Apr 13, 2024 5:41 pm
Here's my plan for a Free Merchant:
The atmospheric config is absolutely required so you can land. This ship can't carry a shuttle, so it has to be able to land itself. Cold sleep pods are for disaster scenarios. (I.e. the ship itself becomes the lifeboat.) The Drive-2 is required for proper range, and the Fuel bunker gives additional range. The Fuel scoops are because we don't intend to ply the safe space lanes. The Ship's Locker is to make sure we have all the do-dads we need to have our adventures. I wanted Extended stores, but that takes up two precious mass, and I figure two months of supplies should be enough to get in and get out.
An armory would be a good buy, too, but doesn't need to be a day-one purchace. The ship's locker will give some basic stuff, and the characters will usually have their own equipment for anything fancy.
The one other thing that would be a tempting purchase over time is a gravcar or gravflyer. Having a secondary on-planet vehicle is always helpful. The gravflyer would be great, but it is probably too big to carry around. A gravcar can't get you into space, but it should be able to get around on most planets just fine.
Obviously, over time the weapon would be upgraded. The perfect final destination is the Plasma Beam, but, again, that probably makes things more dangerous, rather than less. As a back-off position, the best bet is probably the Fractal Impact Charge. The reason is because it does decent damage, you get 8 shots before having to sacrifice space for more rounds, and each round is only 500 credits (which is very reasonable). It isn't a perfect solution, but it is workable and it is quite reasonable. Doing that, however, pushes the price tag over 1M credits.
| Power | Mass | Hard | Running Value | |
| Free Merchant | 10 | 15 | 2 | 500,000 |
| General Fitting | ||||
| Atmospheric config | 0 | 2 | - | 50,000 |
| Cargo space 6 (120 tons) | 0 | 7 | - | - |
| Cold Sleep Pods | 1 | 1 | - | 50,000 |
| Drive-2 upgrade | 2 | 2 | - | 100,000 |
| Fuel Bunkers | 0 | 1 | - | 25,000 |
| Fuel Scoops | 2 | 2 | - | 50,000 |
| Ships Locker | 0 | 0 | - | 20,000 |
| Weaponry | ||||
| Sandthrower | 3 | 1 | 1 | 50,000 |
| Totals | ||||
| 2 | 0 | 1 | 845,000 |
The atmospheric config is absolutely required so you can land. This ship can't carry a shuttle, so it has to be able to land itself. Cold sleep pods are for disaster scenarios. (I.e. the ship itself becomes the lifeboat.) The Drive-2 is required for proper range, and the Fuel bunker gives additional range. The Fuel scoops are because we don't intend to ply the safe space lanes. The Ship's Locker is to make sure we have all the do-dads we need to have our adventures. I wanted Extended stores, but that takes up two precious mass, and I figure two months of supplies should be enough to get in and get out.
An armory would be a good buy, too, but doesn't need to be a day-one purchace. The ship's locker will give some basic stuff, and the characters will usually have their own equipment for anything fancy.
The one other thing that would be a tempting purchase over time is a gravcar or gravflyer. Having a secondary on-planet vehicle is always helpful. The gravflyer would be great, but it is probably too big to carry around. A gravcar can't get you into space, but it should be able to get around on most planets just fine.
Obviously, over time the weapon would be upgraded. The perfect final destination is the Plasma Beam, but, again, that probably makes things more dangerous, rather than less. As a back-off position, the best bet is probably the Fractal Impact Charge. The reason is because it does decent damage, you get 8 shots before having to sacrifice space for more rounds, and each round is only 500 credits (which is very reasonable). It isn't a perfect solution, but it is workable and it is quite reasonable. Doing that, however, pushes the price tag over 1M credits.
