Kharos Ship Catalog ยท Chapter 4
Kharos Builder Rules
Kharos's Signature benefits and Weak drawbacks, what its hulls cost to build, and the rules for marks. A benefit or drawback applies only when the system is used in a situation its entry names (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Five, How Builder Benefits Work).
Signature Benefits
Benefits follow the component. A Kharos Signature system gains its benefit when it is installed in a Kharos hull or in a hull from one of Kharos's Partners: Openframe (Chapter 11). In any other hull it works as a Standard system. One benefit applies per check, and a benefit that adds a Boon Die to an attack counts toward the limit of 2 free Boon Dice per attack (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Fifteen, The Boon Limit).
| System | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Sublight Engines | When the ship Overburns (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Fifteen) or makes a Hard Burn (Chapter Six), add 1 Boon Die to the check the push requires and reduce the Heat it generates by 1 |
| Maneuvering Thrusters | Remove 1 Bane Die from Pilot checks for evasive maneuvers, lateral repositioning, sudden direction changes, and precision docking in confined or cluttered space |
| Damage Control | Add 1 Boon Die to Emergency Repair and Emergency Patch checks. The crew may make repairs that Chapter Eleven reserves for a yard, such as Hull Damage beyond half the ship's Hull Points, as a field repair at Hard (Chapter Eleven, Field Repair) |
| Workshops | Add 1 Boon Die to Craft checks made in the ship's workshop. A component fabricated there works as a commercial replacement for 1 additional servicing interval (Chapter Twelve, Maintenance) before it must be replaced with a sourced part |
| Salvage Systems and Towing | Add 1 Boon Die to Pilot checks to tow a disabled vessel. A salvage check that would be Severe is Hard instead |
| Cargo Handling | Add 1 Boon Die to cargo handling checks. Oversized, irregular, or hazardous cargo adds no Bane Dice to cargo handling checks aboard |
Integrated Architecture. A Kharos hull with Integrated Architecture (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Five) gains the general benefits listed there and Kharos's own: once per encounter, reduce the difficulty of one emergency repair check by one step.
Weak Drawbacks
Drawbacks follow the hull: they apply whoever built the installed system. Each drawback applies once per situation.
| System | Drawback |
|---|---|
| Signature Management | Add 2 Bane Dice to the ship's Signature Management checks. Entering Cold Running Mode takes 4 rounds instead of 2, and the engineer must succeed at an Average Craft check to enter it at all (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Seven) |
| Refined AI Integration | Installing a non-Kharos AI Core adds 2 Bane Dice on top of the integration modifier |
| Thermal Quieting | In any round the ship fires one or more weapons, it gains 1 additional Heat on top of each weapon's listed Heat |
| Luxury Accommodations | On a voyage longer than one week, Charm, Leadership, and Negotiation checks made with the ship's passengers add 1 Bane Die |
Grade and Build Costs
Every Kharos hull is built to the Civilian operator tier. In the hull build rules (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Thirteen) that means the Civilian caps on Armor, hardpoint points, Power Capacity and Heat Threshold and on Hull Points, System Points, Speed and Handling; the Civilian Heat Dissipation for the Scale; Open-Availability systems as standard, with at most one system above it; and a Basic Automation AI Core, which costs no points. Kharos's Signature allowance raises the cap on Hull Points by one block and on Speed by one step.
Kharos's builder prices follow its Signature and Weak ratings.
| Cheaper at Kharos | Costlier at Kharos |
|---|---|
| Speed (3 per step instead of 4) | System Points (3 per block instead of 2) |
| Hull Points (1 per block instead of 2) | Heat Threshold (3 per step instead of 2) |
| Cargo (1 per block instead of 2) |
A Kharos hull has a lot of hull and a lot of hold and not much else.
Marks
A mark is a standard rebuild of a hull. The rules below govern every mark in this book.
- One primary change and at most one smaller one. Each mark buys one step on the stat the line needs, and one smaller step at most. The Mark Table in each line's entry lists the change.
- Every stat stays inside the Civilian cap. The cap includes the Kharos allowance of one Hull block and one Speed step. A mark never raises a stat past a cap, and no mark buys hardpoints, because a retrofit prices those from the Hardpoints table (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Twelve) instead of the rebuild rate.
- Price rises with the spend. A mark adds its extra build points at the Scale's rate, times 1.85 (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Thirteen, Pricing a Finished Design).
- All marks are in service at once. The oldest mark is the used market and the budget option. A hull can be built new to a mark or rebuilt to it, and the stats are the same.
- A line stops when its caps stop it. Lines reach Mk IV or Mk V only where they are rebuilt most and have room under the caps. The table below shows each line's last mark and the caps that mark uses.
- A hull rebuilt past its last mark is a field special. The GM builds it with the Vehicles Manual, Chapter Thirteen; it is not a catalog hull, it carries no catalog mark on its Rebuild Plate, and it sits outside the Mark Table.
| Line | Marks catalogued | Last mark | At the Civilian cap on the last mark |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prospector Survey Skiff | Mk I to Mk II | Prospector Mk II | Handling, Armor, Hardpoints, Power, Heat Threshold |
| KR-41 Light Freighter | Mk I to Mk V | KR-41 Mk V | Hull, Speed, Armor, Power, Heat Threshold |
| KR-38 Drop Shuttle | Mk I to Mk II | KR-38 Mk II | Hull, Armor, Power |
| KR-51 Salvage Ship | Mk I to Mk IV | KR-51 Mk IV | Hull, System, Armor, Power, Heat Threshold |
| KR-27 Tug | Mk I to Mk III | KR-27 Mk III | Handling, Power, Heat Threshold |
| KR-47 Mining Ship | Mk I to Mk III | KR-47 Mk III | Power, Heat Threshold |
| KR-61 Carrier | Mk I to Mk IV | KR-61 Mk IV | Hull, Armor, Power, Heat Threshold |
| KR-72 Heavy Freighter | Mk I to Mk III | KR-72 Mk III | none |
Classics
A Classic is an older mark that captains still ask for by name. It has one edge the replacement lost, and the mark notes say what the replacement gained and cost. A Classic keeps its used price: the used market does not discount it below its replacement. Kharos has two.
| Classic | The edge | What the replacement gained, and what it cost |
|---|---|---|
| KR-41 Mk I | Field-Service Access in full: removes the Bane Die from improvised tools, inadequate facilities and awkward access, because every service route is clear | Mk II adds Speed 4 and Hull 24, with an engine housing that crowds the crawlway, so the trait no longer covers awkward access. Mk V gives up the trait entirely for Speed 5 and a sealed housing. The crews who still fly the Mk I are the ones who repair it in the dark |
| KR-61 Mk II | Industrial Backbone in full (tow, recover, brace, stabilize) on a hull with the two extra slots and 80 Cargo the Mk I lacked | Mk III adds Speed 3 and Heat Threshold 16 on a rebuilt spine that tows and recovers but no longer braces or stabilizes. Mk IV adds Armor 4 on the same spine. Salvage captains who work wrecks on the edge of breaking up keep the Mk II |
Rebuilding
A hull moves from one mark to the next by a rebuild: a retrofit at a Kharos clan yard (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Thirteen, Upgrading After the Build). It costs double the build points of the change, taken from the hull's unspent budget, and 2.0 times the credit value of those points at the Scale's rate at a Kharos clan yard. Chapter 10 has the yard classes, the Rebuild Plate and the full price list; Chapter 12 lists every rebuild.