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GM > Starship > Starship List > Rust Bug
Starfinder Adventure Path #38: Crash & Burn (Fly Free or Die 5 of 6) p.0
Medium transport
Speed 8; Maneuverability average (turn 2)
AC 12; TL 13
HP 70; DT —; CT 14
Shields medium 120 (forward 30, port 30, starboard 30, aft 30)
Attack (Turret) flak thrower (3d4; 5 hexes)
Power Core Pulse Blue (200 PCU); Drift Engine ; Systems basic computer, budget medium-range sensors, crew quarters (common), mk 2 armor, mk 3 defenses; Expansion Bays cargo hold (4), tech workshop
Modifiers –2 Piloting; Complement minimum 1, maximum 6
System Damage Electrovores have mutilated the Rust Bug’s systems. When calculating the DC for crew actions aboard the Rust Bug, treat
it as a tier 10 starship. When the pilot, engineer, or science officer fails a crew check, systems on the Rust Bug short out. Once per round,
the chief mate can attempt a DC 25 Acrobatics or Athletics check to negate the effect of a short; this doesn’t affect the chief mate’s ability
to take crew actions. The specific effect of a system short depends on the crew action that failed:
Electrical Feedback (Engineer failure): The Rust Bug takes 5 damage to a random shield; if the shield is depleted, this damage reduces the
ship’s Hull Points.
System Crash (Science Officer failure): The Rust Bug’s countermeasures fail, reducing its TL for the next gunnery phase by a number equal
to the mark of the ship’s defenses.
Thruster Misfire (Pilot failure): The Rust Bug’s turn is increased by 1 for the next helm phase.
If the Rust Bug is ever improved to tier 11 or higher, it loses the System Damage trait.
Thasteron Fueled The Rust Bug can’t be fitted with a Drift engine.
One of the last thasteron-fueled starships built on Akiton before Drift technology became standard, the ship once called the Rise Up might be
considered a classic by collectors of antique starships—were it not a flying deathtrap. Originally designed for short-range cargo deliveries to dangerous locales, the ship survived countless firefights, centuries of missed maintenance, and dozens of cheap repairs as its stingy owners squeezed “just a few more runs” out of the hapless starship. When an engineer discovered a pair of electrovores nestled into the Rise Up’s
already-fragile command board, the crew paid a few credits to an enterprising ysoki named Drillbit, who towed the 300-year old junker to a scrapyard on Absalom Station.
While the previous owners promptly wrote the ship off as a business expense, Drillbit rechristened the ship as the Rust Bug and got to
work refurbishing it in junker style. This job proved bigger than anticipated, and after a decade of part-time repair work on the vessel, Drillbit died in a freak compactor accident. Ownership of the Rust Bug fell to his nephew, Ratrod, who much preferred to spend his time winning fame on the junkracer circuit instead of toiling away on a starship worth less than the sum of its parts. Eventually, the electrovores overran the ship, stripping its wires and feeding off its power core, while the Rust Bug became a piece of Downlow folklore, reputedly both haunted and cursed.
The Rust Bug doesn’t have much left to recommend it: a single flak thrower to shoot down missiles and other tracking weapons, Drillbit’s old workshop, decent shields, and an overlarge power core. These days, all that power goes to waste, feeding a colony of hungry electrovores.
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