Question: What would make a good "Privateer" ship?

[adamlumina93]

I personally love the Nebulon B Frigate especially from The Far Orbit Project. I didn't like the storyline too much in that module but the framework was excellent.

[schnarre]

If one is looking for a Capital Ship-sized raider, then the Nebulon-B frigate is a classic & already has a place in that role within the Star Wars universe (I wouldn't mind an Inquisitor-4 sized World Devastator for commerce raiding, but noone's lt me try it, lol ). For smaller than Capital-scale, then the Mon Cal Deep Water-class freighter is a good choice (being fully amphibious opens lots of possibilities for hiding places).
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[DarthBukowski]

You could be talking about Colonial Chrome http://www.colonialchrome.co.uk/

[ZzaphodD]

[jmanski]

[CRMcNeill]

I know this topic hasn't seen much action in a while, so this may be too late, but it is something I've put some thought into.

As far as ships go, if you're looking to run a starfighter-scale privateer, you can't go wrong with the Guardian-Class Light Cruiser (344 variant). With a Space of 8, x1 hyperdrive, 200 metric tons cargo space, a 4 man crew with room for 12 passengers, and a great cover story (these ships are in wide use as patrol ships across the galaxy, so a smart crew may be able to bluff their way out of trouble), these ships are an excellent pirate vessel fresh from the factory, and all the mods just make them even better.

On the Capital ships side of things, I think the Corellian Corvette is a good choice, but with a twist. My idea was a pirate fleet of three vessels; one Corellian Corvette, one Corellian Gunship, and an Action VI-Class Bulk Freighter. The idea is this: In the initial attack, the Corvette and the Gunship close with and disable the target. Then the Corvette boards and captures the target while the Gunship stands guard. Once the target is subdued, the bulk freighter moves in to offload the booty. In the event of an unexpected interruption by patrol ships, the freighter disengages and jumps immediately and the Gunship runs interference while the Corvette recalls its boarding party and disengages.

[Kemper Boyd]

[CRMcNeill]

[Kemper Boyd]

That all depends on what sorts of prizes you're going for. If you're knocking over smaller transports, then 200 tons of cargo space with a 12-man boarding party is just about right. Plus, with only 20 crew total, everyone gets a larger split of the profits. If you're taking ships one at a time, the prize crew can double as members of the boarding party.[/quote]

True that. In my previous campaign, the separatist group the players belonged to used a method where they sent over a small group of boarders (if the vessels surrendered peacefully) consisting of a couple of marines to escort a technician to slave-rig the astrogation computer of the vessel. After that was done, the cargo vessel's crew was confined to their quarters and the bridge locked down. Of course this supposes that you have a base with extra people to handle processing of the ship and it's captive crew.

[Gamer]

Shouldn't matter on the size of the prize to crew it, just get yourself a few pilot-astrogation droids and send the prize to an out of the way location after you have sent the crew on it's way in escape pods.
You are pretty much just sending the craft via hyperspace anyway so no need to worry about a crew.
Then you can do what you want with the prize without having to worry about a patrol just popping by.
If the prize is still tracked then you know you need to move on from this area and find other hunting grounds.

[Hellcat]

The ship choice should depend on a number of variables.

• What size prize are you going after. Despite what anyone may say, size does matter. Why? Crew and Passengers. Remember that you're going to have to consider dealing with the crew, and possibly the passengers, of the prize vessel. Some may roll over and just let you take their cargo. Other's may try to repel boarders. Larger ships tend to have more crew and more passengers, so you need to be able to free up more of your own crew as boarding party. If you're only going after light and medium freighters where there's going to be a small crew and few to no passengers, then you can get by with a light to medium freighter. But if you plan on going after larger vessels, then you may want to think capital scale ship.
  
  
• Your own crew needs. How many do you actually need to operate the ship? Do you plan on leave some aboard your privateer for a potentially fast get away? Or will you be leaving some aboard the prize as a prize crew to move it to your base? Remember, you may need to be able to carry you're entire privateer crew on your ship and you also need to be able to have many be used as a prize crew. Droids can be used to free up some members, but if you're not going to have any droids, or not enough droids, you need to have a large enough ship to carry your crew and have enough to both operate the ship and at the same time serve as a boarding party.
  
  
• The prize. Just looking to remove cargo from the prize ship? Then you need to have enough cargo space to store it in. Now you don't need to take all their cargo, but getting as much of it as you can should be important. If your ship can only carry thirty tons of cargo and the ship you're hitting can carry a hundred twenty tons of cargo, then you've got to leave behind ninety tons if the target was carrying a full load. Whereas if your ship can carry a hundred tons and the target was a hundred twenty tons capable ship, you'd only leave behind twenty tons if they had a full load.
  
  
• Modifications, modifications, modifications. There's a reason Corellian designs are so heavily used as privateers. Their known to be easily modified. But easy of modding means very little, the mods themselves mean quite a bit. Modifying a ship means you have to loose something, generally cargo space. If I want to add two turbolasers, four heavy ion cannons, a tractor beam, a cargo-mover tractor beam, space four four extra crewmen, and a 1D extra in shields I'm looking at having to loose ninety-four tons of cargo space. If I've only got a hundred twenty tons capacity to begin with, there goes most of my cargo space. But if I have a capacity of eight hundred tons then I've still got more tahn enough tonnage to go on with.
  
  By the same token I can actually gain tonnage if I'm willing to take a step down in certain areas by replacing things. When you replace things like the sublights, hyperdrize, and even weapons you should subtract the item being replaced so as not to loose as much cargo space. For instance, a Class 1 (x1) hyperdrive takes up eighteen tons of cargo space while a Class 2 (x2) hyperdrive takes up fifteen tons. If I replace a Class 2 with a Class 1, I should subtract fifteen from eighteen to find I actually only have to loose three tons of cargo space instead of eighteen. But if I decide I don't mind looseing some preformance by stepping down to a Class 2 from a Class 1, then the opposite is true. I gain three tons. Typically you're not going to look to gain cargo space. But some ships, such a luxury yachts, might have aminities which take up space that you can afford to loose in order to gain cargo space for modding and otherwise.
  
  
• Escorts. Going to have escort fighters? Are they going to dock with your ship (or land onboard) or just fly along side of it? If you're going to dock or land them, then you may need to modify the ship to carry them
  
  
• Speed and manuverability. You'll want a fast, manuverable ship to both catch up to the prize ship and evade any escorts or other combat vessels you may encounter. Unless you're putting a premium on cargo space, you can modify a ship to be faster and more agile. Or you can start off with an already fast and agile ship.

Now if you're looking at modding a light or medium transport, I'm kinda with those who put forth the HT-2200. I know, you want to stray away from Corellian designs, but I've always liked the HT-2200 ever since I picked up Stock Ships years ago. Speed and manuverability suck, but at eight hundred ton capacity there's plenty of room for modding. Plus 5D in hull really let's it absorb a bounding (at least against starfight scale weapons). For a small privateer crew, I'd probably add all the mods mentioned above (with a crew of two and space for eight passenger that's give you a privateer crew of fourteen) plus beefing up from Space 3 to maybe Space 6 or 8. And increase the Manuverability from 0D to at least 1D or 1D+2.

For a little more in the way of crew and less in the way of modding, maybe have a stolen Rendili StarDrive’s Light Corvette. Not as much cargo space as the HT-2200 (only five hundred tons), but it does require 52 crew and six gunners (skeleton crew of 18 ) plus twenty passengers. Figure a privateer crew of seventy-eight. So that'd give you plenty of room for a decent sized boarding party if you left behind a skeleton crew. Plus it's already fast, agile, and has more shields than the HT-2200 (and slightly stronger hull at 5D+1). But again it's not gonna take too much of a beating from a capital ship since it's starfighter scale.

But probably the Maurader Corvette would probably be the best bet. It'll give you enough room for a squadron of fighters. Plus it's capital scale (and a capital ship) so it can go after all kinds. At space 5 you may want to adjust speed a little. Manuverability is not too bad at 2D+1. Probably add some starfight scale lasers along with some ion cannons. You could make the 40 passengers the boarding party.
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[Gamer]

The problems I have with the maruader corvette is shes slow, it has very little cargo space so her modification factor is going to be hit unless you take it out of the hanger bays, and she has "short legs" meaning the three month consumables are a bit low, which places a critical limit to her cruising and places a better net around herself to getting caught.


If I was going capital ship I'd have to stick with the Corellian Corvette and then work up to something a better if it became necessary.

[Falcon79]

i'vve always liked the daupherm dicril cruiser a lot...
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[Lostboy]

I can tell why. It's a favorite of mine also.