Sith Lords are always looking for more novel tactics in their struggles for power. Just about any vehicle type has been considered for military use at some time.
Piloting is usually handled by manual controls or droid links. Human beings who get cybernetic links to their vehicles usually develop problems with dissociation after a while.
Most vehicles have crash fields
that engage in an accident—
they’re similar to the acceleration compensators on a spacecraft,
They operate off ultracapacitor banks that charge off a vehicle’s
engines and can function even if the engine is shot to pieces.
Some species are very utilitarian in their designs; others will go to great inconvenience to fit their particular worldview. It’s common to see starships at dock, painted with features like eyes, mouths, clan tattoos, and coat patterns.
Hydrogen is a very popular fuel; in small vehicles, it can run fuel cells, and in larger ones, it runs fusion plants.
Alarms will usually produce a powerful distraction to disrupt the concentration of anyone attempting to break into a vehicle, but their primary threat is summoning security services via wireless. Many autopilots are able to use more active defenses; some will simply lock a person into the vehicle and take them someplace for punishment, while others will attempt to run people over. Some vehicles are electrified or equipped with other weapons for dissuading unpleasant behavior. Naturally, this leads criminals to testing the alarms, and it’s not surprising to see an accumulation of dead vermin in the gutter after they’ve been thrown at a succession of parked speeders to test their defenses.
Repulsorlifts are extremely efficient devices; they use so little power that people generally leave their landspeeders powered up for convenience. Maintaining altitude requires very little energy, so the main cost to repulsorlift craft is overcoming atmospheric friction. Using gravity or traction fields for lateral acceleration, however, is very slow, so most repulsorlift craft have some form of thruster. Energy-rich hydrocarbon fuels (usually synthesized by tailored bacteria) are commonly used for these. Hotwiring a repulsorlift ground vehicle for flight is very tricky, since their traction fields can’t provide stability against the ground and they lack the gyros of air and spacecraft. They also lack the energy throughput for rapid ascent. Repulsorlifts ignore terrain modifiers, but have the most problems with weather; they are also more expensive for many kinds of cargo.
Military and rough-weather vessels have more need of traction than civilian transports, so they usually have some way to keep in contact with the ground, such as wheels, treads (often made with advanced plastics), or legs; some rely entirely on them, while others also include repulsorlifts and thrusters for traveling in good conditions. Some military units use speederbike cavalry.
Walkers are slow but extremely steady. They take minimal terrain modifiers (as they can usually just step over obstacles that would stymie a wheeled vehicle or slow a tracked one) and minimal weather modifiers (as they can simply adjust their stance to deal with all but the most turbulent conditions).
Tracked vehicles are faster than walkers, and the most stable of all against inclement weather.
Wheeled vehicles take the worst terrain modifiers, but can deliver excellent speed and carrying capacity.
Speederbikes are fast and maneuverable, but can carry at most two people. Quad-bikes are speederbikes with dual sidecars that mount extra thrusters; they have extra seats but not much cargo capacity. Landspeeders are the next step up, with real cargo capacity.
The primary differences between an airspeeder and a landspeeder are a more robust set of repulsors that provide more rapid ascent, stabilizers that work without proximity to the ground, and small geometry buffers that store potential energy for rapid ascents.
Jetpacks and repulsor packs are available, but they are seldom integrated into anything less than heavy armor. Flying suits are cumbersome, but can be useful for certain types of assaults. They aren’t superbly maneuverable, a flying person is a very obvious target, and the energy cost is fairly high, so flight is generally used only for dealing with building walls and steep hills.
Watercraft can make use of supercavitation for speed. Water-surface travel usually takes place with seaspeeders, but sailing is sometimes used for pleasure craft; such vessels can get quite fast, similar to the modern Hydroptère.
No sane person flies in a starship that doesn’t have a minimally operating deflector screen that can deal with the inevitable accumulation of orbital debris.
Between high-quality emergency crash fields, antigravity lifters, and internal grav plates shanghaied into emergency mode, it is possible for a skilled pilot to bring a failing spacecraft down from orbit to a survivable crash. The final impact diverts all the energy to protect the passengers (who should be gathered together into as small a volume as possible) and usually leaves the rest of the ship beyond repair.
Starships usually adjust their internal gravity and atmospheric, pressure, gas mix, and humidity to match the properties of the destination planet in order to minimize adaptation for passengers. (Some make a point of maximizing the comfort on the voyage instead, presuming their passengers can afford the hovercabs and hotels that offer similar amenities.) Others have the environment cranked up to keep the environment challenging; if your crew regularly works out in 1.5g, they’ll find most planets easy to handle.
All starships have tanks of water, liquid hydrogen, and liquid oxygen. The fusion plant can easily electrolyze the water to top up the other two tanks, the hydrogen runs the fusion plant, and when the fusion plant is shut down, the hydrogen and oxygen run the ship’s fuel cells. The water tanks are often divided into distilled (by the spare heat from the fusion plant) and impure (which can be loaded up on any ice asteroid or habitable planet). The impure tank is usually brought up to temperatures inimical to life at some point on a voyage, to prevent introducing new life forms to other planets, but some people just aren’t good galactic citizens, and those tanks do need washing out...
Some nonmilitary
vessels are more than a match for many
military vessels of their same tonnage and capabilities.
The smallest possible hyperdrive ship, about three times the size of a starfighter and half the size of a light freighter. A fast hyperdrive, good ion engines, a fusion plant to run it, enough shields and weapons to break away from an engagement, and life support for up to four people (no bunks— the crew sleep in reclining acceleration seats and have a very compact fresher), sometimes with hibersleep for several more, and storage comparable to a small walk-in closet.
A hyper-capable ship with small cargo capacity and life support for about half a dozen people, about 2/3 the size of a light freighter. They usually stand out in a spaceport because they’re supported by very portable stores of value— information, or people being carried around. Like a courier, they’re designed for running rather than fighting.
The light freighter is a hyper-capable ship designed for profitable interstellar trade. They usually have slots for up to four cargo modules. They can pack a decent punch in a fight, especially if they’ve loaded weapons pods in place of more profitable cargo modules. They usually attract little notice in spaceports.
Usually the size of a light freighter; used for bulk transport of personnel and goods; these are used when it’s time to move large amounts of crew down for shore leave and resupply a ship. Sometimes also called a launch. They can usually carry 50 people or 20 tons of cargo without sacrificing maneuverability. (Basing that ratio on the DC-3.) Shuttles often have sufficiently rugged repulsors that they can carry up to three times as much cargo mass, though the maneuverability drops to that of a stunned bantha.
A passenger ship is a smaller passenger ship, less than 100 meters long, carrying up to 500 passengers.
A passenger liner is a passenger ship at least 100 meters long, usually carrying over 500 passengers. A luxury liner will usually carry less than half as many passengers as a comparable passenger liner, but have a great deal more space. They are usually designed for running rather than fighting, though demand from the wealthy and paranoid has led to some luxury ships that qualify as frigates.
The most extravagant luxury vessels are called worldliners; they’re spherical vessels whose surface is covered in soil and plants, with a particle screen holding in the atmosphere around it. They have their own luxury shuttles for ferrying passengers to and from planetary surfaces. Most spots on a worldliner are at most 100 meters from a concealed entrance to the more secure decks below. They have oversize power plants to power the modified grav plates (which are operating more like tractor beams, since there are no ceiling plates). A similar design, slightly less extravagant, is an oasis: a circular ship (drive on the bottom) whose top deck is covered by a large garden.
A bulk freighter is designed to carry hundreds or thousands of cargo modules. They usually have very poor maneuverability, and the larger ones aren’t even designed to land on a planet— they just move into low orbit and call for cargo shuttles from the planet below. They are usually deployed with corvette or frigate escorts capable of fighting off pirates, and only have a few turrets for offense; their force fields are usually quite good, and many are designed to be able to shunt all their power to internal force fields to compartmentalize damage during battles.
Some bulk freighters keep a batch of weapons pods tucked in the back of the hold; if ordinary escorts are not available, they hire light freighters to load up the weapons pods in their container grips and serve as escorts.
An overengineered ship with a heavy frame, big engines, and either tractor beams or grappling droids hooked up to massive cables. These can retrieve vessels no longer capable of moving under their own power, or those not allowed to do so, such as if the pilot’s insurance has lapsed. (Usually, if your pilot’s insurance has lapsed, it’s cheaper to pay for an inspector to come visit from a nearby space station or the surface. Tugs are expensive, and hyper-capable tugs extremely so.)
Large amounts of space junk accumulate in orbit around industrialized worlds. No one sane flies in a ship without functioning shields to stop the occasional loose rivet from causing serious impact damage. At a certain point, it becomes worthwhile to sweep the debris out of the sky by deploying huge webs of force fields to clear the more popular orbits. Vacsweepers are also used for forensic purposes when a ship has been destroyed and its pursuer wants the maximum data available from its remains.
Sith keep a lot of warships. The era of the films is one in which military technology has been undergoing rapid change; before the Clone Wars, capital ships were only needed to prevent spacelane piracy. Under the Sith, there has been considerably more demand, and the technology has been mature for a very long time. Some capital ships have been in service for over a thousand years, and most are heavily ornamented to show their owner’s wealth.
No one has yet developed a hyperdrive small enough to integrate with a starfighter, so most fighters are designed to operate from a carrier vessel of some sort.
The smallest model of fighter: a central spine with a turbolaser on one end, an ion drive on the rear, a fusion plant in the middle, and one-person cockpit. Very maneuverable.
A scaled-up Gladius, but less maneuverable.
A heavier cousin to the Halberd, but with three spars on the front and cockpits in the niches between the spars. The pilot sits on the right and controls the big central cannon, while the gunner controls the mobile ones on the side spars.
Sith capital ships are designed to be able to land on a planetary surface, but they don’t usually do so unless they’re establishing a garrison. They carry a variety of small craft to deal with anything from exterior repairs to personnel transport to resupply. Most small craft don’t carry hyperdrives of their own, but do have repulsors and geometry buffers sufficient to land on a planetary surface.
The gig is a small vehicle with room for half a dozen people, generally with oversized engines, power plant, and shields to provide for the safety of the captain; some are even hyper-capable, built on a scout template. Most captains kit theirs out with plush nerf-leather upholstery, a thick rug, and a small robobar for entertaining visitors.
A vehicle used for exterior inspections and repairs. They can carry up to half a dozen people, and only need a single pilot. They only have the repulsors and engines of an airspeeder; they can land from orbit, but lack the power to get back again. Many of them have exterior arms mounted, which can be controlled by waldos or droids to assist in exterior construction work.
A workhorse vehicle used for transporting people and goods; it can carry up to a dozen people or couple of tons of cargo. They usually have one pilot and an astromech droid aboard. These are the smallest craft equipped for extended missions, possessing fold-down bunks for four and a mealpak heater. They are also the smallest vehicle to carry a set of long-range sensors, and are often sent on in-system scouting missions or courier work between ships in a fleet.
Essentially a double-sized pinnace, with much the same functions. Can carry up to two dozen people or several tons of cargo. A ship’s officers will generally appropriate one for their own use and kit it out comfortably, so they don’t have to ride with the enlisted men in the shuttle.
A shuttle designed to take troops into combat and provide covering fire.
Corvettes are used as assault craft and are usually horizontally oriented. They are usually commanded by a Lieutenant Commander. System defense corvettes may sacrifice a hyperdrive for greater firepower.
Sith capital ships are based around the idea of a fortress with a drive underneath it; orientation doesn’t matter much in space, and once the battle is over, they need to land on planets and start imposing rule. The drive-underneath orientation is also handy for using it as a weapon against ground installations: they crank up the reaction drive, run the repulsorlifts in reverse to pull the ship down, and turn whatever is in the way into molten slag.
Most capital ships have quarters next to the bridge set aside for a Sith Lord, and a private lift with access to a hangar bay.
A single tower of varying size, with drives on one end, a bridge on the other, a spinal mount weapon running down the center, several rings of turrets, and a couple of small craft bays. These are the frigates and destroyers of Sith armadas, and usually run by a Commander.
A hexagonal plate with a central tower containing the spinal mount weapon and bridge, six towers at the corners, walls around the edges, and maintenance facilities and landing areas between. These are the cruisers of Sith armadas and are usually commanded by a Captain. Some are outfitted with a flag bridge for a Commodore.
The most common capital ship, comparable to the Star Destroyer battleships of later eras. Citadel ships are generally about a kilometer across, with a baseplate 100m high surmounted by 100m walls guarded by 120m towers, with a 150m tower at the center. These are usually commanded by a Captain and have a flag bridge suitable for an Admiral. (A Victory I-class Star Destroyer is 964m long, has a ship’s company of 5200 [4590 enlisted, 610 officers], two squadrons of TIE fighters, and carrying 2040 troops. For comparison, aircraft carrier can be 350m long, with a ship’s company of 3000 [2700 sailors, 150 chiefs, 150 officers], an air wing of 1800 [250 pilots, 1550 support personnel], and up to 90 aircraft.)
These are the dreadnoughts of the galaxy. Not as fast, but packing tremendous firepower. These are usually commanded by a Line Captain, and have a flag bridge suitable for a Fleet Admiral.
Interstellar freight is economically viable. Light freighters have to deal in fairly valuable goods; only the huge container ships can make it viable to carry bulk goods like flour, and even agricultural worlds have mills that handle the first stage of refining their products. See also Star Wars Ships and Vehicles. The big carriers are the size of dreadnoughts.
The galaxy has a standard cargo module, comparable to modern cargo
containers; the galactic standard container is
7.2m×3.6m×3.6m on the outside. The largest freighters can
carry thousands (compare to a post-Panamax container ship:
1200’×600’, able to carry 12000 containers); light
freighters usually carry from one to four within mandibles that keep
the modules within the ship’s inertial compensators. (The Millennium
Falcon’s mandibles are there to grip a single cargo
module; while I came up with that independently, Pete
Briggs thought of it first. The Falcon is
26.5m×20m×5m according to West End Games, the rare
Selyana
plans give it as 36.9m×26.2m×8.85m, and a
detailed calculation gives a 27m saucer diameter, 34.8m length,
and 6.9m thickness; I’m using the latter one to judge the width
of a cargo module.) Some modules are also used as prefabricated
housing for space stations and outposts.
It is a truth galactically acknowledged that a starship with a working fusion reactor is never in want of heat. All military and scout ships and most light freighters are equipped with facilities for steam distillation and electrolysis that will allow them to refuel anywhere they can find water— liquid on a planetary surface, or solid among asteroids out past the ice line. Given the heat of an operating fusion reactor, is it practical to just convert the water to plasma and separate the elements that way?
All starships that carry living beings have, at minimum, a basic fresher and recycler. A fresher is a 1m×1m floor-to-ceiling column that fits most humanoid beings. For waste disposal, just step in and fold out a seat; for cleansing, place clothing in the cleaner drawer, shower off dirt, blow dry, and re-don clothing that has all the while been put through solvents, sonics, and forced air to be clean and dry. Heat comes from heater elements that run off the ship’s fuel cells in dock or from a coolant line from the fusion plant while underway.
The basic, no-frills recycler scrubs CO2 to yield O2, pulls other contaminants out of the air, and separates water from shipboard waste. It fills a tank full of very smelly organic sludge, which will hopefully not be filled to bursting when the ship next makes port. It’s roughly a 1 meter cube.
Many light freighters and almost all scoutships have a basic biocycler: a 1m×2m×2m system that contains numerous snaking transparent tubes intertwined with quantum-dot lighting and a set of cultures of tailored bacteria and algae. This uses biological principles to do the same thing as the no-frills recycler, with the added bonus that it cranks out a steady stream of algae flour. One of these can handle waste from a dozen normal-sized humanoids, and can stretch a ship’s ration supply considerably on long-duration missions. In long-term shutdown, a basic biocycler can keep its cultures encysted for decades using minimal power.
An advanced biocycler is 3m×2m×2m and features tailored
invertebrates like krill and worms. These can handle waste from a few dozen
people, and cranks out protein paste as well as algae flour. (Protein paste
on unleavened algae-flour crackers is every spacer’s nightmare food, and
this tasteless treat is available in every spaceport as real spacer
food
for parents to give to clamoring children who dream of traveling the
stars. Real spacers keep a well-stocked spice cabinet and some form of
culture for growing bread such as yeast or sourdough starter.) Large
ships usually carry enough advanced biocyclers to handle their expected
population. In long-term shutdown, the protein cultures die, but new
generations can be easily hatched out of eggs; a supply of eggs is
usually kept in a thickly lead-lined container that can handle even
severe radiation conditions— a dead biocycler smells really,
really bad.
A luxury biocycler just fits into a container cargo module and cranks out a nutrient broth that is used to feed cell cultures that are then used with tissue printers to generate artificial meat, or to cultures that secrete substances like cooking oils and raw milk. These are usually only found on capital ships; a luxury civilian ship just stocks its larder, but high-ranking officers on long journeys become rather irate when served protein paste on unleavened algae-flour crackers. Luxury biocyclers are not designed for long-term shutdown, and someone exploring the long-dead hulk of a capital ship would be wise to be careful about restoring atmosphere to the cyclers; the smell can be horrifying if there are any volatiles left.
Hydroponics modules plug into a ship’s biocyclers and crank out fresh food (or sometimes just kaf beans) for the ship’s table. They usually contain genetailored vines snaking around an internal growth trellis spangled with quantum dot lights and nutrient tubes. It can only be tended by small spider droids that can navigate its innards, but it can grow fruit or beans in every liter of volume. Look up times for fruit maturation. The leaves of the vines may also be tailored to provide fresh greens for the table, or to concentrate the compounds of spices over time.
Light freighters often keep enough spare parts tucked away in a hold to effect repairs on a journey; some even have a fabber integrated into the cargo hold, and crank out bespoke objects or molds (for casting with simpler materials) when visiting colony worlds that lack such capacity. Capital ships always have sufficient fabber capacity to handle their own maintenance on long-duration missions. Most capital ships just carry an appropriate load for their expected mission, but some just have huge amounts of factory capacity and are able to crank out tanks or fighters as necessary, given the time to set up the production line.
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