Merchant ship

[Arcanum]

Hi every one!
Im new in this forum

and I got some troubles making a ship
this ship is not a battle one
this is a ship that give cover to the activities of a mercenarie/assassine (coda system).
I cannot found any ship in the Spacedock and the SRM

I ask to Steve Long for asistance
and he recomendme to modify a Deneva class or look for an old ship in the fourth volume of the SMR and upgrade it to the present

someone has other recomendation?

thanks

PS: sorry about my english, is not so well , Im from Argentina.

[Dr. Jonas Bashir]

Er, hello fellow Argentinian.

(he's one of my players... I guess I shouldn't spoil about my next eps on the Narrator's forum from now on )

One of his intentions is to modify a Deneva-class vessel to make something similar (but from another power/design lineage), as the great Steve recommended.

The main points you should address are: sleekness, speed, cover capacity (sensor reflection, cloaking capacity). Everything depends on his wealth... and my evilness as a GM.

Any other suggestions?

[Lancer]

If this is for a Coda game I would suggest building something based on the Herbert-class, as shown in the NG:
You could increase the shield threshold from 2 to 3 without changing the deflector class and convert some cargo space to a shuttlebay and add some more weapons and/or better sensors.
Plus with a crew complement of only 6 she would be a good ship for a small group of PCs to handle on their own.

One thing I certainly wouldn't recommend is modifying any existing design too much. If you absolutly insist on sleekness and speed and cloaks and so on you should rather convert a ship that allready has some of those attributes (e.g. a small, fast courier).
But if you want to stay undercover and pretend you are nothing more than a fat dumb merchie better keep the modifications to something that will escape even a closer inspection or a sweep from Starfleet-grade sensors.

OTOH, that's just me...

[Cybrludite]

I'd recomend that weapon masking system from "Among The Clans". Did anyone ever come up w/ Spacedock stats for that thing?

[Dr. Jonas Bashir]

Quick and dirty rules:

Weapon Signature Damping Field

A system designed and perfected by the Andorian Defense Force scientists around mid-23rd Century, it alters the weapons' emmissions to make it resemble an ordinary piece of equipment. Usually, nadion and anti-proton accelerators are the components in phasers and disruptors that give out the biggest evidence of weapon presence to enemies. The damping field diverts energy to weapon banks with variable, distinctive signatures, so they look like an entirely different thing, like drilling equipment, sensor banks, tractor beams, etc.

It kept being updated by the ADF until these days. Parallel, 'inspired' designs from other races (some suspect of a traitor high-level ADF officer) emulate this damping field, giving pirate and courier ships an advantage against the authorities.

Space taken (in SUs): 3 x size
Power consumption: 200/round

Inspired from "Among the Clans: The Andorians" page 70.