Good Sci-Fi RPGs?

[shadow_archmagi]

Hi fellas,

So after nearly 8 years of sword & sorcery, my appetite for new horizons has finally come full swing. Anybody know of any good Sci-Fi Tabletop RPGs out there? I've played a buttload of d20 Modern/Future, but I'm eager to expand past the d20 motif and want some new systems to delve into.

What I'm really looking for is something with fun ship customization (I'm a Trekkie fan) and something for my fellow Trekkies to droll over and have fun tinkering their ship. But also something for the "character optimizers" or should I say "the people who like to leave the ship with their laser carbine in tow and go all D&D combat on folks."

I've looked at Cortex and I really love it though my players like to look at gigantic feat tables and be like "Ooooh! What do I want now??" In other words, they like options AKA "hard" rules (not the "kind of make it up" kind).

Ideas?

I'm a huge fan of Rogue Trader. The core premise there is that you have the manpower and operational paradigm of the Enterprise (Massive ship, thousands of crew, investigate everything with a six man away team consisting of the command crew and one ensign to hold heavy things) but the morality and end goals of Cortez (Find new places, loot/conquer as needed.)

It has piles of feat tables and whatnot.

The downside is that it can be a bit... silly. It responds very well to optimization, so your players could easily be flying around on hoverboards, dual-wielding rapidfire grenade launchers, protected by high end forcefields.

Some GMs might see this as a problem with the system, others will simply shrug and go "It's a system that lets you be awesome. OK."