Designing a Hull

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Every ship in this book was built to the rules in this chapter. Use them to design a hull the catalog does not have: a custom yard job, a one-off prototype, a rival's ship, or the vessel your crew has spent three years rebuilding.

This chapter covers the build sequence, Scale budgets, operator tiers and their caps, builder costs, the stat cost tables, Heat Dissipation, optional core systems, validation, upgrades after the build, and how a finished design gets a price.

The Build Sequence

Work through these seven steps in order.

1. Choose a Scale. This sets your point budget and your free baseline hull.
2. Choose an operator tier. Civilian, Professional, or Military. This sets your caps and your weapon and defense costs.
3. Choose a builder. This changes what individual stats cost you.
4. Spend points on stats above the baseline.
5. Set Heat Dissipation from the table.
6. Buy optional core systems.
7. Validate against the caps and the budget, then price the design.

Step One: Scale and Budget

Your Scale grants a free baseline hull and a pool of build points.

Hull and System Points double at Scale 6 and above: a capital hull is built to outlast several smaller ships.

The baseline also includes Speed 1, Cruise 1, Handling −3, Armor 0, no weapon hardpoints, no module slots, and no cargo capacity. You buy everything else.

The budget covers optional core systems too. A Slipstream Drive, an AI Core above the standard fit, an atmospheric package, and landing gear come out of the same pool as Armor and cargo. A hull that can cross a corridor, enter atmosphere, and land has fewer points left for everything else than a hull that does only one of those things.

Design freedom stays roughly constant across Scales: budgets climb slowly while baselines climb steeply.

Scales outside this system. Scale 1 is powered suits, escape pods, and drones. Ground and hover vehicles, Scale 1 to 4, do not use this budget: Chapter Nine gives their limits and prices. Scales 8 to 10 are empire-level warships and giant war stations. They are always military, they are detailed in another book, and this book gives no stat guidance for them: until that book exists, the GM builds them for the story. Commercial shipwrights build to Scale 7.

Block Sizes

Hull Points, System Points, and cargo are bought in blocks. Block size grows with Scale so that one point of spending buys a comparable share of capability at any size. A printed value must be the free baseline plus a whole number of blocks.

Step Two: Operator Tier

Every hull is built to one of three standards. The tier sets what the yard may legally build, which components it sources as standard, and the hull's caps.

Professional grade is the trade's word for corporate: commercial operators, security contractors, and certified specialists.

The discount applies to Armor, weapon hardpoints, and Deflection and to nothing else. It does not apply to cargo, module slots, Speed, Cruise, Handling, System Points, reactor stats, or hull structure.

Operator Tier Is Not Acquisition

Operator tier says who built the hull and to what standard. Acquisition, printed in every catalog entry, says what paperwork a buyer needs to own it legally. Any combination is valid. A bulk hauler is ordinary Civilian construction that still carries Licensed acquisition, because its charter, route certification, and insurance are regulatory requirements.

Acquisition never raises a hull's caps, never changes its Heat Dissipation, and never earns it the tier discount. Component Availability in Step Four follows operator tier; Acquisition does not.

Where a manufacturer controls who may build, service, or resell one of its designs, that is pattern certification, a commercial arrangement with the builder. It has no mechanical effect on the build.

Tier Caps

Each tier has hard ceilings. No amount of points lifts a stat above its cap. Read both tables.

Combat caps

Structure and movement caps

Builder signature allowance. When your builder's Cheaper list in Step Three includes Hull Points, System Points, Speed, or Handling, that stat's cap rises by one block (Hull Points, System Points) or one step (Speed, Handling). A Crown Meridian Civilian hull at Scale 4 may carry 26 Hull Points; a Kharos one may also carry Speed 5. Sovereign yards and independent yards have no allowance.

A military ship out-shoots and out-survives a civilian ship of the same Scale. Civilian hulls win on cargo, module slots, and operating cost.

Stripping on Transfer

When a Professional or Military hull is legally sold into civilian hands, the selling authority strips its proprietary components before release: fire control cores, military sensor suites, encrypted comms, defensive coordination processors, and any weapon above the buyer's tier cap.

A stripped hull keeps its Scale, structure, Hull Points, and System Points. Reduce Armor, hardpoint points (remove mounts until the total fits), Power Capacity, Heat Threshold, Speed, and Handling to the Civilian caps for its Scale; set Heat Dissipation to the Civilian value; fit a Civilian Directive AI in place of any higher grade. Hull Points and System Points above the Civilian cap stay, because structure cannot be removed: a stripped hull is the one way a civilian registry holds them.

A hull that still carries its military fittings after transfer was not stripped, so it was not legally transferred. Any competent inspection finds this.

Step Three: Builder

A builder does not get more points; a builder gets different prices. The table gives each builder's cost for the stats it treats as signature or weak. Any stat not listed costs the standard rate in Step Four.

These prices are the numeric form of the Signature and Weak ratings in Chapter Five. Speed costs Kharos three points and Crown Meridian four, so at the same Scale and cargo a Kharos hull is faster; Crown Meridian spends the difference on armor plate.

Independent, fringe, and sovereign yards use the standard costs with no discounts, no surcharges, and no signature allowance.

Step Four: Spend Points

A ship has two layers. Physical space is what the hull is: structure, volume, mounting points, and room for people and freight. Systems are what the ship can do: Speed is the engine, Handling the thrusters, Armor the frame, Power and Heat the reactor, Deflection the Defensive Control. Chapter Ten's Component Catalog sells the same systems as parts; a component's rating step is the same step this table buys.

Physical Space

Hardpoints and Mounts

Hardpoints are counted in points. Every stat block, cap, and price in this book that says "hardpoints" means hardpoint points. Mounts are a separate count: the weapon positions those points were built into.

1. Buy hardpoint points with the cost above.
2. Divide them into mounts at the yard. Each mount must meet its minimum Scale. The stat block lists the mounts.
3. A mount carries one weapon of its own size or smaller. A mount may stand empty.
4. Points do not pool at the table. A hull with three Light mounts carries three Light weapons. It cannot carry one Heavy weapon on those three points. Merging mounts into a larger one, or splitting one, is a yard rebuild priced under Hardpoints in Chapter Twelve, and the rebuilt mount must still meet its minimum Scale.
5. Oversized mount. A hull may carry one mount one size above the largest its Scale allows (Standard at Scale 2, Heavy at Scale 3, Capital at Scales 4 and 5; none at Scales 6 and 7). It costs 1 extra hardpoint point, fires fixed forward, and gives its weapon Recoil. A ground or hover vehicle reads its mounts as one Scale larger (Chapter Nine) and never carries a Capital mount.

The hardpoint cap counts points, including the oversized mount's extra point. Which weapons a gunner fires in one action, and how linked identical weapons fire as a battery, are in Chapter Fifteen.

Systems

Reactor steps are bought one stat at a time. Each purchase raises one reactor stat by 1: Power Capacity, Heat Threshold, or Heat Dissipation. A reactor component in Chapter Ten is rated in the same single steps, and Chapter Six uses the same rule.

Life Support and Communications are required core systems with no grades. Every hull has them and they never appear on a build sheet. Life Support includes ordinary artificial gravity on every hull above Scale 3 and on every Scale 3 hull with a Slipstream Drive (Chapter Six). Complement is in Chapter Three.

Engine Class and Cruise

Cruise is bought as its own engine step at 2 points per step above Cruise 1. The engine's drive class caps Cruise and sets the engine's Availability.

A fusion engine stops at Cruise 3. Cruise 4 and 5 need an antimatter engine. What Cruise does is in Chapter Six.

Component Availability

Components carry an Availability: Open, Licensed, Restricted, or Military (Chapter Ten). Your operator tier sets what the hull carries as standard at no extra cost.

A design may fit one system above its standard for 8 points, at any higher Availability. Only one system per hull. The AI Core is priced separately in Step Six and does not count against this limit. Common cases: a Cruise 3 engine on a Civilian hull, an antimatter engine on a Civilian or Professional hull, Military-grade sensors on a Civilian hull.

An above-standard system gives the ship a paperwork problem: a civilian registry listing a Licensed engine invites questions, and anything Military aboard a civilian hull is evidence. Chapter Ten covers inspections.

Deflection

Deflection is bought per facing, fore and aft, at the cost in the Systems table. Chapter Eight defines what Deflection does in combat and lists the screen systems, which draw Power Load and add Heat as Chapter Eight states. Screens are on sale at every operator tier.

What the Budget Does Not Cover

Consumables and crew requirements are not bought. Set consumables by role and crew minimums by systems and stations (Chapter Fourteen). Quarters for the standard crew come with the hull; you buy berths only for people the crew did not hire.

Berths

Berth slots are bought in blocks at the cargo block size. One point buys one block.

Allocate slots freely: a ten-slot block carries six passengers and two luxury cabins, or twenty barracks bunks, or any mix totalling ten. Hot berthing halves the space any berth type needs. Military hulls assume it in their listed complement. It never raises complement, which life support sets. A luxury cabin costs points for its space and credits for its fit-out; the fit-out is a fitting.

Sensor Grade

Sensors are a required core system. What you buy is reach. Chapter Seven defines the four grades and what each detects.

Step Five: Heat Dissipation

Heat Dissipation is the Heat removed from the ship's Heat track at the end of each round (Chapter Six). Scale and operator tier set the baseline.

Buying more. Raise Heat Dissipation above the baseline at 4 points per step, to a maximum of 2 steps. The second step requires Advanced Thermal Control (Step Six).

Kharos and Antaean hulls carry thermal drawbacks in Chapter Five that apply on top of this value.

Step Six: Optional Core Systems

The twelve required core systems come with every hull. These optional systems do not.

A hull without Landing Systems never touches a planetary surface. No capital hull in the catalog has them, which is why cargo moves through orbital transfer and why large ships carry shuttles.

AI Core

AI Core grades, Active Channels, and Directive Packages are defined in Chapter Seven. The build buys the grade.

Fitting a grade above your tier's standard costs 8 points for one step and 18 points for two. Military Directive AI is restricted to Military hulls. Fitting a grade below your standard, down to Basic Automation, costs nothing and refunds nothing; it saves credits, not points.

Module Slot Grades

Module slot grades follow the operator tier.

Enhanced slots are pre-wired for heavy draw: installing a Licensed, Restricted, or Military module in one removes 1 Bane Die from the installation check (Chapter Ten). Military bays accept military modules as native integrations. Civilian hulls have neither.

Step Seven: Validate

A design is legal when all of these hold.

1. Total spend does not exceed the Scale budget.
2. No stat exceeds its cap in either Tier Caps table, after any builder signature allowance.
3. Hull Points, System Points, and cargo are the free baseline plus whole blocks.
4. Every mount meets its minimum Scale, the mounts add up to the hardpoint points, and the hull has at most one oversized mount.
5. At most one system sits above the tier's standard Availability, the AI Core aside.

Chapter Ten's module slot counts by Scale are design guidelines, not entitlements. A design well outside the range should have a builder discount that explains it.

Integration Status

A new hull built at one builder's yard from that builder's systems has Integrated Architecture and gains that builder's full signature benefits. A design that mixes builders is Patchwork and carries the integration penalties in Chapter Five, which also sets how many foreign systems a hull can take before it loses Integrated Architecture. State which one your design is.

Upgrading After the Build

Unspent points are not lost. A crew can keep improving a hull for as long as they own it, by retrofit.

A retrofit costs double the points and 2.5 times the credits of the same purchase at build time. The credit price of a purchase is its listed points × the Scale's rate in Credits per Build Point below.

Hardpoints are the exception to the credit price. Added hardpoint points cost double build points from the unspent budget like any retrofit, but their credit price, parts and yard work included, is the Hardpoints table in Chapter Twelve, not 2.5 times the rate.

A retrofit can never raise a stat above its cap. Nothing retrofits Scale or operator tier. A Civilian hull stays Civilian. Military systems smuggled aboard one are covered in Chapter Ten.

Example. A Model 20 is built at 97 of its 190 points. Its 93 unspent points buy 46 points of retrofits. One step of Speed (4 points at the yard) takes 8 of those points and costs 4 × 2,250 × 2.5 = 22,500cr.

Underspending Is Legal

A design does not have to use its whole budget. The published commercial hulls in Chapter Sixteen spend between 51% and 84% of theirs; the Model 20 spends 51%. Unspent points convert into nothing. They describe a hull built for comfort, cost, cargo access, or ease of maintenance rather than maximum performance.

Pricing a Finished Design

Bare hull = build points spent × the Scale's rate.

Catalog price = bare hull × 1.85, plus fittings, then × the market modifier and the condition multiplier.

• The 1.85 factor buys the factory module package, the standard weapons fit, standard interior, delivery, and dealer margin. The bare hull is 54% of the catalog price.
• Fittings are luxury and specialist interior a buyer pays for in credits: panelled cabins, galleys, gardens, a hospital-grade ward. They never touch the point budget and never change the stat block. Price them as a flat sum.
• Market modifier is the table under Buying Outside the Home Market in Chapter Twelve. Condition is the used-market multiplier in Chapter Twelve.
• Operator tier does not multiply the price. It changes the price only through the points the design spends. Component Availability multipliers in Chapter Twelve apply to parts bought separately, not to a hull's standard fit.
• Military-tier designs are not sold on the open market. Military Acquisition hulls are state-issued, or reach private hands only as prizes; their catalog price is a Prize Value. A Military-tier design with Restricted Acquisition (some boarding craft and contractor hulls) is legal for sale at its catalog price to buyers with contractor clearance (Chapter Twelve, Component Availability and Pricing).

A published hull's catalog price sits within 15% of this figure; the difference is its own factory package and weapons fit. A custom design compared with a catalog hull of the same role should land within the same 15%. If it does not, recheck the point spend.

The rate column is also the credit price of one build point for components (Chapter Ten) and retrofits (above).

Worked Example: A Scale 4 Kharos Freighter

A crew commissions a rugged hauler from a Kharos yard. Civilian tier, Scale 4: 190 points; free Hull Points 16, System Points 11, Power Capacity 7, Heat Threshold 9.

Kharos prices: Speed 3, Hull Points 1, Cargo 1, System Points 3, Heat Threshold 3.

Validate. 112 points against a 190 budget. Combat caps (Civilian, Scale 4): Armor 2 of 2, hardpoint points 4 of 4, Power Capacity 9 of 9, Heat Threshold 10 of 10. Structure and movement caps with the Kharos allowance (Hull Points and Speed): Hull Points 24 of 26, System Points 14 of 15, Speed 3 of 5, Handling −1 of +1. Every engine and sensor system is Open, so nothing sits above standard. Heat Dissipation is 2 from the Scale 4 Civilian row. The AI Core is Basic Automation, below the Civilian standard fit, at no cost. Integrated Architecture: all Kharos systems from a Kharos yard.

Price.

Seventy-eight points are unspent. They are the retrofit reserve: at double cost, 39 points of improvements the crew can add later.