Starship

A starship's primary function was to transport its passengers through the emptiness of space. To achieve this, starships featured an atmospherically sealed hull, protecting against space debris and radiation through the use of deflector shields. Accessing and exiting a starship required the use of pressurized gates referred to as airlocks, typically in the form of hatches or doors within the hull. Furthermore, to ensure passenger comfort, most models were equipped with life support systems, regulating air composition, temperature, and pressure within the hull to levels suitable for most species.

For propulsion through space, starships were outfitted with engines, specifically sublight engines, which functioned by combusting and expelling fuel from the ship's fuel tank or by combining exotic materials from an onboard reactor. More sophisticated drives, like the twin ion engine, employed accelerated ions and other subatomic particles. Certain starships also included a hyperdrive, enabling travel into hyperspace for faster long-distance travel, necessitating the use of a navigation computer to safely navigate through pre-established hyperspace routes. Lastly, a crucial yet often overlooked component of any space-bound vessel was the gyrocomputer, utilizing control momentum gyroscopes to provide positional reference in the absence of planetary landmarks.

The number of starship types was as diverse as the professions within the galaxy. These types were categorized into classes, mainly based on the starship's intended purpose (e.g., starfighter, transport, freighter), and the Anaxes War College System, which classified ships according to their size (e.g., corvette, frigate, battlecruiser). A starship's class influenced its design; for instance, combat-oriented classes like starfighters featured integrated weaponry, such as laser cannons, and typically lacked a hyperdrive, while freighters possessed larger reactors and engines for more efficient heavy cargo transport.

Starship components encompassed repulsorlifts, artificial gravity, deflector shields, hulls, sublight engines, hyperdrives, life support systems, acceleration compensators, reactors, blaster cannons, laser cannons, turbolasers, missiles, sensors, flight computers, and tractor beams. Carbon-freezing was once an essential feature of starships before hyperdrive technology was invented.