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    "One of the marvelous things about space is that it's so hard to get there."

    Since it's fairly common knowledge that most people cannot reach escape velocity and fly through space without assistance, the primary and only method of interplanetary transportation in Tigris is using spaceships. These each have their own quirks and abilities, but all serve to either transport cargo and passengers across space or interdict transports. As such, there are three types of ships; Transport, Combat, and Capital.

Ship Attributes

    Ships are defined by a number of values- plating type, cargo capacity, passenger capacity, fuel efficiency, gunnery, and maneuverability. For the most part, firing weapons at other ships is a pointlessly destructive affair, so even ships meant for offensive roles often have only very small guns and favor large passenger quarters for marines. Transport ships often are hard targets, with self-defense guns and the ability to replace "passengers" with marines of their own, and capital ships are built with an eye to dealing massive damage in boarding situations. Typically, the only ships with guns that pose a real threat to armor are capital ships, with traditional smaller guns being designed to cripple target ships.

    Plating is an important factor on spaceships and traveling-traditional dumb plating provides minimal protection at minimal cost and weight; gallium based hulls, actually an alloy of "smart" metals, is cheaper, lighter, and has limited self-repair; and tungsten based shells are more expensive, heavier, and difficult to maintain- determining where ships can and cannot safely fly as well as how often they need to be maintained for safety. Some ships, particularly ones with traditional plating, cannot even enter planetary atmospheres without burning up or damaging their armor, requiring the use of shuttles. More on the plating of ships is found in Space Travel.

    Cargo capacity is used as a general guideline for what ships can carry and still remain maneuverable and safe. While technically there is no cap on weight for spaceflight, atmospheric flight does rely on the ship being within certain thresholds of weight to prevent damage or crashes, and there is limited cargo space in ships' holds, meaning that it is very possible for them to run out of space. While most cargo could be plausibly be strapped on the outside of the ship for non-atmospheric flight, it would not be as safe from harm as if it were inside the ship.

    Passenger capacity is a literal limit- except for some Exiles, humans would have a very hard time surviving without life support and basic space for an interplanetary flight. It reflects passenger cabins, life support, and having appropriate facilities for passengers.

    Fuel efficiency measures the cost of flight on a general scale that measures the average interplanetary flight. This value comes with both "unloaded" values and "loaded" values that estimate the increased cost of cargo for flights.

    Gunnery measures the weapons on a ship and the facilities it has to enable their use. In most space travel, weapons are useless because of the distances between ships-gunnery is measured in two values- lightspeed and sublight weaponry and targeting systems- while sublight systems are often more powerful they are detectable before they impact, while lightspeed weapons cannot be noticed until they hit.

    Maneuverability measures the turning, acceleration, and deceleration abilities of a ship. Ships with higher values are better at avoiding enemy shots or landing their own, since they are more responsive to the inputs of their pilot.

Transport Ships

    Transport ships are built to ferry passengers or cargo between planets and stations. They are the most common class of ship, making up at least 80% of registered vessels.


    Built with a mind for economy and efficiency, the K72-1E is built as a small transport. It is not intended for atmospheric flight, being built with a fin-mounted engine rotated at such an angle to provide artificial gravity (and maneuvering thrusters, of course). It was built without any support for weaponry, but has durable Gallium memory plating baffles that make it capable of withstanding monumental amounts of debris impacts at slower speeds.

    Plating- Gallium Baffles

    Cargo- 15 tons

    Passengers- 8 (crew or passenger, no specialized crew compartments)

    Fuel Efficiency- 10/15 credits per jot, 5 credits per shuttle trip, can hold 150/100 jots.

    Gunnery- none

    Maneuverability- 5

    Notes: Comes with a shuttle for planetary transit, can carry 3 tons of cargo per trip as well as all 8 passengers/crew, though it provides very little space for them.

    Variants: Blue Ring Pirate K72 (sacrifices shuttle for sublight Gunnery 2), fuel efficiency takes a 2 credit increase per jot.