Safa Ship Catalog · Chapter 11
Ownership, Certification and Refit
What a Safa hull costs new and used, who may hold its Seal, what the Seal does at a checkpoint, what the Contractor Partners offer a buyer who cannot get a Seal of their own, and when to buy a newer version or refit the one you have.
Condition and Price
Apply the condition multiplier to the catalog price (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Twelve). All versions exist at once, and the older versions are the used market.
| Condition | Multiplier | What you are buying |
|---|---|---|
| Factory new | ×1.00 | Warranty, clean Seal, full service history |
| Serviceable used | ×0.55 | Ten to twenty years old, maintained, documented |
| High hours | ×0.35 | Deferred maintenance, tired systems, incomplete records |
| Salvage title, flying | ×0.25 | Recovered and returned to service; the Seal must be re-issued |
A used Safa hull is cheaper than a new one by the formula and dearer to own than a used hull of any other maker. Every sale is a transfer under the Seal rules below, and the Directorate reviews the sale of every Scale 5, 6 and 7 hull.
Which Version to Buy
| If you want | Buy |
|---|---|
| A pursuit hull that lands, carries a case and works a planet | The S3, or the S3.1 refit |
| The fastest, sharpest pursuit hull, and never to touch a surface | The S4 |
| A boarding craft that can disable a runner | The S17 |
| The cheapest Heavy mount | The S13 |
| A frigate that can carry freight | The S6 or the S6.1 |
| A frigate with the most guns | The S6.2 |
| A cruiser with a hold | The S7 or the S7.1 |
| A hull a Contractor Partner will lease | The S11, S13, S5, S6, S19 or S7 line |
| The cheapest Safa hull that does the job | The first version of any line, serviceable used |
The Certification Seal
Every Safa hull carries a Certification Seal registered to a named holder. The Seal holds the hull's firmware authentication, its ownership record and its refit history. It is a sealed device in the keel and cannot be moved to another hull.
Holders. An individual with Directorate clearance (for the Licensed hulls), a security contractor, a corporate security department, an institution, or a Contractor Partner holding for an operator (below). A Scale 6 or Scale 7 hull is sold only to an institution.
No Seal. A hull with no valid Seal is Gray Ownership (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Twelve). It cannot be authenticated, cannot be serviced at a certified yard and cannot be legally sold. A salvage-titled hull needs a new Seal, issued by the Directorate on the holder's petition.
Stripping on transfer. A Safa hull legally sold to a holder without the clearance for its fit is stripped by the selling authority before release: fire control cores, military sensor suites, encrypted communications and defensive coordination processors, and any weapon above the buyer's tier cap (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Thirteen, Stripping on Transfer).
Transfers
A change of holder is a re-certification at a Safa-certified yard. It costs 3.5% of the hull's condition value and takes a day at Scale 2 to 4, two at Scale 5 and 6 and four at Scale 7. The buyer makes an Authority check: Average for a Licensed hull and a cleared holder, Hard for a Restricted hull, Severe for a hull whose Seal history shows a compliance failure. Chapter 13 lists the fee for every hull.
An unauthorized transfer is a compliance failure. The Seal reports it, the hull is Gray Ownership until a certified yard restores it, and Authority Heat rises as canon says.
Firmware Authentication
At a controlled port or checkpoint in Caliphate space the checkpoint reads the hull's Seal and compares its firmware with the factory record. Resolve it as follows.
| The hull carries | Authentication |
|---|---|
| A valid Seal and only Native and Certified systems | Passes. No check |
| One Adapted system | Average check |
| Two Adapted systems, or one Forced system | Hard check |
| Any Forbidden system, or an Improvised Modification | Severe check |
The check is the checkpoint officer's Electronics check against the hull's AI. A Counter-Intrusion Core (Chapter 10) adds 1 Bane Die to it. On a failure the hull is flagged: its Slipstream Drive, weapons and screens are locked until a certified yard clears the flag, and Authority Heat rises. The crew may try to talk the checkpoint down with a Negotiation check one step harder than the authentication, or to defeat the lock with a Hard Electronics check that raises Authority Heat on any result.
Refit and Trade-In
An owner may refit a hull to the next decimal version at a Safa-certified yard. The cost is on each line's Version Table and in Chapter 13, Version Upgrades, and it includes the 30% certification surcharge (Chapter 4).
Example. A crew owns an S11 and wants the S11.1. The refit costs 10 retrofit points and 36,600cr with the surcharge (28,100cr of retrofit), taken from the hull's unspent budget of 83 points. The yard keeps the ship for 1 week. The hull gains a Hull block and a point of Handling, and the Seal records the refit.
Any other yard. A refit by a yard that is not certified is an Improvised Modification: a Trial Die becomes a Crisis Die on the installation check, and the Seal reports it. The hull then fails authentication at the next checkpoint.
A whole number is a trade-in. The S3 and the S4 are different frames. The owner trades in: the yard buys the old hull at its condition value toward the new price, with no transfer fee on either hull. A crew with a serviceable used S3 (191,950cr) pays 191,050cr toward a new S4 (383,000cr).
When a refit is not worth it. A Classic is not refitted away from without a reason. The S3 lands and the S3.1 keeps that; the S6 keeps its hold and the S6.1 keeps it too, but the S6.2 does not.
Contractor Partners
A buyer who cannot hold a Seal can still fly a Safa hull. Three Contractor Partners hold the Seal for a hull they lease, finance or charter (Chapter 12). The holder, not the operator, answers to the Directorate. All three are PROPOSED.
| Contractor | Arrangement | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Yabrin Fleets | Lease. Yabrin holds the Seal and leases a Restricted hull to a vetted operator, with a Directorate-vetted crew if the operator wants one | 3.0% of the hull's condition value a month, with one month as deposit; no equity; Yabrin may recall the hull with 30 days' notice (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Twelve, Lease) |
| Malhan Builders | Yard bond. Malhan finances a refit or a purchase and holds the Seal until the bond is paid | No down payment. The operator works off the bond in contracted deliveries and yard jobs that Malhan assigns; refusing a job is a missed payment (Vehicles Manual, Chapter Twelve, Work Bond). The Seal passes to the operator on the last job |
| Karmin Line | Line charter. A pilot flies an S2, S3 or S4 under the Line's Seal and licence, and shares the freight | The pilot keeps the share the charter sets; the Line may recall the hull; the Line's courier licence is on the Seal |
A Contractor Partner holding is the one way a crew without Directorate clearance flies a Restricted hull legally. It is not a way around the Scale 6 and 7 rule: a Contractor Partner that holds an S6, S19 or S7 holds it as the institution.
Service and Parts
Authorized service is strictly controlled: only a Safa-certified yard, which in practice is a Safa yard or a Malhan Builders yard, works on a Safa hull. A certified yard works on any version.
Parts are Common in Jaziri Caliphate space and Scarce elsewhere for every version, and good only through licensed channels. The oldest version of a line does not get scarcer inside the Caliphate while Safa keeps it in the service register.
Gray market. Dangerous and expensive. A technician who will strip a Safa lock has done it before, and the hull's Seal records the attempt.
Authority Heat. Very high for restricted AI, weapons, reactor or security systems. A Safa ship that fails authentication, carries a Forbidden system or is flown on a lapsed Seal raises it at once.
Financing
Safa's customers finance through state contracts, approved lenders, religious foundations and security partnerships, and, for the hulls below Scale 6, through a Contractor Partner. A used hull at high hours or below is usually bought outright, because lenders will not cover it.