Components, Upgrades, and Compatibility

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This chapter covers what a ship is built from and what happens when a crew changes it: Module Slots and installation, carried craft and drones, hardpoint changes, Integrated Architecture and patchwork ships, the failure modes of mixed-builder and military installations, illegal modifications, long-term projects, and the Component Catalog. Every module's statistics are in the Module Catalog appendix at the end of the chapter. Prices are in Chapter Twelve. Salvage and repair are in Chapter Eleven.

Module Slots

A Module Slot is a prepared interface for an optional installation: structural support rated for the module's mass, power connections sized for its draw, crew access, and a link to the ship's diagnostics. A medical kit needs no slot. A medical bay does.

Slot Counts by Scale

These are design guidelines for Models, not entitlements. A civilian freighter may have many open slots; a military escort may have none. Openframe hulls run high in every band because Openframe pays 2 build points per slot instead of 3, and Crown Meridian and Safa hulls run low because they pay 4 (Chapter Thirteen).

Scales 8 to 10 are empire-level warships and giant war stations. They are always military, are built only by sovereign yards, and are detailed in another book. This book gives them no statistics; a GM who needs one builds it to suit the story.

Module Slot Grades

Some Models distinguish Standard, Enhanced, and Military module bays. The grade belongs to the hull, not to the module.

• Standard slots accept any module that meets its minimum Scale.
• Enhanced slots are pre-wired for heavier draw. Installation checks for Licensed, Restricted, or Military modules in an Enhanced slot remove 1 Bane Die .
• Military bays exist only on military hulls and accept Military modules as Native installations.

Civilian hulls have no Military bays. A Military module in a civilian hull is a Forbidden Integration (Chapter Five).

Modules Across Several Slots

On a hull of Scale 5 or larger, a one-slot module may be fitted across two or more slots. Each added slot repeats the module's capacity (cargo blocks, berths, cells, drones, cabins) or lets it serve one more task at a time (a two-slot Workshop supports two repair checks at once). Price and install each slot as a separate module.

Installing a Module

A clean commercial module installed by a yard in an open slot needs no check. The crew pays the module price and the yard's installation fee per slot (Chapter Twelve). Yard installation takes 1 day per slot on a Scale 2 to 4 hull and 2 days per slot on a Scale 5 to 7 hull.

Any other installation is a Craft check. Find the base difficulty below, then apply the integration modifier from the Integration Modifiers table in Chapter Five (Builder Integration). A crew doing the work takes twice the yard time and pays no fee.

A Damaged module is one step harder still (Condition, below). Installing a module so that inspections miss it adds 1 Bane Die ; on a success, an inspector notices it only on a Hard Perception check.

A failed check leaves the module uninstalled and its parts intact. Banes and a Calamity are spent under Mixed-Builder and Military Failure Modes, below.

Carried Craft

A ship carries small craft in internal bays or on External Docking Cradles. The modules are in the appendix; launching and recovering in combat are in Chapter Fifteen.

Internal bays enclose the craft. It cannot be targeted while the parent hull is intact, and it launches and recovers through a controlled bay.

External Docking Cradles hold the craft against the hull on a prepared interface. A cradle costs one slot instead of two and is available a Scale lower, which is why small commercial hulls carry their shuttle this way.

The module sets the capacity. A cradle holds one craft, a Shuttle Bay two, a Fighter Bay four, an Expanded Hangar eight. A hull carries what its bays and cradles hold and no more.

A cradle is built around a craft. The cradle-fitted craft a hull was designed for docks, launches, and recovers with no check under ordinary conditions. A craft without the cradle interface cannot dock at a cradle at any difficulty; it needs an internal bay, a station, or a docking collar.

A mismatched craft (cradle-fitted, but of a different configuration or builder) docks with these penalties:

• Launch and recovery checks add 1 Bane Die .
• The parent ship adds 1 Bane Die to Pilot checks in atmosphere and to Signature Management checks while the craft is aboard.
• A craft from a Rival builder (Chapter Five) adds 2 Bane Dice instead of 1 to each.

Externally carried craft are exposed. A craft on a cradle is part of the parent ship's target profile and can be attacked in its own right.

Ground and hover vehicles ride in vehicle bays (appendix, Atmospheric and Surface Operations): a Vehicle Bay takes a Scale 2 vehicle, a Heavy Vehicle Bay a Scale 3 vehicle, a Vehicle Deck a Scale 4 vehicle. A vehicle that no bay aboard can hold travels only as freight in a hold large enough for it, and must be unloaded at a port or by crane before it can drive.

Embarked crew count toward complement. Pilots and aircrew for carried craft are crew or passengers of the parent hull.

Drones

A drone is a Scale 1 remote craft carried in a drone bay. Drones are bought with their bay; replacements are bought singly.

Control. Deploying a drone group is an action by a crew member at the station that runs it: Engineering for utility and repair drones, Sensors and Comms for sensor and defense drones, any station for security drones. Deployed drones act on that crew member's turn each round without further actions. A directive AI with a free Active Channel can run one drone group in place of a crew member (Chapter Seven).

Range. Drones work within Short range of the ship, except sensor drones (above).

Vulnerability. Any hit from a ship weapon destroys a drone. Point defense and Flak treat drones as interceptable ordnance. A successful Jam (Chapter Fifteen) against a drone group grounds it for the rest of the round. Drones recovered at the end of an encounter are ready for the next; destroyed drones are replaced at port.

Changing Hardpoints

Oversized mounts and the rule that ground vehicles mount weapons as one Scale larger are in Chapter Eight. Hardpoint prices, the upgrade formula, and downgrade refunds are in Chapter Twelve. Hardpoint capacity is counted in points: Light 1, Standard 2, Heavy 3, Capital 4.

Upgrading a Hardpoint

Upgrading a mount one size rebuilds its structure, power conduit, and cooling access. The hull must already be rated for the larger mount (minimum Scale in Chapter Eight; tier caps in Chapter Thirteen).

A yard upgrade needs no check. A field upgrade takes twice the yard time and the parts at the full Chapter Twelve price.

On a field upgrade, spend Banes as follows:

• The mount adds 1 Heat each time its weapon fires until the work is redone at a yard.
• Boost Weapons cannot be used on this mount until the work is redone at a yard.
• The change is visible to any inspection of the ship's structure.

On a failure the mount is unchanged and the materials are kept. On a Calamity the ship takes 2 System Damage and the materials are lost.

Downgrading a Hardpoint

Reducing a mount one size frees its extra hardpoint points for another weapon. It takes the same time as the matching upgrade and, in the field, is one difficulty step easier. The refund is in Chapter Twelve.

Integrated Architecture and Patchwork Ships

Integrated Architecture and Integration Status

Integrated Architecture, the twelve core systems it counts, its benefits, and the integration status and modifier for every non-native component are defined in Chapter Five, which holds the only Builder Integration table. An Integrated Architecture ship serviced at an authorized yard of its builder pays 25% less for maintenance (Chapter Twelve).

Patchwork Friction

A ship with three or more core systems at Adapted, Forced, or Forbidden status adds 1 Bane Die to any Craft check that involves two of those systems at once: repairing a cascade between them, rerouting power from one to the other, or diagnosing a fault that crosses both.

Restoring Integrated Architecture

A crew restores Integrated Architecture by replacing foreign core systems with native ones, one at a time (Long-Term Ship Projects, below), until the Chapter Five conditions are met again: at least 10 of the 12 core systems native, and no Forced or Forbidden integration aboard. A Signature component keeps its benefit only in its own builder's hull or a Partner's (Chapter Five).

Mixed-Builder and Military Failure Modes

A failure mode is a lasting defect left by an imperfect installation. The GM applies one when:

• An installation check succeeds with 2 or more net Banes : the GM may spend those two Banes on one failure mode instead of an ordinary Bane result.
• An installation check fails and the crew chooses to keep the component installed anyway: it works, with one failure mode.
• An installation check produces a Calamity : one failure mode applies in addition to the check's other results.

Use the Mixed-Builder table for Partner, Open, and Rival installations, and the Military table for any Military component or module. The GM chooses a mode that fits the work or rolls for it. A failure mode lasts until the component is removed or an authorized yard reinstalls it at the normal yard fee.

Mixed-Builder Failure Modes

Military Integration

A Military component in a hull not built for it is a Forbidden Integration, which upgrades 1 or 2 Trial Dice to Crisis Dice by severity (Chapter Five). The number upgraded, and the consequence that comes with the installation, depend on whose component it is.

Military Failure Modes

Authority Heat

A component or module with the Authority Heat failure mode, or with the Authority Heat tag (Chapter Eight), is evidence. Any inspection of the ship's systems finds it unless it was installed concealed (Installing a Module, above). What a find costs is set by its availability: a Licensed system without the licence, or a Restricted system without clearance, is a Serious infraction, with the fine and confiscation in Chapter Twelve. A Military system aboard a civilian hull is grounds for seizure of the ship (Chapter Twelve, Fines, Impound, and Seizure). The Authority Heat tag's Border Warrant also applies when the item is used.

Illegal and Restricted Modifications

Requiring a Licence

These modifications need authorization in most power territories:

• Military weapons: Heavy and larger in most systems, and every plasma capital weapon
• Military ECM and electronic-warfare systems
• Disruption weapons: some powers restrict all of them; most restrict Heavy and larger
• Gravitic and phase weapons (military only, everywhere)
• Military Composite armor (Chapter Eight)
• Interdiction Modules
• Strategic Ordnance Magazines

Operating without the licence in a territory that enforces it is an inspectable offense under Authority Heat, above.

Illegal Everywhere

These are illegal in all five powers' territories:

• Gravitic or phase weapons on a civilian hull without military authorization
• Slipstream interdiction systems on any non-military hull
• Strategic ordnance aboard a non-military ship
• The Phase Veil and the Military Shadow Package (Chapter Eight)
• An undeclared Smuggling Compartment
• A Transponder Spoofing Suite in use in an active port or traffic lane

A ship caught with one in an inspection is subject to seizure (Chapter Twelve).

Black-Market Components

Finding a black-market seller is a Streetwise check at a frontier hub, an Antaean League port, or a freeport. The price is the Military or Restricted price (Chapter Twelve) multiplied by 1.5.

A Calamity on the check means the seller informs on the crew to whoever pays more.

Long-Term Ship Projects

A crew can hire a yard or do the work themselves. A yard needs no check and charges its fee (Chapter Twelve). A crew needs a Workshop aboard, the parts, twice the yard time, and a Craft check.

Milestones. For a large project the GM may set milestones: a part that must be sourced, a specialist who must be found, a test that must pass. A military reactor needs military supply or a theft; a phase-weapon component needs contacts who want favors.

The record. An authorized upgrade appears in the ship's maintenance log. An unauthorized one does not, and a full inspection of the ship's systems finds the evidence on an Average Perception check.

The Component Catalog

Every stat on a ship sheet above the hull's Scale baseline comes from a physical component, and every component can be bought, sold, salvaged, installed, and ruined. Pull a reactor out of a corsair killed at Harrowspan, get it working in your own hull, and the Power Capacity on your sheet goes up because the reactor aboard is now that reactor.

What a Component Is

A component is one line on the ship sheet: builder, system, rating, availability, and condition. It contributes only to stats already on the sheet. A better reactor changes Power Capacity, Heat Threshold, and Heat Dissipation; it adds no new number.

Name components builder first: a Kharos reactor rated +2 Power Capacity, a Crown Meridian Hull and Frame set at Armor 3.

Rating and Availability

Rating is what a component does, in the unit its system uses. A sensor suite is rated by how far it detects; an AI Core by how many Active Channels it runs; a reactor by the Power Capacity, Heat Threshold, and Heat Dissipation it provides.

Availability is who may own it: Open, Licensed, Restricted, or Military. Availability sets the price multiplier (Chapter Twelve). It does not change what the component does. Some ratings are sold only at a minimum availability: sensors that reach Extreme are Licensed (Chapter Thirteen, Sensor Grade).

Your hull's operator tier sets the availability it carries as standard, and fitting one system above that standard is a Chapter Thirteen purchase.

Component Ratings

Ratings are expressed above the hull's Scale baseline, per step. Steps accumulate up to the hull's tier caps in Chapter Thirteen.

Reactor steps are single steps, the same as the Chapter Thirteen purchases: each raises one of Power Capacity, Heat Threshold, or Heat Dissipation by 1. Sensor grades and AI Cores have their full tables in Chapter Seven. Armor upgrades are defenses and are in Chapter Eight. Military Composite has one reading, the Starship Armory one: +2 Armor on all facings, +3 against Beam and Plasma, Handling 1 worse, Military availability.

Sublight Engine grades. The engine's drive class sets its Cruise cap and its availability (Chapter Thirteen, Engine Class and Cruise). What Cruise does is in Chapter Six.

A fusion engine cannot be raised past Cruise 3. Cruise 4 and 5 need an antimatter engine fitted as a full replacement.

Fitted Systems

Three systems contribute an effect rather than steps. Each has two ratings.

Fire Control and the Boon Limit. Every Boon Die a Fire Control component adds to an attack counts toward the Boon Limit in Chapter Fifteen.

Damage Control and the repair cap. The rating 2 automatic removal counts toward the limit of 1 automatic System Damage removal per round from all sources (Chapter Eleven).

The Advanced Tag

A component may carry the Advanced tag. It adds 1 Boon Die to checks using that system without changing its rating: an Advanced sensor suite rated to Long sees no farther, but sees more clearly at every band. An Advanced component costs 1.5 times the price of the same component without the tag. A Boon Die from Advanced on an attack counts toward the Boon Limit (Chapter Fifteen).

Provenance Tags

• Improvised. Built from mismatched or cannibalized parts. Price ×0.4. It installs as Damaged (Condition, below) and carries one Mixed-Builder failure mode, chosen by the GM, from the moment it is installed.
• Experimental. A prototype or unlicensed design. Price ×4.0 or more. Before it is installed, the GM writes one benefit beyond its rating and one failure mode, and tells the crew the benefit only.
• Strategic. Not sold, priced, or acquired. A strategic component enters play as a campaign event.

Builder Identity

A Kharos reactor and a Crown Meridian reactor of the same rating produce the same numbers. What differs is how hard each is to install in your hull (Chapter Five) and whether it breaks your Integrated Architecture.

Condition

Every component is in one of three conditions.

Repairing a Damaged component takes a Craft check at its installation difficulty, parts costing a quarter of its new price, and 1 day of work. It is installed and running at the lower rating until then.

A Destroyed component yields nothing on its own. A Breakthrough on the extraction check (Chapter Eleven) recovers enough intact material to repair one Damaged component of the same system type, whether the check succeeded or failed.

Installed Systems Are Components

The three conditions are the same states a system can be in while it is still aboard.

Component Prices

A component's price is its build point cost × the credits per build point for its Scale (Chapter Thirteen) × its availability multiplier (Chapter Twelve).

A Kharos reactor rated +2 Power Capacity for a Scale 4 hull is two Power Capacity steps at 3 build points each: 6 build points. At Open availability it costs 6 × 2,250 = 13,500cr. At Licensed it costs 13,500 × 1.6 = 21,600cr.

Installing it. Replacing a core system with one of the same rating costs a yard fee of a quarter of the component's price. Raising a rating is a retrofit (Chapter Thirteen): it uses twice the component's build points from the hull's unspent budget, and the yard charges 1.5 times the component's price for the work, for 2.5 times the component's price in all. The Open reactor above, fitted as a retrofit, costs 13,500 + 20,250 = 33,750cr.

Components are Scale-specific. Fitting one to a hull of a different Scale is covered in Chapter Three.

Selling components is salvage, and its single price rule is in Chapter Eleven.

Worked Example: The Life Support Problem

The crew's life support is Damaged after a fight. They have no spare and eleven days to the nearest port. The ship they disabled took the same hit, and its life support is Destroyed.

The engineer boards the wreck and attempts extraction. It is a battlefield, so the check is Severe . She fails, but the roll shows a Breakthrough . She comes back with enough intact scrubber assembly to repair the crew's own Damaged unit: a Craft check at its installation difficulty, a day of work, and the parts in her hands. Had their own unit been Destroyed, the Breakthrough would have bought them nothing.

Appendix: Module Catalog

Every module in the setting, with its rules. Read the columns this way:

• Slots is the number of Module Slots it fills. Min. Scale is the smallest hull that can take it.
• Power is the Power Load it adds while active (Chapter Six). Heat is Heat it generates; 0 means none.
• Price is a multiplier on the base cost per slot for the hull's Scale (Chapter Twelve), then on the availability multiplier. The figure in brackets is that price worked out at Scale 4, or at the module's minimum Scale when that is higher.
• Availability is who may own it (Chapter Twelve). Restricted and Military modules carry Authority Heat in any hull not licensed for them.

A single check takes the benefit of one module. When two modules could apply, use the better one. Defensive modules (electronic warfare, defense drones, and damage-control systems) take their effects, Power, and prices from Chapter Eight.

Cargo and Freight

Passenger and Habitation

Medical and Continuity

Engineering, Repair, and Salvage

Exploration and Science

Security and Law Enforcement

Stealth and Electronic Warfare

Drone and Small Craft

Industrial

Atmospheric and Surface Operations

Slipstream and Navigation

Commercial and Corporate

Military and Restricted