After looking at the Actions available to the Skeleton Crew factions, a couple of things are obvious.
First up, special is special.
Pilot abilities pretty much cover all the missing EPT’s, but are of course unique and without EPT’s are without peer in this dynamic.
As important, are ship capabilities not available to others such as rare, moves Actions or Upgrades. These are standouts and all the more attractive for it.
Ships are defined within clearer parameters, with each filling a role, but not each other’s roles making sound squad synergies paramount.
Play them as you see them.
After looking at the Actions available to the ships, lets turn now to the primary stat lines of those ships and the game elements that effect them.
Rebels
The Rebel base line ships tend to be middle of the road. They range from the only 1 primary up to solid 3’s and a couple of turreted large base ships, but only have one native 3 Agility ship. Where they do shine however is in shields. They have on average more shields to hull than their Scum equivalents and both have more than the bulk of the Empire’s ships.
Wedge reduces a target’s Agility.
Gemmer Sojan gains 1 Agility at Range 1 of an enemy.
Eaden Vrill gains 1 Attack dice against a stressed target.
R2-F2 increases Agility by 1 as an Action.
Empire
The Empire flies the flag for speed and manoeuvrability over robustness, that is until they decide to bring the muscle, then they tend to go wholly the other way having the only Hull 12/0 Agility brick. Boasting the most, 3 agility ships (3), their “mass” is adroit. The biggest weakness for the Empire is their, on average, low primary weapon values.
Mauler Mithel rolls an extra Attack die at range 1.
Back Stabber rolls an extra Attack die if flanking.
Cmdr Kenkirk gains 1 Agility when damaged.
Scum
The Scum have solid stats, but no real standouts. They tend to be similar to Rebels in health, but lean more on slightly inferior hull than shields. They are also similar to the Rebels in Agility, with only a single 3.
Kath Scarlett gains 1 Attack die in her rear arc.
Graz gains an Agility dice if his attacker is in his own arc (likes to play chicken).
Talonbane gets +1 Attack die at R1 and +1 Agility die at R3, making him one of the stronger aces (except at range 2!).
Latts Razzi (crew) may trade a Lock to reduce enemy Agility (sucker punch).
Generic
Tail Gunner reduces enemy Agility if in rear arc.
Proton Rockets like to be launched by high Agility ships.
Mods to actual ship stats and abilities are rare in SC, so yet again, their usefulness is exaggerated by the sparse offerings, but extremes of near unplayable combinations are also reduced. Situationally Gemmer can pull 4 Agility and Talonbane 5 Attack and 5 Defence, but these are the extremes.