Interlude - Alzenei
In reply to Blake Renfield (msg # 44):
The ship, a standard Type A2 Free Trader of the Empress Marava class, already possessed fuel scoops. It lacked a fuel purifier and Jump governor, standard military or Scout equipment. The purifier would obviously purify the fuel while the lack of a governor would mean that the same amount of liquid hydrogen fuel would consumed regardless if the ship performed a Jump 1 or 2, which could be wasteful.
Upgrading the M-drive from 1G to 2G would probably take months, and cost millions of credits, as the entire drive assembly would need to be removed and upgraded to a larger module. Otherwise, improvements would only be very incremental.
Blake checked the stats on the ship. The Inquisitor was a civilian transport version of the Broadsword, a "mercenary cruiser". It couldn't land in normal atmospheres but carried 2 cutters for landings. Like many civilian ships out on the frontier it still possessed offensive and defensive weapons, in this case, 8 mixed triple turrets. As it was not a true military vessel it lacked an armoured hull and screens.