New Space: Ships

To the humans of the late 20th Century, owning a ship was like owning a car. Space itself may be a variable vacuum, but in the Orion Spur, its sprawling with life. Small shuttles are available to the public; and mercenaries often show off their Centurions and Orions. Gunboats accompany majestic destroyers, cruisers, and dreadnoughts. These ships are commanded by the most decorated military officers.

Fighters

main articles: Light Fighters, Heavy Fighters, Very Heavy Fighters, Super Heavy Fighters

A fighter is a (para)military spaceship primarily designed for attacking other small vessels. Fighters are comparatively small, fast, and maneuverable. They are the most commonly used class of ships in the Colonies. The Fighter class is split into 4 subclasses:

Light Fighter is the collective noun given to the most nimble craft among the Figher class. They are extremely agile, but this comes at the price of heavy armor and firepower. Light Fighters are used for racing, scout missions, intercepting heavier Fighter and Bomber vessels and civilian transport.

Heavy Fighters are a hybrid class between Light Fighters and Very Heavy Fighters. They are more agile than the latter, and pack more armor and gun slots than the former. They are sometimes used in interceptor roles, though often overlooked in favor of their bigger brothers.

Very Heavy Fighters are the tools of trade of military pilots and elite security personnel. They are fairly well armored and can rain down blazing death upon their enemies; especially Bombers will quickly fall victim to their guns.

Super Heavy Fighters are rather unique ships; some of them, like the Thunderbird, are deep space reconnaissance craft, and others, like the Junkers Recycler come close to ultralight Gunboat-Bomber hybrids. The only things they all have in common are their low Bomber-like agility, a huge powerplant and the thickness of their hull plates.

Bombers

main article: Bombers.

Bombers are military vessels built to take on heavier ships like Gunboats, Transports and capital warships. They can be equipped with Bomber guns as well as heavy energy weaponry which, while being rather ineffective against fighters and other bombers, can seriously hurt larger ships, which in turn often employ fighter wings to fend off approaching bombers.

Cargo Ships

main articles: freighters, transports, liners

As their name indicates, cargo ships are used to move cargo through space. They are divided into three classes:

Freighters are more agile, but much smaller than Transports. They are mostly used by small-time entrepreneurs and independent traders who cannot afford a larger "cashcow" (a fairly common slang term for Transport).

Transports are big, heavy beasts of burden. They are about as agile as a brick, but their turrets pose quite a threat to marauding pirates and they can carry gargantuan amounts of cargo. Because of their high profit generation capabilities, they are prime targets for pirates, and thus, corporations often employ fighter wings as "bodyguards".

Liners are large, well defended ships specifically designed to transport people- although they are capable of filling their holds with other commodities as well. Most factions do not have access to Liners, and those that do have it specifically listed on their ID. For other purposes, a liner is exactly like a transport, just with more armor and firepower.

Gunboats

main articles: gunboats.

Gunboat is the designation given to the smallest and most agile class of warships. Unlike other warships, they are also built commercially for extremely rich mercenaries or deep-space scientist teams, mainly because they are still rather cheap compared to larger ships in both production and maintenance. Gunships are light Gunboats and handle slightly different than their larger brethren.

Capital Ships

main article: Capital Ships.

Capital ships are heavy warships and the largest constructs that can still be called ships. Capships can be anything between an elegant Cruiser and a gargantuan Battleship.

Cruisers are long-range bombardment ships. Their heavy artillery is quite capable of damaging Carriers and Battleships from afar and anything smaller caught in the crossfire will be eviscerated almost instantly.

Battlecruisers stand between Cruisers and Battleships when it comes to firepower. They are usually deployed on force reconnaissance missions.

Battleships are the floating fortresses of space. They are awesome machines of destruction, capable of tearing apart ships of all sizes and glassing entire planets. Carriers are Battleships which exchange some guns for giant hangars and launch tubes capable of unleashing a swarm of fighters and bombers upon their enemies.

Explorers are multipurpose starships with long-range Plasma Slipstream Drives. They are capable of performing a variety of duties, from patroling their nation's space to exploration and diplomacy. Designed for exploration, the ships come heavily armed in order to cope with any threat they encounter.

Ship Combat

In various roleplaying games, you have many rule sets where you can roleplay out Ship to Ship combat. Such rules are found in GURPS: Space, LUG's Star Trek: the Next Generation RPG (Rules of Engagement, pg. 139-149), Star Wars Saga RPG, and perhaps many others. However, I suggest you use Silent Death rules to resolve Ship-to-Ship combat, especially when you are dealing with an armada of ships.

In terms of ship combat, I suggest you treat the universe as Space Opera rather than Hard SF. This allows for dog fighting and is generally safer for the player characters. Hard SF battles means that ships are less agile and less able to turn on a dime (since in space, you don't have anything like a gas to push against). You have to use maneuvering thrusters to change the speed of your ship and turn. In New Space, however, the ships are pushing against something that fills the vacuum of space; Plasma and Solar Winds. This allows them to turn much more quickly; almost as if they are in an Atmosphere. However if you don't have Silent Death, then use the rules of your Sci-Fi RPG. If you have the SpaceMaster supplement -- Tech Law: Vehicle Manual; then use those rules since these ships are built according to those rules.

Custom Ship Jobs

It is possible, using the rules in GURPS: Space, Traveler, or the Tech Law: Vehicle Manual, OR whenever D&D 4th Edition's answer to Space Frontiers comes out; for players to custom design their own ships or yachts. As GMs, you are encouraged to allow them the luxury. Have them come up with a design for their ship or yacht and then judge it for play balance according to the rules.

However, also inform them that the ship is a custom job right down the line. This is a disadvantage, since it costs three times as much to repair a custom-made ship than one that is manufactured according to specifications.