities.

Lets be clear, if you pick the the Light Freighter performance, you should also expect the Light Freighter carrying capacity. A Medium freighter can maneuver less, but carry more (like Fighters), or arm itself with illegal Turbo Lasers.

The Barloz Medium Freighter appears to contest your first claim (since it's really a light freighter in all but name) and is fully supported by the second claim (it has light freighter capacity to go with light freighter performance).

You sure about that?

The YT-1300 has one deck and a few small holds for cargo. It is designed to be crewed by 1.

The Barloz has 3 large decks, one of which could contain the YT-1300. It has two cargo holds. The lower hold has a wide ramp for moving cargo in, and it has a lift to move even more cargo up to the big hold on the middle deck.

In my opinion the Barloz is Medium according to those deck layouts... She's big. She needs a big crew 5-ish.

The carrying capacity in weight of the two ships is similar. But weight is meaningless in EOTE.

I'm of the opinion that the specs don't match the deck plans at all.

You sure about that?

The YT-1300 has one deck and a few small holds for cargo. It is designed to be crewed by 1.

The Barloz has 3 large decks, one of which could contain the YT-1300. It has two cargo holds. The lower hold has a wide ramp for moving cargo in, and it has a lift to move even more cargo up to the big hold on the middle deck.

In my opinion the Barloz is Medium according to those deck layouts... She's big. She needs a big crew 5-ish.

The carrying capacity in weight of the two ships is similar. But weight is meaningless in EOTE.

I'm of the opinion that the specs don't match the deck plans at all.

I would be wary of looking at unofficial deckplans to try and figure this stuff out. The Barloz class freighter as written in the previous systems is meant to be crewed by 2, and can be crewed by 1, and carries only 4 passengers and around 120 metric tons of cargo. It mounts one laser cannon. It by no means has as much space as whatever deckplans you were looking at.

I would be wary of looking at unofficial deckplans to try and figure this stuff out. The Barloz class freighter as written in the previous systems is meant to be crewed by 2, and can be crewed by 1, and carries only 4 passengers and around 120 metric tons of cargo. It mounts one laser cannon. It by no means has as much space as whatever deckplans you were looking at.

Those were the plans HappyDaze was looking at. I have no idea how those plans wound up with 3 big decks... Yet 1 crew and less cargo capacity that a YT-1300f.

But what you just described sounds more like a Light Freighter. I wouldn't use the deck plans he was thinking of.

Those were the plans HappyDaze was looking at. I have no idea how those plans wound up with 3 big decks... Yet 1 crew and less cargo capacity that a YT-1300f.

But what you just described sounds more like a Light Freighter. I wouldn't use the deck plans he was thinking of.

Apologies! I missed that he was the one who linked the deckplans in the first place. But yeah, that deckplan design sounds nothing like the actual stats the ship has in canon.