Choose a Ship, earn a living.

[Crossroads Inc.]

So heres the idea, Basically I am letting you choose a Starship from SW, any ship.. But there is a cath... The catch is you have to pay for it, YWhatever ship you pick your going to have to Earn a living with and in tiime, pay for fuel, supplys, crew, etc... Now to be fair.. You start with a min skelatal Crew as well as one Month of food and fuel for said ship... Just enough to hire a crew and try to start earning a keep with the ship... Now then, to anticapate what a few of you might do.. Anyone who picks somehting like a StarDestroyer is an idiot... Youll never be able to pay upkeep or make a living on it, so Please, I uge you to refrain from picking military ships... Though if you THINK youve got a way to earn a living with one, your more then willing to try...

Personally, im picking an ActionVI Transport, nice small, low upkeep, but still plenty of cargo space... I might even skip going Interstella for a while a save up cash doing trade in a system somewhere.

EDIT: im placing the time peroid at right after the events of ROTJ

[Crossroads Inc.]

EDITx2... screw the above, ill let YOU choose what time peroid you enter into.

[Bounty]

I try to find a Consular-class space cruiser, preferably a refurbished diplomatic model. They're fast, small and luxurious, perfect for a ferry service on a safe route for people who want to travel in style but can't afford a ship of their own. Spare parts should be fairly easy to find since it's a Corellian model. That leaves fuel and supplies, 8 crew, one or two stewards and some PR as running costs.

It won't be glorious space adventures all-round, but with some clever advertising - how about romantic cruises? Add some windows to the salon pod, play some mood music... - I think it's a business that can break even. Especially when I don't have the pony up the cash for the ship itself.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Didn't something like this get posted a couple of months ago?

Still, I don't think I posted in that, so what the hell. Realistically, smuggling and blockade running is a damned dangerous business likely to lead to high repair bills and a short and interesting life, so if we're talking about making a living I'd avoid the YT series.

I know, there's nothing stopping them being flown legitimately, but that never seems to be the way it works out, does it?

For the money and the avoidance of boredom, I'd go for a passenger liner, C3 or M- class, late republic era about a century or two before the Clone Wars. Startup might be tricky, but it's a big galaxy, there must be an interesting route to be taken out there somewhere.

For an interesting (read; full of laserfire) life, probably go mercenary post-Endor with one of Dr Saxton's Anonymous Star Frigate I http://www.theforce.net/swtc/dagger.html#frigate1 types; extreme speed, that should help me stay alive, as a fleet scout, high speed courier, convoy escort for hire, and if all else fails, pirate.

That's the real problem with YT's; they're just not hefty enough- why settle for 44m, when you can go a-buccaneering in style, and with much bigger guns?

[FA Xerrik]

I'd be tempted to go with one of the upgraded coralskippers seen at the very end of the NJO period. I mean, you just have to feed the thing rocks to keep it fueled and functional. That's a pretty good way to keep operational costs down. They're just big enough to carry a few passengers in case I want to bring anyone along with me. The whole "dying of old age" thing is a bit of a downer, and I don't think it's ever established how long a coralskipper could live under optimum circumstances. I'd pretty much use it as a personal transport, with the bonus of hyperspace travel afforded to the upgraded model, to take me to and from whatever little personal hermitage I could set up in the bum-end of nowhere in the galaxy. Just being able to come and go around the SW galaxy would be pretty much enough for me. A courier job or something similar would provide enough credits to get by simply enough.

[The Romulan Republic]

Picking a warship isn't nessissarily an unprofitable choice, given the pressense of piracy and smuggling. That said, a big warship would likely be hard to maintain, and in any case I'd like a less brutal job with a higher life expectancy than pirate.

So, as boring as it may sound, I'd follow the rest of you into legitimate shipping, ferrying both passengers and cargo.

For my ship, I'd want something that isn't too big to opperate efficiently with a small organization, that's fast and well-armed enough to survive if it does get into trouble (depending on their era there's invasion and civil war, and there are always pirates and crime lords), and has a fair ammount of cargo space. The OP's suggestion of the Action 4 comes to mind, as does the CR90 Corvette (no getting around how damn good Corillean designs are, and the CR90 at least has turbolaser firepower). For a larger cargo capacity and better defenses, I might take a smaller Mon Cal. design. Do they have anything intermediate in size between a corvette and a destroyer that might fit my needs?

[Feil]

Get a big one, sell it, buy a little one with the money, and spend the rest of my life joyriding around the galaxy?

[Crazedwraith]

Get a big one, sell it, buy a little one with the money, and spend the rest of my life joyriding around the galaxy?

What do you do with the skeleton crew for the big one? It'd be a bit of a bummer if they got pissed and shanked you for making them lose their jobs.

[Coalition]

World Devastator.

Get one, go to a few uninhabited systems, and chow down. A couple months later, give back the original World Devastator, and have fun flying around in the newly built one.

Self-repairing, expanding, changing, etc. If you need a system defense force, then you will will provide the resources, my WD will manufacture them. If you need industrial products, ditto. Planetary emergencies, colonization assistance, etc, the WD can handle them all.

[Noble713]

A World Dev is a good choice. Barring that, I'd go for a KDY Super Transport XI, operating in the Core Worlds during the height of the Galactic Empire. Should definitely be able to turn a profit operating a giant container ship on the safest routes in the galaxy.

[Coyote]

But the World Devastator isn't technically a "ship" is it? It's a weapons platform.

[Kythnos]

Other than several ships I designed for SW RPGs that I have ran.
I really like this:
http://www.imperialentanglements.org/da ... dminer.htm
it is much larger than I would like but it offers several jobs I could do to help pay for it (mining and just cargo carrier.

[Samuel]

But the World Devastator isn't technically a "ship" is it? It's a weapons platform.

It can move on its own power. Good enough for me.

[Aaron]

I'll just take a Lambda class shuttle and haul small, high value cargo around during the Imperial era, outer rim seems the most likely place to earn the best cash to start.

[KhyronTheBackstabber]

Said it before, and I'll say it again.
I'll take the Sith Infiltrator during the time of the rebellion.
Lots of money making opportunities.

[Knife]

YT-2000. Small enough to be one or two man operation, perhaps one man and a droid? But big enough for internal living/cargo space. Ferry sentient around the core, maybe tourists? Maybe move small specialized cargo, that sort of thing. Oddly enough, though not on the galactic scale, I have some experience in logistics and such when it comes to freight so, perhaps not an expert in the SW universe, I got a leg up or so.

[phred]

I initially thought of the YT-2000 for the same reasons as knife.

Me and an R2 unit doing small time shipping is a good setup, especially once you get a few regular customers making the same runs constantly.

Then I read Coalition's post about a World Devastator. Those are pretty much self-sustaining aren't they?

I want one of those.

[Darth Yoshi]

They'll need to be stripped down, though. Even worse than the Errant Venture's 20 measly guns.

As for me, I'd do what Gara Petothel did, grab a Sentinel landing craft post-DE and start a ferry/cargo service. I'll forgo the Ewok copilot, though.

[Todeswind]

It might be interesting to run a pleasure liner, sort of like the Mon Cal ships that ended up in the rebel alliance were before they ended up being repurposed. Just run it like any resort community on a cruise, essentially Carnival Cruise but in space. Seems like a nice way to pass the time and there seems to be no shortage of rich and self indulgent people in the SW galaxy. I suppose that I'd have to employ some defense forces for repelling pirates but other than that it seems like a nice way to pass the time.

Of course this would be best in the pre-clone wars republic era at some point when I wouldn't be dealing with all out war.

[Darth Fanboy]

Eclipse Super Star Destroyer, hold entire planets for ransom. Boil the oceans on Naboo even after they've paid.

[Bounty]

Eclipse Super Star Destroyer, hold entire planets for ransom. Boil the oceans on Naboo even after they've paid.

And do what with the money? You'll have every military in the galaxy breathing down your neck. What you've just signed up for is a few months of running battles and scrounging for measly supplies before either dying, getting captured or suffering a mutiny. That's not a long-term plan, it's spectacularly stupid suicide.

[The Romulan Republic]

Eclipse Super Star Destroyer, hold entire planets for ransom. Boil the oceans on Naboo even after they've paid.

Might as well go all-out and ask for a Death Star 2. You might actually manage to take down every navy in the Galaxy with one of those.

[Feil]

Get a big one, sell it, buy a little one with the money, and spend the rest of my life joyriding around the galaxy?

What do you do with the skeleton crew for the big one? It'd be a bit of a bummer if they got pissed and shanked you for making them lose their jobs.

You know, people buy and sell ships, factories, stores, and firms all the time. Very few of them get shanked by disgruntled workers - who, mind you, tend to stick with the capital, unless it's getting turned into something else. I could even pay them closing bonuses with the money that everyone seems to be assuming they will have to pay for their first load of cargo cargo and administrative fees with. Or, you know, with the millions (billions?) of credits from selling the mile-long supercargo.

The post was meant to be sarcastic, since it circumvents the intentions of the OP - but, frankly, the OP is "OK guys let's make believe we have space ships in Star Wars wouldn't that be awesome?" And as that has been posted about ten times and (predictably) has yet to generate any substantive discussion....

Why did I even come into this subforum, anyway?

EDIT: for fuck's sake, it's the first page and it's already disintegrated into "lol I hate gungans let's boil the oceans of Naboo!"

[The Romulan Republic]

Where? I don't see anyone talking about Gungans. At least they weren't until now.

Though the notion of taking an SSD is rather absurd.

[Darth Wong]

One of the Separatist battledroid-crewed warships might be a good idea. Droids don't demand pay, food or any other niceties. You could even turn off life support in most of the ship and just live in the bridge area. And when there's downtime, you can shut down almost everything because droids can be simply turned off and then reactivated later.