New rule addition: Black Market Ships
Besides the normal procurement method of building ships in the shipyards, ships may be obtained on the black market or by special/secret projects of the government (the mechanism is the same, so all will be hereafter referred to as black markets ships (BMS).)
I think this could be easily coded, also.
These ships will be numbered 1001 and above and not be part of the 500 ship limit.
To make a bms, you must:
- Have a ship building at a SB.
- The cumulative tech of the engines, beams, torps, and fighter bays cannot be more than ((3 x hull tech) + 2). For this purpose, fighter bay tech = hull tech.
- On the planet, you must have Megacredits = 3 x 100 x (Hull Tech Squared).
- On the planet, you must have each of Deut, Trit, and Moly = 100 x (Hull tech Squared)
- The fcode of the starbase must be "bms".
- The starbase must have 0% damage.
The BMS phase occurs sometime after the 2 regular building phases. When it succeeds, the result is:
- The ship that the SB was building is built and is no longer being built by the starbase.
- The Megacredits and minerals specified above are gone (used).
- The SB suffers 50% damage.
One special rule: starbases cannot recycle ships with numbers above 1000.
I thought of a bunch of other special rules. But, after thinking about it for awhile, I think this addition would help all races about equally. The only other possible special rule would be that ships numbered above 1000 cannot Hiss.