Upgrading a Starship
Once the party has acquired a ship, they can add equipment and modifications to it and upgrade its basic systems. Upgrading a ship is a matter of workforce, time, and skill. This assumes the starship you are upgrading has no missing hull points or damaged systems, the requisite resources and tools are freely available, and you are docked at a spaceport or shipyard. Under less optimal conditions the time, money, and skill required could be increased by as much as 100%, or be ruled impossible by the GM.
Upgrading a Ship's Tier
In addition to the cost of modifications and equipment, players can invest credits into their starship's basic systems, increasing the tier of the ship. As a player increases the tier of their starship, they unlock add-itional Hull and Shield Dice, and unique size-specific features. The material and personnel costs in credits that a party must invest in their ship varies based on the tier they are trying to obtain, as show below in the Base Upgrade Cost by Tier table. The costs detailed here include hiring the required workforce. However, if PCs can provide the workforce directly and invest their time, the final costs incurred are only half that shown.
Base Upgrade Cost by Tier
| Tier | Cost in Credits | Description of Rarity |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | Mass Production (Standard) |
| 1 | 3,900 | Modified (Premium) |
| 2 | 77,500 | Fully Customized (Prototype) |
| 3 | 297,000 | Highly Sophisticated Engineering (Advanced) |
| 4 | 620,000 | State of the Art (Legendary) |
| 5 | 1,150,000 | Unique (Artifact) |
Cost Modifiers
It costs more to upgrade the hull of a capital ship than the hull of a starfighter; bigger starships are simply costlier to improve. Consequently, each starship has a cost modifier depending on the ship's size, as shown in the Starship Size Upgrade Cost table below, which is multiplied by the value for that tier in the Base Upgrade Cost by Tier table.
Starship Size Upgrade Cost
| Starship Size | Cost Modifier |
|---|---|
| Tiny | x 0.5 |
| Small | x 1 |
| Medium | x 2 |
| Large | x 10 |
| Huge | x 100 |
| Gargantuan | x 1,000 |
For instance, to upgrade a Small size ship from Tier 0 to Tier 1, it costs 3,900 credits. To upgrade a Huge size ship from Tier 2 to Tier 3, however, it costs 29,700,000 (297,000 x 100).
Upgrade Workforce
Additionally, bigger ships require more people to perform these upgrades. For a Small ship, a single person can do everything necessary (though additional workers will reduce the time taken), while a Medium or larger ship requires a more extensive workforce, as shown below in the Starship Size Upgrade Workforce table below.
Starship Size Upgrade Workforce
| Starship Size | Minimum Workforce |
|---|---|
| Tiny | 1 |
| Small | 1 |
| Medium | 5 |
| Large | 50 |
| Huge | 500 |
| Gargantuan | 5,000 |
Upgrade Time
With sufficient workforce, a snubfighter can be upgraded in no more than a week's time. However, upgrading a freighter can take up to a month, and an overhaul of a large ship such as a cruiser might take a year. It isn't practical for a smaller workforce to make changes to such big ships, regardless of how much time the workers have.
The base time needed to upgrade a starship is calculated as follows:
time (in days) = ("Base Upgrade Cost by Tier" x "Starship Size Upgrade Cost") / (500 x "size of workforce")
For instance, to upgrade a Small size ship from tier 0 to tier 1, with a workforce of 3, would take 2.6 days. To upgrade a Huge size ship from Tier 2 to Tier 3, with a workforce of 500, however, would take 118.8 days [(297,000 x 100) / (500 x 500)].
It is assumed that each member of the workforce works 8 hours per day.
Starship features are generally only usable once per round. Once they have been used by a crewmember, they are not available for use again until the start of that crewmember's next turn.
Starship Tier Features
Once players have upgraded a ship to tier 1 or higher, they unlock additional features, determined by the ship's size.
Tier features that grant modifications come at no cost and do not take up a modification slot or count against your ship's Suite Capacity unless otherwise stated.
Roles
At Tier 0, Tier 2, and Tier 4, you will have your choice of abilities to add to your ship by choosing a Role. These choices allow your ship to become more specialized by gaining an ability exclusive to that Role.
At ship construction (Tier 0), your choice of Role grants one or more Ability Score Increases, a base Speed and Turning Speed (see Chapter 7: Adventuring for rules on Speed and Turning Speed), and stock equipment. This stock equipment, like all equipment, may be removed and/or replaced using the rules found in Chapter 5: Equipment.
VARIANT: STARTING EQUIPMENT
In lieu of the equipment granted by your ship's chosen Role, with your Game Master's permission, you can elect to choose your starting equipment. If you do so, you may substitute equipment of the same category for that given by your Role at Tier 0. For example, you may choose any one of each of the following for a new ship in lieu of that given by your chosen Tier 0 Role:
- (a) deflection armor (b) lightweight armor (c) or reinforced armor
- (a) fuel cell reactor (b) ionization reactor (c) or power core reactor
- (a) direct power coupling (b) distributed power coupling (c) or hub & spoke power coupling Additionally, for Large or Larger ships you may also choose one of the following:
- (a) directional shield (b) fortress shield (c) or quick-charge shield
At each of these tiers you may choose a new Role. For example, when your advance to Tier 2 with your small ship, you may choose to gain the Attack Fighter bonus ("your ship gains a +1 bonus to the attack rolls and save DCs of its ship weapons.") even though, at Tier 0, you had chosen the Shuttle role (granting a +1 to Constitution, various starting equipment, and a base speed/turning speed pair).
First Time on a Ship?
For your first time playing on a starship, it is recommended that you ignore Deployment abilities (characters new to ships typically have no Ranks in any Deployments). This means you will, therefore, be ignoring Reactors and Power Couplings, since these are the parts of the ship responsible for generating and storing the Power Dice that fuel your Deployment abilities. New players and GMs, even after adding Deployments (and therefore Power Dice) to their games, may still prefer to play on "Easy Mode." To keep things as simple as possible, choose a Fuel Cell Reactor (which automatically regenerates one Power Die per ship turn) and a Direct Coupling (which allows players to ignore which system their Deployment abilities draw Power Dice from, at the cost of fewer maximum dice to use). Additionally, you can leave shields off of your ship completely or, if you decide to include shields for survivability, choose Directional Shields for simplicity.
Hull Dice
Your ship starts play with one or more Hull Dice, which are analogous to Hit Dice in the ground game. Tiny ships start with one Hull Die, a d4, while all other sizes of ship start with more than one Hull Die. For example, a Tier 0 Small ship starts play with 3 Hull Dice, each a d6. This is analogous to a level 3 character in the ground game.
In order to calculate the ship's starting Hull Points, you take the maximum of the first die (in this case 6) and add the ship's Constitution modifier, and then roll the two remaining Hull Dice (or take the average: 4) and add the ship's Constitution modifier to each roll.
Shield Dice
Not all ships have shields, but if your ship has Shields, its Shield Dice are determined by its size and Tier. For detailed information on Shields, see Chapter 5: Equipment.