*Raises her hand*
I'm kinda the temp pirate GM. I've been trying to flesh out the criminal setting in SARP and give the pirates their own unique technologies rather than purely military hand-me-downs.
If you're going to design something a good front might be the
Opportunists Social Club. They're basically a mercenary bonding commission -- think the equivalent of a union for mercenaries and bounty hunters. They also traffic arms; giving shady groups access to legitimate markets and industrial facilities that they wouldn't normally be able to use.
In terms of tech you will have little above civilian-class equipment from nearly every major nation in SARP. There are only three possible exceptions: Salvage (which according to most GMs I've asked, actually has very little "useful" technology), and the
Freespacers, (who are devout anarchists at heart, and will readily support projects that no other nation will touch. They're actually the founders of the OSC). While I greatly doubt an AIES will be available, you can always get a SI construct if you don't mind self-aware computers too much.
If you want some live tech samples take a look at the
Divine Comedy. It's an assault cruiser built by the Freespacers a while back. As you can see from that example I've been trying to gear unique pirate tech towards being very ECM-centric, with ships leaning towards high-offense / low-defense setups. This is because in the majority of situations a pirate group simply won't be able to fight toe-to-toe with military vessels. Keep that in mind when you design your own vessel.
If you have any questions, let me know.