SW d20: Starship Creation

[Corvus]

Here's the text of a post I made to the SW d20 message boards a while back. This is a starship I put together for an aborted SW d20 campaign.

Unknown class Privateer/Transport Valkyrie

Class: Space Transport
Crew: 1 to 5 (extra droid automation as per SotG)
Size: Medium (55m long)
Hyperdrive: x1.5 (backup x10)
Passengers: up to 27
Cargo Capacity: 149.5 tons
Consumables: 2 months
Initiative: +2
Maneuver: +4
Defense: 20 (+0 size, +10 armor)
Shield Points: 60 (DR 30)
Hull Points: 180 (DR 30)
Cost: 391,000 cr (book value, not for sale)
Max. Speed in Space: Attack (8 squares/action)
Atmospheric Speed: 1000 km/h (17 squares)

Weapons

Quad laser cannons (2)
Fire Arc: Turret (1 dorsal, 1 ventral)
Attack Bonus: +6
Damage: 6d10x2
Max Range: Short
Range Modifiers: See Table 11-8

Concussion missile launcher
(16 missiles)
Fire Arc: Front
Attack Bonus: +6
Damage: 8d10x2
Missile Quality: Ordinary (+10)
Max Range: Long

Double Turbolaser Cannons
Fire Arc: Front
Attack Bonus: +6
Damage: 5d10x2
Max Range: Long
Range Modifiers: See Table 11-8

Ion Cannon
Fire Arc: Front
Attack Bonus: +6
Damage: Special
Max Range: Medium
Range Modifiers: See Table 11-8

Special
Droid Automation x4 (ordinary quality)
Maneuvering Systems +2 (factored in above)
Sensor Mask (marginal quality)

---------------------

No one is quite sure where this starship came from. Her sleek, stylish design and interior separate her from a common starship of its size, seeming to indicate that she might have been designed as a luxury transport. However, Valkyrie also boasts enough firepower, speed and maneuverability to make her a capable raider for privateers or pirates. Some believe that she was the pride and joy of a particularly successful pirate captain who, sensing impending doom, hid her away for later access. She contains no records of her origins and has no identifying marks linking her to any known drive yard or corporation.

Currently (as of 3959 BBY) Valkyrie is captained, crewed and ostensibly owned by a young Hapan lord who has been placed conveniently out of sight within the depths of the galaxy after an embarrassing quarrel involving an older sister. The future destiny of the starship includes a self-exiled technological wizard from the Empress Teta system, a Jedi padawan in search of his own future and a mysterious young girl with dangerous ties. Valkyrie may well need all her speed and power before too long!

Special Notes

This starship was inspired by and visually mimicks the starship Valkyrie from the movie Titan A.E., and that's the current name the ship has in our nascent KotOR-era campaign.

Valkyrie is modified from her film "parent" in only a few ways. First, she has the double turbolaser on the nose rather than the two double laser arrays seen in the film. Secondly, she has the dorsal and ventral quad laser turrets set amidships. Third, rather than one large engine set midline between the twin banks of three smaller engines, this Valkyrie has only the two banks of three engines, with a small vehicle bay set between them, allowing entrance and egress from the aft. Fourth, the "canards" at the fore hide the ion cannon on the port side and concussion missile launcher on the starboard, in the small root "bulges" next to the main hull. Finally, I think there's a size differential. I haven't seen a length measurement on the film's version.

[Sigil]

It looks good in general-- it looks a lot like the ship in the movie. One concern I'd have is it's very, very maneuverable-- in many ways, it's nearly as fast as the Millenium Falcon (least, according to my D20 book), which is kind of my benchmark for that sort of thing.

I've not looked over Starships of the Galaxy though, so ... it's probably legal. I do like it though.

[Corvus]

She was made using that book, so yes, she's 100% legal. And it was my intent to have her be as you said, close to the Falcon -- not quite as fast, not quite as maneuverable, but more heavily armed. She was designed to be the Falcon of our campaign, as well as a plot point.

Imho "the falcon of a campaign" type ships speak a lot about lack of ideas

[TheElf]

If I can find the details about ship I made for our campaign, I will try to post it here. But before this, I considered several interesting topics: Hyperdrive technology is expensive even now, and was even more expensive before. So if you play in time of Old Republic (way before Episode 1) you should limit hyperspace technology to bigger ships. Smaller ships had to dock either to bigger carrier ships, or "external hyperdrives".

Most os these carriers were unable to land on planets, some even lacked ion drives, any good defense. Some even lacked reactors, and it used energy from the docked ship(s).

The "falcon" of our campaign is a nice passanger liner with a lot of cabins, and enough cargo space (that can be turned into casinos or anything), so it is BIG. But it has its own hyperdrive, reliable and strong ion drives (fast and maneuverable for its size), and some defenses and also was able to land at major starports (and can carry shuttles if people want to land at smaller ones). It isn't fast, but ...

That isn't a falcon type ship

[TheElf]

Originally Posted by Zamorak

That isn't a falcon type ship

How would you define a falcon type ship?

Imho it is easy to define: Twinked to be fast and win against bigger ships, since if the heroes of the movies had that, the players can have a similar one, without the usual drawbacks, a few extra powers. Easier to trust it than to trust thier creativity

Good definition But does it make the ship in the topic a "falcon type" ship? It looks maxed out, but I don't know much about it.

[TheElf]

I wouldn't agree with this definition, see the ship in the topic. Some say, it has some stats close to maximum, but I think ships designed by the rules are more expensive for their powers than stock ships described in other products. People pay for the flexibility, so twinking this way isn't the most efficient, except if you make real small space stations, with station class weapons, that can be attached to a ship, what can carry say 6 such stations...Twinking is often about using and abusing loopholes.

For a game, you need characters to be in center of events, an efficient within rules ship places them in an unique position. it is better than a bigger and stronger ship, because it has some almost unique values, that can be a springboard to adventure. And as you see, the ship above (same with the one I described) fits in this picture