I recall a ship from way back in days of MT or maybe CT. It had a
sort of "net" that was part of the jump grid and that allowed it to
carry large, irregularly shaped items as cargo *outside* the hull.

anybody else remember that?

I'm wondering if something like that is still canon in any of the
rule sets. If it is, I'd like to go one step farther and have a jump
drive "module" that can be attached to/installed on a no jump ship to
let it be jumped to another system.

Be usable for salvage. Also useful for (in my idea) transporting a
"collectible" antique ship to a buyer.

Anybody willing to design something like that? For my initial idea,
the "collectible" ship will essentially be a NASA Space Shuttle (with
ET) with the serial numbers filed off. :-)

If doable, it'd make an "interesting" adventure for a bunch of PCs
who don't have a ship. Repossesed, needs repairs they can't aford,
whatever.

Another possible application would be for jury-rigging a ship from
the local "graveyard" (mothballed more-or-less ships left to be
scrapped/stripped for parts/whatever).

Such a graveyard/boneyard would likely be in orbit or on an airless
body as it's a lot easier to take care of ships in such an
environment. Though a nice desert like the USAF uses for their
boneyard is workable too.

Systems that been contacted/recontacted after they'd gotten back into
space one their own  might have some very interesting ships in there.

Tinkerig something usable together from the graveyard could be an
interesting adventure too. :-)

"You want us to try getting *that* flyable?!"

"Hey, it's cheap. It's sturdy. It'll still have lots of room for
cargo even after we refit it...."

"It's a bloody *rocket*!"

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com