The Firebird is a more conventional pirate ship based on the hull of an old Colonial CL. Without access to huge amounts of Colonial military tech, the ship has basically been gutted to make room for more conventional equipment.

The main hull of the ship has been gutted to make room for a cavernous cargo hold and a barracks for the pirate troops that the ship will send in to board crippled ships. More conventional weaponary has been added, including a heavy rocket launcher for disabling the larger civilian freighters, and a missile launcher for close-in fighter defence. A mine rack has also been added, and this is generally used for laying ambushes.

Without access to fighters, the pirate ship has converted the side pods into landing bays for attack shuttles, of which eight are carried on a good day. Two heavy shuttles are carried for the tranportation of pillaged cargo and boarding parties, and the end of the pods are now hangers for yachts, two of which can be carried. Small repair bays have also been added, and these are vital for the well being of the ship.

Finally, the engine section has been severely modified, with bigger engines added, although this is more likely to actually be additional engines added to increase the performance of the craft rather than just being bigger engines.

The ships main role is a carrier for it is troops and shuttles. The attack shuttles and soften up the target and disbale it is weapons, and the heavy shuttles ferry the troops in for the boarding actions. For most civilian ships, the mere sight of the ship is enough to install a sense of 'let's be elsewhere', and if that is not possible, then a flight of attack shuttles is usually the incentive for a quick surrender. Even more hardy civilian ships do not want to tangle with this.
However, against a real Colonial Cruiser, the usual tactic is to use the shuttles as a fighting withdrawal, and against two flights of Vipers, they are a fairly even match. The Firebird usually then has withdrawn to safer areas and starts looting in a safer area.

The Firebird was designed and drawn by Steve Stiever.

The Firebird cruiser is basically a standard CL, and uses the same rules. It has the equivalent of two large shuttle bays which may launch and land shuttles in directions 1 and 4.
While the shuttle bays may not carry Yachts, the ship itself has 2 yacht bays.
The Firebird has a hyperspeed multiplier of x1.

Note that the cruiser only comes with 6 boarding parties as standard, but up to 14 more may be purchased.
Note also that no attack shuttles are included in the BPV.

The ship is armed with a Mini-missile launcher, a Rocket launcher and a small mine rack.

Firebird Cruiser boarding diagram:

Master Ship Chart Extract:

Annex #7B: Ships able to land on planets

This ship may land on a planet via Powered landings (P2.434).

Annex #7G: Carrier information & Annex #7N: Missile reloads