Check of new starship design [SAGA stats]

[Malkarris]

Okay, so after getting the new Starships of the Galaxy book today, I went a bit build happy and cooked up a new version of a ship I had given to my players as their transport. I don’t really see this as a problem as they haven’t used it in any stat heavy way as of yet. In any case, after a bit, I decided that the new construction rules (as I figured them out) aren’t very kind of the vessels in between light freighters and medium transports, especially as I had designed mine. So, I would like anyone with more experience than me with SAGA starships to give the two designs a look over and tell me which one seems more balanced. The first stat block is the SotG new version, and the one below that is my first guess and pray.

And in case anyone wonders, I based this loosely on the Black Boa from the American Final Fantasy movie, which strangely enough seems to also appear in the Star Wars Tales Nomad comic story.


The Dragonsnake class medium transport was an ill fated design by the Tri-moon starship design firm made to fill a niche that wasn’t there. Seeing the steady market in the light freighter niche and predicting that pilots would leap at the chance to fly a larger ship with the same crew as a light freighter, the company did just that, designing and building what most pilots describe as some kind of pregnant sea creature, for those who’s cultural background include such references. Unfortunately, the company did not foresee two things about their design. While the ship could be crewed adequately with the same two people as an YT-1300, handling the cargo that could be flown required several additional hands, and many tramp freighter captains were unwilling or unable to pay for them. Secondly, the ship, while capable of holding fifteen times the cargo of a YT-1300, this amount was not enough to break into the heavy freighter lines, yet too large for most tramp freighter runs, leading to empty cargo holds. Eventually, the entire line was sold off at a loss, and discontinued, leading to the abandonment of many of the ships by their owners as official support dried up overnight. Still, a few die hard individuals continued to use the ship, and it found a small secondary market with others who used the extra cargo space to modify the ship far past the designer’s specifications.

In physical appearance, the Dragonsnake is 63 meters long and 37.5 meters wide, and resembles a large pregnant sea creature. The roughly oval shaped fore section contains two decks, the lower containing several passenger cabins and the cargo hold, with two large doors, one per side, that convert into ramps to help in loading and unloading cargo. The aft portion of the lower deck tapers down to a narrow tail containing the hyperdrive section. The upper deck contains the cockpit, framed by two oval windows (or sometimes referred to as eyes), and with two more cabins down the hull, leading to the sublight engine room. On each side of the upper deck are two large booms that trail backwards along the hull and fold slightly out and down when in landing configuration, helping the ship stabilize in both flight and when landing.



Dragonsnake class heavy transport
Colossal (frigate) space transport
Init: -4 Senses: Perception +5
--
Defence: Ref 13 (flat-footed 12 ), Fort 58; +12 Armor
HP: 400 DR: 15 SR: 80 Threshold: 158
--
Speed: Fly 12 Squares (Max velocity 800 km/h), fly 4 squares (Starship scale)
Ranged: 2 Heavy Laser cannons +3

Fighting Space: 23x30 or 1 square (starship scale) Cover: Total
Base Atk: +0 Grp: +68
Atk Options: autofire (2 heavy laser cannons)
--
Abilities: Str 106, Dex 12, Int 16
Skills: Initiative -4, Mechanics +5, Perception +5, Pilot -4, Use Computer +5
--
Crew: 2 (normal) Passengers: 8
Cargo: 1,500 tons Consumables: 6 months Carried Craft: none
Payload: none
Hyperdrive: x2 (backup X12), nav computer
Availability: Licensed Cost: 1,200,000; 60,000 used


Heavy laser cannons (2 fire-linked, pilot)
Atk +3 (autofire -2), Dmg 5d10x2

10 free emplacement points


**************************************************************



Dragonsnake class heavy transport
Colossal space transport
Init: -4 Senses: Perception +5
--
Defence: Ref 13 (flat-footed 12 ), Fort 30; +12 Armor
HP: 200 DR: 15 SR: 80 Threshold: 80
--
Speed: Fly 12 Squares (Max velocity 800 km/h), fly 3 squares (Starhip scale)
Ranged: 2 Heavy Laser cannons +3

Fighting Space: 23x30 or 1 square (starship scale) Cover: Total
Base Atk: +0 Grp: +40
Atk Options: autofire (2 heavy laser cannons)
--
Abilities: Str 50, Dex 12, Int 16
Skills: Initiative -4, Mechanics +5, Perception +5, Pilot -4, Use Computer +5
--
Crew: 2 Passengers: 8
Cargo: 1500 tons Consumables: 4 months Carried Craft: none
Payload: none
Hyperdrive: x2 (backup X12), nave computer
Availability: Licensed Cost: 500,000 new


Heavy laser cannons (2 fire-linked, pilot)
Atk +3 (autofire -2), Dmg 7d10x2

1 free emplacement point

[Donovan Morningfire]

One issue with the SotG version (and it's not your fault) is that the Strength scores for a lot of the Colossal ships are incorrect according to Rodney. Other than that, the SotG version looks fine, especially if you intend to give the PCs a "superhauler" for a ship, which would have room for various vehicles they might procure along the way or other odds and ends.

The correct ones were posted on the WotC forums, so give me a few moments to lock it down... large leak, very nasty...

Edit: Ah, here we are, straight from the Rancor's mouth.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.p...&postcount=245

[Malkarris]

Ah, thank you very much. And that was my overall intention, which hopefully won't come back to bite me. With this group it might. But anyway, so the revised stats should be:

Dragonsnake class heavy transport
Colossal (frigate) space transport
Init: -4 Senses: Perception +5
--
Defence: Ref 13 (flat-footed 12 ), Fort 33; +12 Armor
HP: 400 DR: 15 SR: 80 Threshold: 133
--
Speed: Fly 12 Squares (Max velocity 800 km/h), fly 4 squares (Starship scale)
Ranged: 2 Heavy Laser cannons +3

Fighting Space: 23x30 or 1 square (starship scale) Cover: Total
Base Atk: +0 Grp: +48
Atk Options: autofire (2 heavy laser cannons)
--
Abilities: Str 56, Dex 12, Int 16
Skills: Initiative -4, Mechanics +5, Perception +5, Pilot -4, Use Computer +5
--
Crew: 2 (normal) Passengers: 8
Cargo: 1,500 tons Consumables: 6 months Carried Craft: none
Payload: none
Hyperdrive: x2 (backup X12), nav computer
Availability: Licensed Cost: 1,200,000; 600,000 used


Heavy laser cannons (2 fire-linked, pilot)
Atk +3 (autofire -2), Dmg 5d10x2

3 free emplacement points

EDIT: Changed number of points to 3, please see below.

((Does anyone think the 10 emplacement points are excessive? I know the YT ships have that much, but just asking opinions))

[Starcloud]

The reason the YT series has that many is because it was designed and built by Corellian Engineering Corporation, which is noted for "overbuilding" its ships and making them easy to customize.

Note that CEC ships are also more expensive than their non-CEC counterparts from other manufacturers....

Also, the cost doesn't make sense to me... 1.2 million new vs. 60k used?

[Admiral Zaarin]

As Starcloud mentioned ,10 emplacement points is CEC signature. I'd reduce it to 5 at max (as there are a handful of non-CEC ships with that many).

[Jedi Master Jadden Korr]

Regardless of what you decide to go with, just remember that your the GM and what you say goes. Custom star ships dont HAVE to be by the book. It could jsut have been designed and built that way.

[Malkarris]

True, 10 does seem a bit excessive. I think I will reduce that to 3. For more severe modifications, there is always cargo space to lose. And the cost was a typo, it should be 600,000 credits. I'll edit both above.

I must say that I do like the new starship design rules. Typo's and ettra aside, this is the easiest I have ever designed a starship for Star Wars.

[Donovan Morningfire]

Originally posted by Malkarris
Typo's and ettra aside, this is the easiest I have ever designed a starship for Star Wars.

Agreed. It's not as grainy as the one in the OCR SotG, but it certainly gets the job done. Also not quite as prone to abuse as the OCR could be.

As for the extra emplacement points, 10 wouldn't be too far out of line since the stock template for a heavy freighter has a crap-load more cargo space than what you listed. It could well be viewed as the designers of the ship opted to have less overall cargo space to make the ship a gearhead's dream, much like the Corellian designs tend to be. Just becuase it's a "trademark" of a CEC ship doesn't mean other ship models can't have it.