Crown Meridian Ship Catalog · Chapter 2

Reading a Crown Entry

Every ship line in Chapters 5 to 8 opens with a plate, a description, notes on what each generation changed, and its common variants. One stat block follows for each generation, then the line's Generation Table. The stat block is the same one the Void Drifters Vehicles Manual prints, and the CM-440, CM-540 and CM-640 show the same numbers in both books. This chapter explains every part of the block; the Vehicles Manual, Chapter 16, Reading an Entry, keys the same block. The rules behind each number are in the Vehicles Manual: Chapter 3 lists every statistic, Chapter 8 covers weapons and Deflection, Chapter 10 covers modules, and Chapter 13 covers how a hull is built.

Annotated Example: CM-440

#	Part	The CM-440 shows	Read it as
1	Header band	CM-440, Armored Cutter	Designation, then class
2	Identity line	Crown Meridian Shipworks, CM-440 family; Scale 4	Builder and line; the badge is the Scale
3	Market line	Role, 420,000cr, Licensed	What it is bought for, catalog price, paperwork
4	Flight strip	Speed 4, Cruise 3, Handling +0, Standard sensors	How it moves and sees
5	Hull strip	Armor 3, Deflection 0 / 0, Hull Points 22, System Points 14	How it takes damage
6	Engineering strip	Power 9, Heat Threshold 11, Heat Dissipation 2, Module Slots 4 (1 open)	What it can run and fit
7	Complement strip	Crew 3 / 6, Passengers 8, Cargo Units 20, Consumables 2 months	Who and what it carries, and for how long
8	Weapons table	Typical Loadout (one row shown here)	The weapons most hulls carry, with their numbers
9	Rated	Slipstream, limited atmosphere, landing	Drive, atmospheric package, landing gear
10	AI Core	Professional Directive AI	The AI Core grade
11	Mounts	3 Light, 1 Standard, 5 points	Weapon mounts and their hardpoint points
12	Modules	Three modules, 1 open	The factory package and the slots left
13	Builder	Crown benefits; Armor 4 against collisions	Where the builder rules are, and the number they change
14	Trait	Reinforced Compartments	The line's own rule

The Header Band and Identity Line

Designation (1). Crown's number for the hull, in the style of a federal contract: CM, then the line number, then the generation letter. The first generation has no letter; A is the second and B the third (Generations, below).

Class (1). What the hull does: boarding craft, armored shuttle, armored cutter, vault courier, escort corvette, industrial vessel, institutional frigate, convoy carrier. Class follows Scale. Vehicles Manual, Chapter 4, lists the classes at each Scale.

Builder and family (2). Crown Meridian Shipworks and the line the hull belongs to. A generation that captains still ask for by name is marked Classic here.

Scale badge (2). The hull's size class. Scale sets the hull's build budget and caps (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 13) and its effects in play (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 3, Scale). Crown builds from Scale 3 to Scale 7.

The Market Line

Role (3). The jobs most buyers fit the hull for. It is a summary of the line's Common Variants, not a rule.

Price (3). The catalog price in credits, factory new at a Crown yard, with the factory package and the typical loadout fitted. Vehicles Manual, Chapter 12, adjusts it for the market and for condition; Chapter 10 of this book gives used prices. A military hull prints a Prize Value in this cell instead: the same figure, used for captures and salvage claims. Crown sells no military hulls, so every Crown block prints a Price.

Acquisition (3). The paperwork a legal buyer needs (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 12).

Acquisition	Who may own the hull
Open	Anyone, through most shipyards and brokers
Licensed	A registered operator: a valid operator's licence or a corporate affiliation
Restricted	A buyer with government contractor clearance, military affiliation or verified security credentials
Military	Sovereign fleets only; in civilian hands it is stolen or a prize

The Flight Strip

Speed (4). The number of range bands the ship moves with one Advance or Break Maneuver in combat (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 15, Speed).

Cruise (4). The in-system travel rating, from 1 to 5. It sets the length of a travel Interval in normal space (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 6). Cruise 3 needs a Licensed engine and Cruise 4 a Restricted one.

Handling (4). Positive Handling adds that many Boon Dice to Pilot checks and to attacks with Fixed Forward weapons; negative Handling adds that many Bane Dice . +0 adds nothing.

Sensors (4). The sensor grade: Basic, Standard, Extended or Military (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 7).

The Hull Strip

Armor (5). Reduces the Hull Damage of each hit by its value, less the weapon's Pierce. It reduces System Damage only from weapons with the Ion tag, and then by half its value (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 8, Armor).

Deflection F/A (5). Fore value, then aft value. Each attack against the ship from its Fore facing adds the fore value in Bane Dice , and each attack from its Aft facing adds the aft value. An attack from Port or Starboard adds the lower of the two. Deflection applies to attacks of every type and does not reduce damage. It comes from the ship's Defensive Control system; each point of System Damage marked on Defensive Control lowers both values by 1 until repaired (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 8, Deflection). Screens are a separate defense and add their own dice.

Hull Points (5). Hull Damage counts up from 0. When it reaches the Hull Points, the ship is destroyed: it breaks up at the end of the next round (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 3, Destroyed).

System Points (5). System Damage counts up from 0. When it reaches the System Points, the ship is out of control: weapons, screens and drive go offline and the ship drifts until repairs bring System Damage below System Points (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 3, Out of Control).

The Engineering Strip

Power (6). Power Capacity: the most Power Load the reactor sustains at once. When Load exceeds Capacity, the engineer must act (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 6).

Heat Threshold (6). The Heat at which penalties begin (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 6).

Heat Dissipation (6). The Heat the ship removes at the end of each round. Scale and operator tier set it; a generation that bought a step prints one more than its line (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 13, Step Five).

Module Slots (open) (6). The hull's Module Slots, then in brackets the slots the factory package leaves open. A crew can fit a module in an open slot (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 10, Installing a Module).

The Complement Strip

Crew (7). Minimum crew, then standard crew (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 3, Crew; Chapter 14, Crew Size). On the CM-440, 3 / 6 means:

• With 6 or more crew aboard, every station can be held.
• With 3 to 5, some stations stand empty each round, or crew cover two stations.
• With fewer than 3, every check aboard adds 1 Bane Die for each crew member short of 3, on top of the empty stations.

Crew quarters are sized for the standard crew and come with the hull (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 3, Berths). Anyone else aboard takes a passenger berth or a barracks bunk.

Passengers (7). Berths beyond the standard crew. The standard crew plus the passengers is the ship's complement: the number of people it keeps alive indefinitely (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 3, Complement and Life Support).

Cargo Units (7). Secured hold space. One Cargo Unit holds one tonne of ordinary packaged freight (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 3, Cargo Units).

Consumables (7). How long the ship's supplies last for its standard crew. Passengers, troops and prisoners aboard shorten it (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 3, Consumables). The CM-120 boarding craft is a small craft and prints Endurance in this cell instead.

The Weapons Table

Typical Loadout (8). The weapons most hulls of the generation carry. Under each weapon's name, in small type, are the size of mount it uses (and the larger mount it sits in, if it is not its own size), its arc, and its tags. A crew may refit any mount (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 12, Hardpoints).

Column	What it is
Range	The range bands the weapon reaches
Hull	Hull Damage of a hit with one Success; each further Success adds 1
Sys	System Damage of a hit; a dash means none
Crit	The Boons that inflict a Critical Hit on a hit that dealt damage; a dash means it cannot
Heat	Heat the weapon adds each time it fires
Pwr	Power Load the weapon draws while firing or targeting

×2, ×3 (8). The number of identical weapons in that arc. A gunner fires one weapon or one battery with an Action; identical weapons in one arc may fire together as a battery (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 15, One Weapon or One Battery per Action). The full weapon entries are in Vehicles Manual, Chapter 8.

The Labelled Rows

Rated (9). Whether the ship has a Slipstream Drive; its atmospheric package (full, limited, or none; Vehicles Manual, Chapter 9); and whether it has landing gear.

AI Core (10). The grade of directive AI the hull carries (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 7). Professional Directive AI is the standard fit for a Professional hull.

Mounts (11). The weapon mounts by size, then their total in hardpoint points: Light 1, Standard 2, Heavy 3, Capital 4. A mount takes one weapon of its own size or smaller. When the typical loadout leaves a mount free, the row ends with the empty mounts (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 8, Hardpoints and Mounts).

Modules (12). The factory package, then the number of slots left open. A number in brackets after a module is the slots it fills; a module with no number fills one. "×2" means two of that module (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 10, Appendix: Module Catalog).

Hangar and Carried by. A carrier's Hangar row gives its bays and how many craft of which Scale they hold. A small craft's Carried by row names the Crown hulls that carry it (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 10, Carried Craft).

Builder (13). Crown's Signature benefits and Weak drawbacks, and Integrated Architecture, all set out in Chapter 4. The row also gives the one number they change for this hull: its Armor against collisions, rams and Critical Hits, one higher than printed.

Trait (14). The line's own rule. Where a generation changes it, that generation's block prints the changed trait.

Grade

Every Crown hull is Professional grade. Grade sets a hull's caps on Armor, hardpoint points, Power and Heat Threshold, its Heat Dissipation, and its standard AI Core. Grade is the standard the hull was built to; Acquisition is the paperwork a buyer needs. A Professional hull can be Licensed or Restricted (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 13, Operator Tier Is Not Acquisition).

Generations

A generation is a federal contract revision. It keeps its line's silhouette and role and changes the numbers.

Letter	Meaning
None	The first generation of the line
A	The second generation
B	The third generation

Letters never skip and never repeat. A change of class or frame is a new line and takes a new number. A generation makes one main change and at most one smaller one. Many Crown lines sit at the Professional cap for Armor, hardpoint points or Power, so most generations improve Hull Points, System Points, Module Slots, Heat Dissipation or Deflection instead.

Classic. An older generation that captains still ask for by name. Its generation notes say what it does better than its replacement. Crown's two Classics are the CM-440A and the first-generation CM-640.

The Generation Table

Each line ends with a Generation Table. Change is what the generation altered. Build points is what the hull spends of its Scale's budget under the hull design rules (Vehicles Manual, Chapter 13); the rest is unspent and pays for retrofits. Upgrade from previous is the cost of turning the previous generation into this one at a Crown yard: double the build points and the credits in Chapter 4, Generation Upgrades.

Worked Example

A crew is looking at a CM-440A.

1. Find it. Chapter 6, the CM-440 line, the second block. It has 24 Hull Points, 14 System Points, 5 Module Slots with 2 open, and costs 449,000cr.
2. Read the crew. Crew 3 / 6: three people can fly it, and six hold every station. With 8 passengers its complement is 14.
3. Read the build. The Generation Table gives 114.0 of 190 build points, so the hull has 76 points unspent for retrofits.
4. Read the upgrade. A CM-440 becomes a CM-440A for 14 retrofit points and 39,000cr. The CM-440 spends 107.0 points and has 83 unspent, so the upgrade fits.
5. Read the marker. The CM-440A is a Classic. Captains who expect to be rammed ask for it, because it keeps Reinforced Compartments in full.
6. Decide. Buy the A new, upgrade a CM-440, or buy a serviceable used A at 0.55 of its price, 246,950cr (Chapter 10).