Ok, one of the toughest things for me to do when creating a ship is determining its class and to compound it, differentiating between the terms. So i was wondering what is the difference between a courier and a runabout?
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Ok, one of the toughest things for me to do when creating a ship is determining its class and to compound it, differentiating between the terms. So i was wondering what is the difference between a courier and a runabout?
Well a courier would be designed to go fast for long distances. Where a runabout would more be a short-range slow-medium speed vessel.
Ah, thanks
Pretty much what Ice Giant said...
A Courier would be a dedicated vessel with no real multimission capability, and with a fairly high warp-speed, while a runabout is a modular multimission platform capable of only warp 5.
A courier probably only has a crew of 2, as good a shield as can be crammed into it, and minimal weaponry. Runabouts... well, we all know what runabouts are capable of.
Its a shame they never really had any couriers on the show to give us an idea what they are like! I kind of always took it by inferrement that some kind of really fast small ship existed in Starfleet.
The Runabouts were more or less the smallest fully functional starship built ! Technically they could be used as a courier, but they aren't so fast. i suspect most couriers would be larger by implication, but then you might have something like that Vulcan shuttle warp sled (a shuttle with BIG warp Nacelles :D)
The Vulcan warp sled from ST: TMP is a excellent example of what a courier should be.
It always singularly annoyed me that in all of the chronologies and technical documents it is listed as a 'Vulcan' ship - I mean come on guys - it's a shuttle with a pair of warp nacelles! :D Mr. Spock was inside the Enteprise, does that make it a Vulcan ship too ? :D
However yes it is a good example of what a Courier would be - very basic but it'd get you there! :D
I agree about the "Vulcan" warp sled. But it is considered canon by most that its a vulcan ship. I have also seen those same shuttles in the hangerbay of the Enterprise in ST: TSMP. So just reasoned when my players asked that the Vulcans shipyards produced that model of shuttle for the Federation, and Starfleet. But thats just conjecture on my part.
And indeed were. Check out the DS9 episode Valiant. Where Nog rides a Runabout while acting as Courier to Ferenginar and back...Quote:
Originally posted by Tobian
The Runabouts were more or less the smallest fully functional starship built ! Technically they could be used as a courier, but they aren't so fast.
Although that is just one example, it also happens to be (I think) the ONLY example.
Hmm well yes but then as originally stated the Runabouts were for that purpose - that's why they had the custom hangars built for them on the station, so they could serve as small starships for local range missions. Exactly how far Ferenginar is is an interesting subject (Much like most of DS9 travel time was.. as long as it needed to be I mean COME ON guys - this is the frontier and yet you regularly travel to Earth and Qo'nos na dback in a few days! :D) But the Runabouts are often going about all over the place and do apparently have quite a long range.
and no I can't think on any other examples :)