The Eleonora is a class-of-its-own cargo ship, specifically designed to operate a route in the Terran Cluster. It uses the largest jump drive ever produced, commercial or naval, built by Koexco Space. It was subsidized by the Terran government as "Project Syntax Wolf" with the intention of producing the drive for a new line of naval ships, though the military version in the final contract ended up slightly smaller.
Peshaaka Heavy Comber
A distinctive type of ship, built around a large power plant
Pilot, navigator x3, engineer x2
Six crew staterooms
Crew lounge/kitchen
Small medical bay + 2 suspension coffins
Small shuttle in rack
Minimal maneuverability in realspace; no atmo/gravity capability.
It can make jump-1, and in theory make perhaps sixty hexes between refueling
Combers are regulated to prevent "overfishing;" their profitability is guaranteed but slots are hard to come by
Exorbitant
The Peshaaka Heavy is one of the largest combers, and enables high-traffic systems to have fewer, larger combers.
Combers
Update: There is now a wiki entry for jumpdrives, which supercedes this.
Combers enter voidspace and stay around the brightspace of a false star, casting their jump field like a net to sweep up phykons and other small voidspace life. When a comber drops back into realspace, the voidspace matter converts to brightspace energy. The comber's enormous power plant runs the containment field for a huge array of fuel cells to contain the energy.
Technically, this makes the comber a starship. If it turns that field toward moving the ship instead of gathering energy, a comber can generally achieve jump-1. The only limitation is the crew supplies, which are generally only a couple weeks' worth, and the piloting software, which usually has safeguards built in to keep the comber below a certain speed.
Combers typically have relatively luxurious crew quarters, since crews usually spend extended time aboard. Each crew member has a private stateroom, and the lounge and kitchen facilities are spacious for such a small crew. It is a nav-heavy crew, since the ship requires constant observation given the crowded "neighborhood" it spends all its time in.
On the realspace side, the comber is paired with a tender† which will dash in, transfer the BSE, load fresh groceries, and dash out so the comber can immediately jump back and begin skimming again.
I guess I found the "extended whaling voyage" thing, though all the time isn't spent in voidspace. The ship doesn't ever come in past the gravitational jump limit, though, so it's close enough.
†Soon may the Wellerman come!
Daarmag Heavy Merchant
A huge box of a ship, dwarfing even its large drive pack
Passenger deck: four luxury staterooms, 24 standard staterooms, three crew staterooms (steward/maintenance)
Three lounges (one exclusive to luxury passengers, one configured as dining area)
Three cargo bays: four can racks, two 65-dton open bays.
Modular cutter in bay (holds one can, usually shuttle passenger configured)
Minimal maneuverability in realspace; no atmo/gravity capability.
It can make jump-3, and make probably six to eight hexes between refuelling.
Profitability requires regular transportation contracts and a scheduled passenger service.
Priceless
This Inukari heavy merchant used the largest civilian jump drive then in production. It is a hybrid cargo/passenger ship, notorious for being almost impossible to turn a profit with. Most Daarmag in regular service have been puchased in one or more bankruptcy sales. Fortunately, they're well-built ships, and despite their age they have settled into a more profitable middle career.
Some Daarmag wth routes that don't require the full J-3 capability have been refitted with smaller drive packs.
Courier
Minimum viable starship; a bridge/stateroom with engines.
Pilot/navigator, engineer
One stateroom/kitchen
One suspension coffin
Racked cargo half-can
Reasonably swift in realspace
Jump-3 (current technological max), at least eighteen hexes between refuelling.
It is seldom found as an independent operator, but more often as part of a communications network.
Very Expensive (Expensive used, in poor shape)
The basic courier - variants are made in every polity - is the sneakernet of charted space. With no interstellar communication beyond physically going from one place to another, courier ships are the proverbial "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of floppy disks."
The Zhdezplier has the most sophisticated version of this: a carefully choreographed dance of courier ships arriving and departing from nearly every world, almost continuously. There is a complicated system of synchronized jump field scheduling, enabling the swapping of the equivalent of flash drives as a courier passes through, often multiple legs in a single jump. A message can reliably be gotten from edge to edge of the Zhdezplier in under two months, or from the capital itself to all the borders in under six weeks.
The Inukari Union has slightly less coverage. Messages can in theory still make it in about the same speed, though the limited capacity of the fastest networking means that only the highest-priority messages go at that speed. Less critical (and most government communication) is about half as fast.
The Terran Republic has significantly less reliable coverage, particularly inter-cluster. This is less a function of technology and more of conflict - couriers are a frequent target of interception.
Aragi Class
A very small, short-range Inukari freighter with a minimal drive pack
Pilot, navigator, engineer, optional cargo super or passenger steward
Two-stateroom crew block
Crew lounge/kitchen
Eight passenger staterooms
Passenger lounge/kitchen
Medical bay + twenty suspension coffins
Three racked cargo cans
It will not outrun much in realspace
It can make jump-1, and make probably four hexes between refuelling.
It can easily support a crew of four on legal cargo, though it is susceptible to route overcrowding since it is limited to travel within a cluster.
Very Expensive
The Aragi (a colorful moth specific to the Inukari homeworld) class is a workhorse intra-cluster freighter. There are several alternate configurations; the above is a hybrid passenger/cargo ship, usually as part of scheduled service.
A cargo-only version is often owned by a company for its own dedicated use. It replaces the passenger accommodations (except the coffins, which are sometimes used for personnel transport) with two more cargo cans.
Two of the can racks are configured for full life support and in-flight access, meaning an additional sixteen staterooms can be added via module. This tends to make the passengers feel more crowded (despite having the same area per person), so is only used on high-traffic, often subsidized routes.
The Batoid, revisited
The Iapetl (Batoid) class
A smallish Zhdez freighter
Pilot, navigator, engineer, medic, cutter Pilot, optional cargo super or passenger steward
Two-stateroom crew block
Crew lounge/kitchen
Small medical bay + two suspension coffins
Lower deck: two more staterooms (steerage or cargo/cutter crew)
One and a half cargo cans, racked
Modular cutter, racked (holds one can, usually cargo)
Average maneuverability in realspace for a freighter (especially in atmo, given its configuration).
It can make jump-3, and make probably twelve hexes between refuelling.
It can usually support a crew of four to six on legal cargo, provided it can stay pretty close to a two-jobs-a-month schedule and get higher-paying cargos: longer jumps and/or jobs which require on-planet pickup/delivery using the cutter.
On the Cypher "inexpensive, moderately priced, expensive, very expensive, exorbitant, priceless" scale it is Very Expensive used, Exorbitant new.
