Vanguard Shuttle (2012)

From publisher blurb:

This is a 48 x 30 inch map of a Space Craft, it has Hex, Square and No Overlays, it also includes the VTT files for online play.

Now includes a 360° View of the map.

The Vanguard module includes the Vanguard shuttle and three cargo container pods. The Vanguard shuttle is a solar-powered shuttle used for short trips between space stations, starports, planets, moons, ships, asteroids, or other satellites within a solar system. The Vanguard’s interior includes a cockpit, a main body, and a rear section, with a detachable underbelly cargo container. Three cargo container pods are included for use. The first is a passenger pod for missions with an extended duration, the second is a cargo pod for hauling goods, and the final pod can be used as a containment pod for transporting prisoners or as a dropship for transporting marines to the surface of a planet.

The Vanguard can be used in a lot of ways to bring the Player Characters into a scenario. The cargo pods make it a versatile ship; able to transport crew, cargo, prisoners, slaves, marines, weapons, armor, or anything else the Game Master can think of. The Player Characters can be the crew of the vessel, the marines, hired hands for guarding the ship as security guards, workers hired on to move cargo, the prisoners, the slaves, even stowaways in the access ducts, or any other reason the Game Master can think of for them being on the ship.

The Vanguard is useful as a ship for Player Characters to use as a base of operations to explore a solar system. Solar-powered, the vessel may be cheap to buy, especially in more advanced settings that have access to warp drives, gates, and other much faster means of travel. In this case, it is suitable as a starting ship for the Player Characters to use with the passenger pod.
Depending on why the Player Characters are on-board, many adventures are possible. If the Player Characters are prisoners or slaves, maybe an electrical power outage releases them from their bonds and they have to fight their way through guards to escape pods or even take over the vessel from within. The power outage could be caused by hackers paid by pirates or gangsters who wanted to bust out their guys at the main prison and have a plan in mind for the Vanguard shuttle. Maybe the shuttle continues its destination, the prison world/space station/mine etc., for a surprising break out attempt with the Player Characters and other prisoners or slaves dressed as the crew of the Vanguard as a disguise. Or they can be the guards trying to contain the prisoner break out on the ship.

Pirates who are after the cargo could assault the ship as well. This leads to a space battle possibly ending with pirates boarding the ship and the Player Characters trying to fight them off and keep them from stealing the weapons, armor, or other goods on board.
As Marines, the officers brief them on their mission, and then the Game Master gets the fun of describing an orbital drop to them from this point of view and their deployment in a hot zone fighting who knows what, aliens, monsters, other races, or more.