Transport

Misc Ships

Private Craft:
Single pilot or small crew ships, small in size with limited range, cargo and weapons capabilities. These craft will normally be used within a single system or neighbouring systems. Due to their small size they may only enter hyperspace via jumppoints created by a jumpgate or large ship. These ships will be favoured by pirates which have a large base ship to provide fire-power support due to their relative cheapness and availability.

Private fighters:
Custom or ex-military craft which are normally only available on the black market. Often owned by pirates, raiders and bounty hunters or by

Shuttles:
These craft range in size from ships similar to private craft up to transport vehicles capable of carrying up to about 200 passengers with some cargo room. They are not suited to long-haul flights, only being able to carry enough fuel and resources for about 36 hours travel. Shuttles are the main form of transport between space stations and surface ports, as well as between space stations and ships too large to enter the station docking tunnel.
Only the largest shuttles can create their own jumppoints and none of them have very good weapon capabilities.

L.R. Shuttles:
Long range shuttles are more suited to the demands of long distance travel than standard shuttles. They have better EM damping, allowing longer periods in hyperspace, and larger fuel stores and power plants. L.R shuttles can take between 400 and 2000 passengers and are used by many transport lines for interstellar package holidays. Again, only the larger craft have jump engines but only the smaller craft can dock with stations. The larger shuttles require 'ferry' shuttles to load and unload passengers. These are either provided by the station or are carried in the shuttle's docking port.

Cruisers:
These ships can carry up to 5000 people and the largest is a mile long. All of them can create their own jumppoints and can stay in hyperspace nearly as long as military ships. None of these ships can dock directly with a space station and they normally carry between 10 and 15 shuttles to load and unload passengers.


See Also:

Designers of this encyclopedia
Chris Page & Ed Collins

dasoft@zetnet.co.uk collins-e@dnet.co.uk