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On Tue, 11/4/14, Grimmund <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: [TML] one-off ships
 To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
 Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2014, 8:48 PM

 Adventure seed:

 Both the Imperial Navy and various commercial shipyards and
 shipbuilding corporations occasionally build
 prototypes.  Sometimes
 those prototypes go into production, sometimes they don't.

 Sometimes, they don't go into production because the needs
 of the
 customer change.

 Sometimes, they don't go into production because during
 testing, the
 customer realizes the design isn't going to perform as
 desired, and
 scraps the project.

 Either way, either the shipyard or the customer is left with
 a one-off
 ship, which may or may not be suitable for whatever it was
 meant for.

 Cue the players...

 1.  Ship works as designed.  No major flaws, just
 not suitable for
 mission as designed.

 2.  Ship works as designed  As #1, but
 additionally, the design has
 some odd quirks or unconventional design features that make
 it less
 attractive on the open market. (possible negative reaction
 DMs, until
 people are familiar with it.) (Perhaps something similar to
 the Tucker
 '48 pivoting headlight...)

 3.  Ship works as designed, Minor design flaw makes it
 less than
 optimal-  hatch placement makes loading cargo
 difficult, makes crew
 entry difficult, low headroom in staterooms, etc.

 4.  Ship works as designed.  As #2, but the
 innovation does not work
 as well as hoped.  Moderate design flaw makes it
 difficult to operate
 or maintain the ship.  Inconvenient, but not a safety
 threat. Possible
 negative DMs for commercial service; your ship is the last
 choice for
 paying customers...

 5.  Ships works as designed.  Combination of
 design flaws makes it
 both difficult to operate and difficult to maintain. 
 Still
 inconvenient, and probably somewhat more expensive to
 operate, but not
 a safety threat.  (Also, possible negative DMs on a
 variety of rolls.

 6.  Ship does not meet design specs.  While not
 otherwise defective,
 one of the drive systems performs one step lower than rated,
 or
 inflict some other similar defect.

 Other options as desired....

 "Well, we took a Scout hull design, gave it an armored hull
 and a J4
 drive.  That cut it down to two staterooms and no cargo
 space, so we
 got a small fast ship that fit in a scout hull, had great
 legs, but
 could not carry much of anything other than information, and
 cold not
 do much when it got there.  We built three for testing,
 but they were
 cramped and unpopular and we scrapped the design.  Now
 the prototypes
 are available at a discount..."

 Dan
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This all sounds real good.

If the discount is steep enough, the PC's could apply some more mods to make it more suitable for their needs.
ie; various schemes to increase cargo space, etc...

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