Starship Classes

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Ships in Void Drifters are described by class first. A class is a plain-language role: what the ship does, what it carries, who operates it, and what it means when one appears on a sensor screen. The builder, the model, the weapons package, and the salvaged reactor all sit on top of that.

This chapter defines the classes in service across known space: how each relates to Scale, what it means in the setting's economy and politics, who operates it, and how to use it at the table.

Class, Scale, and Model

Class is the plain-language role and size category. A class tells you what the ship does. "Freighter," "patrol cutter," "carrier," and "courier" are classes, and everyone in known space uses these words.

Scale is the physical size envelope, and it sets the ship's mechanical weight in the rules: how much damage it can absorb, how many systems and weapons it can support, and how it interacts with other ships in combat (Chapter Three). Two ships with different jobs can share a Scale: a corvette and a heavy freighter are both Scale 5.

Model is the builder's recognizable structural family, written in that builder's own house style. A Model 20 is Openframe's standard modular freighter platform. A CM-440 is Crown Meridian's armored cutter platform. A model carries the builder's engineering assumptions, parts ecosystem, and visual identity. It sits underneath the class.

Variant is how one particular ship is fitted out: customs cutter, armed courier, salvage freighter. Variants are recorded on the Vehicle Sheet and are never part of the ship's name.

When you introduce a ship, give the class first, then the model: "armored cutter, CM-440." Read a ship's Scale from its stat block, never from its designation.

The Scale Ladder

Scale runs from 1 to 10. This book covers Scales 1 to 7, the range in which commercial shipwrights build. The table gives the usual classes at each Scale.

The table gives the usual Scale for each class. A model may sit one Scale from it when ships of that class are commonly built at that size. The VN-33C1, a Scale 3 fast courier, and the Safa S3, a Scale 3 pursuit craft, are the launch examples.

Two commercial hulls sit two Scales from their class and are the only named exceptions to the one-Scale rule: the VN-53C1 luxury spaceliner at Scale 5 (liners are usually Scale 7) and the Model 80 bulk container hauler at Scale 7 (heavy freighters are usually Scale 5). No other hull may sit more than one Scale from its class.

Scale also sets the largest weapon mounts and modules a hull can carry (Chapters Eight and Ten). A Scale 3 courier fitted with a military sensor suite is still a Scale 3 ship in every rule that uses Scale.

Scales 8 to 10

Scales 8 to 10 are empire-level warships and giant war stations: destroyers, heavy cruisers, fleet command ships, battleships, dreadnoughts, superheavy flagships, and fortress stations. Only the sovereign military yards build them, and they are always military. This book gives them no statistics. They will be detailed in another book; until then, the GM builds any that appear in play.

Class Table

Crew is given as minimum to standard complement, from the catalog hulls in Chapters Sixteen and Seventeen.

Civilian and Commercial Classes

Courier and Scout

Scale 4; fast couriers 3. Crew 1 to 4. Minimal cargo.

Couriers and scouts are the fastest independent ships in common civilian circulation. They move people, data, or small high-value packages between systems as quickly as possible, with the smallest crew and the lowest operating cost.

A courier carries little beyond what its speed and range require. Cargo capacity is measured in personal luggage and sealed cases, and a courier contract pays for how fast those cases arrive.

Scouts extend the courier template toward exploration. A scout adds survey equipment, extended consumable range, and better sensors at the cost of nearly all cargo space. Scouts map new seam arcs, investigate signals, and carry information that can shift a war. A scout built small, at Scale 3, cannot mount the Seam Survey Package or the Astrogation Lab, both of which need a Scale 4 hull; it traces corridors from terminal seams and Rumored atlas entries on sensors and skill alone, or works alongside a Scale 4 survey ship that carries the packages.

Both classes attract solo operators, two-person partnerships, intelligence services using commercial cover, medical response networks, and corporate courier contracts that pay by delivery speed rather than volume.

At the table, a courier or scout wins by arriving first. It loses a straight fight with a patrol cutter, so its encounters turn on speed, sensors, and the route.

Light Freighter

Scale 4. Crew 2 to 6. Moderate cargo.

The light freighter is the working backbone of independent commerce in known space. It carries freight between systems, moves passengers who cannot afford liner tickets, takes contracts that larger ships cannot justify, and lands on frontier colony pads that bigger hulls cannot use.

A light freighter crew is usually small enough that the ship is a home as much as a vehicle. The same people who fly it maintain it, negotiate the contracts, and deal with whatever goes wrong at the destination. The arrangement is inefficient, and it is how a small group of people stays independent.

The most common player ship in a Void Drifters campaign is a light freighter: usually a Model 20 or a KR-41, usually older, usually owned through debt or obligation, and usually carrying one system slightly better than expected alongside two that are slightly worse. That mix comes from four years of compromise decisions in ports where the good parts were too expensive and the interesting parts were too cheap.

At the table, a light freighter sets the shape of a campaign. Its cargo capacity sets which jobs the crew can take, and its weakest system sets where trouble finds them.

Heavy Freighter

Scale 5; bulk freighters 6 to 7. Crew 8 to 160. Very large cargo.

Heavy freighters move bulk cargo across deep-space routes: raw ore, processed materials, agricultural tonnage, prefabricated construction sections, industrial equipment, and anything else that cannot justify the margin of a faster ship. They are slow, expensive to operate, and worth enormous sums to whoever owns the cargo inside them. Bulk freighters are the largest of the type, built at Scale 6 and at the Scale 7 commercial ceiling.

Heavy freighters rarely travel alone on established commercial routes. The cargo value justifies armed escorts, and the ships are high-value targets for pirates, privateers, and powers willing to apply pressure through logistics interdiction.

A heavy freighter needs a crew large enough to maintain the ship, stand watches, handle cargo operations, and respond to emergencies. That crew usually lives aboard for weeks or months at a stretch, and the working culture aboard resembles a small mobile town.

At the table, a heavy freighter is usually the subject of a job rather than the crew's ship: something to escort, investigate, salvage, steal, or protect.

Passenger Liner

Scale 7; smaller liners 5 to 6. Crew 40 to 120. Low cargo. High passenger capacity.

Passenger liners move people between systems at predictable intervals, on published schedules, through established corridors. Their cargo holds carry passengers' luggage and personal freight. Their commercial value is a reputation for arriving on time with everyone alive.

Liner operations are expensive because safety and reliability cost money. A liner's defensive systems are political tools: the Irnan Directorate does not permit its citizens to be fired upon by private operators without consequence, and a liner carrying passengers from three different powers is a ship no one shoots at without weighing the aftermath.

Liners range from modest regional transports running colony routes to grand vessels that carry high-status passengers between major systems in accommodations that compete with planetary hotels.

At the table, a liner is a closed social scene: information brokers, rival passengers, and a crime or crisis that cannot be reported to any authority until the ship reaches port three weeks later.

Salvage Vessel

Scale 5; small salvage boats 4. Crew 3 to 28. Variable cargo.

Salvage vessels recover what other ships leave behind: disabled ships, lost cargo, wreckage from battles and accidents, abandoned stations, and anything else in space worth more recovered than ignored.

A salvage vessel carries cutting equipment, towing rigs, recovery drones, assessment tools, and enough workshop space to judge whether something pulled from a wreck is worth keeping. Salvage is a regulated industry with strict priority rules about who has rights to what; in practice, the rewards go to whoever arrives first.

The line between salvage and piracy is sometimes a matter of timing. A ship found disabled may have survivors who dispute the claim. A wreck from a recent battle may hold cargo that several parties consider theirs. The salvage crew settles these questions in the field, usually without legal counsel.

At the table, a salvage job starts as an investigation, becomes an engineering problem, and sometimes ends in a fight over the claim.

Utility and Paramilitary Classes

Prospector

Scale 3 to 4. Crew 1 to 4. Minimal cargo.

Prospectors survey territory for extractable resources: mineral deposits on moons and asteroids, viable agricultural zones on colony worlds, energy sources, rare materials, and anything else that turns empty space into commercial value. A prospector's hold is mostly survey equipment, sample storage, and supplies for an extended solo run.

Solo prospectors hold a particular place in Void Drifters. A freighter crew is usually bound to a route, a lender, or a corporate contract. A prospector answers only to whether the find is real and whether the claim reaches the registry office before anyone else's.

Prospectors are common in frontier systems, around uninhabited stars with known resource potential, and anywhere the major powers have not yet set formal economic claims. Most work on the theory that the next survey will pay for the previous twelve.

At the table, a prospector seeds an exploration campaign: the survey turns up a derelict, a claim jumper, or a signal that someone else is already mining the find.

Tender and Support Vessel

Scale 6. Crew 15 to 60. High cargo.

Tenders and support vessels sustain other ships. They carry fuel, replacement parts, weapons resupply, food, water, medical capability, repair facilities, and anything else a fleet or patrol group needs to stay operational far from port.

A support vessel rarely operates alone. It works inside a fleet, along a long patrol route, or at a major construction project. Its crew is experienced, capable, and mostly unseen: the logistics backbone of everything around it.

Military tenders are strategic assets. A fleet that loses its tender loses its ability to sustain operations, so tenders are escorted and defended even though they are built for support.

At the table, a support vessel is infrastructure: a place to buy parts and fuel far from port, or a target whose loss strands every ship that depends on it.

Armed Merchant

Scale 4. Crew 4 to 12. Moderate cargo.

An armed merchant is a commercial ship carrying a legal weapons license: a freighter or courier whose owners have accepted extra cost and regulatory scrutiny in exchange for the ability to defend cargo and crew against pirates, raiders, and enforcement officials who misread the situation.

Armed merchants work contested corridors, carry cargo valuable enough to justify the security expense, and run routes where arriving unarmed is poor planning. Their weapons certifications are inspected at every port, every weapons activation must be logged, and some ports turn armed commercial traffic away entirely.

The weapons are there to make attacking the ship more expensive than leaving it alone.

At the table, an armed merchant is a freighter campaign with teeth. The crew has options an unarmed ship lacks, and every port visit opens with a conversation about the weapons manifest.

Corsair and Privateer

Scale 4. Crew 6 to 20. Low cargo.

A corsair is a weapons-heavy civilian hull operating under a state-issued license that makes its actions technically legal. Privateers are the people aboard. The arrangement lets governments project force without paying for it directly and deny responsibility when the targets complain.

Corsairs are fast, well armed for their size, and usually in debt to whoever issued the letter of marque. They attack ships, seize cargo, raid stations, and sometimes carry out military operations their sponsors would prefer not to acknowledge. A corsair whose paperwork lapses is a pirate.

Corsairs attract skilled, opportunistic operators comfortable with arrangements that do not survive close legal scrutiny.

At the table, a corsair campaign sits between mercenary work and crime. The crew may fly a corsair, hunt one, or need to work out whether the letter of marque on the armed ship ahead of them is real.

Military Classes

Patrol Cutter

Scale 4; light cutters 3. Crew 2 to 8. Low cargo.

Patrol cutters enforce the rules. They are the most visible military presence in most systems: fast enough to intercept commercial traffic, armed well enough to compel cooperation from anything short of a warship, and able to operate alone across a patrol zone.

A patrol cutter's job is presence, inspection, and response. It intercepts ships, checks manifests, answers distress calls, investigates suspicious contacts, and makes the local authority visible to anyone crossing the system. For most people, it is the face of state power in space.

Every major power operates patrol cutters, as do corporate security forces licensed for patrol work. The registry markings show whose law a given cutter enforces.

At the table, a patrol cutter is either the help the crew calls when something goes wrong or the inspection they need to avoid because of what is in the hold.

Corvette

Scale 5; strike corvettes 4. Crew 3 to 30. Low cargo.

Corvettes sit between patrol cutters and frigates: capable of independent operations, well armed for their size, and fast enough to serve as fleet scouts and convoy escorts without needing a supply chain of their own.

A corvette is a significant military asset with a small footprint. Its crew is large enough to fight effectively and small enough that the ship can operate for weeks without resupply. Corvettes escort convoys through contested corridors, respond to intelligence on raider activity, and lead fleet operations that are not yet ready to commit capital ships.

At the table, a corvette is the benchmark for military force. A crew hunted by one should treat retreat as a serious option.

Frigate

Scale 6. Crew 20 to 100. Low cargo.

Frigates are sustained-patrol ships. They carry the crew accommodation, medical facilities, and consumable reserves to operate independently for months, and weapons and defenses serious enough to handle most threats on a long patrol. A frigate is the smallest capital ship, and the largest independent unit most patrol zones will see. Corporations and institutions field frigates of their own as escorts, security ships, and mobile offices.

Frigate crews build strong internal cultures over months of close quarters on long assignments. A frigate in active service has a history, and its officers have reputations along its patrol route.

At the table, a frigate as an adversary is a campaign-scale threat. A crew that picks a fight with one should have a plan for winning it or a route for leaving.

Cruiser

Scale 7. Crew 50 to 280. Low cargo.

Cruisers project power. They are the largest ships most independent operators will ever encounter, and a power deploys one only after a deliberate decision to put state force into a specific situation.

A cruiser carries the weapons to destroy most threats, the command infrastructure to coordinate fleet elements, the communications to reach anyone in the system, and the political weight of the power that sent it. It is an instrument of policy as much as a weapon.

A cruiser is usually the senior ship in any formation. A cruiser commanding a mixed patrol force makes decisions that affect corridors, stations, and colonies.

At the table, a cruiser's arrival changes the scene's stakes: the crew is now dealing with a government's decision, and a fight is rarely the right answer.

Carrier

Scale 6 to 7. Crew 30 to 320. Variable cargo.

Carriers fight through the craft they deploy: fighters, bombers, boarding craft, and support ships that together outperform any fixed defensive position. A military carrier's own weapons are secondary to its bays.

A military carrier is the most politically significant ship in known space. Its presence means a power has committed a mobile force projection capability, and every other power in the region notices its arrival.

Carriers need large crews, complex logistics, and ongoing support. They are expensive to operate and difficult to replace, and a carrier destroyed or captured is a political event on the scale of a battle.

Industrial carriers use the same layout for work: they carry mining craft, salvage drones, and utility vessels to a site and support them there for months.

At the table, a military carrier means the crew faces many small craft at once, launched from a ship they cannot reach easily. An industrial carrier is a base of operations, an employer, or a prize.

Small Craft

Small craft are covered in full in Chapter Seventeen. In summary:

Shuttles move people and light cargo between ships, stations, and surfaces. Light shuttles (shuttle pods) are Scale 2; full-size passenger and transfer shuttles are Scale 4 starships. A host ship carries a shuttle only if its factory package or refit includes a cradle or bay for one (Chapter Ten).

Fighters are Scale 3 weapons platforms deployed from carriers or stations. They cannot make interstellar transits on their own.

Boarding craft are Scale 3 assault delivery vehicles that put marines aboard an enemy ship.

Landers and utility craft are Scale 2 craft for surface access, survey work, and local hauling.

Escape pods are Scale 1 single-use survival vessels with minimal power, no weapons, and a distress beacon.

Cutters are starships, with their own Slipstream drives; see Patrol Cutter above and Chapter Sixteen.