frobisher said:
Actually, it shouldn't be listed as a shuttle, or have troop carrying capability, and is atmospheric only. This will almost certainly be corrected in the EA Factbook I'd say...
Or not. The info is conflicting... and just because some CGI-guy was lazy!
AoG had the Valkyrie as atmospheric-only gunship, the EA-tech equivalent to the US Apache helis, based on the scenes from "GROPOS".
However, if one looks closely, one can spot the very same CGI model flying through space with Clarke's force on their way to assault B5 a season later.
Now, we all know it makes little sense to have it there... but some CGI guy thought "oh, what a nice mesh, I'll use it to spice up that scene...", and so we're stuck with that shot.
Soo, it depends on Mongoose... I hope that on second thought they will turn a blind eye to the S-3 scene and keep the Val as a-only gunship (which makes a Lot more sense, since the model IS structured for atmospheric vectored thrust, and has no "patented EA 3d thruster system" like a starfury...). But you never know... If they officially aknowledge the Valkyrie's presence in "Severed Dreams", it'd make sense to make it an "assault shuttle" type of vehicle.
As for the other questions...
T'Loth
No, of course the narn have their own shuttles. As do the Drazi and Vree. Mongoose just didn't publish those stats yet. Expect something very much like the EA shuttles though - the differences are rather minor. Until Mongoose gets around to the narn, drazi & vree shuttles, just use the EA stats...
One thing though - the T'Loth doesn't always carry normal shuttles, when it's on a combat mission you can expect T'Khar assault shuttles, those are more heavily armored as standard shuttles, and armed besides.
Pods
Very different. A Vehicle pod is basically a transport covering for vehicles. No stats on it's own, it just means the ship that has "Vehicle pods" carries that many tanks, jeeps or gunships in it's belly. The cargo pod on the other hand is a much bigger, hollow container filled with, well, cargo. (theoretically one could fill a cargo pod with one or maybe two vehicle pods... but they'd be hell to unload, unlike on ships designed to carry them. However, in certain situations it can be neccessary to have an innocent-looking freighter carrying tanks... or sometimes there just is no other choice.)
Cortez Explorer Survey Ship
It is a ship more then 3 klicks long - certainly they found enough room for pilots. I'd say those 8 are pilots for the main ship only (check the SHarlin for example - if it had onlöy 28 pilots, it could operate it's small carft, OR the big ship, but not both at the same time. And for a warship I'd expect a second shift of pilots, to fly the fighters while the first shift rests... and maybe even a thrid shift... dunno, any real military guys here can tell us how's the pilot-to-plane ration of modern aircraft carriers?), and thus you can easily add another 30 or so for their small craft.
Condor
Actually I don't think the troops shouldbe listed under crew in any case, as they're not always on board. A troop transport may fly empty, on it's way to pick up troops for example, and then the crew notations make little sense (they could write it as optional crew... but since the troops are actually not doing anything in the ship except sitting there and waiting 'till they get where they Can do something -well, except in marine boarding actions of course- I'd not count them as crew; but would write them into the "cargo capacity" of the ship).
As for the Condor & cargo - no idea... a lot though if it were converted to cargo carrier, at least 250,000 lbs I'd say. Hey, 250 soldiers AND 6 vehicles? That's a lot of boxes if you fill the space with cargo instead...
As a side note, I'd have liked more flexible cargo descriptions. As in: "250,000 lbs, optional troops (250 lbs per trooper) or light vehicles (30,000 lbs per light vehicle pod), or heavy vehicles (80,000 lbs per HVP)...", for every ship (those without troop capacity just have the cargo space, those which can carry troops but no vehicles have only the trooper option, etc.). Well, maybe in an later ship review...
