OSR Commentary On The Pleiades-class Light Freighter For The Clement Sector Rpg

 "Need a freighter?  On a budget?  We have the ship for you!

Smaller sister ship to the venerable Atlas-class, the Pleiades is a 300 tonne light freighter designed in competition to the Rucker-class.  Perfect for a crew who are carrying cargo and campaigning through Earth Sector or Clement Sector!"



"This book features both the TL11 version of the Pleiades common in Clement Sector and the TL13 version often found in Earth Sector.  Also featured is the Dustmote-class variant of the Pleiades designed to remain insystem and is shown here in both the TL11 version found in Clement Sector and the TL13 version found in Earth Sector.

The book fully details the ship with deckplans by Michael Johnson and beautiful art by Ian Stead."
Today's blog entry is going to pick right up from here.  So back in April we took a look at the  Pleiades-class Light Freighter For The Clement Sector Rpg. And now in June we're looking at using these startships as a 'Pony Express' style  Western hyperspace gateway corridor within our Cepheus Engine campaigns. This being said the Pleiades-class Light Freighter is going be perfectly angled as targets for space pirates!

So what does this have to do with the Pony Express well metaphorically speaking this hyperspace gate run is going to be a test run of only 20 years or so. This is chicken scratch to the corporations of the Clement Sector who are used to ventures taking quite a bit longer. And this is all made way too clear within the  the tech update 2350 which goes over the roles of star ships  in the Clement Sector. 

 And the Lance-class Gunboat design and variations could be left over Earth sector technology that the Clement sector has adopted and modified for their own uses. 
Michael Johnson's writing on the Pleiades-class Light Freighter makes this perfectly clear within the development of this iconic class; "Prior to the Collapse, all Dustmote-class in-system haulers in Clement Sector are modified Pleiades-class ships converted by local shipyards rather than new builds imported from Earth Sector. This was done for the simple reason of cost savings rather than any other reason, given the fact that the in-system hauler could have a relatively inexpensive reconversion back to a starship. After the Collapse in 2331, Cascadia Orbital began to offer the Dustmote-class as a purpose-built option with steady sales being reported with the hope of trying to capture some of the conversion market by offering a new vessel. Buying new meant far fewer issues with maintenance and reliability." 

And its this reliability & ultility that makes  the Pleiades-class Light Freighter a winner especially in combination with other caravan style military starships. We'll get into the how's & why's later on.