Devilfish - What Makes It "Better"?

A few posts ago, I mentioned a plan to have a permanent Star Smuggler board set up so I can play whenever I like. I drew up deck plans for a gargantuan ship. The Devilfish is roughly 3 times bigger than the Antelope that appears in the original game. 

Bigger is better, but what else makes it better? It has 3 turrets, therefore 3 guns. It has two shuttles, a garage for a skimmer, and a medical station. 

But what went away? It lost its stasis box in pilotage and its concealed locations. It has no more Hypercharges than the original. 

Strangely, to hit charts and criticals are introduced in the rules. I would have a standard chart for the Devilfish: 

1. Garage, 2. quarters, 3. engineering, 4. gun turrets, 5. main cargo, and 6. the boat hold. Since some of these locations are very large, I would split the turrets into 1 of 3, the holds into port and starboard, and the engineering area into large and small. The Medical area and pilotage can't be damaged directly owing to the 1d6 nature of the roll. It seems easy enough to expand this to 2d6 in the future because it's odd that you can't hit pilotage in the nose of the ship. 

This ship clearly has the edge over the Antelope in the game. Now I have to consider what else has gotten better? 

Many or all hostile ships will have shields and ECM by default, something the Devilfish does not have at all. They will also have and make use of hoppers more often than the rules currently allow. I will have to design antagonistic ships, possibly even small fleets of them to make things fair. 

I can't wait to retool the battleship from e81. In the image I drew for that post, I think a pocket battleship would have one or more hoppers to act as spotters. It has two orbiter bays and two 45-cu cargo bays to carry even more. Imagine if it was a battleship-carrier hybrid. Even hampered as it is with the limitations from the rules, a swarm of 4 hoppers would give anyone pause. 

Another improvement is needed for ships boats and more frequent drones. The improved hopper would have a fission engine to produce life support and eliminate the need for fuel units. Ships or hoppers toting a drone or two in battle would be cool and terrifying to face down. 

Fooling Around with Deck Plans

I've been straightening out the workspace to have my laser and 3D printer ready to go at all times while maintaining a painting and modeling area. If I can manage it, I'd also like to have a small table for all of the ongoing game stuff. 

If big enough, I'd have a permanent setup of Star Smuggler ready to go. 

I keep playing this game, and I've broken it the rules in so many ways. On my next playthru, I plan on using this set of deck plans for my ship. 

This is my Devilfish ship simplified for Star Smuggler. It's 4 times bigger than the original game's ship. The original game created the opportunity to purchase a second, third or fourth ship, but never a larger ship. 

Having run multiple ships at the same time, I know the rules break due to "out-dicing" the enemy. Simply put, the preprogrammed enemies can't split their fire effectively so multiple ships break the game. 

To counteract this, I would create a tiny fleet of enemy ships so you aren't merely facing the Scout, the Battleship, Hoppers in space, and the handful of reskinned Antelopes. 

Speaking of Star Smuggler (again), there is another game called Star Smuggler on Drivethru RPG. I was thinking of checking it out.