What's A Starship?
What's A Starship?
A "starship" is any space vessel capable of traveling between stars. (Any ship that cannot travel between systems is a "spaceship.")
Most "modern" starships use a hyperdrive to journey from one star to another. The miracle of hyperdrive technology allows people to travel to distant worlds, trade goods, and maintain a stable government that spans the galaxy.
There are many different types of starships, but they're grouped into three general categories:
Starship Categories
Capital Ships
Also known as "capital combat starships," a capital ship is any large vessel designed for deep-space combat. They are typically over 100 meters long, require large crews, and are armed with combat shields and many weapon emplacements. Many capital ships carry starfighters, shuttles, or landing craft.
Examples: Imperial Star Destroyers, Trade Federation Battleships, Corellian Corvettes Skill: capital ship piloting (or Technical attribute)
Starfighters
These small space fighters are designed for combat; they're virtually useless for any other task. Starfighters typically have a crew of one or two, with almost no cargo space. While fragile, they're equipped with powerful weapons and are blindingly fast at sublight speeds; most starfighters also perform well in atmospheric combat.
Examples: X-wings, Y-wings, Imperial TIE fighters Skill: starfighter piloting (or Technical attribute)
Space Transports
This broad category covers any starship not specifically designed for combat. (However, many transports—such as the famed Millennium Falcon—have been refitted with added weapons, tougher shields, and faster engines to make them combat-worthy.)
Space transports include small scout ships and light freighters (the Falcon is a Corellian YT-1300 light freighter), military and civilian shuttles, expensive space yachts, and even immense bulk freighters and passenger cruise liners. All of these vessels use the space transports skill (or Technical attribute).
Starship Ownership and Availability
The availability of cheap, easily maintained hyperdrives means that ships are "relatively" affordable. Entrepreneurs willing to mortgage their futures on the ability to make a profit hauling cargoes—legal or otherwise—may be able to purchase an old freighter.
Small businesses and independent traders with more resources can purchase newer, more reliable vessels, and often pour most of their profits into maintaining and upgrading their ships. The wealthy can afford luxurious, customized space yachts.
Many corporations own entire fleets of bulk haulers for cargo shipping, while squadrons of aging starfighters protect the haulers from pirate and Rebel attacks.
At the upper end of the scale, the governments of the Old Republic and the Empire built vast fleets consisting of tens of thousands of military vessels.
Source: REUP:119