You can design a project for any of the following:
Each side (SWE, SWNR, and SWI shipyards) can work on one project every two months from one of these categories. Since ships are our primary focus, let's start with that. Ship R&D is divided into two groups; variants and new ships. Variants are the most common for they are simply new models of older vessels like the Imperial III and the MC100. New ships are RARE because they take time to design and test plus lots of new ships kind of causes the game to lose the Star Wars feel. Anyway, you can pick either kind of ship R&D you want. Times vary:
Variants:
New ships:
Times can be modified by paying a 30% increase on the total costs for every 20 days you want knocked off the time - just like shipyards. Of course, your engineers will have to make a skill roll just like in WEG.
Costs for Variants:
Take the price of the original model and then add to the cost for each part you modifiy and subtract for each part you reduce. Prices can be found in the modification rules (Galaxy Guide 6).
Example: Calculations made to find the cost of the MCE-10, a variant of the Nebulon-B Frigate.
COSTS FOR IMPROVEMENTS
+1D to Manuverability 3,000
+2 to Space 3,000
+1 to Hull 2,000
8 additional Turbolasers 72,000
10 additional Ion Cannons 15,000
1 additional Tractor Beam 8,000
x9 backup Hyperdrive 1,500
--Total 104,000
REFUNDS
1,000 tons taken out of cargo capacity 40,000
12 Laser Cannons removed 18,000
x12 Backup hyperdrive taken out 500
--Total 58,500
Total Cost of improvements minus refunds: 46,000
The next part was to calculate the 46,000 to banking (SWE, SWNR, government scale ) credits. I did this by taking out the last
"0" making it 4,600. Because all our planets have numbers in the thousands, I rounded it to the nearest thousand.
I rounded it to the nearest thousand which makes it come to 5,000. Then, I added it to the cost of the Nebulon-B (20,000) to get the price.
End Price: 25,000
Once you have the price of this new variant, multiply it by 10 to get the total cost of the whole R&D project which includes, parts, labor, tests, prototype construction etc. etc. Since the price is high, the banks that offer loans for such projects allow you to pay it in monthly installments of various sizes depending on how fast you want to pay for it.
Costs for New Ships:
Pick the most advanced ship in the general category of the new one and then do everything as states above with the variants except multiply the last number you get by 1.5 to find the total price of the new ship.
Additional Rules: