if your character owns a starship, is he a millionaire?
What if you are not a millionaire? Your character starts out with a starship loan, fractional ownership etc. What else?
What if your character is a thief... instead he plans to steal one. The first step to stealing a starship is finding one to steal. Step two is getting past security. The third step is stealing the ship, the fourth step is evading the authorities and making good your escape. Now how hard should this be?
A character who owns a starship is a multimillionaire.
If your character is in possession of a starship he does not own, then
* He could have fractional ownership, in which case he would probably still be a millionaire.
* He could be a hired crewman, like an airline pilot or a merchant marine engineer.
Banks giving multi-MCr loans to some guy because he's a player character is ludicrous.
There's no way a bunch of retired veterans are going to get this amount of money together unless they're nobles or something. They still need to have a business plan, and the ship will most likely have significant maintenance costs.
Stealing a starship should be incredibly hard. Think about everything you would do to prevent your $300 million starship from being stolen, and you have TL 15 tech to do it with.
1. Finding a ship is relatively easy. There are starports, depots, maintenance yards, and scrapyards.
2. Getting past security is the hard part. There are two broad types of security, external to the ship and internal to the ship.
External security is facility security. Security police, access controls, surveillance systems, all that jazz. With TL 15, consider what the facility could have for security:
* Surveillance systems/robots.
* Physical restraints on the ship's landing gear, only releasable by starport control after flightplans are filed and all bills are paid. I'm not talking about a bike lock that some cretin can smash with some liquid nitrogen and a hammer.
* Secure hangars with TL 15 access controls.
* TL 15 sensors. Think of TL 15 biometrics, like neural activity scanners, IR/thermal/radar/x-ray, implant ID chips, chemical detectors, and all that, all connected to an expert system designed to prevent unauthorized access and alert security forces, sophont and robotic. There's no beating up a maintenance tech, taking his uniform, and sticking your own picture on his plastic ID card anymore.
The best way for the thieves to overcome this is to target a ship on a low tech world that doesn't have these security capabilities.
Even on an undeveloped world with a busy downport, there can still be electric fences, TL 15 sensors and robots, and armed guards who aren't worthless. Why all the trouble? Because if one little Type S costs a cool $300 mil, then there are billions upon billions of credits sitting in that downport, and people all have an interest in making sure it stays put.
The best way would be to pick a target that is outside a facility, like landing in the wilderness to explore or prospect. This requires research and inside information.
Internal security is security on the ship itself.
* Again, TL 15 biometrics. The PC's will not get in by cutting off a guy's thumb and mashing it on the thumbprint screen.
* Security expert systems. An expert system could even deny entry to an authorized crewmember if it doesn't recognize the people with him (no bringing startown floozies back to the ship anymore. Oh, the humanity). It could notify all crewmembers or local security and let them view what's happening in real time. The ship could even hover at 50 feet on autopilot, forcing potential thieves to approach by air (and then blast them, because legitimate people don't approach by air).
* Robotic/remote-controlled anti-starship-thief weapons systems.
* Flying security robots patrolling and conducting surveillance.
* Armored access points designed to resist breaching charges and other shenanigans. No, the PC's aren't going to smash the bridge window.
* Security hardware devices, like hardware dongles, computerized ID cards, and/or cyber implants, combined with a memorized password or something. A crewmember would have to be the authorized person, with authorized TL 15 biometrics, with a hardware device, and know the password, without any suspicious people nearby.
* Armed crewmen on board who aren't worthless. Remember in Alien how the explorers came back with the facehugger on the guy, and Ripley said, "Nah, mate. Quarantine, don'cha'no'." They just won't open the door, no matter what, without an inside man. If the crewmen outside say they need help, have a robot drone go bring them what they need. Stay hovering at 100ft and let the away team go out in an air/raft.
Even if the thieves gain access to the ship, they face these challenges.
* Internal systems lock up because the expert system detects intruders. Nothing starts, or all iris valves lock, or life support turns off, and the system notifies the crew/security. Everything is biometric-protected by crew station.
* Active defenses. Security robots attack. Even unarmed robots can ram the intruders and crush the life out of them against a bulkhead. Maintenance robots can cut the intruders to pieces with their tools. Life support systems can seal compartments and pump gas into affected areas. Sonic devices can incapacitate/torture intruders. The ship can deactivate the grav plates in the affected compartments and spin along its axis at high speed until the intruders get beaten to death or incapacitated by bouncing off the walls. EMF generators that destroy equipment and incapacitate sophont neurology.
* Armed crewmen who aren't worthless. After all of this, there are still a couple of crewmen armored up in combat armor, armed with gauss rifles and anti-boarding weapons, and flying high on Combat Drug and Slow. They can see everywhere the ship's security sensors can, displayed on their helmet HUDs. They don't give a rat's about damaging the ship, because the ship's interior compartments were reinforced for exactly this reason, and repairing the ship is a lot less expensive than the ship getting stolen.
No, the PC's aren't going to hack all of these isolated redundant autonomous systems with a couple of die rolls.
No, the crew isn't going to give up because the PC's threaten to shoot one of their guys. If it's a civilized world, they'll call the police. If it's an uncivilized world, they'll send some security robots or remotely-controlled security drones to rescue their guy, or to make sure the PC's do not survive.
3. Stealing the ship.
* Yeah, right. The systems lock up on the first unauthorized access attempt. Flight controls, life support, power systems, drives, all locked out. Each system will have to be individually hacked, and that's if the crew didn't pull critical circuit boards and lock them in a concealed safe.
4. Evading the authorities and getting away.
Let's say that somehow the thieves get the ship. Maybe they have an inside man, or they've spent years poring over the systems schematics and source code, or they catch the ship on a desolate world and they have all the time in the world to disassemble, reprogram, and jury-rig entire systems. And they have their own fleet of illegal battle robots to breach the access points and do battle with the ship's security robots and drug-crazed killer crewmen. Maybe the ship is parked on a tarmac at a Class D starport with zero security and the crew is stupid and worthless, and they leave the ship on the ground without the security systems activated or even installed, or the airlocks even closed, while they sit on lawn chairs getting drunk. Or, they're all related, and they give up because the PC's threaten to shoot their brother/sister/mom/cousin. Or, the PC's dress up like space door dash delivering astroburgers and drug the crew, or some other cockamamie nonsense.
If there aren't physical restraints, the ship could probably just leave. I doubt there would be system defense boats within intercept range, but there always could be. I doubt that starport defensive emplacements would fire on a civilian ship if they're not sure what's happening, or if the owners of the ship don't want it blown up. Assuming the thieves aren't stupid, they would tell starport control they are departing according to the ship's flightplan, then run for the 100 diameter limit and jump.
Once the thieves have jumped away, they would need to really escape. They would need to be within jump range of ports willing to do business with them. That means ports outside of the Imperium or any polity that cares about law and order. They could jump to a polity that doesn't enforce the laws of wherever they stole the ship from. They would of course have made arrangements with that world's starport control to expect them. Or, they could jump to a Tortuga port somewhere nearby. Sooner or later such ports would draw the ire of nearby polities and a barrage of heavy nukes along with it, so such a port would probably be a secretive affair.
After the PC's get their prize to a safe port, they would have to get it repaired or just sell it for a fraction of its worth. If the PC's are smart, they wouldn't go back to Imperial space or wherever they stole the ship from. The more time passes, the more any information the authorities have on them would propagate to more and more worlds. If the authorities recovered any biometrics, the PC's would be in grave danger if they land at a starport that has been notified. The starport security systems would flag them as matching biometrics associated with a theft, and then police/security would most likely take them into custody for questioning. If the police aren't worthless, it would all quickly unravel from there.
