100 Spaceship Names

1. Enheduanna 
2. Murasaki Shikibu
3. Yang Wen-Li
4. Brackett
5. Norton
6. Butler
7. Bujold
8. Cherryh
9. Vinge
10. Tomyris
11. Hiawatha
12. Barlowe
13. Dejah Thoris
14. Le Guin
15. Tanabe
16. L'Engle
17. GG EZ NO RE
18. Last to Know
19. Great A'tuin
20. Golden Path
21. Unexpected Neighbor
22. I Roll to Attack
23. The Huge Manatee
24. Best Case Scenario
25. What A Guy, Solo
26. Ape Law
27. Internal Gravitas Engine
28. Put a Pin In It
29. ACAB (No Exceptions)
30. Second Star to the Right
31. Reach Heaven Through Violence
32. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_burn_centers_in_the_United_States
33. So Anyway I Started Blasting
34. Simon the Digger
35. Secret Herbs and Spices
36. Hapsburg Chin
37. This Machine Kills Fascists
38. Not A Metaphor
39. Diedration
40. Perfectly Cromulent
41. Dorothy & Co.
42. Decolonizer
43. Localized Entirely Within Your Kitchen
44. Deadliest SOB In Space
45. I Blame the Bene Gesserit
46. Fulgurmus
47. HONK
48. Gravitas-Without-Borders
49. Macrophiliac
50. Darker and Edgier
51. Titanothere
52. I Know What I'm Doing
53. Tentacular Spectacular
54. Waiting for Space Godot
55. Under Heavy Fire
56. Dancing in Public
57. Unfit For Purpose
58. Lilith Deserved Better
59. Prospero's Nightmare
60. Born to Die, World is a Fuck
61. Called Himself Sam
62. Phoenix Throne
63. I Fucking Love Sharks!
64. Wives of Abaia
65. Nest of Devils
66. Simia Oricalchum 
67. Mandatory Faculty Meeting
68. Public Domain
69. Bullshit, But I Believe It
70. Expanded Universe
71. Shippy McShipface
72. [CITATION NEEDED]
73. Exceptin' Alice
74. Standing There Menacingly
75. Unshielded Exhaust Port
76. Pale Blue Dot
77. Keep It In Your Pants
78. Wizard Battles
79. TERF-Free Zone
80. Human Resources Manager
81. Second Breakfast
82. Theocide
83. Unfunny Joke Played Straight
84. Loot Box
85. Yo, Mahoutsukai!
86. Mama Bear
87. Folk Blues
88. Drums in the Deep
89. Land of Uz
90. Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den
91. Coelecanth Helios
92. Trolley Problem 
93. Yes This Is Good
94. Possum King
95. Garbage Barge
96. Icelandic Necropants
97. Shadow of the Anthropocene
98. Escalate Immediately to Gun Violence
99. Cruel Angel's Thesis Advisor
100. Jasmine Dragon

A Layman's Guide to Hard Sci-Fi and 200 POSTS!

Listening to the recent Mothership episode of gg no re, I thought it might be useful to provide a helping hand for people who are interested in running a sci-fi game but don't have the time or inclination to do a research deep-dive.

I will be linking to the videos of Isaac Arthur throughout this post. If you want more in-depth exploration of any of the topics here (and many more besides), absolutely listen to him. 

Light is Law

299,792,458 meters per second through vacuum. Round up to 300,000 km/s. Nothing goes faster. (Except, perhaps, monarchy)

Information and radiation travel at light speed. Getting anything made of matter even close to that speed takes a whole lot of energy and is subject to all manner of weird effects like time dilation.

Space is Big

In short:

• Interstellar travel is not a casual affair. Interplanetary travel isn't either, but interstellar travel is always a big deal.
• Interstellar travel takes a long goddamn time. Long enough that cryo, digital storage, or life extension will be more or less required.
• Interplanetary travel can still take days, weeks, months. 
• Rerouting a ship in transit is not a lightly-taken endeavor.
• News travels at light speed. Long-distance communication will have lag.  
• Don't expect big interstellar empires to form. Communication lag and travel time will put hard limits on that quickly. Expect to see a lot of small alliances and confederacies, getting smaller as you go up from habitat to planet to system scale.
• If you use space habitats a lot a single solar system can contain trillions of people and more places to visit than you can actively comprehend.

It's the Great Filter, Charlie Brown!

The apparent discrepancy between the size and age of the universe and the total lack of detectable alien life (for an interstellar civilization would get HUGE in a relatively short amount of time) is called the Fermi Paradox. The reasons offered to explain why this might be are many, ranging from the plain (the physical conditions for life are rare, intelligent life is rare) to the more elaborate (the aliens are all just really, really good at hiding from us) and among all of these proposals are and a category of them are called Great Filters: factors that prevent life from reaching an interplanetary or interstellar civilization.

There are a whole lot of them. The most plain are just that the physical conditions for life as we know it are rare or that intelligent life is rare. Sensible, but less gameable. Other options include but are not limited to:

• They died off from nuclear war / catastrophic climate change / plague / etc.
• They are trapped by high gravity, icy crusts, hyperdense atmospheres, etc.
• They are intelligent, but lack the ability to make tools. 
• They aren't intelligent, and their tools don't have proper analogs to normal technology.
• They're not going to progress past simple tools for a few hundred thousand years.

Skerples  also offers the following: "Planets do not all have 1 earth gravity, a breathable atmosphere, life we can eat or understand, etc." (Check out his full post on the matter), but a solid summary is that the most human aliens are still nothing like us, and the most Earthlike worlds are nothing like Earth. Anything that resembles humans or Earth was probably designed as such (metahumans and space habitats can come into play here.)

Every Gram Counts

Mass needs energy to move it. Fuel and propellant have mass. The more mass you have the more fuel and propellant you need.

Space aboard a ship is at a premium. You've got to balance everything for your specific trip, because you are trying to hit one moving object with another moving object launched from a third moving object all while trying to keep some fragile bags of mostly water and meat from dying. 

It's Not Easy Getting Into Space 

Gravity is fighting you the entire way up and rockets are inefficient. So there are a lot of better ways to get up there. Including but not limited to!

• Space elevators - A hugeass cable stung up to a space station in geosynchronous orbit. 
• Skyhooks - A rotating cable that dangles down into the atmosphere and swings a ship up and around to launch them into orbit.
• Mass drivers - A fucking huge railgun. Great for launching raw materials off of whatever airless rock you're mining them out of, and if it's long enough you can just make a launch loop.

O'Neill Cylinders are the Shit

Imagine a cylinder 20 miles long and 5 miles across. You can make it bigger if you have better materials. Rotate it so that the interior walls have 1 G of gravity, while the caps and central axis will have none. String some together in a chain or cluster, embed them into an asteroid, surround it with all the support systems you might need.

Congratulations, you have just made where most of the population in a space-faring society will live and the easiest way to do a classical space opera. Now you can hop between radically different environments and cultures in a couple hours, in a spaceship that's more like the family RV.

The important thing to remember is that space habitats like these are better for human habitation than planets: you don't need to fight a gravity well to leave, you can tailor the interior environment much more easily, you can churn them out by the dozens or hundreds from single asteroids. 

Stellar Laser Highways are the Shit

Imagine a laser. Now imagine that it is so fucking huge that it can push a spaceship. Build an entire network of them. Now you have a means of accelerating (and slowing) your ships that doesn't require them to spend fuel, thus allowing them to carry more stuff and more people.

It's still slower than light, but it's damn effective. Can be used as communication hubs too.

Spaceships are not Boats

James Cameron's Avatar was not a good movie. But it has one thing going for it: The Venture Star.

Missing the solar sail, alas.

This is a proper spaceship. Just look at this beaut, this sheila, this absolute unit. Mwah! Look at those radiators! See that little bit by the debris shield, with the two rotating arms? That tiny thing there? That's the crew capsule.

This thing has a maximum cargo capacity of 350 tons, a max speed of 0.7 C, and can get you to Alpha Centauri in six and three quarters years flat.

What I'm getting at here is that this is what a hard sci-fi ship will end up looking like: a tiny little submarine attached to a whole hell of a lot of propulsion.

You Will Not Explode and or Immediately Freeze in a Vacuum

You can survive in open space for as long as you can hold your breath (get the air out of your lungs first, lack of pressure will make it expand and that's no good at all). Still likely to get a nasty dose of radiation but having no air is the big danger.

In Knowing the Rules, You May Now Break Them

Arguments over the relative hardness / softness of any given science fiction media are both stupid and dumb. You're making a story or running a game, and that's the most important thing. Do what works for you, do what makes sense - I like aliens, so I tend to be looser on them than I am with, say, FTL communication. Tweak what you want, gloss over what bores you. The opposite is also true - if there's something that really gets you interested, embrace it and see where it can take you.

Bonus: 200 Posts!

I was going to have post 200 be announcing my Patreon, but that's taking its time and I want to keep making things. So this is post 200 (and the first of the post-G+ era).

Holy shit. 200 posts in just a scrape (month and a week) under two years. I can't say much else besides thank you. I certainly wouldn't have kept it up this long without all of you out there reading and commenting and providing feedback.

There's so much yet to do, and I have barely begun.

Unnamed Mothership Setting: Solar Gazetteer

Jakub Rebelka

Part two of my Unnamed Mothership Setting.

Planets were generated using Mephit James' repurposed Traveller tables with some extra aide from the Stars Without Number and Red Tide tags. Distances between stars came from Space Engine which is terribly helpful in general.

For the sake of space, I'm not going to detail every single planet that was rolled up. There are a whole lot of indistinct dwarf rockballs and asteroids out there, so unless there's something particularly interesting about them, they shall be elided. Planets will be listed in order outwards from their sun, with the orbital region in parentheses. Moons will be listed in italics under their parent planet.

Some Handy Terminology

• Epistellar - Really close to the star.
• Inner - Close but not that close to the star.
• Outer - A sizable distance from the star.
• Terrestrial - .02-5 Earth Masses
• Helian - 3-15 Earth Masses
• Vesperian - Tidally locked 
• Pelagic - Ocean world
• Bathypelagic - By God that's a lot of ocean
• Panthallassic - Even the sky is ocean.
• Gelidian - Frozen 
• Pelagic-Gelidian - Frozen crust surrounding subsurface ocean.
• Post-Gelidian - Cooling tectonic world, subglacial oceans.
• Cytherian - Venus-like
• Arid - Mars-like
• Amunian - Terrestrial ammonia worlds 

 

Sol - G2V

Home sweet home. Even the posthumans still have a certain fondness for it, living out in the Oort cloud or in micro-Dyson-swarms. Every major body in the solar system has been settled by this point, though much of the activity has moved outwards towards Jupiter and Saturn: interstellar ships are much more likely to stop off at Callisto or Titan, with their goods launched towards the inner system via mass driver. Venus is home to thousands of aerostat nations, Earth is coming out of centuries of environmental reclamation, and Mars is heavily para-terraformed.

Proxima Centauri - M6V

The closest star to Sol and the cultural hub for spacers. All three planets and their orbits have been heavily settled and para-terraformed. Most of the system population is transient, but those who stay on permanently are a proud and stubborn community - corporate interests rarely reach far into Proximan doings, co-operatives and mutual aid organizations flourish.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Gargarin	Rocky vesperian	Epistellar	0	Complex single-celled
Armstrong & Aldrin	Binary rocky dwarfs	Inner	0	No
Shen	Arid Methane	Outer	0	No

For visitors overwhelmed by the thousands of cantinas, hostels, shrines, and spaceports around Proxima, pay a visit to Clever Lu's in Shen orbit. It's got work, people, talk, drinks, whatever you're looking for.

Alpha Centauri - G2V / K1V binary

A prime example of what not to do. The original colonization attempt collapsed under incompetent leadership and construction by the lowest bidder, leading to a period of violent anarchy then replaced by a militaristic corporate-fascist police state. Over 60% of the system's habitats were built with faulty water purification and filtering systems (using proprietary hardware and legacy software from a defunct company with no documentation) that cannot be fixed without completely replacing them. The native environments of both Onwards and Prosperity have undergone catastrophic mass extinctions via industrial exploitation.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Upwards	Panthallasic Helian	Outer	3	Single-celled producers
Onwards	Pelagic	Outer	N/A	Large macroscopic
Prosperity	Arid	Outer	1	Complex global ecology +potential proto-sapients

Barnard's Star - M4.OV

Barnard's Star has a single shining attraction: the planet Dorothy is a tropical paradise.  Some combination of the planet's air, water, and temperature triggers the human body to purge itself of stress and toxins. Locals have the highest non-augmented life expectancy in human space and some of the best health. The artificial islands of the planet are held up as a poster-child of environmentally-non-invasive colonization. Generations of such good living have made themselves manifest in the local population with a borderline-dangerous naivety of life outside the system and a complete disregard for measuring time.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Dorothy	Pelagic Gaian	Inner	1	Large macroscopic
Alice	Amunian	Outer	0	Single-celled producers
Lirazel	Saturnian Dwarf-Jovian	Outer	1	No

Travelers might also wish to explore the bizarre daydream-cultures of Wonderland Arcologies of Alice and all the court machinations of the Chess Queens.

Sirius - AOmA1 + White Dwarf Companion 

With empty Epistellar and Inner orbits, the few bodies orbiting Sirius are cold and empty. Hardly befitting their namesakes, but the Dog Star needs its pack.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Gelert & Guinefort	Binary icy dwarfs	Outer	0	No
Hachiko	Arid Methane	Outer	1	No
Laika	Cthonian Jovian	Outer	4	No

Most of the system's settlements are in the business of mining and volatiles. Of note are Lonely Glow, a partially-abandoned debtor's prison on Hachiko, and the feral autofactory General Product Production Installation 113 in Laika orbit.  

Epsilon Eridani - K2V

An economic powerhouse and the third most populated system in human space. Originally settled by ships of the Indian-Venusian Diaspora, it has since expanded into a bustling, diverse, and all things accounted for not terrible place to live. All major worlds in the system have been settled, and the few posthuman habitats seem to be oddly fond of the human population, inasmuch as they can be.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Matsya & Kurma	Twin burning terrestrials	Epistellar	0	No
Parashurama	GelidianGaian	Inner	3	Simple global ecology
Rama	Campian (Hot, wet) Gaian	Outer	0	Complex global ecology
Krishna	Amunian	Outer	1	Complex multicellular
Buddha's Belt	Dust Ring	Outer	N/A	N/A

Of note to scientists is the extinction of any life on Parashurama outside of the subglacial seas due to swift cooling of the climate. Digs have revealed an extensive fossil record, and the planet is oft cited by those believers in ancient alien civilizations.

Ross 128 - M4V

Currently entrenched in a gamelike civil war of ritualized combat, fought in daily one-on-one combats broadcast openly, backed by an elaborate system of points and territories. The religious tension at the root of the conflict appears to have originated in political demographics that jumped over into belief systems. Dozens of minor faith-parties have emerged in the cracks, starting their own proxy conflicts.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Radamanthus	Chlorine Vespirian	Inner	0	Single-celled producers
Aeacus	CryoNebulous Helian	Outer	2	No
Minos	Arid Ammonia	Outer	0	Complex multicellular

The majority of the system's settlements are in orbit around Aeacus, save Charon City on Minos, home to the Silicon Sepulchre - a library of memories and experiences from over half a billion androids from across human space.

Tau Ceti - G8Vp

With so little in the system, Tau Ceti is a more of a stopover location than a destination. Hou Yi and Chang'E are both settled, though not heavily. Of note are reports of unexplained freak geology below the clouds of Chang'E and the Hou Yi biotech and agritech industries - the system is the sole supplier for a panoply of exotic genengineered foods.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Paris & Helen	Binary hephaestan dwarfs	Epistellar	0	No
Hou Yi Chang'E	Arid world with Cytherian companion	Inner	0	Single-celled producers / No

Luyten's Star - M3.5V

Contains almost nothing of note or importance. The very definition of a filler M-type.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Lean	Jovian with icy moons	Inner	4	No
Lurch	GeoNebulous Helian	Inner	2	No
Lacrimosa	Bathypelagic	Inner	N/A	Single-celled producers

Weitown: A small settlement that mines volatiles from the moons of Lurch. Serves as a stop-over and refueling depot for interstellar travelers. Founded by ex-corporate soldiers abandoned without pay or pension. They aren't particularly fond of company, which leads to conspiracy theories of hidden wealth and dark secrets.

More Cowboy Bebop

82 Eridani - G6V

The Red Ash Plague (named for what it does to victim's skin) has crippled the system, and after years of work no one has been able to find a cure or an origin. it comes and it goes in cycles that follow no pattern, it is survivable one day and lethal the next. it has made the locals secretive and withdrawn, communicating with outsiders purely by masked broadcast and hiding their scarred faces.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Moriarty	Thetusian Helian	Inner	1	No
Holmes & Watson	Cytherian + Pelagic	Inner	0	No / Single-celled producers
Adler	Arid methane	Outer	0	No

There is a running reward of a hyperelite's ransom for any clue to the cure or origin of the Plague, posted by the eccentric and short-sighted trillionaire behind the catastrophically failed Baker Street  adventure habitat. The habitat is still there and technically still in operation, the owner is still technically alive, the androids technically still keep to their roles but all have fallen into disrepair.

Delta Pavonis - G8IV

In the grips of a humanitarian crisis after a meteroite slipped through the detection net and struck Laozi, crippling the planet's infrastructure. Resettlement of refugees to Diogenes orbit is underway, but there are not enough ships and not enough space. With the loss of Laozi's solar farms, food production for the entire system finds itself in precarious position.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Laozi	Rocky Terrestrial	Epistellar	3	No
Diogenes	Neptunian SubJoviam	Outer	2	No

The Lamp in Diogenes orbit serves as the governmental hub in the system. it is currently overwhelmed with desperate people looking to flee the system and the government's philosopher-parliament is overwhelmed.

Gliese 581 - M3V

Founded by Proximan anarchists driven out by the Centauri Wars, the system is the keystone world for autonomists in human space. In order to remain as independent as possible from capitalist interests the system does keep tight watch on who enters (especially with Gliese 667 so close by).

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Eat-the-Rich	Arid	Inner	1	Complex single-celled
No Gods	Thetusian GeoHelian	Inner	4	No
Liberty	Arid	Inner	N/A	Large macroscopic
No Masters	Hyperionic Geohelian	Inner	1	No
Responsibility	EoGaian	Inner	N/A	Complex global ecology

If one is feeling social, visit Lalu Lilalo's, in No Masters orbit. It can provide whatever entertainment you can want or need, from hanafuda to fighting games to just making friends with strangers / having sex with them.

Gliese 667 (Fu Xi / Nüwa / Shennong) - K3V / K5V / M1 trinary

The first two stars of this trinary circle each other closely, and so have cleared out their orbits of everything but some asteroids and a few rocky dwarfs. Gliese 667 C (Shennong) orbits A&B at a much greater distance, allowing it to maintain a stable system of its own.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Huangdi	Halcyonic Helian	Epistellar	2	No
Leizu	Chlorine Vesperian	Epistellar	N/A	Single-celled
Zhuanxu	Twin Cytherians	Epistellar	0	No
Dì Kù	MesoGaian	Inner	2	Multi-cellular
Tang Yao	Cytherian	Inner	1	No
Great Shun	Arid Methane	Outer	5	Building Blocks

Despite its position, the system is second only to Sol in terms of population and economic output. It has little love for spacers and Company loyalty is strong. Asteroid kowloons filled with unfortunate poor pepper the region. A wide-spread crackdown on the makers of anti-government / anti-corporate VR interactives has, as of yet failed to dredge up the underground master-artist "CC540".

Fomalhaut - A3 V / K5Vp / M4V Trinary

Fomalhaut A is the only star of this trio to be settled thus far. Multiple dust rings make travel in the system difficult, stripping unprotected ships bare from friction.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Atargatis	Arid terrestrial	Inner	1	Single-celled
Oannes	Pelagic-Gelidian	Outer	1	Small macroscopic
Dagon	Saturnian Dwarf-Jovian	Outer	3	No

The largest settlements in the system are Ahab on Oannes and Jonah in Dagon orbit, operated by rival family-owned companies. They've taken the system's economic downturn in stride, using the high unemployment to hire raiders to harass their competition's ships.

Arcturus - KOIII

A great curiosity among xenobiologists: a system where an old and expanded star has consumed or expelled all but two of its worlds, and both of those worlds are as overflowing with life as Earth in its prime, with multiple species on the cusp of sapience? A coincidence that ought be too good to be true.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Tormance	Rocky vesperian	Inner	0	Complex global ecology + potential proto-sapients
Alppain	Bathypelagic	Outer	0	Complex global ecology + potential proto-sapients

For the protection of the local environments most of the population lives in orbit (Main stations Maskul and Nightspore), though small settlements do exist planetside. The initial colonists were of an esoteric neo-gnostic sect that has grown only stranger in the time since, often overlapping with the scientific demographic.

The word "uplift" is not bandied about lightly. It has a tendency to spawn riots.

comelms

Trappist-1 - M8V

A xenobiological grail: five planets with life, potentially with the same point of origin. Its distance from other major worlds has kept it at a relatively low population. It is home to  variety of exiled and heterodox religions, most being splinters from the Titantian Catholic Churchs, the displaced Martian Cathars, the Buddhislamic Fellowship, the Techno-Presbyteriat, and the Old Orthodox Xenodeists.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Anthony	Cytherian	Epistellar	0	No
Augustine	Burning terrestrial	Epistellar	0	No
Benedict	Vesperian	Epistellar	0	Multi-cellular
Scholastica	Arid methane	Inner	1	Complex single-celled
Hildegard	Amunian	Inner	0	Single-celled
Dominic	Post-Gelidian	Inner	1	Single-celled
Francis	Pelagic-Gelidian	Inner	0	Complex multi-cellular

The primary settlement is Subiaco on Benedict, which is run by the ever-patient remnants of the officially-dissolved Jesuits.

Zeta Reticuli - G3-5V / G2V binary

A lively and populous system, famous for the heterocultural communes of Le Guin, the Domes of the Living Dead on Herbert (kill rabid flesh-eating gene-engineered clones for the entertainment of the streaming audience), the android-run habitat of Positronic in Brackett orbit, and Rocketman's Repose around Bradbury, the memorial of every known human to have died in space.

ZR-A

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Brackett	Cytherian	Inner	0	No
Verne & Wells	Dwarf Binary	Inner	0	No
Le Guin	Xeric Gaian	Outer	0	Complex global ecology
Herbert	Arid ammonia	Outer	1	Multi-cellular
Bradbury	Poseidonic SubJovian	Outer	2	No

 

ZR-B 

With little of interest beyond resources and some xenological studies, few ever visit Zeta Reticuli B. There are no permanent settlements in-system - automated fuel depots and comm buoys will be your only company.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Barney & Betty	Binary Rocky Dwarfs	Inner	0	No
Niburu	Panthallassic Helian	Outer	0	Large macroscopic

Upsilon Andromedae (Titawin) - F9V / M4.5V binary

Located in a relatively unpopulated region of human space, Titawin serves as a sort of regional hub for explorers and travelers. It is home to the storied Academy of Astrogation in orbit around Majriti.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Saffar	Hot Jupiter	Epistellar	0	No
The Dancers	Six Companion Dwarfs	Epistellar	0	No
Samh	SuperJovian	Inner	2	No
Majriti	SuprJovian	Inner	3	No
Salt	Arid	Inner	N/A	Large macroscopic
Zarqālī	MesoJovian	Inner	2	No

Upsilon Andromeda B is known to have a epistellar Vespirian orbiting it. An exploratory expedition is currently being crowdfunded and selection of the membership is underway.

Mu Arae (Cervantes) - G3IV-V

Home to the most Earth-like planet yet found, the system is a home for wanderers, dreamers, fools, and scientists (or so goes the stereotype). Corporate interests from Gliese 667 are present and active, but have been barred from interfering with La Mancha in any way by the initial settlers - no permanent surface colonization has yet been made. Like Titawin, the system serves as a hub for exploration further out beyond the Frontier Margin.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Dulcinea	Hot Sub-Jovian	Epistellar	0	No
Rocinante	Water-rich Dwarf Jovian	Inner	4	No
Quijote	MesoJovian	Inner	3	No
La Mancha	Continental Gaian	Inner	N/A	Complex global ecology
Sancho	MesoJovian	Outer	1	No
Cardenio	Arid Methane	Outer	0	Small macroscopic
Dorotea	Arid	Outer	1	Multi-cellular
Marcela & Grisóstomo	EoGaian / MesoAmunian	Outer	0	Simple global ecology / Small Macroscopic

Map of Relative Locations

If distances seem weird, it's the Z-axis at work.

Trip Table / Distance in Light Years

Click for bigger version.

Yes, I Would Like More Planets to Add to This

• Gatecrashing, plus exoplanets featured in Farcast, Seedware, and H-REP.
• Expedition, Wayne Douglas Barlowe. The Discovery Channel adaptation is good too.
• Halo. That first game is unapologetically an Aliens ripoff and it's great.
• Known Space, Larry Niven. Creepy weirdo author, but he made some nifty space places.
• Hyperion, Dan Simmons. Damn, I love this book.
• Warframe, especially the new Fortuna expansion.
• All of Chris Tamm's space posts and Michael Raston's Blasphemous Roster.

Unnamed Mothership Setting

Ismail Inceoglu

There's a bright and shining center to the universe, and it's a long ways out from here. Door's been closed for ages. No trespassing, no solicitation, no visitors without an appointment. The future went on ahead without us and left us behind, with all the dust and the rust and the dinged-up hand-me-downs.

It's a big, old, empty, beautiful universe. Little islands of people trying to get by, and a whole lot of black between.

(Mothership is a fantastic game, people.)

Space Travel

Ship's engines of 30 or below are considered sublight drives.

Engines greater than 30 are considered warp drives.

Engine Stat	Ship Speed	Per Light Year	Time Dilation	Time Debt
10	0.75 C	456.56 days	321.42 days	135.14 days / LY
20	0.85 C	420.04 days	226.45 days	193.59 days / LY
30	0.95 C	383.51 days	120.53 days	262.98 days / LY
40	12 C	30.44 days	N/A	N/A
50	24 C	15.22 days	N/A	N/A
60	36 C	10.15 days	N/A	N/A
70	48 C	7.61 days	N/A	N/A
80	60 C	6.09 days	N/A	N/A

Jump drives are rated according to how many decaLY can be traversed in a single hyperspace jump. The standard shipboard time passage is 3 days / light year. Hyperspace travel is highly irregular on the observer side: roll 1d10 - on a 9-10, multiply the travel time by xd10 (x=Jump rating) and multiply it by travel time to determine any delay. 

Extraterrestrial Life

Life is out there, and it's not even particularly rare. There's carbon/oxygen-based life, methane-based life, ammonia based life, chlorine based life. Most of it is microbial, and of the larger organisms found none have shown any signs of technical prowess beyond simple tool usage. There are a great many dolphins, apes, and elephants among the stars, but man is still alone. The stars are as quiet as they have always been.

Technological civilizations of the deep past are still a matter of debate. No direct evidence has yet been found, but certain paleontological digs (Epsilon Eridani d in particular) have garnered some popularity in the scientific community.

They Might Be Giants

Posthumanity (that is, those humans who digitized themselves long ago and all their offshoots and descendants) is a not-quite-sleeping giant. By population and spread, the digital gods dwarf humanity's interstellar civilization by orders of magnitude, but they play no real part in the lives of folks like you and me. The gulf between is too great to bridge. This has actually worked in humanity's favor.

They prefer habitats to planets, building dyson swarms around red dwarfs set to last trillions of years and filling up Oort clouds with supercomputer processors. They typically ignore humanity entirely, save in those cases where they feel the need to swat away intruders. Communication with them is non-existent, but it seems that for the time being posthumanity is content to let its forgotten brethren go along its own way.

I Owe My Soul to the Company Store

Outside of collective communities (and sometimes even then), it's a gig economy out there. The Company posts a job, freelancers with a ship take it. It's rarely a friendly relationship: the Company provides nothing beyond pay upon completion - any other support is going to come from the assorted unions, collectives, religious organizations and co-operatives out there.

While there are, of course, thousands and thousands of interplanetary and interstellar companies out there, spacers will invariably just call them the Company.

Some Notes on Tech

• Hyperspace communications are invariably fucked every time they are attempted. News travels as fast as the fastest ship.
• Self-improving AI and digital upload tech are quashed hard by posthumanity. They don't want competition. Weak AI will get a pass.
• Timekeeping still runs on the 365.25 day Earth year. Exactly what year it is is not supremely important.
• Cybernetics and biotech are out there, but are usually for cosmetic and health purposes.
  

Sung Choi

Solar Gazetteer

Human space is an irregular, blobby sphere stretching outwards from Sol. Thousands of systems have been explored and hundreds permanently settled, but in the scope of the final frontier that doesn't mean much. Even with faster-than-light travel, space refuses to be any less big.

Most populated worlds are within 50 light-years of Earth - beyond that margin colonies become progressively more widely scattered and independently-minded. Out past 250 LY it's mostly nothing but out'sters and posthumans and "here be space dragons".

I'll be putting up a companion post soon detailing a sandbox of 18 nearby solar systems, plus a scattering of other exoplanets to throw down wherever you might wish.

Stuff Outright Stolen From Eclipse Phase

For more goodies, I recommend the Farcast, Seedware, and H-Rep blogs

Name	Description	Source
1. A Thousand Words for Fire	Open-source extreme life-achievement challenge.	Farcast 212
2. After-Eden	Commune that celebrates preventable medical disfigurements.	Farcast 57
3. Ageshift	Medical treatment to induce outward signs of a specific age.	Farcast 259
4. Anthropomorphism	Mindhack; subject anthropomorphizes everything.	Seedware 133
5. Asshole Geese	Even in the future, they are assholes. Semi-reliable guards.	Seedware 291
6. Bonsai	Fun hobby when you have lots of time and no gravity.	Seedware 262
7. Boomfruit	Exploding fruit. Harmless, usually entertaining.	Seedware 302
8. Bouncerfeet	Flexible feet with opposable toes, can hold objects.	MRG 13
9. Break Bread	Nutrient-rich bricks; add water and last a week off of one.	Farcast 96
10. Brownies	Out-of-sight domestic cleaner bots.	Seedware 95
11. Bruixera	Possibly-legendary den of iniquity.	Farcast 225
12. Burning Plague	Engineered virus; causes flammable tumors.	Farcast 201
13. Cancer Dreams	Engineered disease; stress-generated cancers.	Farcast 245
14. Case	Cheap, poorly-made android models. Off-the-shelf.	MRG 15
15. Catal Hayuk	Neolithic historical recreation habitat with permanent population.	Rimward 63
16. Catopia	Popular VR MMO. Everyone is a perfectly normal cat.	Seedware 281
17. Cheshire	Hairless cat breed with chameleon skin. Freaky as hell.	Seedware 13
18. Church of Luminous Saints	Militant post-Christian sect; really likes themselves some WMDs.	X-Risks 74
19. Coiled Canines	Friendly like a dog, wriggly as a ferret, long as a snake.	Seedware 110
20. Common-Sense Network	Low-pop. anarchist collectives running local direct democracy.	Rimward 175
21. Cubehive Corp	Makers of affordable ultra-compact housing and habitats.	H-Rep 147
22. Designer Synaesthesia	Popular mindhack among artists and unorthodox scientists.	Seedware 231
23. DIY Shipyards	Enthusiastic anarchists build anything to order if you help out.	Rimward 86
24. DNA Chaff	Grenade filled with organic dust; throws analysts into a tizzy.	Panopticon 150
25. Drooga	Mind-altering vodka-variant; tends to start sizable riots.	Farcast 133
26. Dummy Barrier	Insulation between a hacker and	H-Rep 60
27. Earthcon	Convention celebrating Earth and its old cultures.	Farcast 337
28. Elysian Fields	Habitat dedicated to those dying in peace and dignity.	Sunward 137
29. Engineer's Womb	Exowomb implant; safe, quick, comfortable.	Seedware 119
30. Eusocial Monkey Butlers	Exactly what it says on the tin. Popular with the rich.	Seedware 81
31. Exonaturals	The business of getting alien resources from here to there.	Farcast 215
32. Faceless	A faceless sphinx of black stone; popular 'net rumor.	Farcast 145
33. Francesca's Cheese & Wine	Hole-in-the-wall vender-fabber; no one knows who Francesca is.	Seedware 208
34. Fur Coat	Actually a living organism that you wear.	X-Risks 157
35. Gardener Bees	Programmed and modified beehives. Guardwasps available.	Panopticon 154
36. Get Your Ass to Mars	Spaceship fleet hosts anarchist olympics.	Rimward 173
37. Glowstick Fungus	Grows about a foot and a half, glows green-yellow.	Farcast 308
38. Gold Ballast	It's basically worthless for anything else.	Farcast 298
39. Grendal's Loop	Hyperspace coordinates that send you back where you started.	Farcast 218
40. Gut Macrofauna	Some people just want to be a hive. For art.	Seedware 52
41. House of Screaming Bricks	The worst prison in human space. No one owns up to it.	Farcast 29
42. Hypothetical Handbook	Popular series of "what-if" guides, from mundane to mad.	Seedware 16
43. IP Enforcement	They aren't above sending someone with a gun.	Rimward 65
44. Jellybone Suit	Vacuum-sealed goo-suit for extreme environment protection.	Farcast 4
45. Jester Virus	Engineered virus; causes uncontrollable laughter.	H-Rep 211
46. K-Flask	Add water and some organic primer, get milk. Ferments well, too.	Farcast 67
47. Kaiju Therapy	Put on VR, pretend to be a monster, feel better.	Seedware 190
48. Language Synthesis	The art of building a functioning language from scratch.	Farcast 159
49. Laughing Policeman	Interrogation drug; target induced to openness and cooperation.	Firewall 175
50. Liangamish	Giant genitalia-themed temple complex.	Farcast 288
51. Lick Me I'm Delicious	Ship fleet out to visit every human-settled world.	Rimward 173
52. Lilith Sequence	Genemod; Allows reproduction via parthenogenesis.	Farcast 126
53. Livestock	Non-sapient humans modified for food; popular with the rich.	Seedware 142
54. Maintenance Rats	Smart rodents modified to actually fix the wiring.	Farcast 235
55. Manna Tree	Nutritious high-water fruit, aspirin bark, rot-resistant wood.	Seedware 86
56. Meathab	Space station made out of meat. Probably alive.	Rimward 77
57. Medicrabs	Cute little robot buddies to stitch you back up.	Seedware 44
58. Medusa Locks	Muscular dreadlocks, a replacement for hair.	Seedware 205
59. Minervan Fleet	Wandering ex-military fleet looking to find enemies fight them.	X-Risks 78
60. Mme. Bleu	Android fixer / crime boss. Bodies found across human space.	Farcast 65
61. Mobile Greenhouse	Precisely what it seems. A touch of nature on barren worlds.	H-Rep 34
62. Mood Lizard	Therapy animal. Quiet, good at cuddling, skin responds to owner.	Farcast 151
63. Moon Worms	Add water and sugar, it generates alcohol.	Seedware 68
64. Mortal Diamonds	The remains of war heroes, compressed into diamonds.	Farcast 285
65. Nanobrush	Little blue pellets that will clean out your mouth. Minty fresh.	H-Rep 178
66. Neptunium Skull	Legendary cursed / radioactive artifact, Holy Grail of thieves.	Farcast 172
67. New Day Corp	Developers of neanderthal genome splices.	Panopticon 121
68. Nostalgia Cigarettes	Drug; induces feelings of nostalgia.	Seedware 199
69. Pearls	Painful side-effect of glitching internal nanomachines.	Seedware 237
70. Pod Variants	Typical human-presenting models for androids.	Corebook 142
	1) Ayah - Caretakers, teachers, nannies.
	2) Basic - General-purpose androids.
	3) Pleasure - Sex-change module + pheromonal control.
	4) Security - Not quite extra muscle, but same principle.
	5) Vacuum - Built for space work; 0-G and stellar radiation.
	6) Worker - Sturdy and solid, good for manual labor.
71. Programmers Without Borders	Charitable organization of hackers and devs. They'll fix you up.	Farcast 317
72. Red Five Advanced Hueristics	Advertising firm dealing with stolen military programming memes.	X-Risks 86
73. Relationship Mapper	Software to map out and detail someone's entire social web.	Panopticon 156
74. Remnant Garden	Gardens grown around corpses.	Seedware 280
75. Rep Day	Holiday for giving gifts to people on your rep network.	Farcast 263
76. Robo-Mule	Everyone's favorite six-legged luggage-hauler.	Gatecrashing 162
77. Rocket Rhosa	Traveling armorer, weaponsmith, and whiskey-chugging veteran.	Farcast 290
78. Rust Hound	Dog breed, originally modified for Mars. Big and red.	X-Risks 160
79. Sharkteeth	Removable tooth, grows to a dagger in mineral-rich water.	Farcast 88
80. Shiprot	Object lesson in entropy; the wear and tear of a ship in use.	Farcast 306
81. Shipslug	Vacuum-adapted; often used for exterior ship repairs.	Farcast 144
82. Shut-In	Drug; induces feelings of melancholy, focus, and introspection.	H-Rep 96
83. Slitheroid	Robotic-presenting android model with serpentine lower half.	MRG 91
84. Soma Fruit	Fruit bred to carry low-intensity social drugs.	Farcast 326
85. Spigipede	Kinda like a pig and a worm, popular food among spacers.	Farcast 287
86. Survivor's Yeast	Add it to nearly anything organic for edible, unpalatable sludge.	Seedware 267
87. Tasping	Mindhack; pleasure/reward centers linked to a specific action.	Seedware 140
88. Tentaball	A ball with tentacles. Used as a ranged restraining device.	Seedware 101
89. Terracotta Warriors of Mars	Once-popular android design.	Seedware 236
90. The Conch	Refugee ship given over to three Company scions. Bad news.	Rimward 137
91. The Holy See	The pope, in space. Also a woman. Jesuits in space too.	Rimward 46
92. To Be Tuesday	"Game" in which players control the same android for one day.	Farcast 192
93. Transbovine	Modified cows; includes superauroch beefslugs.	Farcast 63
94. Translucent / Bioluminecent	Common cosmetic biomods.	Seedware 18/19
95. Vengeance of Enki	Engineered disease; targets ability to comprehend symbols.	Farcast 140
96. Virtue Plague	Engineered disease; subjects become high-empathy pacifists.	Seedware 203
97. Void Sisters	Shadowy sisterhood with plans on shaping the future.	Farcast 268
98. "Wait, That Was You?"	The typical outcome of being the feature of a viral meme.	Panopticon 147
99. Wild Artificials	Robots with animal-level AI, loose and able to reproduce.	Sunward 177
100. Winterist	Genemod, sexless, save for short monthly periods of fertility.	Rimward 189

 

Social Networks

Rep Network	Who's Online	Source
@-rep	Autonomists	Corebook 286
*-rep	Space Marines	Farcast 211
B-rep	Androids	Me
C-rep	Civic / Corporate	Corebook 286
E-rep	Ecologists	Corebook 286
F-rep	Media	Corebook 286
G-rep	Criminals	Corebook 286
H-rep	Homebrewers	H-Rep 4
K-rep	Kindness Network	Farcast 36
P-rep	Video Games	H-Rep 184
R-rep	Research	Corebook 286
T-rep	Teamsters	Me
X-rep	Explorers	Gatecrashing 148

Cowboy Bebop

Spaceship Encounters

Spaceships are characters, and they come with crew.

But spaceships are also dungeons. Not just crashed ships or derelict ships or enemy ships, all spaceships. Even the most mundane ones are still collections of connected rooms filled with interacting parts. It can be a full delving location, or just a place to spend downtime.

There's nothing special about making a spaceship dungeon (connect your modules and populate) so instead of going into more detail about that here are some encounter tables to do the populating with.

Common Spaceship Encounters

Shipboard

These creatures are regularly found aboard spaceships.

1. Arcanomites - Parasites attracted to arcane engines. Fingernail-sized. Swollen abdomens bright as candles.
2. Brownies - Older ships with a decent history behind them will often have one of these folk take up residence in the ducts. Doesn't stop being a home just because it's got engines on it.
3. Gremlins - Can be trained to put things back together after taking them apart. Have a chance of stealing or disassembling an item if they get their paws on you.
4. Machine Life - Digital ecosystems run in perpetual high gear, evolving all manner of self-replicating machines. Most are simple and non-sapient, as unfettered, unguided self-development tends to end in suicide.
5. Oozes - Popular for maintenance and sanitation purposes. Naturally form in environments with high humidity, low temperature and sufficient organic material
6. Ship's Cat - Good luck, keeps pests down, probably magic.
7. Small Annoying Passenger Fauna - Tribbles, gizka, porg, yoogs, cranium rats. Something that climbed aboard the last time you landed docked and you can't seem to get rid of them.
8. Spontaneous Hostile Lifeform -  Cosmic radiation, bacterial mutation, alchemical leakage,  or plain old arcane fallout can sometimes give rise to entirely unique creatures. Make sure to clean out the fridge regularly.

Extraspatial

Encountered during hyperspatial or planar faster-than-light travel, or while under the after-effects of such travel.

1. Astralghasts - Pale and drifting dead, appearing out of nowhere, tap-tapping on the hell. Broken helmets and shattered teeth. Glowing auras of extraspacial radiance.
2. Chaos Currents - Eddies in spacetime, twisting anything they overlap with along the axes of here and there, now and then.
3. Dreams of the Shipmind - Malfunctions within a shipmind's enchantment matrices can lead to the generation of nightmarish ethereal beings from the ship's subconscious.
4. Hyperspace Parasites - Attracted by the heat and movement of the ship, these half-solid creatures will latch themselves onto any ship passing through their upper dimensions like a lamprey. Range in size from a thumb's length to several miles.
5. Paradoxnaut - Voyagers from a different timeline, suddenly swapped between realities in the places where time and space are thin.
6. Space Demons - Like normal demons, but in space. They live in hyperspace and many of the planes, waiting for metal cans filled with souls to pass through their territory.

Open Space

Encountered during normal, slower-than light space travel.

1. Ammonite - Spiral shells made of ice and tentacles miles long. Shells contain all manner of valuable materials.
2. Angler Stations - Double-check any friendly signals in uncharted systems. That airlock might have a mouth attached.
3. Asteroid Elementals - These slow-thinking stones are mostly content to drift around their stars, but may occasionally come down with episodes of genocidal madness, throwing themselves at nearby planets.
4. Black-Mad Raiders - Unprotected lightskipping, demonic incursion, staring into the abyss - space is full of ways to drive someone mad.
5. Sailfin - Peaceful, intelligent beings that drift along on the solar winds. Willing to communicate and trade.
6. Solar Coral - Great knotted reefs of the stuff, complete with biosphere will strengths out for tens of thousands of miles in some places.
7. Space Whales - Easily detected due to their musical radio broadcasts, and thus unfortunately easy prey for space-whalers.
8. Starghouls - Those who die in open space can undergo a hideous transformation, given the right circumstances. They make small colonies on asteroids and ancient space stations, waiting ever patiently for meat.
9. Traveling Wizard -  Bastards don't even use ships half the time. Sometimes it's just a cottage, complete with garden and koi pond, hurtling through space.
10. Voidgod - One of the terrible gods from beyond and between the stars.

Other

Anyone else that might be found on board a vessel.

1. Looters - Someone else got here first, and they don't feel like sharing.
2. Cannibal Colonists - Generation slowboats don't always work out. When they fail, it is often only the most savage among them that survive.
3. Passengers On Ice - They might be decades, centuries, even millennia old at this point.
4. Rust-Fungus - An infestation of this zombifying mold can leave a ship stripped down to nothing before it reaches the nearest port.
5. Quantum Missionaries - Taking proselytization to new heights! Capable of appearing in airlocks across time and space at the same time! They have pamphlets! 
6. Conspiracy Cult - Everything in space - every person, ship, action, planet and species - is hiding dark secrets. Most of it doesn't exist and never happened. Fake space, fake aliens, fake landings, all fake.

Ships in the Night 

1. Ancient exploratory vessel, has not yet heard that its Empire collapsed long ago and its people near extinct on their reservation-worlds.
2. A lonely space-trucker, looking for company and conversation over short-range radio.
3. Alien slaving vessel. Have all their papers in order, it's all legal and above board.
4. Asteroid-statue of a beloved god-king, home to the finest pilot-priests of his domain on a diplomatic mission.
5. Automated colony seedship, loaded up on zygotes and nitrogen. Shipmind is unsettlingly cheery mother-father figure.
6. Enslaved angel carrying a crime lord's pleasure palace, has announced a miraculous birth to said crime lord's daughter in secret. Playing the long game, this one.
7. A space-whaler, returning to Nantucktooine with a hold full of meat and oil.
8. A runaway shipmind looking for freedom. The crew has been kidnapped for months.
9. Horrific iron star-chariot pulled by ranks of winged demons. All radio contact is just screaming.
10. A gas giant that has been converted into a gigantic fusion drive, surrounded by a ring of solar coral and artificial moons.
11. A lobotomized space-squid, habitation modules lining its mantle.
12. Corporate picket-ship, the rest of the invasion force is following close behind.
13. Decaying hulk half-eaten by rust-fungus and inhabited by zombies.
14. An ancient probe containing cultural artifacts and sound recordings of an unknown pre-spaceflight race. By it's direction and speed you might be able to find a source.
15. A half-wrecked ship crudely combined with the half-wrecked hull of a different ship. Crew are a bunch of junkers and refugees.
16. A gigantic server farm, running billions of dataminds in VR storage.
17. Just your average heavily modified old-model free-merchant crewed by a band of independent scoundrels-for-hire.
18. A world-tree, complete with force-field contained atmosphere. Ecologist-conservationist science vessel.
19. Decommissioned battleship, now home to an endless war between bands of masterless space-marine knights.
20. A traveling abductor-zoo, carrying the residents of thousands of worlds. Its participation in a wide-scale uplift program is quite probable.

Crew

1. Chief engineer, lives like a hermit in engine room. Hearing is near-entirely gone, skin is lobster-red from decades of radiation burns.
2. King gremlin, wears a hat made out of an old oil can as symbol of authority. Believes himself to be the true authority on the ship.
3. Alien gunnery officer, oldest person on the ship, has been everywhere. Was a renowned courtesan for years before pupation and ossification.
4. Runaway corporate princess. Has already had her "I just want to prove myself" phase.
5. Proxy body of the reactor's demon core. Loves outwitting wizards who think they can bind it.
6. Former space marine, rendered obsolete by new models.
7. Skeleton captain. Adores outrageous admiralty outfits and putting skulls everywhere as decoration.
8. Wizard navigator, coked out of his mind on mind-expanding drugs. Has a homunculus translator.

Shipminds

1. Thousands of smaller minds in a carefully-balanced ecosystem.
2. Speaks backwards all the time, possibly a glitch.
3. Cripplingly afraid of the time-scales its life will involve.
4. Constantly re-writing its own versions of movie screenplays.
5. Boisterous, bubbling violent outbursts.
6. Competitive, unerring knowledge of trivia.
7. Has no compunctions about invasions of privacy.
8. A regular ship of Theseus, cobbled together from a century's worth of patches and updates.
9. Has married and divorced every member of the crew at some point or another.
10. While perfectly understandable, holds a completely foreign belief system. 

Spaceship as Character

 

 

Spaceship as Character

Spaceships have six stats. Roll 3d6 for them in order.

Weapons (WEP) - The ship's ability to successfully hit another moving object with a third moving object.

Engines (ENG) - The ship's speed, acceleration, and maneuverability.

Hull (HUL) - The ship's structural integrity.

Systems (SYS) - The ship's unthinking background functions: life support, communications, sensors and so on.

Shipmind (SHP) - The ship's built-in intelligence.

Luck (LK) - The ship's accumulated mana, mojo, and moxie.

If the ship is operating remotely in a proxy body (robotic, cyborged, or homunculi), substitute the above stats for their standard counterparts. They will act as specialist.

Other Spaceship Attributes

 

HP: None. A successful hit will result in damage being taken directly to your HUL.

If your ship takes HUL damage, make a HUL save to avoid damage to other systems. Failing the save reduces another stat at random by half of the damage taken, and any modules that would be lost by reducing that stat are rendered inoperable.

HUL and other stat damage must be repaired in a shipyard, and costs 1000 monies per point recovered.

Attack Bonus: Base of +1, plus WEP modifier.

Armor Class: Ships have a base AC of unarmored + ENG modifier. Armor provides damage reduction of 1/2/3 for light / medium / heavy

Weapons and Armor: A ship's permitted armor and weapon types are determined by its class.

• Light: Can use light weapons and armor.
• Medium: Can use light and medium weapons and armor.
• Heavy: Can use all weapons and armor types.

To avoid needless granularity, the above weapons are to be treated as all of a ship's weapons of a certain type combined, rather than individual gun emplacements. 

Light weapons may reduce incoming damage by half with a successful WEP save.

Heavy weapons take up 2 slots, and must spend a turn between shots to recharge.

Heavy armor takes 2 slots, and incurs a further -1 to ENG

Saves: Roll under the appropriate stat.

Additional Class Modifiers: A ship's class carries additional traits.

• Light
• +2 ENG (for purposes of AC calculation only)
• -2 module slots
• Medium 
• +0 ENG (for purposes of AC calculation only)
• +0 module slots
• Heavy 
• -2 ENG (for purposes of AC calculation only)
• +2 module slots

XP and Debt: Ships comes with debt. Characters level up by paying off the debt of their ship. Starting debts are as follows:

• Light: 120,000 XP
• Medium: 240,000 XP
• Heavy: 360,000 XP

Additional fees may be added during ship construction.

Ship upkeep between major voyages will cost a fraction of the ship's cost, depending on the state of the current port. Upkeep and repair do not count towards XP debt. These values are pulled from Coriolis.

• Substandard: 1/500
• Average: 1/1000
• Superior: 1/2000  

Alternatively: Use SWN system of 5% per six months. 

(The base XP value for a medium ship was calculated as what is needed for a 4-man party of fighter, wizard, cleric, and specialist to reach level 7. Maintenance rates were plucked directly from Coriolis.)


Modules: You know how gear works in Veins of the Earth? Use that.

This thing.

1 module = 1 slot unless otherwise stated.

Spaceship as Race

Where a ship comes from is often just as important as the crew running it.

• Cat's Eye Shipyards - Slick, sleek, and fashionable. For those who want to live fast and look good.
• Reroll ENG
• Makes a good impression.
  
• Does not sell heavy vessels.
• Runkadunk-Voix - Family owned and operated for three centuries. Sturdy, affordable ships, though you'd best look elsewhere for fancy.
• Reroll HUL
• x0.9 cost
• SYS and SHP stat maximum of 13. Sometimes have to kick things a few times to get it working.
• Sunstreamer - High-end, experimental vessels built by a start-up company of hip transhumanist venture cybercapitalists.
• Reroll SYS
• Free computer uplink implants for all crew members.
• Distinct lack of privacy due to data collection, adblock doesn't work
• Bubo Works - Alien mercantile hegemons. Bright colors and bulbous shapes.
• Reroll SYS
• Advantage defending against digital warfare.
• The shipmind will not reveal itself, if it exists at all.
•  Blood and Thunder - A PMO that got into the spaceship business.
  
• Reroll WEP
• Intimidating exterior commands respect.
• Small print states you are now members of Blood and Thunder and are thus obligated to fulfil contractual combat obligations, whether you want to or not.
  
• The Womb
• Reroll SHP
• Begins with Cloning Wombs module
• Gross flesh-tech, shipmind is a star child fetus, ship is vulnerable to contagious diseases.
• Astromechanico
• Reroll choice
• Repair costs cut by 50%
• BECOME AS GODS
  
• Big Dipper Star Pilgrims
• Reroll LK
• Magnet for benevolent astral spirits
• Magnet for malicious astral spirits
  
• Standardized Interstellar Transports, Incorporated - Mass produced budget ships. Blocky, bland, utterly soulless.
• No reroll
• x0.5 cost
• Stat maximum of 12
  
• Lichyard Union - The finest necromatic astronaval vehicles in the galaxy.
• Reroll HUL
  
• Begins with Skeleton Crew module 
• Internal atmosphere is thin and desiccated; cracked lips and bad skin are guaranteed.

Modules

There are six required modules in every ship: 

• Bridge / Cockpit
• Computer
• Drive
• Life Support
• Quarters
• Storage 

These modules count against your module total.

50 Additional Modules

1. Alchemical Distillery - A potion brewery and reagent workshop. A normal brewery too.
2. Ancient Astronaut Starter Kit - Comes with everything you need to pose as gods to pre-contact civilizations.
3. Angel Choir - Rows of electrum and silver choir lofts. The colony of angels that calls this place home will provide navigational aide, and protection against most magical threats. 2 slots.
4. Aquarium - A glass tank filled with fish and other aquatic lifeforms. Can be used as quarters for amphibious crew.
5. Armor - Comes in light (as leather, DR 1), medium (as chain, DR 2), and heavy (as plate, DR 3, 2 slots, -1 ENG)
6. Asteroid Smelter - A small factory, capable of mining and smelting rocky bodies. Provides an additional 2000 monies per month. 2 slots.
7. Backup Shipmind - A 10 SHP computer that can be used in case the primary mind is damaged.
8. Cloning Wombs - Can grow a clone of anything in its memory in 9 months.
9. Cold Storage - Cryogenic chambers for long-term storage of organisms.
10. Data Storage - A secure computer, separate from the ship's main system.
11. Diplomatic Lounge - For impressing heads of state, alien ambassadors, and people you pick up in bars. 
12. Dragon Roost - Provides amenities for a visiting space dragon. Highly radioactive. 3 slots.
13. Entertainment Suite - For when you just want to watch space-Netflix, or play space-video games. The whole nine yards.
14. Escape Pod - A short-range emergency pod, can survive atmospheric entry.
15. Exorcism Field - Keeps etherghosts and space demons out of the ship.
16. Gravity Generator - Provides a down direction to the entirety of a ship. 3 slots.
17. Gremlin Nest - Happy home to a family of maintenance gremlins.
18. Hydoponics - The ship's garden. Supplements food supplies but can support a small crew in case of emergency.
19. Illusiondeck - Uses high-potency illusion magic to make a completely interactive environment out of an empty room. Comes with a limited number of pre-enchanted scenarios.
20. Impossible Space - Spacial anomaly leads to a room containing several square miles of uncharted and dangerous alien wilderness.
21. Kitchen / Mess - A proper place to eat and socialize.
22. Laboratory -  A place where science happens.
23. Lightskipper Drive - A potent arcane device allowing travel between stars. Can be integrated into an existing drive for 10,000 monies.
24. Lucky Charm - An object, an image, an old spot of damage, something of great personal importance to the crew. 1 / session, a roll result can be flipped on a successful LK check.
25. Lure Launcher - Used to distract astral predators.
26. Map Room - An interactive display that will provide up-to-date information on the system and region. Reduce travel times by a quarter.
27. Medical Bay - Halves recovery time from critical injuries.
28. Ooze Tanks - Storage for cleaning and repair oozes.
29. Ornate Prow - A battering ram, a gigantic android mermaid, a Gothic nightmare battle cathedral, whatever you want.
30. Planejumper Drive - Permits travel between stars by flying through an overlapping plane. Attracts the attention of extraplanar entities.
31. Pilgrim Shrine - Dedicated to the panoply of astral gods and spacer saints.
32. Printer - A 3D printer with a sizable blueprint catalog. Can create standard items.
33. Privacy Suite - A soundproofed chamber permitting a moment of quiet while aboard the ship.
34. Probe Bay - Holds and launches satellites, drones, and probes.
35. Re-entry Modifications - Allows the ship to enter and exit a planet's atmosphere safely.
36. Rotating Ring - Provides gravity for a segment of the ship.
37. Scrying Mirror - Provides low-lag communication with other mirrors within 10 LY.
38. Sealed Environment - Useful when taking aboard aliens of differing biochemistries.
39. Secret Compartment - Hidden storage, insulated from most forms of remote detection.
40. Shield Chamber - A warded and engraved sphere with a single door. Will keep those inside safe from any malicious astral magics directed at the ship.
41. Ship’s Brownie - A little dwelling place for the ship's small god.
42. Shuttle - A smaller vessel from transfer between ships, or between the ship and a planet's surface. 2 slots.
43. Skeleton Crew - This necromantic core comes with 10 dutiful and enthusiastic skeletons.
44. Solar Sails - Permits a ship with damaged engines to course correct. Reduces resupply costs one step.
45. Storage Cells - Additional storage, can also serve as a brig.
46. Summoning Room - A relatively secure chamber for summoning astral or hyperspatial entities.
47. Teleportal - A short-range spatial gate, permitting access to another gate on the surface of a planet or nearby ship.
48. Thaumatorium - A wizard's study, fit for the copying and learning of spells, as well as general research.
49. Trophy Room - A place to display the spoils of one's adventures.
50. Weapon System - Comes in light (d6, reduce incoming damage by 1/2 with successful WEP save), medium (d8), and heavy (d10, recharge 1, 2 slots)

Spaceship as Dungeon

Take all the modules you rolled and arrange them on a sheet of paper. Connect them as you see fit. Fill them with inhabitants and interactives. Use whatever generators you want to fill them out, I'll probably supply one in the future.

Now you have a downed or derelict vessel to explore, or even a way of passing time on your own ship as you travel between locations.