Okay...first pass
Marauder (Type Arrrrrr - err...I mean 'R' - Courier)
A 'fast courier' with a distinctly unsavoury reputation, this manta-ray shaped ship is a common enough hull design in the reach - but the original is a Theev-built pirate gunship.
Hull
Hull - TL12 Streamlined Class 5
Hull Upgrades - Aerofins, Heat Shielding, Reflec, Stealth, Self-Sealing
Armour - Crystaliron/4
Armour 4(7) means immunity to beam lasers & sandcaster pebble rounds, which means most 'civilian' weapons are useless. Missiles are in theory still a threat but are best dealt with with point defence, anyway. The armour is not sufficient to ward off particle beams, and can be punched through with pulse lasers, but those will be dealt with by the traditional tactic of "scarper, it's the law!".
Stealth is good for stopping any accurate read of the signature, and may help protect the ship from long-range shots as she runs. Streamlining, Aerofins and a heat-shielded, self-sealing hull means that it can go pretty much anywhere in a system - lurking in micro-meteor-dense ring systems, gas giant atmospheres, close solar orbit, pretty much any complex environment rather than floating in open space with a bullseye painted on it's hull saying "ship behaving suspiciously, please investigate".
Engineering Space
Jump Drive - TL12 Jump-E (Jump-2)
Manouvre Drive - TL12 Manouvre-Q (Thrust-6) with Armoured Bulkhead
Power Plant - TL12 Fusion-Q
Fuel - 1 Jump-2 plus 4 Weeks
Fuel Processors - 160 dTons per 24 hours
Drone Bay - 20 Repair Drones
Sufficient for 6G manouvres, which helps with intercepting ships and with legging it afterwards. More importantly, it's also capable of 4G and jump-1 with a 300 dTon ship attached.
Crew Space
6 Double Staterooms
Armoury
Luxuries - Steward/0
Standard Bridge
Computer - Model 4 Computer, Fire Control/4, Autorepair/2, Jump Control/2
Electronics - Very Advanced Sensors with Armoured Bulkhead
Drone Bay - 5 Probe Drones
Twelve crew isn't that many, but ten men, properly armed with combat drugs, gauss rifles and combat armour are enough to take most merchants, especially with the advantage of point-of-entry control. The drones help with being sneaky, acting as a 'periscope' for the ship whilst it's hiding in a gas giant atmosphere, behind a moon, or whatever.
Weapons Space
Hardpoint #1 - Pop-Up Triple Turret - Pulse Laser/Pulse Laser/Magnetic Harpoon (All Accurate)
Hardpoint #2 - Pop-Up Triple Turret - Pulse Laser/Pulse Laser/Magnetic Harpoon (All Accurate)
Hardpoint #3 - Single Turret - Beam Laser (Accurate)
Hardpoint #4 - Single Turret - Beam Laser (Accurate)
Hardpoint #5 - Empty
3 Breaching Tubes
Pulse lasers because they're easier to get parts for legally than particle beams, and you can carry significantly more on the same number of concealed turrets. Also, the power of a particle weapon is often overkill; I don't want to kill the crew with radiation damage, nor when a ship's exterior hull is breached to I want to keep shooting it with a 3d6 damage weapon as it's likely to be blown to bits. Nor do I need the range of a particle beam when I'll be closing as fast as possible to adjacent range. Also, if legging it from a missile SDB, the pop-ups can act as secondary point defence turrets.
The Magnetic Harpoon is a weapon from S&P 57 and strikes me as a very useful thing for pirates because spending two or three turns trying to dock isn't good enough, and combined with the breaching tubes the negative DM goes away.
The beam lasers are there as perfectly legal (but very effective) flak cover. The fact that they are also perfectly suited to called shots at the engines of unarmoured merchants is purely coincidental.
Cargo Space
Cargo Bay - 55 dTons
2 Grappling Arms
Spares & Food (2 Month Endurance)
Modular Compartment - 50 dTons
Standard Module: Docking Clamp (300 dTon Capacity), Full Hangar (30 dTon Capacity)
Stores & Spares worked out as for High Guard capital ships. That extra month may be a lifesaver in the same way jump-2 capability might be - it makes the ship's movement's unpredictable, meaning a bounty hunter or navy patrol can't know when it next has to make landfall.
50 dTons isn't much but it's enough if targeting a ship with valuable cargo.
The 30 dTon hangar is there to stow any small craft captured.
Price: MCr 566
Other options:
Fitted with MCr0 Trade Module: 50 dTons additional cargo space - MCr 556
Fitted with MCr20 Combat Module: Particle Beam Bay - MCr 576
The former option pushes cargo space to 105 dTons and helps maintain the flimsy 'totally legitimate' cover story of the design, whilst the latter would obviously only ever be fitted to ships owned by system navies and licensed mercenary units. Honest.
The other thing to note is that a 'stripped down' version, without the more unpleasent options, is also in circulation - these are often produced by the same yards and sold at relatively low costs; the aim is to make sure enough legitimate Type R hulls are in circulation to avoid it being purely considered an illegal vessel.
The Courier version only ever comes with the Trade Module, this time hard-fitted, and loses the stealth, reflec and heat-shielding layers to the outer skin. The compact Manouvre-Q is replaced with a standard commercial Manouvre-L dropping it to a (still impressive) 4G manouvring speed.
The sensors are downgraded to 'merely' an advanced sensor fit, and the pop-up turrets and probe drones are removed. Fire control software is limited to Fire Control/2 and the armoury is replaced with a luxuriously appointed common room. For the most part, the space from the removed equipment is left empty, and these ships have a reputation for being easy to upgrade, with just shy of 30 dTons of 'spare' space. Hot-rodded Type Rs piloted by traders fancying themselves bad-boys and swashbucklers does little to help the ship's unsavoury reputation.
Combined with the 'standard design' discount, these ships - sometimes called the "flying alibi" by Theev shipwrights - come in at less than half the cost; an expensive-but-affordable MCr 243.
