Non Combatant Ships

[The Red of Sinner]

So...do these count as ships with no weapons...or the minimum if not less weapons?

Like if I place two turbolasers on a Frigate sized ship..and nothing more...is it combatant orrr

 

[Jaxton Ravos]

[member="Romeo Sin"]

A non-combat ship is just a ship that's not built for combat. A freighter might have a couple of laser turrets to deter pirates, but that doesn't mean it's a military vessel. Use common sense and don't try to sneak stuff past the staff and you should be fine.

 

[Arrbi Betna]

[member="Romeo Sin"]
Non-combat ships generally fall under two areas: civilian with self defense and civilian with no self defense. Self defense would be something like the Millenium Falcon. No self defense would be something like a cruise liner or hospital ship with no actual defenses. It's kind of the difference between a modern destroyer with guns, a cargo ship with an arms locker on board, and something like the disney cruise ships.

 

[The Red of Sinner]

Shhhhh, I understand now

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Like if I place two turbolasers on a Frigate sized ship..and nothing more...is it combatant orrr

If the ship has laser type weapons and smaller fighter scale stuff it is just an armed non-combatant ship. But Turbolasers are a mush different story. These are large weapons generally only allowed by military organizations and prohibited on most civilian vessels. But as you are allowed any ship up to 400 meters your personnel ship can be a frigate if you like with these types of weapons. If this is just an NPC vessel in a private story that will not be used against anyone else then go for it. But if you intend to use this in a collaborative story with others then it will need to be ran through the factory.

I hope this helps

 

[The Red of Sinner]

[member="Reshmar"]

That makes a lot of sense to me when you put it that way,

 

[Cyrus Tregessar]

Going back to real world examples, it's worth noting that construction methods for a combatant-type vessel (read, a warship) and a civilian vessel are incredibly different, but also share many similarities.

The best way I can give a general comparison is that your average naval frigate sailing the ocean today is around 300ft-400ft long and displaces around 3000-6000 tons. Your average container/cargo/tanker/etc. is twice as long and displaces four times as much. One frigate could sink almost an infinite number of container ships (limited only by ammunition) with literally no concern about reprisal whatsoever.

For starters, the merchant ships are totally unarmed, but they are also simply designed differently. Bulk storage, not survivability, is the main concern. Ramming would be their only method of fighting (which they would win, theoretically) except that the frigate probably has four times as much horsepower per shaft, is significantly more maneuverable, and has a reinforced internal structure. Historically, collisions between military and civilian vessels have ended worse for the civilian ship, though that's in no small part due to the MUCH better mobility on the part of the military vessels.

Much the same is probably true in Star Wars. Obviously any space ship needs to be vacuum sealed and resistant to the rigors and hazards of space travel, but if you take a large bulk freighter (which I assume exist though we never really see any) and change it's cargo bays into gun ports, it'll still probably get wrecked by the first patrol corvette to roll up on it blasting, simply because one is designed for warfare and one is not.

Ships like the Millennium Falcon are a bit different, since they're heavily modified. I imagine it's not laser cannons themselves which are illegal, it's the fire control suite and military-grade shields on the Falcon that make it so illicit.



Man, I should start a blog.

 

[Hailyn]

The intention of the use of the ship is what makes it combatant or not. Just because the ship is horribly armored and terribly undergunned does not mean it wasn't intended to go into battle.

If you intend to use a ship for the purpose of piracy and boarding, that ship is a combative ship - regardless of it only having 4 laser cannons and an ion cannon with a weak hull.

Military does not equate to combatant.

[member="Romeo Sin"]

 

[The Red of Sinner]

*rubs chin* I see guys I see.

 

[Popo]

Just another two bits from me, but if you're looking at piracy, please note that pirates would take fast ships and load them down with guns and men. The goal was to get in quick, intimidate the crew to surrender, kill them quickly if they didn't, and then use the extra manpower of the overloaded crew to overwhelm the victim crew and/or quickly transfer the valuables onto the pirating ship. This was usually followed by the immediate bailing of the pirate ship to get as far away as possible.

The key to piracy is to not get into a fight. Fighting = bad. You could lose your ship and therefore your way of making money. Fighting professional Navy ships = Very Bad. Military ships are well crewed, well armed, and will clean a pirate's clock any day of the week. Yeah, there are times when pirates win against the Navy, but those are flukes or just points when the pirates managed to somehow stack the deck in their favor. Even Blackbeard wasn't able to take on the Navy in the end.

Second round of two bits done.

 

[Kei Amadis]

[member="Cyrus Tregessar"]

You should