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I actually had exactly the same idea as Darth Wong above: a Separatist ship, mainly crewed by droids. Whether it is an older Trade Federation Lucrehulk-vessel or the Clone Wars -era starship, it would be cheaper than an analoguous starship crewed by living beings. Such a vessel could be used for combat (and as such, it would make a wicked pirate ship or an addition to a mercenary fleet) or a glorified cargo transporter. Some of those Separatist ships might also have potential as passenger liners (for example, Invisible Hand and her ilk, while rather Spartan in design, apparently have enough room and even comfort for living beings).

Failing that, a Corellian corvette ("blockade runner") or that Old Republic -era diplomatic corvette/transport (I've forgotten the consular ship's name; it appeared in TPM) would do just nicely, whether for transporting goods, personnel or arranging high-level, mobile meetings. And they aren't as intensive in upkeep as the larger vessels and don't attract as much attention.

The problem with smaller craft is that you might stumble onto pirates or other unsavoury types, who could easily take your vessel. A Separatist warship should be able to easily shrug off all but the largest pirate assaults, so as long as you avoid attracting the ire of major authorities you should be fine.

I'd take an Executor type SSD. A fully equipped one would have countless trillions worth of military equipment to sell for start-up capital. Then, it can be converted into a high security freight and passenger ship for use in unsafe areas of the outer rim. It's difficult to imagine that there are too many groups of pirates who can get through the sheilds of a monster like the executor and customers will pay a premium for that.

Nathaniel wrote:I'd take an Executor type SSD. A fully equipped one would have countless trillions worth of military equipment to sell for start-up capital. Then, it can be converted into a high security freight and passenger ship for use in unsafe areas of the outer rim. It's difficult to imagine that there are too many groups of pirates who can get through the sheilds of a monster like the executor and customers will pay a premium for that.

That doesn't mean it would come anywhere close to covering its operating expenses. How many real-life patrons could or would pay enough to cruise around on a US Navy supercarrier?

Darth Wong wrote:The problem with smaller craft is that you might stumble onto pirates or other unsavoury types, who could easily take your vessel. A Separatist warship should be able to easily shrug off all but the largest pirate assaults, so as long as you avoid attracting the ire of major authorities you should be fine.

with an entire galaxy to play with, why go off the beaten path? Plenty of core worlds and trade routes to play in without worrying about pirates.

Knife wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The problem with smaller craft is that you might stumble onto pirates or other unsavoury types, who could easily take your vessel. A Separatist warship should be able to easily shrug off all but the largest pirate assaults, so as long as you avoid attracting the ire of major authorities you should be fine.

with an entire galaxy to play with, why go off the beaten path? Plenty of core worlds and trade routes to play in without worrying about pirates.

There's also massive competition in those areas. How do you know you'll get any work, as an independent freelancer with no reputation who's not working for a major corporation? When you want to ship something, do you send it by USPS, FedEx, or JimBob's Delivery Service, which appears to consist of one guy and a van?

Darth Wong wrote:

Nathaniel wrote:I'd take an Executor type SSD. A fully equipped one would have countless trillions worth of military equipment to sell for start-up capital. Then, it can be converted into a high security freight and passenger ship for use in unsafe areas of the outer rim. It's difficult to imagine that there are too many groups of pirates who can get through the sheilds of a monster like the executor and customers will pay a premium for that.

That doesn't mean it would come anywhere close to covering its operating expenses. How many real-life patrons could or would pay enough to cruise around on a US Navy supercarrier?

Plus which major power do you think is going to let a civillian own a fricking star dreadnought? Cracken was throwing hissy fits when Booster got an ISD and Executor is an order of magnitude more power? Forget pirates; entire Govenments are going to be opposing you.

Get a Skipray Blastboat, paint it bright green with red trim, add fins to it, hire an expendable crew and start the Planet Express Delivery Company!

All I need is a good Bureaucrat!


Seriously, though, I'd probably go for a Skipray blastboat or Sentinel-Class shuttle, an R-2 Unit and mechanic, and start a courier service.

It seems like smaller ships would be most useful in situations which would mirror real world bush pilots -- they would generally operate in back water areas where either the space ports are not large enough to berth ships of substantial size or space itself in the region makes it extremely difficult for said ships to get to certain destinations (i.e. the asteroid field in ESB).

On that tact, I wonder if there is "fishing" in space? I mean there ARE several creatures who live in outer space, who knows, maybe mynocks taste pretty good?

Darth Wong wrote:

Knife wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The problem with smaller craft is that you might stumble onto pirates or other unsavoury types, who could easily take your vessel. A Separatist warship should be able to easily shrug off all but the largest pirate assaults, so as long as you avoid attracting the ire of major authorities you should be fine.

with an entire galaxy to play with, why go off the beaten path? Plenty of core worlds and trade routes to play in without worrying about pirates.

There's also massive competition in those areas. How do you know you'll get any work, as an independent freelancer with no reputation who's not working for a major corporation? When you want to ship something, do you send it by USPS, FedEx, or JimBob's Delivery Service, which appears to consist of one guy and a van?

To be fair, there's a middle option: franchising. FedEx Ground trucks are actually owned and operated by the drivers, who contract their services to the company. Still, you'd be on a much tighter leash than true freelancing.

Darth Wong wrote:

Knife wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The problem with smaller craft is that you might stumble onto pirates or other unsavoury types, who could easily take your vessel. A Separatist warship should be able to easily shrug off all but the largest pirate assaults, so as long as you avoid attracting the ire of major authorities you should be fine.

with an entire galaxy to play with, why go off the beaten path? Plenty of core worlds and trade routes to play in without worrying about pirates.

There's also massive competition in those areas. How do you know you'll get any work, as an independent freelancer with no reputation who's not working for a major corporation? When you want to ship something, do you send it by USPS, FedEx, or JimBob's Delivery Service, which appears to consist of one guy and a van?

But how may bike messenger services are there in major cities? You'd need the equivalent for the major planets that represent the bureaucracy of the Republic/Empire. Hell, on Coruscant alone there should be an infinite amount of nitches that would need cargo transfers that wouldn't need huge and or bulk freight ships. Or as I mentioned in another post
, simple human/sentient cargo would be a good angle for the larger planets, tourists, man. Tourists.

I am now bitterly wishing I'd thought of the Trade Fed ships first. Basically massive cargo haulers with a cheap droid crew, but well enough armed and shielded to deal with at least minor attacks, or hold off a heavier offensive until you can get to hyperspace.

I think I'd go with an older model though, not a Lucrehulk. I'm not interested in fighting enemy cap ships, and I don't want to attract negative attention from the government by going around with cruiser-level fire power.

If you wished to be ambtious, another large ship you could use to make a living would be a demiltarized Accloamator transport. They have immense hauling loads and even stripped of capital wepons, the haul alone gives you deffense from pirates.. That said it would be much more of a challange then the Lucrehulk as an Acclamator is a pure military ship and would need much more retrofitting

I would choose a YU-410 light freighter.

It has a fairly large cargo capacity (250 metric tons), fairly well armed and esthetically pleasing. Anything bigger might attract too much attention or put me in direct competition with the bigger outfits. As soon as I could afford it, I’d upgrade the guns. I would probably use a droid crew, with just one or two sapients for company.

Given the size of the Star Wars galaxy, it shouldn’t be impossible to find a few small to mid sized planets and make a nice living in a quite trade route.

Part of me wants to get a World Devastator, take it some back water that doesn't have contact with the galaxy, conquer it from orbit, use it for food supplies while I build a massive droid army and then show the Galaxy how the clone wars should have been fought...

Another part of me just wants to get ahold of of Darth Maul's scimitar before he starts using it. Fast, maneuverable, well shielded and armed, and equipped with a Cloaking Device. Perfect to start a high priced courier service with.

SO far the "Lucrehulk" freighter seems to be a popular choice... I decided to do a bit of homework to see how viable one of these "off the shelf" would be... Starting over a wookiepiedie, that have the following stats for the Freighter itself:

Length: 3,170 meters
Hyperdrive rating: Class 2.0
Armament: Quad lasers (28)
Complement: 200 battle droids or troops
Crew: 500
Passengers: 50
Cargo capacity: 25 million metric tons
Consumables: 500 days

The part that jumps out at me is the arms... Off the shelf, before any clonewar upgrades these things had 28banks of quad laser, we can assume, for anti fighter/anti pirate purposes.. That by itself is nicely armed... Well, then, if you recall, each freighter donut, hasa "Core Ship" the big ball in the middle... and the stats for THAT are also interesting...

Width: 696 meters
Armament:
Pre-Clone Wars refitting: * Point-defense light laser cannons (280)
Crew:
* 60 Trade Federation supervisors
* 3,000 droid crew
* 200,000 maintenance droids

Passengers: 60,000 (stateroom capacity for delegates)

According to the page, all of THAT is simply in the big ball Coreship... putting the two fo these together into a "standard" Lucrehulk freighter gives you an IMMENSE amount of starting droids for crew and maintenance, on top of that it would seem oy uhave enough rooms to run a sizable transport/cruise on top of fright transport. and on top of THAT the coreship once more seems heavily defended wiht small wepons for anti fighter/anti pirate purposes. All this taken together.. if oyu actually find something to DO with said Lucrehulk you have a vast amount of resources at your disposal.

60,000 passengers? I'm thinking a luxury liner with very steep ticket prices.

I'll have a Lambda shuttle, and start a high speed, high security courier service.

Greetings!

I have narrowed down to my two best choices:

Top Choice: Enforcer - Class Picket Cruiser
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Enforcer ... et_cruiser

Second Choice: Marauder Corvette
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Marauder-class_corvette

I figure I'd hire myself out to System Defense forces and do some patrol, and anti-piracy work, or I would become a pirate myself. The Enforcer would work well in that role, having gravity well generators is an excellent tool for piracy.
I don't want too big of a ship (more crew to pay and feed) but want something that can take care of itself in a fight. The Maurader can squeak by with a small crew (listed minimum crew is 52) but if I can afford it, the Enforcer is a much more capable ship, and I might be able to do Privateer work for major government, or be a mercenary with the fleet.

I was just thinking, somethign that might make this thread a BIT more realistic is if we actually knew the PRICES for things such as refueling and maintance... In all the EU stories an such, have there ever been listed prices for goods? Say how much refueling Hypermatter costs?

Some of the suggested ships in here may seem like a good idea, but we need a more complete idea of what is surely titanic upkeep costs,.

Raptor_Pilot wrote:I figure I'd hire myself out to System Defense forces and do some patrol, and anti-piracy work, or I would become a pirate myself.

Bear in mind that you have absolutely no knowledge of space combat (and probably no command experience). As such you'd better hire a competent and loyal captain to command your ship or you'll make elemental mistakes and die horribly. At least in a large capship you won't meet many enemies capable of seriously hurting you, whereas a small ship will likely be facing pirates or law enforcement that can and will kill you.

Anyway, for the time period right after ROTJ, the Arc Hammer is rather tempting. It's well defended, highly automated and set up to mass produce formidable war droids, bound to be in high demand by regional warlords. Still rather a handful to manage/supply and at risk of warlords trying to ambush and capture it, but I'd risk it just to be able to mess around with war droid design. Plus it comes with several supervillain decadence features, such as the fighting pit to put your enemies into

I would go back to a few hundred years befor Revan and get the Star Forge. It's just sitting there and I could make money selling ships I made there.

Darth Paxis wrote:I would go back to a few hundred years befor Revan and get the Star Forge. It's just sitting there and I could make money selling ships I made there.

There is the whole dark side corruption and life force draining business. Given that powerful Sith Lords had problems with this, I very much doubt you could resist it.

True, but if I had a supply of Force Sensitives, I could get around that. Also, I would only use the Star Forge to advance my goals, not have it be my goal.