The Caravel Freighter is an ubiquitous sight over any planet with a space-faring civilization on it. The Caravel was developed by Lunar Shipyards during the early years of interstellar colonization. When it was designed the designers focused on two priorities, first was reliability and the ability to ship large amounts of cargo between Earth and her colonies second. During those early days of interstellar travel a lot of concern was placed in these ships being able to cross the vast amounts of space without incident, as any breakdown which could put the FTL system out of commission would be a death sentence of all on board. With that in mind, the Caravel was designed with not only numerous redundant systems but systems were as modular as possible so components from one part of the ship could be used to repair systems almost anywhere else on the ship, also, most control boards were set-up to use more archaic analog systems rather than touch-screens as an analog board could be potentially repaired using parts on the ship where a damaged touch-screen film would have to be completely replaced. In addition, the Caravel included an on board machine-shop so parts could be potentially manufactured on board should it prove necessary. With all this the Caravel proved a wild success with freight companies and tramp freighter captains alike, so much so that when the patents on the Caravel's design expired numerous companies took up manufacturing the Freighter and continue to produce new Caravel Freighters to this day. Also, as testimony to their rugged design, a few of the original Caravel Freighters are still in use, continuing to travel the stars just as effectively as they did when they were still new.