>>6332263||if you want/ or its cool, I could run a micro quest inside this one for building low end shitty strike craft instead of a whole extra thread for the same audience.||
starting concept: repurposed atmospheric and low end space equipment with manned pilots for a desperate bid to buy time until something better is made. The crew are a mix of volunteers and voluntolds who are at best, expendable, but more apt; disposable. (drugs give a bonus, but add 1 to a danger roll)
How can they even stand a chance?: ||they don't|| reflex enhancing combat drugs are one option. A co-processing AI suite is another. Either way it eats into their lifespan, quickly.
(1) cockpits determine crewsize, or at least crew space, and in turn certain limitations on nose based equipment. (more crew better rolls, but less crew is cheaper. One allows two nose slots, and another one is just more armored.
(2) Nose equipment allows for things like radar/ sensors, a crude plasma screen that maybe even works, large rotary cannon, and "the swordfish" e-beam.
(3) The body is just the reactor, and would determine durability, available power, combat range. Maybe radiation exposure. (too many pilot negatives invokes a danger roll to determine if the crew dies from the hazards of the ship itself. There is plenty of room for risk and over reach.) Some combinations of equipment will demand more power.
(4) Engines. Gotta have em. some have more ~~danger~~ character than others. basic, tactical short jump (danger), overboosted (danger), unshielded reactor (danger).
(3A) Pylon mounts aren't strictly needed, but allow for carrying more weapons, extra engines, or an EWAR/AWACS suite.
(3B) are some low end weapons that wouldn't really compete with a tile fighter as a peer, but eventually enough diddly becomes a whole lot of diddly. If you have that weapons rack, here is where they shine. Knife fight missiles, long range "torpedoes", e-beam and auto cannon.
