Scum and Villainy Ship Creation Question
Some friends and I just did character and crew creation for Scum and Villainy. Overall it went well but we had a bit of a difficult time understanding some of the aspects of ship creation.
The confusion crops up in Step 3: Customize Your Ship. In the summary on page 116 it says “Add two systems to the ship”, but in the text on page 113 this is phrased as “You choose 2 additional ship systems to improve.” We got a little bit confused at this stage (what does “add” mean? what does “improve” mean? Is a “module” an upgrade or is it an improvement to a system?) and where we landed in play was this: on the Stardancer ship sheet, we “improved” engines by ticking one of the engines boxes and selecting Afterburners, then we “improved” comms by ticking one of the comms boxes and selecting Quantum Encryptor.
I now think we did that wrong, and what we’re meant to be doing at this stage is just ticking one “quality” box each in any of the four systems (so, increasing Hull quality from 2 to 3, Engines quality from 1 to 2, Comms quality from 0 to 1, or weapons quality from 0 to 1). And we should NOT have ticked afterburners or Quantum Encryptor at this stage, these are “upgrades” which would have to be selected later in 5. Assign Upgrades. Do I have that right?
Another question: if a system is at 0 does that mean we can’t use it? Like if we have no boxes ticked for weapons quality, is the ship just unarmed?
One last question: the modules listed on the ship sheet aren’t a limit on what can/can’t be implemented–they’re just the ones that are currently available to implement, and anything else we want to add (at ship creation or with another upgrade through advancement later) has to be bought with cred. Do I have that right?
Yeah, you’re right. In Step 3, you pick 2 quality ratings to improve, and you can add modules in the Assign Upgrades step.
I guess for a system being at 0, it depends on the system what exactly that means. I mean, if you have no weapon modules (necessarily, if weapons are at zero), your ship is unarmed, but if your Comms are zero, it makes no sense that you would not even have some basic radio. And the Cerberus starts with zero hull, but I imagine that the ship HAS a hull. It’s just quality 0, so do not expect too much from it.
About module availability, not sure.
Your last theory is right.
In step 3 you add 2 quality (so you tick Engines up by one) and in step 5 you add the modules.
Your two questions:
If you have 0 in a system you only have only the most rudimentary stuff. So with Comms 0 you probably have nothing more than radios from today, or basic laser comms. With weapons 0 you don’t have anything that could damage ship.
The modules are a limit. Some ships are designed to take certain modules. Many have blank spaces for whatever you want to add. I’m sure a mechanic with a long term project could swap some modules around, but you can never get more than the top quality on your ship.
Hope that helps!
Improving a System increases the number of Modules that can be added there.
Hull 2 means you can have 2 Modules from the Hull list.
Weapons 0 means you have no place to mount weapons.
There is also a mechanic for comparing a ship system. I think it means the crew gets a number of d6’s equal to how many points in that system. But I’m not sure.
Stras Acimovic​ I don’t have anything that could damage a ship?! Ramming SPEED!
Hahaha, that’s fair.
Thanks for the help!