Okay, say your group wants to sell their starship...

[swordtart]

A mining operation should have the mining craft stay on site constantly with separate craft using Jump Nets to deliver the cargo. Using your Seeker to both mine and deliver your ore is a path to bankruptcy. In fact if you do use the Seeker that way it is more economical add a jump net and if delivering in system enough jump net to move at fractional g acceleration, you spend a higher percentage of your time mining that way.

A 20 ton launch with a laser drill on the nose, a grappling arm customized to gather the ore and deposit it into a 10 ton container behind it is a good mining vessel. Airlock at the rear so the crew can be exchanged on site with minimal interruption

A mother ship that uses a Heavy Grappling Arm to collect and replace those 10 ton containers can service multiple mining launches. It can use a dual UNREP system to remove the ore from the container and transfer to a jump net to be carried to a location where it is sold (see tug below). You could of course instead have a small craft that is modular that can drop off and pick up the containers if they are modules.

A tug that leaves a breakaway hull section holding a jump net that can be filled while the tug is taking the ore (metal if refined on site) is more efficient than taking your mining craft away.

A smelter station on site is optional but for major finds efficient (transport 1/2 the mass and the purified metal should be more valuable/ton).

Finally you need a habitat, either a station or a ship for the mining crews.

I use a seeker design where 5 tons cargo is replaced with 5 Type 1 docking clamps. Then you can blister on 5 mining launches. The big ship can go surveying for new prospects or move ores and supplies between the main and the belt. When it is time to move on all the fleas can jump on and jump with the mothership.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes, lots and lots of options have been added to the game since the Type S and its Seeker variant were designed.

The ship exists to fulfill that trope of the solitary space miner. Yes, successful mining operations are corporations with fleets of specialized vessels. That's not a player character concept.

Likewise, the Type S you get from mustering out of the scout service is specifically a detached duty vessel, not the personal possession of the now detached duty Scout. So that's why the scout service provides all those facilities for it, there's no mortgage, and you can't sell it. There are lots of scout/couriers that are not part of detached duty program, whether purpose built or sold off by the service.

If the players want a scout/courier that belongs to them and can be sold, they get a mortgage and don't get the free servicing at the scout bases, because the ship is no longer part of the Scout service.

Like the seeker and it's indie prospector trope, the Type S is designed to provide a "we have a space ship to get from place to place that doesn't require us to worry about space ship level expenses" option. It's big enough for your typical 4 PC group, it's J2 so you have some travel options, and it's streamlined and comes with an air/raft. Everything a small group of vagabonds need.

 

[boggo2300]

It would make absolute sense for them to do so. The point was that getting one as a mustering out benefit is mortgage free. You can buy whatever someone is willing to sell once you have your own money.

I was more replying to Ol'Weedy that you don't need to buy a knockoff with the sensors removed, you can buy a real one from the IISS (though it's likely to have seen better days) and as a standard hull, you can pretty much get one from any shipyard...

 

[MonsterX]

If you’re looking for a better pair of thrusters

Come down and see what Cal can muster

I’ve got traders, gigs and scouts

Payments won’t clean your bank out

Get a seeker! Change your luck!

The cargo hatch won’t come unstuck

Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal!

This is a giant supermarket of spacecraft, just acres and acres of spacecraft, so if you’re out buying a spaceship, just come see me first, give me the first chance to deal, and I’ll buy you and the Misses a free rib dinner at Regina Station Rib House, all you gotta do is come see me first, no obligation to buy.

We are talking about a giant selection of spaceships, acres and acres and acres, and row after row of spaceships. We have this 1087 Lone Trader, pristine condition, one previous owner, a little old lady who flew her to church on Sunday, a steal at 16 million credits, and you could fly her away free and clear today.

Check out this Type S Scout Courier, clean paint, a real cherry and only 2350235000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 kilometers on the clock, 22 Mcr, you won’t find deals like that anywhere else!

 

[Condottiere]

pick your starship
it's no hardship
jump drive engaged

twenty percenture
forty indenture
your future mortgaged

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I use a seeker design where 5 tons cargo is replaced with 5 Type 1 docking clamps. Then you can blister on 5 mining launches. The big ship can go surveying for new prospects or move ores and supplies between the main and the belt. When it is time to move on all the fleas can jump on and jump with the mothership.

I have a 180 ton (TL 11 J2M3) modular Explorer craft (Survey and Courier variants) with a 100 ton module for different missions (Jump fuel in the module with a lot of other things) it has a Seeker variant. That 100 ton module I am now preparing custom versions for prospecting and mining use.

Ultimately I want to have a variety of modules that can be brought in and function as a full (small scale) mining base with the Seeker either continuing to prospect for more claims or acting as a tug to take cargo in jump nets to the destination. It could even include small scale smelters (metal more valuable than ore and 1/2 the mass, fewer trips more profit).