What are the requirements for a good player ship in PW?

[Warshield73]

Pretty straight forward here, what does a player ship need to have for it to be considered good by the players and GM?

Now to be clear I am not asking which ship in the books makes the best player ship, although you can make that part of the discussion if you would like, but when you modify or create a ship for your player group what does it need to have in order to be considered good.

I have to admit that a big part of this comes from watching Andor with the Fondor haulcraft and the Mandalorain with the Razor Crest. While both of these ships are cool, I found that both had limitations that would make them less than ideal for a Phase World group and I still think the best example of a player ship from Star Wars is probably the Ghost from Rebels. But I am curious what others thought.

General rules, examples or both would be great.
I have a few basic rules and they can be applied to a single group ship or to a fleet if the PCs choose to split up.

1- There must be room for all the players and what is necessary for there OCC.

Spoiler:

This is simple. If one of the characters is a scientist or an operator there is room for a lab machine shop. If there is a mage there is room for a library or meditation area. If someone has a robot vehicles or a space fighter there is hangar space for it

2- Every PC must have a role on the ship and something to do during combat.

Spoiler:

This is not just about the ship but about character creation and often, but not always, means everyone has something to shoot with during combat.

Some PCs might leave the ship during combat (PAs and fighters), others are gunners, then of course you have the pilot (I usually provide a nose gun for the pilot to shoot with as well so they are not stuck just making piloting rolls.

One example I have was a player chose several electronic warfare and space tactics skills that I brought over from Robotech 2e. For her I put a large selection EW, ECM, CECM, and other defensive systems to use during combat

3- They PCs must be able to leave the ship as a group. We don't want players needing to miss the adventure to protect the ship.

Spoiler:

I have used several things for this and while my favorite is just to put an AI on the ship I have done a few other things

Instead of an AI a mystical spirit that could do some of the things an AI did but with a mystical slant.

A robot or NPC crew.

A cloaking device like the Puddle Jumpers from Stargate Atlantis so ship could be reaponably well hidden

If the ship was parked on a ley line or nexus point, in space or on a planet, it could be sent into a pocket dimension until called back by they players

4- It must be, for lack of a better term, upgradable. The players must be able to make improvements to it as time goes on.

Spoiler:

This can mean replacing systems or upgrading but the most important thing is the ship isn't perfect when they get it. They need something to spend their money on.

5- It must be able to blend in and allow the player group to go to most systems. Give them a Warshield or a Berserker if you want but it will be hard to travel in those.

Spoiler:

This can be a lot of things
A common ship type that is seen almost everywhere
Cloaking or stealth systems
A holographic disguise system so that it looks different
Some way of going to most places in the 3G without being instantly attacked

6- Combat and general performance. I try to have it so the ship can outrun anything it can't fight and fight (not necessarily destroy) anything it can't outrun.

Spoiler:

To achieve this I often give the ship some unusual capabilities (a high powered weapon, a speed booster for sub-light and FTL, improved shields but I then limit the number of uses or make it something that they have to buy expensive materials to use.

7- The last point is subjective but it should have either personality or some sort of hook that makes the players want to use the ship.

So for players and GMs what does a good player ship in PW need?

[taalismn]

Racing stripes, preferably red, because they make the ship go fastuh.

[Warshield73]

Racing stripes, preferably red, because they make the ship go fastuh.

Do you go fuzzy dice or Buddy Christ for the dash? Or maybe old school with the shaking hula dancer?

[glitterboy2098]

Racing stripes, preferably red, because they make the ship go fastuh.

Do you go fuzzy dice or Buddy Christ for the dash? Or maybe old school with the shaking hula dancer?

i like to collect little art objects and stick them all in a row on my control console.

[Warshield73]

Racing stripes, preferably red, because they make the ship go fastuh.

Do you go fuzzy dice or Buddy Christ for the dash? Or maybe old school with the shaking hula dancer?

i like to collect little art objects and stick them all in a row on my control console.

Are you deadly serious about that?

[cchopps]

Pretty straight forward here, what does a player ship need to have for it to be considered good by the players and GM?

Now to be clear I am not asking which ship in the books makes the best player ship, although you can make that part of the discussion if you would like, but when you modify or create a ship for your player group what does it need to have in order to be considered good.


2- Every PC must have a role on the ship and something to do during combat.

Spoiler:

This is not just about the ship but about character creation and often, but not always, means everyone has something to shoot with during combat.

Some PCs might leave the ship during combat (PAs and fighters), others are gunners, then of course you have the pilot (I usually provide a nose gun for the pilot to shoot with as well so they are not stuck just making piloting rolls.

One example I have was a player chose several electronic warfare and space tactics skills that I brought over from Robotech 2e. For her I put a large selection EW, ECM, CECM, and other defensive systems to use during combat

So for players and GMs what does a good player ship in PW need?

I agree with all of this, but especially rule #2. And it is a struggle using RAW. Would you be willing to share what you've landed on? I've written and scrapped so many iterations for this and am still stuck. Ultimately, I just want fun gameplay for all players with minimal handwavium that sticks to setting as much as possible.

Thank you!

[taalismn]

[
i like to collect little art objects and stick them all in a row on my control console.

Your starship's helm console should be designed such that, no matter how hard the pilot tries, his/her dashboard gewgaw collection cannot interfere with the Head Up Display(It just seems that older cars had dashboards you could pile stuff like letters and maps on to the point the reflection in the windshield could interfere with your vision; modern cars seem to have broad scratches of plastic that can't hold anything up there).

[Warshield73]

Pretty straight forward here, what does a player ship need to have for it to be considered good by the players and GM?

Now to be clear I am not asking which ship in the books makes the best player ship, although you can make that part of the discussion if you would like, but when you modify or create a ship for your player group what does it need to have in order to be considered good.

2- Every PC must have a role on the ship and something to do during combat.

Spoiler:

This is not just about the ship but about character creation and often, but not always, means everyone has something to shoot with during combat.

Some PCs might leave the ship during combat (PAs and fighters), others are gunners, then of course you have the pilot (I usually provide a nose gun for the pilot to shoot with as well so they are not stuck just making piloting rolls.

One example I have was a player chose several electronic warfare and space tactics skills that I brought over from Robotech 2e. For her I put a large selection EW, ECM, CECM, and other defensive systems to use during combat

So for players and GMs what does a good player ship in PW need?

I agree with all of this, but especially rule #2. And it is a struggle using RAW. Would you be willing to share what you've landed on? I've written and scrapped so many iterations for this and am still stuck. Ultimately, I just want fun gameplay for all players with minimal handwavium that sticks to setting as much as possible.

Thank you!

First, I just want to say that the most important thing is having fun and while we all want to keep the handwavium to a minimum when you are doing something as ridiculous as a space battle with wizards and power armor...ehhhh you're going to do some handwaving. Just say this one goes here that one goes there or blame it on the tachyons and move on. I would argue that consistency in your handwaving is most important.

Second, you cannot play Phase World RAW. Don't try it will hurt you. First it is too old, needs a rewrite more than any PB property (maybe second after Heroes Unlimited). Second, and this is the worst part, it is now largely incoherent. It is just 7 books (plus a few Rifter Articles that are official), by 4 writers, over a period of 17 years. Now the shallow galaxy information and out of date OCCs are bad but for the ships our biggest problem is that the basic technology of CG is poorly defined and we have too few ships to build a universe this big.

As for my rules, I'm working on them. There are others who have sets of rules for building ships and running the combat so you can search for those or maybe they will post links. A few years ago I started posting a lot on these forums about Phase World (just look down the topics for my name) as my rules felt like a clunky mess, and they were or are a clunky mess because PW is a clunky mess.

As for Rule #2: This to me is the part that requires the most work, but is actually the easiest. You and your players sit down and simply discuss, what do they want the PC to be able to do on the ship especially during battle? Once you figure that out you build the ship accordingly.

So in one group I had:
- CAF Fleet Officer - He had a PA but mostly when we left the ship so when the ship went to battle he was Tactical officer. He had to have a bunch of skills like Weapon Systems, sensors, ECM, etc so when he built the character he did had those skills.
- Turbo-Jockey - She was a fighter pilot so most battles she was support but when on ship she used those EW skills from Robotech 2e to help defend the ship. She didn't shoot anything but she still had fun.

This part is actually easy, just time consuming. The hard part is taking the needs of all your players and making a ship that fits all my other rules which is ultimately why I created this thread and all the others but especially Fixing Phase World Spacecraft Combat .

In February I will be running at OwlCon and I will, for the first-time in 7 years, be running PW. I am making changes to the OCCs to make them more fun but I am also want a really cool ship that the players will all like without creating a system that is too complicated.

I doubt that helps but all I have.