I’m thinking of running an original series game where the ocs are the crew of a minor, utility ship rather than the big shiny ships, can anyone suggest a ship class that the pcs can be stuck with?
This is at player request.
They will be travelling along the romulan neutral zone taking the waste from outposts and space stations and flinging it in to the nearest star. Of course, they will be the only ship in the area, come upon strange things in the waste, romulan activity etc.
Pages 240-241 of the Starfleet core book. 
EDIT: Barring that, Oberth might meet your needs.
P240-241 should be hauled away as garbage!
suckerpunches Altheus and starts a bar brawl
I’m tempted to suggest a Quark-class vessel, but:
There’s a trek character who already has that name; and
It would reveal that I’m really old.
But a bit more seriously, I think the Antares-type is a workhorse-type vessel.
I’m working on making a fanmade Antares class freighter based on the S.S. Xhosa, Kasidy Yates’ freighter from Deep Space 9. There’s at least one fanmade version of the Xhosa floating around the Internet, but I don’t think its stats are accurate enough, so I’m creating my own Antares class profile which I will post here within the hour.
Stand by.
Yeah, it’s weird that the 24th-century Antares-class is different than that the 23rd-century Antares-type (ie. the class of ship that the USS Antares was, but really, an unnamed class).
Yeah, there are at least four different types of starships in the Star Trek canon that have been referred to as the “Antares class” whenever the writers needed a civilian starship, none of which look remotely like the others. See here for more information.
Ok, Altheus, this was a bit of a rush job, but here is my starship profile of the Antares class. As per the corebook rules for starship creation, I didn’t give it complete stats so you can take the basic spaceframe and make it your own ship. The PDF has adjustable text fields so you should be able to stat it however you like. If the Scale 4 (instead of Scale 3) throws you off, just remember that Eaglemoss gives the DS9 version of the S.S. Xhosa/24th Century Antares class a length of 270 meters, which is more than enough to make it Scale 4 as that’s almost as much as a Constitution class (289 meters). Besides, a bigger Scale means more freight space which means more profit!
I had to fudge a couple of things, so watch out: Since this is a civilian ship, it doesn’t have a Mission Profile so that’s something you need to address as a houserule in your own way. Also, I didn’t stat the phasers since that’s outside the purview of Barbarossa’s starship creation rules. Similarly, since this is just a civilian freighter, it’s obviously not gonna have photon torpedoes…at least as a spaceframe. If Orion Syndicate pirates manage to steal photon torpedo launchers and arm their Antares-class ships with them, that’s their business. 
If anyone notices any issues or errors on my part, feel free to post here and I’ll adjust the PDF as needed.
Enjoy!
Any of the civilian ships from pages 98-99 of the Beta Quadrant sourcebook should suffice. Perhaps the Malon freighter from the Delta Quadrant for a “beefed-up” version.
I ran a campaign based around a Ptolemy class tug. Concocting a suitable cargo pod for use as an interstellar dumpster shouldn’t be too hard, and it is a starfleet vessel equipped with some weaponry and capable of dealing with the occasional strangeness. There are some stats on Continuing Mission but I wasn’t too fond of those and concocted my own. I’d be willing to share if you’d like.
Oddly, I am also running a campaign on a Ptolemy; it helped me justify why the PC Science Officer had “Untapped Potential” as a Lt(Jg) while explaining she could be the senior scientist on a mission at the same time (as the tug would be light on Science Division types). Given the volume of space compared to the number of Starfleet vessels, it’s easy to explain that while only a tug, it could still be the only ship nearby. Since I am using modified Kelvin timeline (Kelvin destroyed, but not by a time-travelling Romulan world-destroying mining ship), I might even reprise Journey to Babel on a Starliner Pod. Would love to hear more of your campaign.
Thanks for sharing this, @Sutehp ! I’m going to be running an Enterprise-era campaign sometime soon (a convoy mission to the Delphic Expanse) and I plan on including the original S.S. Antares, progenitor of the line that eventually leads to the Xhosa, so your stats are greatly appreciated.
However, since the service date you listed is in the mid 23rd century, I just want to ask if you statted the ship for that time period, or if you consider these to be the stats for the ship as the first models rolled off the line in the 22nd century?
I’m not familiar enough with the system yet (I’ve yet to run my first game) to recognize when exactly a ship should be placed based on its total systems value.
Yeah, I missed the reference in Memory Alpha that the Antares class first came online in or before 2165, so I statted my Antares for 2232. The problem is, there are so many redresses of so many different models that all got named “the Antares class” so it’s a total shitshow trying to make stats for the Antares when in reality there’s no single Antares class.
I used the Memory Beta information to stat my particular Antares class. It said that the Antares came online/ was first manufactured in the 23rd century, not the 22nd.
Besides, I can’t see Kasidy Yates flying a 200-year-old freighter because no canon ship has lasted that long in service. Even the Miranda class only lasted about 90 years.
As for my version’s date of 2232, that means that you can add a bunch of refit points (1 refit point for every 10 years) to upgrade your Antares for whatever era you decide to run.
My interpretation of the Antares class being 200 years old by the time of DS9 isn’t that any individual ship in service might be that old, but rather the Xhosa is the latest model of a model name. For example, the “Ford F150” is a modern version of the Ford F series which started in the 1948 model year!
Regardless, my problem is that refits won’t help me here, because I’m trying to turn back the clock. My campaign will be set in roughly 2157, and I can’t hardly find any civilian spaceframes that are designed for that time period.