Merchant Ship Design. Contents. Pledge tier contents

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1 Merchant Ship Design Contents Merchant Ship Design...1 Pledge tier contents...1 Rules...2 Roadmap for completed designs...2 Process...3 Ship Basics...4 Step 1 Faction...4 Step 2 - Ship Name...4 Step 3 Company Logo...4 Step 4 Ship background story...4 Step 5 - Ship Upgrades...5 Ship sections...5 Additional Ship Upgrades...6 Crew Upgrades...7 Preferred Cargo Type...8 Merchant Ship Form...9 Pledge tier contents This pledge tier gives you the ability to design: Merchant Ship (this document) Merchant Captain (Captain design document)

2 Roadmap for completed designs This template is a work in progress and not all information may not yet be available. Here is a short roadmap for the release of information: Early March, 2015 Working version of this template Early April, 2015 First release of the faction and subfaction backstories Early May, 2015 All necessary lore information

3 Process The process can be divided into two parts the Ship Basics and Ship Upgrades. The Ship Basics contains details about your merchant that are not numerically represented by stats, such as the name of the merchant ship, faction allegiance and any background story. Also part of the Merchant Basics is the company logo a logo that you get to design yourself. The Upgrades section is where you can upgrade and tweak the details, such as the type of goods typically stored in the cargo hold of the ship, whether it is a Blockade Runner och Slave ship and so forth. Before you start your design, make sure you check the Mandate Forums for your relevant tier and read any sticky posts there: Each step is also explained in the corresponding section, but to summarize the process, it goes like this: 1. Choose your faction 2. Name your merchant ship 3. Create your company logo 4. Write a backstory about your merchant 5. Select any ship upgrades 6. Select your favored cargo At the very end of the document, you will find a fill-in form for your ship information.

4 Ship Basics In order to know where your ship fits in the Mandate universe, it's important to know the basics of the ship. The Ship Basics section gives you control over these things. Step 1 Faction Your ship is allied with a faction if you wish to know more about each faction, you can read up on some of the factions here: Step 2 - Ship Name The name of your ship is up to you but be sure to follow the rules, despite how tempting it would be to name your ship "Protossium Pylon Imports". Step 3 Company Logo The company logo you can design yourself, or if you don't want to design your own give us some guidelines and our artists will make one for you. Step 4 Ship background story A ship is not simply a pile of metal floating in space - it has a background, a story. The story of your ship may be told through lore-text found on board the ship, or while scanning it. It also forms the basis of where we insert the ship into the game. The ship background story has a word limit of 300 words.

5 Step 5 - Ship Upgrades This section has a points buy system where you are given a pool of points that you spend in order to upgrade your ship in whatever direction you choose to you may choose to build a sleek merchantman capable of outrunning any aggressors, or a slow but armored Prison ship that deals in prisoner transport or even a freelancing Blockade runner, capable of striking through any barriers in order to smuggle goods to their destination. The points pool for the Ship Upgrades section is [0]. Some upgrades may be taken more than once (for instance, the Additional Midships section may be increased up to three times). A generalized description for what each of the upgrades do can be found in the tables below. Ship sections Like warships the cargo ships have a bow and aft section, but unlike warships the cargo freighter can have up to three (3) midsections which increase the size of the cargo hold. The bow section of the ship may have a number of different upgrades such as Asteroid Breakers or Long Range Scanners, while the aft section remains unchanged. Each midships section adds additional cargo hold storage space. Increase in cargo hold capacity allows for more cargo to be transported and thus, more potential income for the faction/company. However it slows the ship down and naturally, the more room for "goodies", the more likely the ship is to attract unwanted attention from pirates. An article that talks a bit about merchant ship sizes can be found here: Example: Leah wants to make a blockade runner, capable of breaking through defensive blockades and decides to take the Defensive Platform Bow upgrade (20 points) and only a single additional midships section ( points). Leah now has a total of 70 points left in her pool. Ship Section Upgrade Cost Description (Bow) Asteroid Breakers 20 Asteroid breakers increase the capacity for your merchant to traverse dangerous areas such as asteroid field. (Bow) Long Range Scanner 20 The Merchant ship will have short range scanners installed by default this upgrade allows for long range detection of incoming enemies such as pirates. (Bow) Defensive Platform 20 While the ship comes with a certain amount of defensive meaures, a defensive platform allows for additional defense of the ship in the form of more weapons. Additional Midships section Additional cargo holds allows for more cargo but will slow the ship down and attract pirate attention.

6 Additional Ship Upgrades If you want your ship to be technically advanced, or increase the offensive/defensive capacity of the ship, this section is for you. It allows you to install more advanced machinery on board your ship as well as increase your armor, speed, sensors- and shield-capacity. A ship comes with a certain basic amount of offensive/defensive capabilities this section allows you to increase the amount of those systems as well as the tech level for them. You may pick any upgrade up to three (3) times each time you take a single upgrade, the potency of the system is bumped up a notch, meaning that if you want a potent blockade runner, you may consider going for Ship Offensive Firepower and Ship Tech Level, while a less lethal but more armored Prison ship may opt for armor and shield upgrades. Example: Leah decides to install an Engine upgrade ( points) and a shield upgrade (15 points). The shield upgrade will increase her defensive capacity somewhat while the engine upgrade will offset somewhat the additional cargo hold installed before. Finally, she decides that any decent Blockade runner should at least have some sort of offensive capacity and so she opts to install a Ship Offensive Firepower upgrade as well for 20 points. In total, Leah has spent 45 points on additional upgrades. With the 30 spent from before, she now has 25 points left in her pool. Ship Upgrade Cost Description Ship Tech Level Increases the global tech level of the ship, upgrading all systems (including weapons and defenses) on board to more advanced versions. Ship Offensive Firepower 20 Increases the offensive capacity of the ship in terms of amount of guns. Ship Defensive Firepower 15 Increases the defensive capacity of the ship in terms of counter-measures and point defense turrets. Ship Armor 15 Increases the amount of armor for the ship Ship Engines Increases the maximum manuverability of the ship Ship Shields 15 Increases the shield capacity of the ship Ship Sensors Upgrades the sensors on board the ship to more advanced versions. Escort ship 20 Escort ships provide additional protection from pirates and members of the opposing factions. speed, acceleration and

7 Crew Upgrades Crew upgrades allow you to customize and recruit crew and even to increase the veterancy (experience level) of your crew. It also allows you to purchase defenses against boarding parties. Contrary to warships, the crew on board a merchant vessel are also the defenders, unless the ship have mercenaries on retainer. Warships require marine berths to be installed in order to have marines - not so for merchant ships. Any mercenary squads put on retainer take up minimum space as they are not permanent crew on the ship and do not require permanent lodgings, cantinas, personal storage and other features a permanent crew requires. This allows merchant ships to dedicate a small portion of their profit to hiring mercenary squads as guards on board the ship. The crew will not fight alongside any mercenaries if the merchant is boarded and any mercenaries defeated, the ship is considered to be defeated (your crew gives up). This may however be preferred to the alternative, which is your crew acting as defenders and when they are defeated, the ship is defeated and in addition, the crew is generally killed in action. Example: Leah doesn't particularly want the crew to be directly involved in the fighting on board the ship if there should ever be any 25 points gives her a few options, but she decides that she should put a mercenary squad on retainer for 15 points. It'll eat into her profits, but at least any boarding parties will have to deal with the mercenary squad first. She uses the remaining points to upgrade the crew veterancy twice, further increasing the capacity of the Mercenary squad. Crew Upgrades Cost Description Infantry Tech Level Increases the gear tech level for your crew (and mercenaries), upgrading it to more advanced versions. Increase Crew Veterancy 5 Increases the experience for all your crew, including the combat experience for any hired mercenaries. Increase Officer Veterancy Increases the leadership capabilities for all your officers, including mercenary leaders. Passive Boarding Defenses Upgrades the amount of passive defenses on board the ship such as door locking systems, alarms, etc. Active Boarding Defenses Upgrades the amount of active defense systems on board your ship, such as turrets and defensive drones. Add Mercenary Squad 15 Adds a single squad of mercenaries (8 mercenaries) to your ship for boarding and boarding-defense purposes. Tip: Even if a single mercenary squad is not a permanent addition to the ship, the ship is considered to always have the amount of mercenary squads purchased (as long as profits allow for it) docking at a destination dismisses the current mercenary squad and a new squad is picked up, fresh for battle.

8 Preferred Cargo Type Your merchant may specialize in certain goods, should you want to. Perhaps you would like your merchant to be a smuggler of supplies and contraband, or a medical aid supply ship. Or perhaps even human trafficking in the form of slave ships or prisoner transports. Here, you may select up to five different types of cargo you want your ship to focus on your ship will actively seek out deals for these cargo types and prioritize them in the order that you want. Example: Leah doesn't feel that she wants to deal with human trafficking, but Contraband seems right up her alley. She decides that her priority order should be Contraband, Chemicals, Ore, Medical Supplies and lastly, if all other things fall through, Scrap. Cargo Type Description Medical Supplies Medical supplies are important in order to keep starbases, planets and ship crews healthy. Medical supply ships also tend to attract more attention from pirates, as it is rare that pirates have a chance to trade for medicine in legitimate ways. Food Crucial to the survival of planets and starbases, food transports are by far the most common tradeships and pirates rarely outright attack food caravans. When they do, it is more common for them to not completely empty the ship of goods. After all one does not bite the hand that (quite literally) feeds you. At least not too hard. Contraband Contraband varies in type. Illegal entertainment and weapons are the biggest contraband types out there. A high profit margin for traders but also a high-risk venture since both authorities and pirates are looking for contraband traders as prize targets. Ore and Metals Ores and metals make out for a large chunk of the trade in the universe. Rarely ambushed by pirates, ore and metals provide a low but steady income. Chemicals More rare than ores and metals, chemical transports make better profit, but run a higher risk of contamination of the crew. Few pirates have an interest in waylaying a chemical transport, which makes them fairly safe (except for the risk of chemical contamination). Scrap Scrap and junk are a low risk, low income source. Industrial starbases and planetary installations smelt down scrap for metal, which in turn is more profitable. Scrap merchants do however once in a while get lucky and some scrap may turn out to be in working order and can be sold as parts. Passenger Transport "Cruise liner" merchant transports vary in risk/reward depending on the passengers. VIP's and dignitaries are prized targets for pirates looking for people to hold ransom, but the profit for such transports are usually high. Slaves Slaveships are illegal in some systems (depending on who controls the system) and in others considered a source of work-force. Shipping slaves is not an undertaking for the weak of heart, since factions opposed to slave-trading as well as pirates will pay close attention to the ship. Prisoners Prisoner transports are uncommon but when they do happen, they tend to attract attention from factions that want to retrieve the "cargo" as well as pirates who want to extract them for ransom. It is a high-risk, high-profit venture.

9 Merchant Ship Form Ship Name Captain (designed separately) Company Logo Faction allegiance (if any) Background Story

10 Ship Section Upgrades Mark your ship section upgrades (if any) with an "x" or in the case of Additional Midship Sections with a number from 1 to 3 (a maximum of 3 additional midship sections can be installed). [_] (Bow) Asteroid Breakers (20) [_] (Bow) Defensive Platforms (20) [_] (Bow) Long Range Scanners (20) [_] (Midship) Additional Midship Section () Additional Ship Upgrades Mark any ship upgrades with a number from 1-3 [_] Ship Tech Level () [_] Ship Speed () [_] Ship Offensive Firepower (20) [_] Ship Shield (15) [_] Ship Defensive Firepower (15) [_] Ship Sensors () [_] Ship Armor (20) Crew Upgrades Mark any crew upgrades with a number from 1-3. If you do not have any mercenary squads, your crew is considered a squad. If you do have mercenaries on retainer, only those are counted as squads. [_] Infantry Tech Level () [_] Passive Boarding Defenses (5) [_] Increase Crew Veterancy (5) [_] Active Boarding Defenses () [_] Increase Officer Veterancy () [_] Add Mercenary Squad (5) Total amount of squads Preferred Cargo Type In order of priority, mark selections below from 1 to 5 (where 1 is the highest priority and 5 is the lowest). [_] Medical Supplies [_] Ore and Metals [_] Food [_] Chemicals [_] Contraband [_] Scrap [_] Passengers [_] Slaves [_] Prisoners