Corsair for GURPS® Tales of the Solar Patrol

A typical corsair is intended to frighten unarmed merchantmen, haul cargo, and evade pursuit. It is not built to stand and fight the Patrol, unless it happens to catch a Patrol ship that has been crippled or otherwise rendered suboptimal. It is not designed for long operating times. They are often armed with discarded laser turrets, but the richer and more successful pirates are now starting to mount older atomic guns. The corsair ship described here has a 1,000-ton (SM+8) streamlined hull and is 50 yards long.

Front Hull System
[1] Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 10).
[2!] Medium Battery Weapons (two 100 MJ fixed-mount lasers and 15 tons of cargo capacity).
[3] Control Room (comm/sensor 6, four control stations).
[4–6] Cargo Hold (150 tons capacity).
Central Hull System
[1] Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 10).
[2] Habitat (two cabins, mess hall, 10 tons steerage cargo).
[4] Hangar Bay (30 tons capacity, holds three one-ton lifeboats1).
[5–6, core] Cargo Hold (150 tons capacity).
Rear Hull System
[1] Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 10).
[2] External Clamp.
[3–4] Cargo Hold (100 tons capacity).
[5] Engine Room (one control station, one workspace).
[6!] Electron Drive2 (2G acceleration).
[core] Tesla Coil3 (five Power Points).
  1. See Life Pods in GURPS Spaceships Designer’s Notes.
  2. Electron drives are equivalent to TL11 hot reactionless engines.
  3. The Tesla coil is equivalent to a total conversion power plant.

A corsair has a gravitic vector (artificial gravity and gravitic compensators) and wings. There are usually at least eight crewmen, including the captain, gunner, pilot, and astronavigator on the bridge, an engineer and the engineer’s mate in the engine room, plus two more men for boarding other ships. There are often quite a lot more of these.

TL Spacecraft dST/HP Hnd/SR HT Move LWt. Load SM Occ dDR Cost
PILOTING/TL6+3 (AEROSPACE, HIGH-PERFORMANCE SPACECRAFT)
6+3 Corsair 70 −1/5 13 2G/0.1c 1,000 457.8 +8 28ASV 10 $84.4M

Top air speed is 3,500 mph. Air Move: 20/1750; Hnd/SR: +3/6.


The material presented here is the original creation of David Trimboli, intended for use with the GURPS system from Steve Jackson Games. This material is not official and is not endorsed by Steve Jackson Games. GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with SJ Games online policy.

Last updated March 21, 2011

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