[Black Wolf]

So, this is a tangent from Axem's thread here where Rheyah brought up the question of civilian ships:

Assets wise I am profoundly limited by the availability of civilian ship assets but that's not difficult to write around.  I am not a modeller so I have no right to determine what kind of ships are available for use.

Now, I stated in that thread that I've been trying to get people to make civilian ships for years, and that's been at best, only marginally successful. So I thought it might be an idea to use the wisdom of the crowd to tackle this problem. I want to come at the question from 3 directions:

Firstly, is it a real problem? Do we have a distinct lack of civilian ships? I think yes, but I may be in the minority there. Have people noticed this to be an issue over the last several years? If so, has it affected your ability to tell the stories you want to tell, or have you been able to write around it as Rheyah describes?

Secondly, assuming that the above is true, where are the gaps most prominent for you personally? What do we really, obviously lack? I've brought this up on IRC before, and the strongest suggestion was that we lacked luxury liners - this is the best one that I know of so far, and that was only released relatively recently with the MT dump (and, though fairly well designed, and aging well by retail standards, is pretty obviously both low poly and tile textured). Do we simply need more diverse freighters? Are there classes that you would love to use but no modder has thought of/bothered with yet?

Thirdly and most importantly, what can we do about it? Obviously, we can encourage modders to develop civilian ships, but beyond that? Are there available ships that can be easily converted into a civilian role? Are there ships in modeldumps that maybe just need to be converted? Have you personally found some ship that has converted well into a civilian role for your campaign?

I really want this to be a thread where we think about (and maybe propose some solutions) to an apparent problem with our modding scene, so I really hope that people get involved, even if you just feel like you're complaining. The more we hear the better (especially if you have specific examples where this issue has intersected with your campaign/mission building in the past).

Oh, and because I'm sure people will wonder, the choice of forum here was deliberate. This is a campaign construction issue that admittedly crosses over into modding and FREDding, but I think is best served in this sub-forum.

[Cyborg17]

For me it has only been a problem up to just recently.  While making a campaign that focused more on the day-to-day function of systems, I found a distinct lack of small stations.  That forced me to use the GTI Asteria for the main hub, which feels more like a military station than a trading hub.  I also had to use the GTDS Goliath, which was created to be a defense station, as a corporate headquarters.  Recently, however, a lot of small stations have been released, including the new modular station, so it's not as much of a problem.  (And thanks BlackWolf for finishing the Constellation)

I know of at least these models that I can choose from and it should be more than enough for that need:

GTI Asteria
GTI Constellation
GVI Abydos
GTI Europa
GTDS Goliath

My other difficulty is with utility ships.  Not Freighters but things like Survey ships, Small Transports, Civilian fighters, etc.  A lot of these you can write around, but it can help with immersion.  I've got the a Table-modified GTS Hygeia filling in for most of those roles already, but a small transport that is more heavily armored than the escape pod would be awesome.

TL;DR: It's not a big a deal as it has been.

[Black Wolf]

My other difficulty is with utility ships.  Not Freighters but things like Survey ships, Small Transports, Civilian fighters, etc.  A lot of these you can write around, but it can help with immersion.  I've got the a Table-modified GTS Hygeia filling in for most of those roles already, but a small transport that is more heavily armored than the escape pod would be awesome.

Have you considered Aldo's GTT Wyvern? It may fit that bill rather nicely, and you can have both armed an unarmed variants.

[Lorric]

You could run another mod contest. I know at least one prize was unclaimed, so you could use that money. And also set a minimum entrants limit to make sure you get a good few ships. Having just one category should help instead of the spread out categories last time. The entries were diverse last time, so you might get everything from fighters and small cargo tugs and transports to massive superfreighters, luxury liners and space stations.

[Rheyah]

A lot of the ships I call on are clearly not of GTVA design.  As such for civilian or corporate interests I've made use of the Cretheus which I felt had enough of a "thrown together" look to get away with and the lovely model of the EACv Darkness which provides the primary antagonist for a lot of my campaign.  Fighters are much easier.

The campaign I am writing has enough of a bent that I can write around it but it would be nice to have a bit more variation in civilian or dirty military models.  As an example, a lot of Federal navy vessels get reused.  At the moment I'm getting rid of a few older models and replacing them with more interesting and more varied ones to give the impression of a larger number of manufacturers than your basic Fenris and Leviathan mix.

But having more stuff going on would be nice.

Liners
Freighters
Varied transports
Smaller more interesting stations
Mining facilities

All of these would be amazing.

[0rph3u5]

If so, has it affected your ability to tell the stories you want to tell, or have you been able to write around it as Rheyah describes?

There was a discussion in GenFS in March (link) that tackled the question how civilian space flight could or could not work on the specific topic of space liners...

Secondly, assuming that the above is true, where are the gaps most prominent for you personally?

Larger freighers carrying multiple containers with longer voyages in mind
Service vessels to perform day to day operations around installations (tugs, loaders, "follow me"s etc etc)
Surface-to-Orbit craft
Vasudan ships of said varieties

EDIT:
There is an underlying complication as the models would have to match the specific concept the writer has about the way interstellar and -planetary civilian shipping is handeled. As much as I find the above mentioned liner from MT dump nice on an aethetic level, the model doesn't match up with the way I would make up a concept on how interstellar commerce/travel would work (see the above link to the discussion in March).