MOST IMPORTANT this is a critique. It is not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings but to address certain problems and hopefully get them resolved. Any other insights to these opinions are welcomed. Here goes.

In Starfrontiersman Issue 17 we are presented with the Streel “Raven” Class Corvette. I personally found some many problems with it, as to make it unusable but possibly salvageable.

Starting with the basic stats everything looks good until you get to the Life pods and that is where all hell breaks loose. It is listed as having 5 but a quick glance at the layout and literature there are clearly 7. A minor mistake until you read how they are supposed to be used. OFFICERS ONLY. There is no other emergency equipment except Lifeboats are optional equipment so all the enlisted are just supposed to die.

Trying to picture how that works. Well men we’ve bought it this time. Guess I will have a bit of explaining to do back at the Officer’s Mess tonight. Don’t worry I’m sure your replacements will avenge you. Ta Ta.”

Oh wait the literature said this was primarily sold to pirates and even named after one so maybe, “Captain Jack Sparrow here. Me and Elizabeth and that blacksmith guy are leaving now. Don’t feel too bad you were only hired to be eaten by a Kraken or die in a spectacular explosion anyway so Ta Ta.”

Anyone else sees that plan working, but wait it gets worse. Two of the lucky ones are not on the decks the Life pods are on so the Doctor and Marine Officer have to make their way to the bridge to get in their Life pods bypassing most of the enlisted and the Bridge enlisted. The two Engineering Officers just wave to the other engineers and techs and leave. We are talking armed pirates some with breaching explosives that are going to die soon.

Oh to top it off like I said there are 7 Life pods shown but only 6 Officers listed. Guess it goes like this, “Oh Drat there isn’t any Grey Poupon on this Life pod. Guess I will check if the Officer’s backup Life pod has any.”

Moving on we have the typical crew list. I like this. Very useful for assigning characters positions in role-playing by their skill set. Just a shame it makes no sense. Let’s start with what is not there. Gunnery. This ship has two guys assigned to fix robots who are only used for damage control and no one is assigned to fire the ship’s weapons. Thinking about it this is a definite disadvantage for a commerce raider.

We have a total of 34 Marines. For a ship which boards mostly merchant ships this is an incredible number of troops. Using the White Light module as our guide we have a Size 5 merchant ship with a crew of 5. Going with this and modern examples, merchant crews are small. Add in that these are specially trained and equipped attackers versus a bunch of civilians who are usually scattered around 6 to 1 odds seems extreme.

Hang with me on this one. Back to the techs, it states they are bunked in the NCO quarters on the Marine barracks decks. The crew lists has 7 tech total. There are 8 bunks in the NCO quarters. Math tells us that means there is only 1 Marine NCO. So we have a Marine platoon of 1 LT, 1 SGT and 32 Privates. Anyone see a problem with this?

Is there a UPF version of the CDC? Cause they could not have approved of this design. The dining facility and the sick bay are not only on the same deck but they share a door. So you have the Doc saying, “Hey guys make way there. Vruk has multiple laser wounds and Smitty has some strange fungal thing going on. My that chili looks good can you send some into sick bay in a few.”

Oh and for a ship where the enlisted are just supposed to die there are a lot of bunks in sick bay. 6 beds for a crew of 46 means 15% of the crew can be sick at one time. That is quite a lot. UNLESS 6 beds/6 officers coincidence or does each officer have a personally assigned sick bed?

So we have 32 Marine privates with nothing to do for maybe a week or a month except lie in their bunks, rotate through the dining facility (who cooks there anyway?) and watch movies. When and Where do they train? Especially with pirate crews bored boarders will lead to a lot of trouble.

OK this ship is supposed to be a commerce raider. When you are a pirate the cargo may or may not be something valuable but the ship you took is valuable if not whole then at least in parts. Yet there is no extra crew to take the prize ship home or even anyone to cut out important parts. Maybe those 2 robot techs can handle it.

NOW before anyone goes nuts I do find this to be a wonderful ship for a different purpose. As presented and crewed this is a wonderful Special Operations Supply/Resupply ship. It can carry a good number of replacements and supplies to a planet for sneaky missions. It can then take the wounded out in the big sick bay. Also the techs can fix whatever equipment has broken on the mission or replace it. The ship is fast enough to get in and out and under gunned enough keep opponents away but not give the crew any ideas about fighting it out. Plus it can land on planets so it does not have to hang in orbit but can hide on the surface.

OK fire back.