One of the things I LOVE about Rogue Trader, and 40k ships in general, is that each one is a massive, ancient society with its own customs and history. So I was hoping /tg/ would share/brainstorm some ship culture tidbits and ideas. I'll start:* The ship has 500, ~18 hour days a year (thus syncing well with Imperial datings 1000 increment year counter), with three 6 hours shifts in a day.* The large and burly gunnery crews have formed totemic clans around their macro-cannons, each with a long and storied history. The believe strongly, almost religiously, in the machine spirits of their canons, and have a fierce competition with each other. Though rare, wars and raids between crews are not entirely unknown.* Their is a death cult that meets in cargo bay 13, thursdays at 7pm. Starch cookies and tang are provided as refreshments, before they commence with the ritual sacrifice. The Captain tolerates them because occasionally they produce some outstanding assassin's with no fear of death.* There is a large gap between decks 144 & 145 that is full of pipes and boilers not used in by any existing systems. It's been converted into a makeshift bar and distillery, with a small fight pit. It's the only place on the ship where ratlings, crew, and officers can all intermingle, and by custom there is no rank within. Obviously, most officers don't attend that often.* The crew has a strict feudal hierarchy, with ratlings (including a non-crew society and anyone who gets press-ganged) as serfs at the bottom with no rights and a short life expectancy. Above them is the crew, effectively citizens with feudal rights. They are skilled with long family lineages at their station, membership is hereditary, but ratlings can be promoted in recognition of valor or for services rendered. Above them is the Officers, the nobility of the shp. Often the heads of the crew clans are promoted to officer status, most void masters coming from their ranks.
>cultural exchangeReminded me of this.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO0XRUy3vQ8
* The primary currency on ship are used adamantine bolts, which the enginseer's mark as lawfully removed (so as to discourage the scrounging of new bolts from the hull). The removal of a bolt by a non-enginseer or the forgery of an enginseer's mark is punished by spacing.* There is a movement among the ratings called the "Free Shipmen", who demand equal rights for all crew. Some whisper they harbor a cult of tzeentch.
>cultural exchangeEvil campaign done right.
On a particularly large cruiser: The ship was once boarded by an orc rok. It was successfully fought off, but ever since ork raiding parties have occasionally appeared, raiding weapon and supply caches every few months/years. The crew suspects they must have found some lost hydroponics bay or garden and infested it, but thanks to the ships maze-like interior, search parties have never been able to locate their nest. Despite "airing" the ship the the void twice, radiation cleansing at port, and two minor wars, they have continued to be a nuisance.
* Deck 56 has been sealed centuries ago. No one remember why: some say it was a plague, but rumors about untold riches exist. So far the ancient security devices held still, but young adventurers keep coming...*Main cargo hold has been claimed by a noble family, evacuated centuries ago. They have actually build a castle there. They don't want to move and they still hold one tank.We should make a random table.
A particular ship that uses stasis cubes to store extra crew has developed an elaborate "birthing" ceremony when new crew is brought out of stasis. Due to problems with the ancient cryogenic system, new crew tend to emerge groggy and with light amnesia.The crew greets each unfrozen crew-member as though they were a new birth, giving them a new name and family and having celebrations, and talk of any past life is heavily stigmatized. Most crew fairly quickly forget any previous life they had, and think of their "birth" as the start of their real life, and their new "family" as their true one.
>>30040552>*Main cargo hold has been claimed by a noble family, evacuated centuries ago. They have actually build a castle there. They don't want to move and they still hold one tank.HAH! I love it!> We should make a random table.We really, really should. If this thread gets enough response, I'll make one up with the results.
In order to truly be accepted by the crew, new Captains must pass their very dangerous Trials of Manhood.Not all new captains do, and several have tried to quash the tradition. But those that slay the tugra and eat of its venomous heart find a crew that has the fanatical devotion of a mother to her child, for he is truly one of their own.
>>30040391Our ship has a secret death cult dedicated to the Emperor on it. They try to keep it a secret from the officers, but we at least know it exists.When we're planetside and want someone dead, the captain often goes down into the crew decks and loudly shouts: "GEE, IF (person's name here) WOUND UP MURDERED FOR SOME REASON, I SURE WOULD BE PRETTY HAPPY. MAYBE EVEN HAPPY ENOUGH TO TRIPLE RATIONS FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS."
>>30040613'Welcome to the world of TOMORROW!"
The ships vox system broke down centuries ago, and no one has ever been able to get it up and running again. Instead an intricate system of brass pipes the captain/crew must yell into, with relay stations interspersed where designated crew members repeat the message.One would expect lots of miscommunication, but that is not the case. The position of Relay Speaker has become a fiercely religious position of great importance and privilege, only passed on to the best candidate after years of tutelage, and are seen as a type of prophet by the crew. After all, they are almost literally the Voice of the Captain, who is in turn the Voice of the Emperor on the ship, thus they speak with the voice of God. Between endpoints they speak in a heavily coded, extremely compact, almost indecipherable private language, only translating back into gothic at the endpoints.The captains of the ship have had the ship ecclesiarchy encourage such beliefs on the ship after it was noticed how secure and efficient it made shipboard communication, and the past few generations have actively opposed any repair attempts to the vox system.
The position of Press Ganger has become highly prestigious and religious. Youths must strive for years to be accepted into the Cult of the Press. When released into an unsuspecting port they go forth with hoods in black leather ceremonial outfits, each with a silver stun-baton.Do to the ritualization and established tradition the ships press-gangs have become remarkably effective at choosing only the best and most experienced scum to press into service, often time even getting members of other ships crew. While in plain clothes they carefully observe, selecting likely targets, and once the order goes out they track them down like hounds, bringing only the best back to the ship, where they are baptized in holy oils and fitted with a shock collar until they prove themselves.No one outside the organization, not even the command officers, know their membership. The Captain simply announces on deck that the ship will be accepting new converts, and that night the Cult of the Press fulfills his wish.
* About 50 years ago your ship was invaded by Dark Eldar raiders. They used vents to spread psychotropic gas and took off with some of your crew, but not before having fun with the rest. When fighting Eldars (of any kind) your morale plummets. Your people still remember. Oh, Emperor! They cannot forget.*One of your macrobatteries is considered haunted. Wherever rightly or not, until you resolve that that problem they are at -1 Str. Crew members are very superstitious and it will take a lot of convincing.
>>30040717That's not a death cult, that's just opportunistic ratings wanting more food.
The ship moves.
>>30040391>7pm>18 hour daysThere's no such thing as thursday.
The Captains of the ship have received "visions" about the state of the ship in his private suite warning him of calamites: weakened and volatile fuel tanks, discontent among the crew, and a misalignment of the geller field matrix that could have threatened the ship, just to name a few occations.They occur only when the captain is alone and sleeping, and between the hours of 0100 and 0200.The Enginseers have speculated it may be a powerful composite machine spirit, an emergent, amalgam of the systems and machine spirits of the ship, attempting to protect itself and its crew.
>>30041056All those examples aren't necessarily on the same ship.
>>30041019Well, considering (the GM rolls for results), they've killed a Planet Governor in his sleep (and Aquila was carved into his chest, not unlike some crewmen we occasionally discover - what led us to the conclusion of Death Cult) without being detected. Color me impressed with the skills of opportunistic ratings with a weird obsession with carving Aquilas into people.
>>30041019They come for the starch cookies, they stay for the ritualistic sacrifice.
>>30041089You're telling me...Oh, I read that wrong.I wasn't schooled.
In untold times, the lords of the machine found they could not heal the wounded machine spirit of the ship; and so they closed the wound with the spirit of a titan.Ever since the leviathan-like, deliberate nature of the ship and the hungry, hubristic force that is the titan have fought for the captain's attention.If ignored for too long, the titan would start manipulating the sensor feed and damage reports to sate its lust for battle by provoking aggressive responses.
>>30041127>Girls, girls, stop fighting...
>>30041159Yeah, but you have to say it in binary.
I just wish that FFG didn't go full retard with the crew sizes pretty much ignoring what Chambers did with BFG.
>>30041159 gave me an ideaThe machine spirit of the ship has gone a bit funny. It seems to have developed a crush on the captain.The command crew have found that if they pretend there is a rival lover on enemy ships, their own ship reacts more quickly and aggressively.Though there have been a few unfortunate incidents with the captains paramours on the ship, he has learn to just keep that sort of thing planet side.The crew has also become very careful about making any remarks about the captain, good or ill, lest the ship take it the wrong way.
>>30041204And what was that?
>>30041204So what was the old sizes and what is the new?I know both games went full retard with mass, because apparently they think either that square-cubed isn't a thing, or that ships are made of styrofoam.
* A strange order of monks was has been founded on the ship, centuries ago. The Silent Ones sometimes parade through main decks and when they do all activity ceases. Still, they are good for morale.* Animals are primary means of transport around you ship. Your crew is seldom hungry, but the stench...
>>30041219In general frigates had crews of less than 1000 and capital ships had crews of about 1000-2000 per hull point.So a lunar cruiser would have a crew of 8-10k
>>30041259Eh... I guess I can see that making more sense. Didn't remember it from the little I played BFG, but it might be a decent houseruling.
"The ship" is actually a space station, but only the senior officers know this, as nobody else has access to windows. None of the officers know how or why this started, but they keep up the illusion just in case.There is a legend that one day a chosen one will be born on to the ship who will start a new great crusade and golden age for the imperium. The legend says that he will make himself known by having a vision of glory after drinking the coolant from engine 12. So far all of the would be messiahs have died, but that just shows they were unworthy.The Captain sleeps nude in an oxygen tent, that he believes gives him sexual powers.The ships 10th Captain is considered by far to be the most successful the ship ever had, despite being blind and refusing to use any sort of artificial eye. His memory is honored by the crew to this day, who go about their duties blindfolded every 10th day, accident rates be damned.
>>30041259I've always loved the giant cities in space idea. I think I've always enjoyed FFG's depicted of starships in 40k than BFG, so I think I'll stick with them.Starships is probably the only thing I go to FFG for fluffwise though. I'm glad my group (who are all relatively new to 40k) are so tolerant of all the house ruling I do for item availability. Artificer armor is Extremely Rare? Nope Nope Nope Nope.
>>30041259See, I think that is probably the more retarded approach. Let's look at the real world:A Nimitz class aircraft carrier is 332m long and has a crew of 6000+.In the Imperium Escort class ships, like frigates, are anywhere between 750m-1500m in size, and do not have nearly the level of automation and efficiency a real world ship does.But they should have 5000 crew LESS than a modernship 1/3 their length?That's not even taking into account the ratings and non-crew families.
>>30041281Well it has strengths and weaknesses. It's good from the aspect that you can actually try to outline more of the crew effectively if you are Rogue trader on say a Sword Frigate with a crew of 500.Plus resupply is way way easier because you aren't having to buy provisions for an entire city at each stop.But some people really like the grimderp emphasized
>>30041281It only makes more sense if you have no concept of crew sizes on modern ships. Modern aircraft carriers, a fraction the size of an Imperial frigate, have over 5000 crew.
Honestly, FF might have actually LOW BALLED crew sizes for ships of that size.
Deck 4 has a Carnifex. Just one. It kills anything that tries to hunt it. The deck has been sealed off. The ratings call it Frank. It's not all bad, though. If the ship is ever boarded, we direct the raiders to deck 4 and let Frank do the rest.The Enginseer Prime found a piece of Archeotech in a chamber near the engine. It creates food from molecular refuse. Archeotech if I ever saw it. He turned it into an All You Can Eat restaurant. Problem is the Explorators on station won't leave until it really is all they can eat. Too damn literal if you ask me.
>>30041345They are still reasonably automated, and vast sections of the ship are simply not habitable because they are plasma conduits and deep storage supply bays that are kept deep space cold.Keep in mind you'd need to carry a fuck ton of reaction mass to move a kilometer length ship any distance.Also US Navy ships are staffed to a ridiculous amount. In contrast a bulk container ship Emma Maersk is 400m long and has a crew of 13.
>>30041420>They are still reasonably automated
Personally I like to emphasize the Feudal aspect to my players.> GM, why can't I just send my crew in to fight, a real captain shouldn't expose himselfWell, while that is true of a modern society, you are in fact a feudal lord, not a modern military commander, and by and large the feudal contract consists of "you serve me and do what I say, I fight for you".> But, GM, they have to do what I say, right? So I'm just going to have them all grab their defensive weapons and go fight those orks.You are of course free to do that, but know that in violating that social contract you will be taking huge morale hits and risking a mutiny. If you want combat units, get some. They are more like knights, they have agreed to fight for you if you equip them and pay them well. You can even open the position to your existing crew members. Just don't be surprised if your crew loses it when you treat common shipmen as cannon fodder.
>>30041365Modern Aircraft carriers don't need to store oxygen, reaction mass, food and water, etc for the possibility that the warp voyage might take decades.Directly comparing an aircraft carrier to a space ship is dumb
>>30041438>>30041420>automated
>>30041386This.GW is tell me that a Cruiser 5km long, 0.8km wide, and who knows how many km tall, has a crew of 4000 more than a ship 332meter long, and 72 meters wide?Hahaha, nope. 95000 sounds far more reasonable to me for a ship that much larger.
>>30041438>>30041456Inconsistent portrayals in fluff in my 40k?>LaughingWarlordTitans.holo
>>30041456This image is a bit more reasonable since it appears the crew just pulls it back to feed the shell into the cannon, and then the cannon moves back forward to the barrel under its own weight.I'm convinced though the Imperium doesn't do this because it cannot into automation, but because of its severe population excess - it's faster to build and people are cheap.
>>30041451Fuck that player. He's a cowardly retard.
>>30041420> They are still reasonably automatedsee >>30041438They aren't necessarily. Some are. There is a huge range of crew levels on an Imperial ship. Both BFG and FF make very clear that most guns are aimed by having hundreds of people drag them to position with chains.> Keep in mind you'd need to carry a fuck ton of reaction mass to move a kilometer length ship any distance.No less true for modern naval carriers moving through water, and it's much easier to move through space. While I agree huge portions of the ship are dedicated to engines and fuel (I think the core rulebook says something like 60% or more), you are still left with much more space than the entirety of a modern carrier.> Also US Navy ships are staffed to a ridiculous amount. In contrast a bulk container ship Emma Maersk is 400m long and has a crew of 13.And if we were comparing transport ships I might agree with you, but we are comparing combat ships. Combat ships that double as transport ships, and research stations, and exploration ships, with an incredibly inefficient crew, very little automation, and entire families and cultures along for the ride, for years at a time.It isn't ridiculous for a ship of that size in those circumstances to have a crew compliment outstripping a modern carrier, especially in the manpower happy Imperium.I'm sorry, I just don't think your complain has much merit. If anything I think the old BFG rules got it wrong. 1000 men on a 1.5k ship, in the conditions they describe? That's just silly.
>>30041451You know the captain needs to steer the fucking ship, right?And that doing so is leading the ship into combat since you are not actually safe or far away at any time?
>>30041420>reasonably automatedI, for one, like the idea of technology so ancient, that hardly anyone knows how to use it in full efficency.
>>30041581>You know the captain needs to steer the fucking ship, right?Not so much. The Captain orders the ship to be steered. Or more likely, gives broad orders that are then parceled down through the ranks, starting with the XO and moving on. You'd have a helmsman, and a navigator, and an XO, and possibly even a wheelman or similar sorts of things.
>>30041598As>>30041536pointed out, it does seem to be a fairly clever design if you're going to use people power.
>>30041452Sure, which is why I'm not claiming a 40k Frigate should have 8x the crew of a ship 1/8 it's volume. I'm claiming that having 1/6 the crew of a ship 1/8 it's volume is silly, and that have the same crew compliment, or slightly large is not ridiculous, which was your claim. You said they went full retard. I gave evidence that the numbers they present are perfectly acceptable.
>>30041504Well, let's just consider our options here.One: those images are, in general and in specific, completely wrong. GW intended ships to have small crews and automation, the images are outright fabrications that completely miss the tone and intent.Two: The images are accurate. Imperial ships are not greatly automated. GW attempted to convey that they have large crews but underestimated how large would be appropriate.
>>30041598thats pretty much the way 40k tech works for the most part, only the upper echelons of the Admech really understand it - enginseers understand it by rote.
>>30041611>possibly even a wheelmanVoidmaster pilots the ship, he's an officer on the bridge.You have the captain, the navigator, and the void master
>>30041639Maybe. Or maybe the voidmaster is just the head of the particular group of people that get the ship from A to B. Hell, even modern day submarines have like, 4-6 guys for that. They're not single man fighters after all, particularly with the huge manpower and size thing the imperium has.
>>30041452>>30041420>storeObviously they will have stores, but depending solely on stores to get everything working? I tend to assume they have systems to recycle and remake everything they need; 'stores' are replacements and maintenance to those systems.>>30041451You can also claim it's part of their charter; the Captain has to put himself first in defense of the ship and pursuit of profit. All loot may only be divided up between those personally involved in the acquisition thereof, or some silly clause like that..One of the stories I remember reading from somewhere had a port/starboard gang rivalry within the crew. In a long-ago battle, the current RT had promised the gunnery crews (on whim) that whichever side killed the most ships would get double grog rations for a month. The result was that one side 'killed' more ships, but the other cripple and hit more. Fighting broke out over who deserved the extra amasec and became so fierce that the Rogue Trader revoked it entirely to restore order. Ever since, either broadside's guncrews just loathe each other, and the annual sectional handball tournaments tend to have a couple to several fatalities every year.
>>30041581First>>30041611What he said.And what I was discussing was not taking your crew into space combat (which is exactly what they are signed up for), but taking regular crew into ground combat, which is what many players try to do.In a feudal society people make vows and have certain rights. By and large kings, barons, and whatnot have a hard time if they just requisition tons of conscripts and send them into battle while avoiding it themselves, because that is not how a feudal agreement works.The lord himself is required to go into battle, with whatever knights and vassals he has at his disposal, and while he CAN call up peasant levies, especially in emergencies, is he just tries to avoid battle and send the peasants into danger all the time he isn't going to last long, because the ENTIRE point of a feudal setup is that the lords defend the peasants.
>>30041661I don't know how practical or realistic it is, but the Voidmaster is a player class. I imagine it works like the starships in the Starship troopers movie, where you have a pilot/copilot and it operates like an aircraft. A giant, maneuverable aircraft, but the same general steering principles.
>>30041611The captain is effectively plugged into the command nexus that is the command structure.They are usually hard-jacked into the systems and are the only one to have an oversight of the situation.Everyone else is relaying and interpreting orders.So while they are not the only officer, they are the ultimate masters over the ship's fate
>>30041684I can see environmental systems being able to recycle the environment fairly well (well decent for Imperium tech) but if you have crews of 100k then they are going to eat a fuckton on a long voyage and that would need to take up a ton of space.
>>30041622Don't forget 3:Both are correct, we can accept both as cannon, and just assume different places are...different, which we largely know to be the case in the Imperium. Even the FF books make note that some ships are heavily automated and have very small crews, while others are bursting their seams with crew members.
>>30041730Entire hydroponics decks.Entire recycling decks turning excrement (it's got to go somewhere!) into fertizilizer. Or maybe just feeding it to algea that are harvested and turned into food.
>>30041400>Anger....Confusion....Prey EVERYWHERE!...yet no prey... Bio-plasma glands permanently damaged.... Claws not strong enough...Incapable of escape....>*CLICK* "Hey Frank! We got about 20 raiders we diverted to your level, could you kindly take care of them for us?"*CLICK*>Prey speaks... Speaks of more prey... Hunt now... Smell Fear... Hunger....
>>30041715>I don't know how practical or realisticThat's the big one really, more than anything else. You sort of expect to drive the ship yourself in mechanics with a class like that. I just know in real life that kinda thing's for someone a few stages down the chain. Like how you have a guy in charge on the air wing, a combat control officer guy, the captain themselves, the guy that drives, a guy that controls the engines, half a dozen guys that act as eyes, more guys that do each of everything.Of course, gameplay and all that, but really even if you're going with 40k Napoleonic naval battles thing there's issues.>>30041719Seriously? Half of the art has them looking all piratical and gesturing out of their seats. Information makes sense, that's just a fancy way of doing what happens anyway these days, just with futuretech.
Anyways, anyone else interested in getting back on topic? I was really enjoying the ship culture/qwirk list we had going.* Two of the lower decks have been entirely converted to pasture and crop land, with solar lighting. There are about 400 crew members whose only job is farming. They have vicious guard dogs descended from australian shepherd stock: small, energetic, and fast, but hairless and with razor sharp teeth. But rather than protecting from wolves or other predators, their main job is to guard against rating rades.
>>30041784In our games we've always just assumed the voidmaster commands the steering crew, not that he is personally flying it.
in the depths and darkness of the lower hulls there are rumors of a dark clad individual who moves like the smoke and the wind and esures that the opressed masses of the crew are not preyed upon by darker elements in the crew. such vile criminals such as The Laugher, TwinFace, Poisoned Plant. rumor has it he dresses in black and like a bat
>>30041784Well, I described how navy ships are operating in most novels.But that is subject to author's discretion and different for every ship.As with many things 40k, there is no right or wrong. It's all out there.
For whatever reason, the ship has no port holes, and in ancient times one of the captains temporarily disallowed shore leave during a crisis. He died before rescinding the order. The vast majority of the crew (almost everyone below the officer decks) has no concept that the outside world exists, treating the officers of the ship as gods and holy messengers. They do what they are told, and do it well, and all they just assume any damage the ship takes is punishment from the gods for not performing their rites well enough.Boarding actions are seen as demonic incursions.
>>30041766Fuck that gave me the chills. I imagine that crewmember wasn't even talking to 'Frank' specifically, rather she's just trying to get the raiders all worked up.>"Who the hell is 'Frank'?"
>>30041804That's how I've always seen it. The Voidmaster is *responsible* for the course of the ship, but doesn't physically drive it. He essentially gets the command seat for the propulsion portion of the crew - his Duty Station links to the engine bank supervisors (all eight of them), the manoeuvring thruster controllers (all nine thousand of them), the main plasma generator Magi'i, the void augur monitors/decryptors/translators, and all the other extraneous sub-crews that collectively control where the ship goes, how fast, and whether it can see what it's pointing at.
>>30041804Yeah, that'd work neatly.>>30041847Ditto. Kinda tempted to have some sort of archeotech/xenotech command system now. That'd be a cool novelty beyond sheilds or weird guns.
>>30041855Another idea in the same vein:Due to a warp incursion causing some sort of infection on the lower decks, everything below the command decks was locked down. The order was never rescinded. Worse, the vox system broke, and can now only transmit one way: from the command deck down.It's been 75 years since any contact has been had with any decks below the officers decks. They had several hydroponics bays, and fresh supplies and water are occasionally sent down. Presumably they breed enough to keep things functional.The captain sends down orders, they are followed. The ship operates. Damage gets repaired, guns are fired. The ship works.But the officers have nightmares about what they will find if they ever open up the airlocks and see what has become of the majority of their crew.
>>30041873>Lass...it's best not to ask questions you don't want the answer to.
one bay of gun crews have adopted a VERY monastic approach life style. The days are spent in silent contimplation and meditaion and chants to the emperor. they also have taken an almost religious approach to cleanliness to the point that their spaces are sparkling clean.most of the rest of the gun crews would just mark it off as fanatic religious Emperor worship...but in the last couple of engagments the gun crews have hit with every shot.....
On the vein of automation, we had this happen in one of our games:The captain found an ancient human civilization that had maintained an extremely high level of gunnery automation, and were able to install a new, fully automated gun system, which greatly increased their combat effectiveness.The gunnery clans were not happy. Theirs had been one of the most prestigious positions on the ship, and suddenly they had found themselves out of a job. The captain was stuck with around 300 angry, brawny, fearless men with lots of social clout.So the captain decided to keep the gunnery clans around by promoting them to be an elite, well equipped personal guard and police force for the ship, personally responsible for the command crews safety and maintaining order on the ship. He bought them snazzy uniforms, bolters, and carapace armor, and started them on daily drills.Thus was the captains elite "Gunnary Guard" born.
There's a tribe of mutants in the belowdecks that all has the Shadow-kin mutation - they're physically weak but can phase through solid objects at will.And since they can't exactly be captured, they can't be punished for the pranks they play on the crew...
>>30042033>"Gunnary Guard"Known for their shooting and not their spelling, I presume?
>>30042063They're illiterate ratings, give 'em a break.
>>30041873>>30041766>These Traders are just trying to spook us, spread out, find an exit point to the other levels, I wanted us at the bridge 5 minutes ago!>Right boss, you five go down the starboard access way, you four; with me and we go port, the rest go with the boss down the middle.>As the Raiders split, none notice the drops of saliva fall from the ceiling where they were moments before, flashing into steam and sizzling on contact with the decking.>Prey Divided.... Isolate...Kill...Consume...>And with unnatural grace, the carnifax silently crept down and stalked it's first victims
>>30041561>No less true for modern naval carriers moving through water, and it's much easier to move through space.Modern naval carriers use a nuclear power plant to boil water to spin a turbine, which turns a propeller, pushing water away from the ship to push the ship forward.This is not an option in space.Imperial ships heat reaction mass(probably water) to a plasma state with Plasma Reactors, then expel it out the engines. However, unlike a US Navy ship, they can't gather water from around them. They have to carry all their fuel.This is literally Space Travel 101.
The ships murder servitors are ancient artifacts from the Dark Age of Humanity, black nautilus like abominations of death.No one has the ability to control them anymore, nor have they since before the birth of the Imperium. They can only be shot in the right direction before being activated, where they will vent their fury on everything in sight. After a set period of time their hibernation protocols will activate and they will return to their storage chutes.Unfortunately, they have a glitch in their programing. They will randomly activate, only for a fraction of a second, but that is more than long enough for them to kill anyone within reach (about two metres). This usually occurs once or twice a month.A mechanus death cult has cropped up around them. Those taken by them are said to be chosen of the Omnissah, and have been brought into his presence by his most holy of creations.
a lost clan of squat...errr those that can not be named have been working in the deep weapons forges of a massive ship. its been so long since anyone actually went down to them they all remberances that they were squat....err those that shall not be named have been forgotten. All everyone knows is that they send down order for weapons and munitons as well as regular shipments of food and raw materials and the ship gets the requested munitions back. Until one day the captain receives a distress call from the deep decks requesting support against an unknown enemy. troops are deployed and much suprise is found on both sides when humans and squat...err those that shall not be named are reuinited.
>>30042123Squats are canon again, dude, where have you been for the last year or two.
>>30042123Bro. It's okay. You can talk about squats. They're in the 6E rulebook. Calm down.
>>30041932Brilliant.jpg
The crew believe that eating the flesh of an enemy will give you his power. While this is very useful against boarding parties, it leaves the unfortunate necessity of the captain being obligated to eat the heart of especially strong foes.There is a worrying prevalence of psychic mutation in the crew.Deck 52 does not appear on the schematics, there are no buttons for it on mass conveyors, and staircases simply bypass it.This ship is a gentleman and as such seems to prefer blonds. No matter what part a person may play on the ship, it seems to be just that much more cooperative if the crew member in question is blond.
>>30042131>>30042133I havent actually played 40k since it was called Rogue Trader-my marines were beakies-so I bother to keep track of alot of the fluff. didnt know they brought the squats back
>>30042177dont bother*
>>30042177Well, now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
>>30042097>unnatural grace>carnifexNigger, a carnifex is a big dumb living battering ram. It's not a lictor.It'd go a lot more like that bear boss in Condemned 2.
>>30040391OP I've been toying with the idea of exploring the history of a ship, considering its so big and can conceivably hold generations of people. The cultural dynamic would be... interesting. Watching with interest.
I'll do my own ship if you guys don't mind it.* Rogue Trader ship, explores unknown space sectors.* The Rogue Trader is a fucking madman.* Warp drive malfunctions. It sends the ship to random locations every time. Sometimes it even travels in time. Besides that it works fine.*The ship has the minimum necessary crewship, the rest is overcrowd with humans from all over the galaxy. They live in makeshift slums. * They have to fight for the Rogue Trader if needed.*It's a fucking spaceship/hive city abomination. Filled with people from all kind of cultures and tech levels, you can find completely medieval districts next to super technologically advanced ones.Sorry for lack of more details. I'm more into general stuff.
>>30041995"The chief bosun's discipline rod fell down a shaft to Deck 4. I don't want to risk my men. Send the new girl down to get it."
>>30042208>that bear boss in Condemned 2.Oh fuck that shit.
>>30042063Presumably. For some reason that mis-spelling is just stuck in my fingers. I've had to catch it half a dozen times in this thread, and obviously I missed that one. I hate it when your fingers are convinced something is spelled an incorrect way.>>30042099Sure, whatever. It's getting pretty off topic though.Again, the point is, for a 1.5k ship, especially ones in the conditions described, the crew compliment described in the FF books is not in any way unbelievable, and is in fact much more believable than the compliment quoted in older sources.We could give 87% of the mass of the ship over to engines, fuel, and other systems, hydroponics bays, cargo, etc, and STILL have more space left over than the a modern aircraft carrier stripped to bare hull.That carrier, full of all of its systems and decks and machinery, has a crew of 6k. A sword class frigate is 5x its length, and something like 20x its volume. The crew numbers aren't that fantastical.
If the Hrud who live between the decks migrate out of the ship, the crew will give the ship up for lost.
A significant portion of the crew have been taken over by a very frustrated genestealer cult, as the ship keeps moving around and the Skymother can't catch it.
>>30040685Pfff, what sort of Heresy is this?! This is a ship of His Holy Majesty the God Emperor of Mankind and you are expected to follow the orders of your Liege Lords!
>>30041736This.
>>30042208 Alright then just forget about that bit then, I'm not exactly running on all four cylinders here>>30042097>For the next few minutes nothing happens, the Raiders communicate between themselves with discipline and regularly.>"This place is quiet... too quiet">"Ah Jonsie I think that's only because your stomach ain't rumblin>"I mean it, should be some noise down here, rattling pipes, some generator noise, and it's too clean for my liking; should be piles of s*** everywhere">"Stow it you two, we're at the first bulkhead">On the port side of the ship, there was a rather large and imposing admantium plated bulkead, with a neatly stenciled 5 and 3 with an up and down arrow respectively.>Another few minutes pass as they try to open the door. Some of the Raiders hear strange noises, discipline remains.>"Bugger, I just hot wired the controls why won't it open!">That's when the horror of their situation began to dawn on them.>"It's welded shut... From the outside...">It was then the Raiders heard the first scream>"We should have brought more breaching charges"
* The ship has become carnivorous. If three humans aren't fed to the plasma reactor each week, it begins to turn on the crew looking for a meal. As long as it's fed, it is an otherwise superb ship. A reliquary of the Dark age of Technology, there has been speculation of warp corruption, but the AdMech (not to mention the captain) is unwilling to abandon such a useful and holy artifact as long as it is so easily controllable.This being the Imperium, of course a death cult has grown up around it. Happily, this means sacrificing crew members actually HELPS morale instead of hurting it.
>>30042097>Unnatural grace*BONK* What was that noise?!
>>30042322If you read closely, they crew absolutely DOES follow the orders of their Lords. It's a question of just having a crew that follows your orders, or a crew that's fanatically loyal to you vs one that just follows your orders.And this is a Rogue Trader vessel with an ancient shipboard culture, not a military one.
The Lord-Captain is obsessed with killing a scarred white void whale, which is even bigger than the normal kind, as it destroyed his last ship and left him with a shattered body.
Long ago, the ship was commandeered by an Inquisitor and his retinue, which included four Jokero, for urgent transport. Unfortunately, the Jokero became so engrossed in messing with the mechanics of the ship that, when they arrived at their destination, only one of them could be found quickly. Frustrated and rushed, the Inquisitor left the other three behind, intending to recover them later. The ship's captain, however, was unaware of this and decided to get the hell out of dodge as soon as his passenger was off-board.That was some 400 years ago, and now there's a small native population of Jokero living on board, who are constantly fiddling with things and creating marvelously effective devices and additions for tasks that nobody particularly needs done, like installing bottle openers that never slip onto the base of every cannon round, or outfitting the mess with specially reenforced teapots which can be mounted on a plasma gun to draw heat. The Inquisitor was killed in service before he managed to catch back up to the ship, but his successor has carried on the search in his master's stead, although he doesn't actually know what the search was for or what to do with the ship if he should ever find it.
>>30042311After centuries of frustration and waiting (and dozens of warp incursions), the genestealer cult eventually fixates upon the ship itself being the Skymother. While they don't necessarily follow orders, they at least leave the rest of the crew alone and are fanatically protective of the ship.Boarding parties haven't been a serious threat in years.
>>30042401Speaking of which, am I the only one who found it funny that you can get a shitload of crew from feral worlds? I really want to know how that ends up working.
>>30042358>ship is actively seeking out human beings to devour>no one thinks anything is wrongWhere you niggas are going you won't need eyes to see.
>>30042377CLANGWhat the fuck was that?
>>30042443I always just assumed the majority of the work on a ship is a lot like aiming the guns. You don't need to be smart, or know what you're doing, or why you're here. You pull when they say pull, you stop when they say stop. You move what they tell you too, and load the great metal cylinders into the big metal tube. It shakes, the old cylinder is gone, you help put a new one in.
>>30042438On the bright side, they managed to turn a macrocannon into something like a nova cannon. On the downside, it only uses special ammo that they make, and they don't make ammo very often, even when bribed with fresh bananas from hydroponics.
>>30042497I assume this is where "machine spirits" come in handy.It's kinda like that cannibal guy from Heart of Darkness that they told "the steam boiler has a thirsty demon in it that will take a terrible wrath if it runs out of water".
>>30042440I really like this one.
>>30040391getting back to the original thread...somewhere along the way the crew have picked up a small mammal with no external feature other than a fur coat. these creature bread rapidly and the crew uses them to supplement their rations with fresh meat, but woe be upon the ship if these creatures were to ever escape their pens
>>30042463If you read more closely you will see they absolutely DO see that something is wrong. But the ship is an ancient reliquary of mars, and the quirk has been stable for decades or centuries, is easily dealt with, and really, it's a fairly minor inconvenience overall.So the AdMech and the Rogue Trader keep playing with fire because it's irreplaceable, so far it has been more useful than harmful, and easily controlled. But of COURSE things will eventually end in tears. They always do. This is 40k. The captain just hopes it happens to one of his successors and not him.
>>30042443It's like>>30042497 says, sometimes all the ship needs is more bodies to haul chains or lift crates or any number of monkey skills that can be accomplished by someone who believes he is riding a sky god just as well as someone who actually know what's going on.
>>30042377>>30042097Well what I was thinking at the time is that the Carnifax is likely starving; it has had to eat rats, spiders and other less savory things to survive on since the crew bottled it up on Deck 4. So it essentially absorbed their essence, reduced it's mass to conserve energy... and became a somewhat more subtle Carnifax>>30042475Bonk & Clang! What the hell were those noises!
>>30042475>>30042555Classic.Deck 124 has been totally infested by a dangerous xenos, deathworld like ecosystem, though it doesn't seem interested in spreading to other decks.The crew don't mind though. The lower crew use it for any number of "coming of age" rituals, and the Captain treats it as a ship-board, private hunting range. They also use it as an execution chamber, and the cameras the previous captain installed means it doubles as entertainment for the crew.
For an Inquisitorial Black Ship:Among the various eclectic oddities that spring up around anything Inquisitorial, some strange quality of the ship makes lies almost impossible to state. The crew have become absolute masters at stretching the truth and omitting things, or phrasing things in technically correct ways that mislead.
>>30040803This is a really sick idea.
>>30042627There should be one nutty fuck of a guy, who survived, and is running around in there.
I love the emerging theme that, given any excuse at all, a crew will form a death cult. It's not a question of IF a ship will have a death cult, it's a question of how long until it DOES get one.
>>30042651Of course they will, it's the Imperium. The real questions are whether or not it's heretical and whether or not it's useful.
The crewmen who work near the Warp drives keep being born with green hair. This happens no matter how many times they are killed and replaced. The captains have given up by now, and green hair has taken on a specific mystique with the crew, who see those "touched" as soothsayers.The ship's doors are all automatic. All of them. A rarity though this may be, the machine spirit of the ship is mischievous and temperamental, which makes them more of a pain in the ass.The Navigator's house patriarch has become the Paternova. His powers were so incredibly increased that he has gone full fishslug mode and sends out a disguised servant to any functions he is needed at. However, this means he is a particularly puissant example of his craft.
The astropath's spire is secretly one huge garden. Each successive generation of psyker assigned to the ship has added to it. Some of the plants are psycho-reactive, and help the astropaths work and relax. Don't ever damage any of the plants, though.Dead navigators never leave, they just get shoved into stasis coffins that are wired to the current navigator's console. As far as anyone can tell, they're just preserved corpses, but the navigators often consult with them during difficult warp transits.There's a clause in the warrant of trade that stipulates the captain cannot found a new colony of any sort unless they bear/sire an heir with one of the colonists, who will be that colony's first administrator.An insane rogue trader has the vocal cords of every ratling severed. Only officers are permitted to speak.
>>30042747>ratlingRATING. R-A-T-I-N-G;A RATLING IS A HOBBIT.
A certain ship has a neural uplink the captain used to control the ship. While orbiting a hive world a genestealer infestation broke out, and the captain heroically sacrificed himself to save the world by sealing off the bridge, opening all the airlocks, and making a blind warp jump. It took him years to die with the ship keeping him alive and fed until he finally passed of old age.Centuries later an heir to the dynasty went looking for the ship and found it, miraculously still in excellent condition (space is a great preservative). His great great etc. grandfather was, obviously, long dead.Unfortunately, after being hooked up to the ship continuously for so long, his mental patterns were permanently impressed upon the ships powerful machine spirit.Ship ship is now a perpetually crotchety and cranky old man, constantly comparing things to how they were in his day, and how much better they are. He does not approve of the current captains life choices or grooming.On the other hand, it is an excellent advisor with a wealth of experience at command, battle, trade, and exploration.
>>30042440>Boarding parties haven't been a serious threat in years.Dude.
The ship is built around the core of an old wreck from the Dark Age. It seems to have a particularly powerful machine spirit.Which is actually an AI which is thoroughly trapped and on the verge of going full AM if it doesn't find an outlet soon.
The ship has a clown who spends his days setting up pranks to play on the rest of the crew. He is universaly reviled.The crew in the cargo bay have declared an independent republic of Cargonia.It is a long standing custom on the ship to get a new job by murdering the current holder of the position and wearing his id badge.The ships security team are brutal, handing out beatings for even the smallest of infractions. The most feared of all, however, is a security servitor called beepsky.
>>30042651I nearly choked on my grox sandwich.>Better form a Death Cult!Bobbus stubbed his toe...>Time for a Death CultGuys, the toilet's clo->DEATH CULT!
>>30042651There's a carnifex on Deck 4...Er.. DEATHCULT!
>>30042651Why not a life cult?
>>30042311This is gold.
The ship has been in transit so long that its crew have formed an ancestor cult. Ancestors' spirits are believed to guide the crew through the warp and protect the ship. To encourage this, bones of dead crewmen are worked into the walls of the ship, gradually turning the entire ship into a spacegoing ossuary. It's haunted as fuck, naturally, but the crew doesn't mind.
>>30042887Because the funny thing about life, son, is that it ENDS!
In a particularly ancient ship, millennia of machine culting has finally convinced the ships computers and machine spirits that, yes, they are in fact gods, and should be treated as such.The negatives of this are fairly obvious: all the useful rituals of the machine cult are now absolutely necessary to get anything done, and more besides. Sometimes the sensors want sacrifices, or will only give their readings while incense is being burned. Ritual and religion are at an all time high even for an Imperial ship.On the other hand, as long as the crew is faithful in their observances, the ship is extremely pro-active in guarding and protecting it's crew, and the blessings for following religious observance are quite tangible: better automation, more efficient power production, and lots of "happy accidents" arranged by the machine spirits. This has also encouraged the crew to be particularly devout, granting them a strong constitution in spiritual matters of warp corruption, and the ship has suffered significantly less warp incursions than its peers.All in all, the captain is fairly happy with the arrangement, even if secretly he is pretty sick of all the incense.
>>30042927So why not make a cult about prolonging it?
>>30042858>The crew in the cargo bay have declared an independent republic of Cargonia.go full cargo cult (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult) with this and have the cargo bay crew name themselves all the same thing officers assigned to the cargo area refer to them by number:"7602 , move that container over to the portside holding area"
>>30042902The crew have begun to associate machine spirits with ancestor spirits, and a fairly common pastime among the crew is to try and figure out which ancestor is in which machine. > Oh yeah, that door is definately uncle mike. You ever noticed how he always closes a little early on red-heads? He always loved that red-head tush.
>>30042858A single deck, dedicated to controlling the ship's atmospheric conditions, is sealed off and run by one cranky technician who constantly threatens to kill everyone on board. The crew have learnt that as long as they give him enough attention he won't actually do anything.Also,The technician is rumored to be centuries old, and (in-keeping with a theme of the thread) the attention he needs comes from a death cult.
>>30042939Pretty sure that covers just about every religion that ISN'T a death cult. Hence why death cults are worth mentioning. They are special in that they actually AREN'T a life cult.
>>30042644Yes.He is occasionally petitioned by the captain to serve as his hunting guide, paid in bottles of amasec.
>>30042939SHUT UP WESLEY
There is a ship crewed entirely by a death cult, that travels around, raiding other ships to capture their death cults to sacrifice.
>>30042939Hello, my name is Mr... Elgrun, and I have a better idea. Why not give in to the inevitablilty of death and despair and worship that?
>>30042858Two mysterious figures stalk the ship; One dresses in black and white striped robes and seems to possess some psychic powers, the other dresses in far brighter colours and seems to find humour in screwing with the crew.In general the crew have learnt to live with these two reclusive eccentrics, but one doesn't want to be in the way if the two men should ever come across each other...
>>30042976Other option: it was a small family cut off, centuries ago. They have been making insane demands for years, and consider themselves the captains of the ship, but due to their sheltered life their demands really aren't that extravagant. They lack the imagination to demand anything more impressive than "300 deep fried donut and bacon sandwiches stuffed with cream!" so the captain tolerates them (after all, he can't get them out). All the inbreeding certainly hasn't helped them in the brains department.Unfortunately, after centuries of inbreeding, there is only the one cranky old man left, who was never able to bear child. The captain is unsure about what to do when he finally kicks the bucket.
>>30043036>>30042978Because Life is worth fighting for.
The traditional work songs of shipboard life have gotten WAY out of hand, and there are now songs for literally any possible occasion, and crew are socially required to burst into song at regular occasional. New crewmen are social pariahs until they too join Rogue Trader: The Musical.
>>30043048As the months go by, the cranky old chap's requests come at a slower pace and in less demanding tones. The captain decides something must be wrong and mounts an expedition into the forgotten deck of Atmosia in hopes of remedying the problem.After weeks of hunting through the deck, (which no longer resembles anything like the original blueprints), he finds the old man on his deathbed. Realising that there is little hope for the continued operation of the ship without this man, the captain dedicates himself to saving his life.Now the ship's atmospheric systems are still run by the old man, but his brain has been encased in an automated body which he uses to crawl in and around the various decks. He enjoys pranking crew members, but mostly he just wanders around popping up in odd places to loudly complain about anything he can (including his augmented hip-joints).
There is a tree growing off the main combustion chamber. It is old and gnarled, but seems perfectly healthy. No one knows how it gets its nutriment, or how it survives the intense heat and radiation of the engines firing.A network of cracks in the shape of a stern male face has appeared in one of the gunnery spotting bay portholes. Ever time the glass is replaced, the crack returns. The ratings have begun leaving it offerings and placing purity seals on the pane. Though the bay has suffered numerous direct hits in combat, it has never been breached to the vacuum.The primary engine of the ship was recovered from a partially-looted vessel that fell into the hands of the Orks. While the Mechanicus have declared the engine safe, the crew has found that its fuel efficiency and heat dissipation increase rapidly when it is sung to by deep voices. The ship's baritones and bass singers are always on call to sing rousing songs of war and speed in the engine room.The air purifiers in the main rating quarters haven't been functional for two hundred years. Despite this, the air in the quarters is fresh, pure and invigorating. The captain has a special system of ducts constructed to vent some of this air up to the bridge.Whenever the main lance arrays fire, gunnery crews report the faint sound of a child's voice reciting hymns coming from the power conduits. No source for this noise has been found.
>>30043189He's been there so long the only augment that hasn't been replaced are the diodes down his left-hand side, and they ache terribly.
>>30042223>Day 1 - Hello, Journal. I figure I'd keep my thoughts in you to help cope with the stress. The Officers, Emperor bless'em, sent me to recover a holy relic. Me! With the blessing of He on Terra, I'll get that relic, even if it kills me. They kept mentioning Frank though. Maybe they sent someone else.>Day 3 - Glad I packed a lot of food. Don't know how long I'll be down here for. Deck 4 is a weird place. Everything's welded shut, and the walls are all scarred with acid. Makes a girl wonder. No sign of anyone named Frank.>Day 6: No sign of the relic. Just lots of debris. Keep hearing this groaning sound. Must be the pipes. Gotta be. Please be.>Day 9: I found the relic. It's...just the Bosun's aquila rod. Hmph. Oh well. Better start the trip back. But I'm kind of scared. I keep seeing something in the darkness, like it's following me. And that groaning. Probably just my imagination. Maybe if I get out of here, it'll be Frank's problem.
>>30043232Do girls EVER say "journal" instead of "diary"? Never come across that.
>>30043205>The ship's baritones and bass singers are always on call to sing rousing songs of war and speed in the engine room.That's one of the coolest things I can imagine about 40K ships - vox-casters as well as the entire crew loudly singing battle hymns and chants, accompanied by the mechanical percussion of the ship's systems, as they head into battle.
>>30043254The terms are interchangeable where I live. Maybe it's different by country?
>>30043232>Maybe if I get out of here, it'll be Frank's problem.2spooky4me
This seems to be overall a lot more fun to play in RPGs than to live with.Tau and Eldar ships don't have these quirks, do they? What quirks would Ork ships have?
>>30043287Ork ships can turn into super robots with enough WAAAGH energy
>>30043287Isn't having an Ork crew quirky enough?
People with suspiciously Eldar-ish features keep showing up among the crew. People are starting to wonder where they're coming from.Turns out the ship's got a webway gate in it all the Eldar send their bastards through, because one captain a few millennia ago annoyed an eldar who knew an eldar.
>>30043267Is it weird that I've actually spent time turning songs into naval bombardments? Because I have.
>>30043267>>30043205I was listening to the Red Army Choir when I read thisThis is going into my next game.
>>30043301I swear that was a thing once
>>30043254Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for In the grim darkness of the far future, women are still confusing.
>>30040391I'd say drop the war/raiding between crew. That shit would get stomped out extremely quickly and violently on any Imperial ship. Needlessly killing off your shipmates is viewed as stealing from the Imperium. And as murder, if the officer in charge of the proceeding cares.
>>30043274At least where I am, chicks say diary and never journal, and men rarely say diary because it's a chick thing.
>>30043232>Doesn't know about Frank>Camping out>BROUGHT LOTS OF FOODOH GOD RUN
>>30043311>>30043267This is from one of my games:>A Dictator-Class Cruiser is built aroumd an enormous archeotech bombardment cannon, basically a gatling MIRV launcher. The rattle of the massive barrels firing, spinning, and reloading forms a drumline that the entire ship hears, and they sing along to it as they go into battle.
>>30043232>The prey closes... Hunger... Confusion.... Reluctance....>The Carnifax continues to haunt the girls steps, the occasional clang of it's dorsal spines on the pipes overhead and the groan of the bulkheads beneath it's weight.>Prey came in... Where prey came in... Escape out... Follow prey...
>>30043287Imperial ships are in a unique situation. * They operate for hundreds or thousands of years unlike Tau or Ork ships* They are maintained by people who largely don't understand them, unlike Tau and Eldar ships* they operate for extended periods of time in the deep warp, unlike tau and eldar* They are crewed by nascent, unprotected, undisciplined psykers, unlike tau and eldar* They are typically build from an amalgam of parts from other ships and tend to get re-structured multiple times to fulfil other roles, unlike tau and eldar* they are brimming with simple and complex AI, unlike ork ships* they are host to a society of crew that have been raised and lived there for generations* the crew is highly superstitious and religious, unlike tau and orksIt's kind of a perfect storm as far as generating unique effects, quirks, and cultures go. Orks and Eldar share enough in common with humans to develop some quirks, but not nearly to the degree than human ships do.
>>30043321
>>30043417oh right: Deffwotch
>>30043412Definitely understandable for Tau and Eldar, but given how weird Orks are and the strange effects the WAAAGH! field can generate, I thought more might happen. Especially if it's a looted Imperial ship.
>>30043394You do realize that unique ships aren't given a class, right?http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Daemon_Slayer_%28Cruiser%29
>>30043232Well Let's hope she's a blank; otherwise I think this will only end in tears.
There is a small dog on the ship. There has always been a small dog on the ship. It never grows any older. No one has ever seen a rat onboard.In one of the cavernous, ring-shaped cargo bays, the direction of the artificial gravity does a complete circuit of the room every 24 hours. The crew working and living there have developped peculiar rotating housing modules, which they climb between with uncanny grace.Despite the absence of a triggering system or any form of necessary power generation, the ship's internal lights become blindingly, scorchingly bright in any section invaded by boarders. The ship's defense force has taken to wearing heavy dark eyewear and letting the light do much of the work for them.Once a day at exactly noon, shipboard time, one of the corridors on deck 34 fills with superheated plasma for exactly three seconds. The ratings siphon heat off it to cook their food and keep themselves warm when the life support system is undergoing repairs.
Some ship profiles from old threads: http://pastebin.com/nF6y6qE6http://pastebin.com/wK6ifByMhttp://pastebin.com/fJb77fR6http://pastebin.com/xmWLwnbJ
>>30043394Reminds something we did in a Star Wars game that I think could be easily tweaked for 40k.The ship is a small escort ship, but has been entirely built around a weapon meant for a battleship (Nova canon? I don't know, something big). The ship is pretty much all engines and the one big gun.A single shot is enough to shut down power in the ship for 15 minutes. No sensors, no vox, no lights, just silence in the black void.But when that shot hits, ooh boy.
An ork incursion due to a rok impact occurred long ago, and the remnants have never been stamped out.However, quick thinking by the men sealed off the ork spores and prevented them from infecting the ship, relegating the ork presence to decks 4-8. The orks have since become a tribal culture that are constantly at war with one another. Cameras have been installed in all decks and betting on the outcome of battles and wars has become commonplace. Less scrupulous ratings have taken to sending armaments to the decks for the orks to use, in an attempt to cheat.Talks of recruiting the more impressive orkoid specimens into the crew have started reaching the ears of the officers.
>>30043447I'm sure stuff does, but they do lack one important quality: time. An ork ship is going to have all kinds of oddities, but that is less impressive because ork tech is all about oddities, it doesn't really set itself apart.And they don't operate for hundreds of years usually, so they don't really have the chance to develop a super distinct personality.Again, I think you are going to have lots of oddities on an ork ship, but not the ghosts, and odd sub-cultures, and emergent machine spirits. Just mechanical stuff.
>>30043455Some kroot boarders got stuck on a sealed off deck and had to survive by eating rats.As such, the vermin on the ship is vaguely avian, carnivorous, and extremely nasty.
>>30043447>a looted Imperial ship.The complexity of the ship's operation would be impossible for an Ork to understand. Not even the WAAAGH field can do much beyond make something operate when it shouldn't be able to. They'd be just as likely to crash the ship as use it with any kind of effectiveness.Besides, the machine spirit of the ship would royally screw the Orks over at every turn.
>>30043451Technically, a bombardment cannon isn't unique, just this one's method of operation. And the distinctions of class are somewhat irrelevant, because Rogue Traders.
>>30043347M8, this is a Rogue Trader ship. As long as the RT is making money and getting xenos pussy, who cares.
>>30043531But Orks loot Imperial stuff all the time, about the only thing they don't typically loot are Titans.And let's be honest after the Big Mek gets through with an imperial ship the machine spirit is probably dead.
I still can't believe they haven't made a BFG computer game.
>>30043558>gatling MIRVOne, that's not a bombardment cannon, two, bombardment cannons are pretty much entirely a space marine thing.It's unique.
Our Ship, The Galos Sanguine is run by a petty mad man of a Rogue Trader, We lost an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor in a tragic accident involving a party at Airlock 17 (seriously it really was an accident) the lowest decks are full of Scaven in constant war with scavengers who have never known a world beyond, and we have a sanctioned Ork Wierdboy (who labels all he can as "Sankchuned")
>>30043531>This is what monodominants actually believeOrks can loot Eldar tech and make stolen Necron weapons work. Imperishit won't pose much of an issue to them.
>>30043567>about the only thing they don't typically loot are TitansUh.Loads of gargants are made from titan gubbinz.
>>30043567
>>30043578Yeah.They would get my money. They would get all of my money.
>>30043597Necron and Eldar tech don't have machine spirits that can and will disobey you unless you make it happy.
>>30043588>ScavenHrud. If you're a "Space Skaven" faggot I will hit you.
>>30043607Parts of them not the whole thing. Grabbing an arm off a Reaver is completely different than hotwiring an Imperator titan
>>30043632Not to hear Chaos forces tell it when they grab Imperial tech. And Orks get things like tanks to work just fine.
I imagine this isn't an idea unique to me, but I often imagine that gun crews have their faith revolving around their cannon and worship it as a literal manifestation of the Emperor's wrath. The tech-priests use this to their advantage in order to ensure the swiftest repairs and reloads manageable, as the gun-crew wouldn't dare displease their idol by following incorrect procedure, or anything less than all of their effort in providing their gun with the means to speak.
>>30043607Orkz generally don't loot Titans outright, they take the parts they like (guns) and modify them or put them on their own Titans. I remember reading somewhere about a looted Ordinatus. And orkz don't loot anything without up-gunning it. pretty gnarly.
>>30043653Chaos drives machine spirits insane.
>>30043455>In one of the cavernous, ring-shaped cargo bays, the direction of the artificial gravity does a complete circuit of the room every 24 hours. The crew working and living there have developped peculiar rotating housing modules, which they climb between with uncanny grace.This one got me thinking:A ship was cobbled together out of several wrecks to hold off a WAAAGH!!! Due to time constraints, the various parts had to be shoved together however they would fit, with time to right the gravity panels.After the WAAAGH!!! was defeated it was called to defend against a black crusade, then to embark on a crusade, then into another WAAAGH!!! and so on for several hundred years. In each conflict it took massive damage and was repaired using spare parts, components, and entire sections of it's destroyed comrades.By the time things had finally cooled off and it could be brought in for a proper re-fit and repair at a mechanus port, the ship was a veritable escher painting of gravimetric oddities. "up" changes from room to room, and often mid room.The crew has had hundreds of years to adjust to the situation, and had actually found many ways to take advantage of the ships...unique architecture. And being a crack veteran crew, the Rogue Trader decided he didn't want to damage their efficiency by fixing the problem (or pay the huge cost the mechanus would demand).On the plus side, boarding crews...well they just have a hard time.
>>30043579Yup. You caught me. It's a unique ship. Owned by a Rogue Trader. Shocker. Mechanically, it's a Dictator Class Cruiser with a bombardment cannon. Is your autism satisfied?
>>30043660Sure. And the plasma reactor is the personification of the Emperor's might and beneficence. Providing power, warmth, utility, food, clean air and water.The Emperor is the Omnissiah, the Omnissiah sis the Emperor.
>>30043632You have no idea how orks work, do you? They generate a gestalt field that makes tech they wield work in conditions it wouldn't work for other races.
>>30043675It's not like Heretikus Ad Mech aren't capable of brainwashing a machine spirit anyway
>>30043531A) Orks can loot anythingB) there are numerous instances in the fluff of Orks looting Imperial ships
>>30043684As long as you don't call it Dictator Class, then yes.
Between gravity, Frank, death cults within death cults, and orks, being a boarding crew in 40k is suffering.
>>30043697Or terminating one.
>>30043632You're giving the machine spirit too much credit. It's just an AI, and the "unhappy" thing is a myth put out by the ad mech to keep the rest of the imperium ignorant as to why things don't work if you don't maintain them.
>>30043696Yeah like having big gaping holes in the ship that somehow still manage to keep in atmosphere through the power of the waaagh
>>30042029Curse me if that isn't the old Benedictine chapel of Westmalle Abbey.
>>30043621>>30043578I mean, none of the mods were ever completed, and there were at least 4 of them for variious RTS games. The closest to completion was the Sins of a Solar Empire one, and that died without any warning.>>30043469>It was during this time that the decision was made for the Light to continue its service as an Imperial testbed, and the xenophilic elements of Incaladion had their turn. Salvaging a Tau railgun battery from the battle of Dal'yth, elements of Ultima Battlefleet and the Inquisition were curious as to the workings and possibilities inherent within the weapon that had proven so deadly during the Crusade.I wonder, just how does the Imperium deal with technological advances? I mean, we know there's some part of the AM that researches archaeotech, and that approval for new inventions can take centuries, but what about actual R&D? How does a forgeworld like Voss invent new types of shields and torpedo launchers and ships?
>>30043711And you know that every sixth ship has their own flavors of suffering that haven't even been mentioned yet.
>>30043724Machine spirits are definitely not AIs, actual AIs are very much forbidden tech.Closer to expert systems
>>30043637Just assume he's talking about a ratlike abhuman, which is much more skaven-like than a hrud.
>>30043724
>>30043763You're right that's what I mean.
>>30043763But a subtle, dumb, or otherwise non-obvious AI could easily be mistaken for a machinespirit/expert system indefinitely.
>>30043711I like to just assume that EVERYTHING said in this thread is all just describing a single, incredibly dysfunctional Rogue Trader ship.
>>30043780
>>30043567nahh, the machine spirit is simply now an Ork spirit
>>30043810
>>30043809>incredibly dysfunctionalYou mean utterly average.
>>30043490this is glorious.
>>30043787I get the impression that the type of cogitator power necessary to create anything close to a pre-imperium AI is limited to just a handful of admech facilities.But I could see vast collections of cogitator servitors being used to create a psuedo-organic AI
>>30043763The fluff makes it pretty clear than many machine spirits ARE in fact AI, but the AdMech uses the blanked term Machine Spirit to cover that up.The 5th edition SM entry on Land Raiders made it very clear they have true AI, as does fluff on Titans, and FF has indicated the same can be to of ancient ships.But as long as they are well behaved the AdMech just doesn't advertise that fact and simply calls them a "strong machine spirit".
>>30043810Seems like not wearing a helmet is a sign of extremely high competence and/or rank in Space Marines. Anyone else noticed?
>>30043832
>>30041345what?>Sword-Class Frigate1.6km long26 000 crew, aprox
>>30043774this, we call them scaven out of habit
>>30041240Well off the top of my head an Emperor class battleship had 3 to 5 million crew.
>>30043857
>>30043850Probably the safest type, really. Especially if it's distributed enough that most any damage to the ship will hurt the AI. Then... yeah, it's basically the machine spirit. Proto-intelligence instinctually and seemingly magically working to preserve the ship, fingers in so many systems it really is the ship's gestalt consciousness.
>>30043780>>30043810>>30043832>>30043857I see where this is going, and I'm pretty sure bolt pistols don't think. Not even in 40k. Not even with a machine spirit ai like >>30043851said.
>>30043588>Ork Wierdboy (who labels all he can as "Sankchuned")like the stuff in his room?
>>30043851The AI on the death of Eternity definitely seemed like something way way more than a Machine Spirit.Machine Spirits might be able to operate somewhat independently and even develop "personality" but they don't seem to be able to transcend their basic programming.
>>30043882Hurr machine spirits don't have feelings.
>>30043846Nooo, funny though that idea is, I'm pretty sure having a gene stealer cult, a deck that has been taken over by a death world ecology, a deck totally dominated by "frank", everything below the bridge locked down, a local webway gate spitting out half elves, a carnivorous machine spirit, escher painting architecture, a deck totally dominated by orks, and everything else said here is pretty far from average.
ship communication systems died long ago. Today the ship uses hairless and blind dogs to transport orders, documents etc. along it`s corridors. Around these dogs some cults have emerged and the big day of the year: The big dog race where all the crew bets which one will be the fastest.
>>30043903Well... they do. Do you notice they're all using that same pistol?Deal with it nerd.
>>30043911So apparently we have a bolt pistol that literally cannot tell when its owner is dead?
>>30043936>not just having a massive network of pnuematic tubes with a central clearing house with thousands of tubes acting as the communication center.
>>30043929The point is that every ship has its little quirks and strange cultural customs, both significant and insignificant. It's only a natural thing to happen when you have ships as huge and ancient as these.
>>30043958Well... it doesn't actually have eyes.
>>30043941Nope. You're going to need more than one comic strip to convince me. It might not even be intended to be taken that way, and is simply a monologue of what the pistol would think if it could.
>>30043929Hey, these are the ships of Rogue Traders. Crazy maniacs who have been traipsing through high-risk, high-reward, unexplored areas. For centuries. Handing these ships down between them for generations, stealing them back and forth, repairing them with anything on hand after they get damage a hundred parsecs from anywhere friendly. And this is AFTER they hauled them out of a warp-sargasso or spacehulk. Really, I think having a crazy list of features, quirks, and psychoses is pretty much 'expected'. Not this one exactly, obviously, but similarly over-the-top as 40k so loves.
>>30043958if a bolt pistol has a machine spirit it should be limited to counting ammo and maybe integrating into the helmet's targeting system for range finding.>feeling pistols
>>30043394I have an idea for my next Slanneshi character. Let's see what happens when a noise marine gets a naval command.
>>30043993Denial isn't just a river in Africa.Read the CSM codex.Daemons made from tortured machine spirits, also all things that shed blood have a reflection in the warp, even scalpels.Deal with it nerd.
>>30043903It's been indicated numerous times that some of them might, that it might even be the reason the whole "machine spirit" thing is treated the way it is. Sometimes it's because an effective way to teach maitenance, but other times it is because the crazy AI infesting that tank will TOTALLY run you over if you don't treat it right.The main point is: machine spirit is a blanket term covering a wide variety things. The Machine Spirit in a Titan is a full on AI. The Machine Spirit in a doorknob is a religious belief that was started to get those stupid guardsmen to oil the think every now and then, and keep gunk out of the keyhole.Some are servitor like brains, some are gestalt intelligences, some are full on AIs that can do things on their own. But for the AdMech, and especially for the Imperium at large, everything that isn't evil is just kind of lumped together as "Machine Spirit".
>>30043637There used to be space skaven, back before the Hrud were a thing, but they were only mentioned in the RT listing for Halflings, as one of the foes they'd developed a special toxin for.
>>30044012>Let's see what happens when a noise marine gets a naval command.WUB WUB, MOTHERFUCKERS happens.
>>30043763>When a malfunctioning defence missile had all but destroyed the Crimson Fists' Fortress-Monastery, almost annihilating the entire Chapter, the Land Raider Rynn's Might survived the blast and was hurled clear. The detonation woke the vehicle's machine-spirit, which went about executing the last orders it had received - seek and destroy.>Rynn's Might spent several hours righting itself from amongst the tangled wreckage before setting off in search of the enemy. It came across and Ork vanguard shortly after and attacked immediately, its lascannons and heavy bolters turning trukks and buggies into flaming coffins for the Orks. After destroying some thirty Ork vehicles and chasing down their fleeing crews, Rynn's Might continued its search.>For three days it scoured the area around the burning Fortress-Monastery, running across several Ork patrols and swiftly annihilating them. It was as night fell on the third day that Rynn's Might encountered a full Ork warband. The Orks were thrown into confusion by the sudden attack of the lone Space Marine assault tank, disturbed by the metallic war cries bellowing forth form its external speakers. In the darkness, the Land Raider's artificial eyes and ears served better than even the night vision of the Orks, and as they recoiled from its initial assault, Rynn's Might attacked with greater determination.
>>30044034Remember, some hard-line, orthodox techpriests believe even things like the inclined plane, the wheel, the screw have machine spirits.
>>30043989>can be confused by smoke>can't see at all
>>30044049I think you mean endless Inception noises
>>30044055>Missiles and high energy bolts scorched the hull of the Land Raider, but it continued its charge, crushing bikes and Orks under its armoured tracks, its weapons lighting the darkness with flashes of lascannon bursts and heavy bolter fire, illuminating the battle with the flames of wrecked Dreadnoughts and Killer Kans. The Orks attempted to muster a counter-attack, their Warboss gathering his bravest warriors and Nobz about him. Rynn's Might noted this build up of force and headed for the Ork leader at full speed, ignoring the shells that ricocheted off its armoured hide as it drove over the mangled corpses of the greenskins.>Out of heavy bolter ammunition and with its lascannons fused from near-continual firing, Rynn's Might used its only weapon left to it - its bulk and weight. Many of the Orks fled from this image of the Emperor's fury as it bore down on them, searchlights blazing in their eyes, external vocalisers still blaring prayers to the Emperor. The Warlord stood firm though, firing blast after blast from his crude cannon, until a luck shot splintered a track link and sent Rynn's Might spinning madly. Immobilised, there was little it could do as the Orks clambered across its hull with their tankbusta bombs, blowing off chunks of ceramite and adamantium.>But Rynn's Might was to have a final vengeance. It opened up its hatchways and assault ramp, and the Orks poured on board, eager to loot what they could from this prize. As they entered, Rynn's Might slammed the entrances shut again, hydraulic rams cutting Orks in half and trapping the Warlord and his bodyguard on board. In a final act, Rynn's Might overcharged its reactor, spewing plasma and poisonous gases into its own interior, incinerating and choking the greenskins that had got inside.
>>30044034Yeah I know that. And I think the boltpistol is on the doorknob side of things, not the titan side. What would an AI in a pistol even do? >>30044024And those machine spirits came from pistols? There are larger vehicles that have actual AI machine spirits in them.
Don't know much about 40K, so forgive, but how would boarding parties even work? The Frank story involved 20 dudes. In a ship presumably several kilometers long. Full of a fuck ton of people. 20 dudes aren't going to be doing ANYTHING to harm the ship. Hell, they'd probably get yelled at for not following procedures by a Superior officer (assuming they're human).>"That's not standard equipment, boot. Don't make me send you to Deck 4.">"DIE IMPERIAL SCU-">"Oh look, the Death Cults got him. Shame."
>>30044034I figure most of the fully fledged AI/Machine Spirits are uploaded brain patterns from various animals which are sacrificed to dedicate the vehicle/titan/ship it's going to be running. The altars used for the sacrifice are highly complex brain scanning devices.So warhounds have a canid sacrificed to them, giving them a pack mentality, a taste for combat, and a sense of loyalty to their Princeps.
>>30043407I'veseenenoughhentai.gif
>>30044092>Kantor ordered the location of Rynn's Might to be recorded carefully and left a guard over its remains, vowing to return and retrieve its machine-spirit and give it a new body so that it might fight with such vigour and determination once again.You know. Expert systems.
>>30043660>gun with the means to speak.The ships gunning crew believe that the Emperor speaks through his weapons, which has given rise to a cult wherein the priests diligently listen to the sounds of the weapons as they fire during battle.These priests dedicate their time to trying to decipher the Emperor's messages hidden in the sounds of gunfire. Many will lose their hearing and even their lives in this theological pursuit, but it must be done.
>>30044070Do you see any smoke?
>>30041042
>>30044094Boarding parties are typically either two ships slamming into each other and spending hours fighting room to room (Boarding action), or a near-suicide mission of "Get in, rip shit up, get back out" with that last one in question marks (Hit and run). 20 guys would be a hit and run.
>>30043859What is your confusion? Someone was claiming FF was dumb for making crew sizes that large and said the old Battlefleet Gothic rules were more realistic, giving an escort class ship (which can range from 750m to 1.6m in length) a crew of 1000.I pointed out that a modern aircraft carrier, which is only 330m has a crew of 6000. A Sword-class frigate is 6x it's length and something like 8x its volume, with much more labor intensive systems. So having a crew a mere 4x the compliment of a modern aircraft carrier isn't silly at all. It was the original estimate in BFG (1000 crew) that was silly.
>>30044094Generally, it might be assumed to be several hundred dudes (in containers small enough to get them across, assault shuttles, boarding pods, whatever,) and burst in to do whatever damage they can from the inside.Remember, the boarders are all armed, trained soldiery with intent to cause damage. The vast majority of the crew are serfs, possibly unarmed ones.
>>30044093Yeah, because AI has a soul.You're ridiculous.
>>30041042The metal lives.
>>30044164No it doesn't. But it's the warp, shit happens, Ai gets turned in to something else.
>>30043878In what system? FF hasn't given stats, and I think in BFG it only had like 25k.
>>30044153Are Marines the only ones that use boarding torpedoes?Not that marines could even remotely defend their own strike cruisers based upon how stupidly large the ships are and how few marines are typically in a given detachment.
>>30044164How is a circuit any different from a neuron? They both function on energy.Is an Imperial ship, forged among the mighty shipyards, created with prayers and love, unveiled with hymns and seals, serving with fury and faith not a servant like any other child of the Emperor?
>>30043936>Around these dogs some cults have emergedAddendum: The dogs also have their own version of the Imperial cult. Not one of the crew can verify it, but the signs are there of some sort of doggy-Emperor in the doghouse on Terra worship.
>>30043998>>30043986Right, which is the point of this thread.I was just saying that having ALL of the ones listed in this thread could not in any way be considered "utterly average", which is what >>30043846 was saying.
Part of the ship are underwater, for no reason anyone can discern.There is, inexplicably, sea life in it.Hungry sea life.They still have to do shit in those rooms, so over the years certain crewmen have developed gills and now live there full-time.
>>30044215Hell if I know.I think non-marines use boarding torpedoes on occasion. They, at least, I assume to be a single 'cargo. Normal assault shuttles or boarding pods are 10-30, breaking through a wall and doing what they can, launched in a flurry of dozens or a hundred. Torpedoes I think would be more like 50-200. Much larger.
>>30044227Obvious Heretik herePlease send Inquisition strike team and Ad mech Skitari asap to purge him
>>30041932A battleship bearing three million souls, all but the 1% of the officer class believe they serve chaos and the officer class let them believe that. The sealed decks are home to blood rituals and the darkest of worship but the captain knows his ship and life are forfeit if fleet command finds out. He and his officers are as devout as ever and do the Emperor's work.
>>30044257You may think I mean flooded, by the way.I don't.
>>30044267>loving the Omnissiah's children>heretekOkay, Horus.
>>30044273Sounds like a Ben Counter novel in the making...
>>30044293I still want to name a ship "The Avenging Sword of Horace". Horace, being, of course, the RT's name.
>>30044257A few years ago, a disgruntled officer named Ryan Andrews set up a town inside a dome in the flooded decks. He claims that his new city is a place where the great and the good can think and create and experiment freely, without the dogma of the ship's officers stifling them.
>>30044289I'm trying to think of some way an area can be underwater without being flooded.Unless you mean it was designed to have all that water there?
>>30044333Oh, it's full of water, but it was never flooded.In fact, that part of the ship doesn't seem to match any other part of the ship, though everything seems to be in place.
So in a normal Rogue Trader game, do you literally "buy" a ship and it's equipment at the start of a campaign, or do you inherit the ship as a member of your impossibly wealthy family?It's confusing to me because the better ship you buy with your initial points, the less Profit Factor you have to start out with. Logic would dictate that people with more disposable income would have even better ships. Could someone clarify?
>>30044367Ah right, you're using flooded in the sense that something burst and water filled the area.I also knew of it just meaning full of something. So that part of the ship being full of water while simultaneously not being full of water, while certainly something for this thread, wasn't what I thought you probably intended. So I wanted to clarify.
>>30044409It's quantum flooding. Duh.
>>30044404Gameplay/story separation.You start out as a rogue trader family of [power] X. X is stable.This can be represented by having a lot of money, maybe having just been a wealthy merchant magnate family that recently received a charter and bought the first ship they could, or by being an old and illustrious rogue trader family, inheriting a grand and ancient vessel of storied lineage, who has fallen on hard times and and is reduced to owning 'little more' than the ship.
The crew of a ship named 'Imperium of Man', all but the captain's closest lieutenants, believe that their ship is in fact the entire Imperium and that the Great Crusade and the heresy were fought aboard its decks. They believe that the Golden Throne and the God Emperor are hidden aboard their ship and they will fight beyond endurance to protect Him.
>>30044404Moreover, how much of his own ship would the typical Rogue Trader have actually seen? To walk the entire expanse and depth of the ships seems like it would take an exorbitant amount of time, which is money, so they wouldn't bother.Could I get a ballpark percentage? Like, 10% of the ship? Less?
>>30044472What else are you going to do while you're in warp transit?
>>30044404You typically inherit, but you don't have too.The point of the PF/SP disparity is that the game doesn't let you play an ancient, well established, wealthy house.The more ancient you choose to be (and thus the better ship you have), the worse off your house is in the present. A very new dynasty may have lots of money, but lack the connections and time necessary to acquire a truly high end ship. They are new blood.An ancient house with a glorious history may have an ancient and glorious ship, but to balance that out in the current era the dynasty is only a shadow of what they once were. They have the equipment, but lack money and power.Of course, you can then fluff things however you want, but those are the basic options the rules give you by default.
>>30044472It's going to depend on the captain, but I suspect for most even 10% would be pushing it.
>>30043588>Our Ship, The Galos SanguineHa. Clever.
There are random Necrons milling about on the ship. They are incredibly rarely seen (maybe several squads of warriors per several generations of crew gone by), but in plain sight, and they just wander on in plain sight in parade rows.No one can tell where they come from, or why they're not doing anything.>the ship is in fact a Necron portal transit point, like a realspace bridge for traffic>there are two Necron portals lost somewhere in the debris of the ship
>>30044404It's game mechanics, don't worry about it.You play a RT dynasty. Now, to keep the dynasty-generation interesting (and with no 'bad' options), there's a trade-off between Profit Factor and Ship quality.Example: you can play an ancient dynasty in decline, with their empire on the wane but their mighty starship still plying the void. Or you can play an up-and-coming dynasty, with their fortunes on the rise and cash out the wazoo - but the reason they have so much cash is that they haven't the time or prestige to invest a huge chunk of it into a giant starship.Essentially, starships are fuckoff expensive. If you don't invest most of your cash in a huge one, you'll have that cash to invest in other things. If, on the other hand, you pony up for a cruiser, you'll have so much of your fortune tied up in the ship that your prospects elsewhere will be slim. Of course, the ship may help your dealings enough to regain this over time and repay the investment, which is where the game comes in.
>>30044484Why would you want to walk the rest of the ship when you live in the best part? That's like a billionaire going for a walk in Detroit because they're bored.
>>30044450>"little more"This translates roughly to "only has 23 karat gold toilet seats instead of 24 karat">>30044484Enjoy your personal Olympic-size hot tub? Hell, I dunno.
>>30044215There might only be a handful of actual marine crew on a ship but remember how one angry marine in a corridor full of invading mortals would be represented in the fluff.
>>30044536Stare out the observation bubble at the Warp going by.
>>30044510YeahGalos SanguineGO GO GO GO GO
>>30044534If you had an armed escort, I don't think it would be at all dangerous for the Trader. Not like the slaves have any access to weaponry.It might even be something the captain wants to do, if he's especially patient and honorable like that. He won't have to do it all at once, of course, but the act of assessing the crew and resources seems like something a traditional captain would do.
On this ship there are members from every 40k faction randomly walking by the crew at odd intervals and places.One day you'll have Tyranids sitting in the mess hall eating (with utensils!) until they wander out after eating.Next day there will be Tau fire warriors doing minor repairs and paint refinishing until they're done and leave.Then there's a pair of Chaos marines playing a game of chess in the corridor.Next day there's Eldar doing accounts whereverthefuck the Accounting division is.Then Orks just doing cargo lifting in the cargo bays (noisily, but to themselves), then they leave.Space Marines have been sighted wandering the halls often, often in small numbers of 1-3, looking very honestly lost and confused.
>>30044486This is exactly the explanation I was looking for. Thank you, anon.
>>30044607Some certainly would, and some probably know their ship like the back of their hand, but I think that is rare. The billionair wandering the streets of Detroit is a good example. Most of the ship is not a fun place to be.
>>30044651That would make more sense if the billionaire actually owned Detroit and ostensibly the lives of everyone on it.
>>30044531Routine maintenance of the ship itself must make your Profit Factor less if you have a bigger ship with more crew... okay, that makes a lot more sense to me.
>>30044472Depends on the shiphttp://www.voidstate.com/rpg/40k_ship_visualizer/Smaller ships, like a Carrack, they'll probably have seen most of it.An Avenger? They've probably never left the officers' decks.
>>30044536You might be a family on the decline. Where once there was a veritable fleet under the command of your charter, the patriarch of your family being able to award flotillas to each promising child, you have but a single frigate now, and a barely enough holdings left to support even it.
>>30041284"There is a legend that one day a chosen one will be born on to the ship who will start a new great crusade and golden age for the imperium. The legend says that he will make himself known by having a vision of glory after drinking the coolant from engine 12"I'm dying here
>>30044670Now I wonder how rich the Mayor of Detroit is and if he has walked every single street.
>>30044619>One day you'll have Tyranids sitting in the mess hall eating (with utensils!) until they wander out after eating.>Then there's a pair of Chaos marines playing a game of chess in the corridor.I think you're going overboard. Both of these things are impossible by nature.
>>30044742I think he's trying to make fun of the people writing stories about other factions having a presence on the ships.
>>30044721Clearly unfit to be the messiah.
Uh... what is a "rating" in this context, as referring to some aspect of the crew? I assume that it's not referring to Ratlings, because >>30042784, but the first instance of the word "ratings" in this thread, >>30040487, was clearly referring to what was spelled in OP as "ratlings"
All of these are about the same ship, or, to be more accurate, the same space hulk.
>>30044706>>30044486Has anyone else fluffed it as 'You're part of a mighty, ancient, wealthy dynasty with a whole fleet, but you're one of the very latest to get their own ship and still have to answer to dynasty heads'?
>>30044784Slave.
>>30044784To quote Wikipedia: "A naval rating is an enlisted member of a country's navy, subordinate to warrant officers and officers hence not conferred by commission or warrant. The naval term comes from the general nautical usage of rating - a seaman's class or grade as recorded in the ship's books, whilst in the United States it is currently used differently to denote a sailor's occupational specialty."Basically any person on a starship who isn't an officer? Rating.
>>30044784http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_ratingEducate yourself.
>>30044800Sure. However you want.
>>30044790No way. If that were the case the ship would never leave the docking bay due to inefficiency. Each ship has one or two strange quirks to it that either are surprisingly convenient or a headache.
How about a part of the ship that's perpetually burning/on-fire like that one place in the Northeast that has a coal fire burning underneath it perpetually?And the Enginseers are always trying in vain to treat the ship's "heartburn" problems.
>>30044696Though remember, they extend vertically as well as horizontally. Take that cross-section you see in the visualizer and multiply it by the number of decks on a ship. If you assume a fairly conservative 3m per deck, you're still looking at 110 decks on a sword class frigate.
>>30044800Yep. We just started a new campaign with that. Our dynasty was ancient and powerful, but a greedy inquisitor brought about their ruin, forcing the remaining heirs into hiding. Using what was left of their contacts they recently established themselves with a new identity and Warrant of Trade, and using their ancient powerful ship are off to start everything over from scratch.
>>30044875Remember that it's not a hollow tub. It's got battle-ready hull plating, which could be 50 feet thick if not more, mechanisms for everything, a plasma engine that takes up a large chunk of the space, weapons, and every mechanism that makes the thing go.
>>30044784>>30044814In 40k a rating (and yes, I misspelled it as ratling) is the lowest level of crewmen. Technically not even a crewman. They have no rank, no rights, and sometimes breed in the lower decks. They are pressed into service to do the most dangerous tasks and have a short life expectancy. Their ranks can easily be replenished with press crews, even from feral worlds.In contrast, crewmen, even non-officers, have some level of rights and respect, and their jobs typically require actual skill. They are more close to what a traditional rating would be.
>>30044874Works.Constant industrial haze in affected areas. Blackened corridors, a certain heat in some sections, eventually engineseer prim coming to you with the calculations one of his assistants presented to him saying that the fire has been going long enough to burn the ship's mass in promethium three times over and shows no sign of going out oh god what is it why is it oh god emperor
The ship's plasma core has been dangerously unstable for over about a Terran year now. Every tech priest that has examined it has fled from the ship in fear of their own life due to their diagnosis: The core is likely to suffer catastrophic meltdown at any given moment, killing everyone on board in a flash.Every moment holds the distinct possibility of instant death, yet the crew and captain don't budge.The ship would have been put under examination by the Inquisition for chaos corruption due to the incalculably unlikely fact that she ship is, against all logic, still running, but no inquisitor wants to be within a thousand miles of it.
>>30044874>>30045039Wouldn't this deplete the Ship's oxygen supply?
>>30045089Yes it would.But it hasn't.
There's no deck 32. Measuring the height of the ship, and comparing it with the height of each deck (The enginseer was bored) has revealed that there should be, there's the extra space that would match up with that. There's a deck 32 on the plans... but when ascending from deck 31, you go straight to deck 33.Of course, with that knowledge, "deck 32" is now infamous as a place where missing tools and skiving ratings are meant to have gone.
>>30044129Cannonmancy: Divining the future through gunfire.
>>30045039Unbeknownst to the crew, it's actually an ancient piece of archeotech from the Dark age of Technology. But they will never find that out because the tech-priests don't know that the flaming mode can be turned off.
>>30045089>>30045102They once tried sealing off the section from the rest of the ship and opening its arlocks. The fire still burned.
>>30045165Deck 32 is really Where the rogue trader keeps his extra heretical data slates. His favorite is blueberry booty beach 3.
I suspect the amount of weird or unexplainable things happening aboard a ship would depend on how often the ship gets invaded by warp denizens, even if the deamons are all destroyed.
>>30045165Only the Techpriests in the dockyard that built the ship remember in shame that there had been a miscalculation in the plans resulting from an imprecise translation between two measurements.When the mistake be obvious, it was too late. The outer hull was too far into construction. So they decided to dodge the dishonor of admitting a mistake and simply cut an entire deck out of the plans which made ends meet.They pray every day to the machine god the ship may never go into dry dock somewhere else.
>>30043183Yes
Due to improperly shielded magnetic coils on the ship's plasma engines, there's one cargo hold which is noospherically dark.The ship's sensors can't pick up anything there, tech priests venturing inside regard it as akin to going blind, and servitors can't even enter it without being forcibly carried inside.The ship's ratings have found it a good place to hide out when wanting to avoid people, since they can't be found and their electoos don't function inside the hold, and so they've set up a still, made a cooking fire out of a plasma vent, and turned some cargo crates into tables.Now even some some officers have snuck in when off duty for a surreptitious meal at the "Blind Man's Table".
>>30044651A Rogue Trader is less like a billionaire in Detroit and more like a feudal lord in his castle. Surely it makes good sense to venture out to survey his domain, check on the serfs, maybe use the droit de signeur if some pretty little voidborn thing catches his eye? It's good for morale to know that the Captain is walking the ship from time to time. Maybe the lower-deck residents have one day per year when the Captain descends to them, with heavy armed escort, to hear their plight and allow them to petition him for favors, or to have him settle disputes. Think Game of Thrones lords dealing with peasant issues.
>>30045354Ladders have been banned on the Grand Crusader Westeros for being tainted by Chaos.
>>30045354>use the droit de signeurWhat?
>>30045447Legendary rite to bed maidens on their wedding night before the groom did.Legendary because it's fake and was made up to make history seem more interesting.
>>30045320>They just play tabletop games all day during warp travel
>>30045354I keep thinking up scenarios related to this. Something like a lower holds scum being overjoyed because he's being executed for thievery - but not by some lowly officer, no, he's being executed by the Captain PERSONALLY! He always thought he'd amount to nothing, but now that the Captain will put a bolt through his skull his family will be famous, yes indeed. No other 'Holder gang will mess with them no more! Oh joyous day!
>>30045354Certainly many do. But I doubt most do, any more than the most Duke's of York explored the slums of Bedern. Some will, and my captain does, but I think most are going to avoid it. Most of the ship is going to be smelly, dark, dirty, dangerous, and thoroughly uninteresting.
>>30045487>trusting your subordinates>not inspecting everything yourself at every opportunityAnd people wonder how a whole deck can end up a Black Hold.
>>30045517Pretty sure when your crew is in the 25k+ range you have to do an awful lot of trusting your subordinates. And when you ship is 110 decks of a 1.6k ship, you aren't going to have time to meaningfully inspect much of it with any regularity.
>>30045517You literally would get nothing else done. The ship is simply too large.
>>30043183I fucking love this
>>30045517If the ship is working, there's no reason to worry.If it's not, then it's time to send in the armsmen..
>>30044005Themahcine spirit is NOt a human designed feature.Read priests o fmars, the ships machine spirit, on being begged by the captain to NOT let them all die at the hands of an eldar warship, essentially replies as follows:>the fuck do I care about the deaths of mortals?You'll die too>this is merely a shellIt goes on to describe essentially being a literal spirit that kind of hangs out in machines and does machine things for machine reasons.It goes on to ask on elast time WHY it shoudl help, and is given the answer>do it because you CANWhich is followed up by it rolling out a gun the crew didn't even know existed, as well as arming and firing said gun and raping the piss out of an eldar vessel with it.The machine spirit is not an explanation for simple smart programming, it's a literal spirit that may or may not be willing to deal with your shit at any given time, and must be bargained with an appeased- or else.
>>30045717The ship's machine spirit, hell-the entire ship, wasn't exactly usual.
>>30045717>sentient machines are heretical>have a ship that can argue and not give a fuck about its crew in a novelWould it kill GW to be consistent? Just once?
>>30045835The ship was buried and forgotten about beneath a forge world.The entire point was basically that it was heretical as fuck, stupidly big, run by an AI, and the Magos in charge of it had basically wasted all his fiefdoms in getting it functional and was now using it on a foolhardy mission.
>>30045891Fair enough then.
>>30045835I honestly think it would
>>30045487>Most of the ship is going to be smelly, dark, dirty, dangerous,>and thoroughly uninteresting.I sense a contradiction here.
>>30043780;_;
>>30045915Yeah, I think at one point it's called Continent sized. Which would just be crazy.
Someone archive this thread. It's gold.
The ship in my current campaign has the complication "Temperamental Warp Engines" which makes it arrive a few weeks early or late.However, they have a ship upgrade that cuts travel time by about the same amount as their engines. On small jumps, this makes them have a 50% chance of arriving on time and a 50% chance of arriving before they left.I'm pretty sure a ship that has no sense of real-time could get some interesting cults aboard it.Like a generational secret society of officers who wish to take enough short jumps to return to the Heresy days and save the Emperor's life.
>>30045759You also have the case of the magical serf who can make plasma guns fire with no charge and NOT kill him when they explode, the room that makes servitors into real boys, ect.The machine spirit isn't an AI or a failure to maintain kit so much as it is a greek daemon.
>>30046220>50% chance of arriving before they left.Damn you warp!
>>30046220make that a champaign, except they end up going too far back and hit the war in heaven
>>30046220The scary thing? With a hilariously unlikely warp jump, that could ACTUALLY happen.
>>30046112Ah yeah, continent sized cityscapes are mentioned, specifically as something that's not an exaggeration.So let's take the ship as the length of... let's use Australia's north-south length: 3,700km.The moon has a diameter of 3,476km.The Speranza isn't a ship, it's a fucking Craftworld.
>>30046220>Captain, I have an idea>Let's hear it>Half the time we make a week-long jump, we get there a week before we set off, right?>Right. The navigator's got a knack for finding the inverted currents and the warp drive's a bastard>So... if we make two jumps, one takes us a a week, and the other takes us minus one week... we've covered two week's travel in zero time>Go on...>So if we keep our jumps to a week long, we can get anywhere in the galaxy in one week, real-time!>Somebody get this man a medal, we're going into the speed-freight business!>...but Captain...>Yes, Space-Jeeves?>Won't we die of old age just the same on the ship?>Nonsense my good man! We'll just stasis-ise ourselves for the trips! Right, Magos?>Actually sir, there's a high chance of->Then it's settled! Helm, set a course for Unlimited Wealth!
>>30046027Miles and miles of nearly identical stinky, dark, grimy corridors with steaming hot pipes adn sharp edges is not interesting
>>30046592Every rating has a life. A history. they deserve at least passing acknowledgement from the one who commands them, at least.
>>30046479>All interstellar shipping is finished instantaneously>Almost a third of shipments arrive before orders are placed
>>30046644No they don't.If they did, they wouldn't be a rating.
>>30046479>So if we keep our jumps to a week long, we can get anywhere in the galaxy in one week, real-time!Make that instantaneously
>>30046644Yeah, I think you aren't getting how this whole 40k thing works.
>>30046653That sounds like a great way to con people or play practical jokes.
>>30046681>>30046665Even if it's just observing their labor from a high platform as you trek the ship?
>>30046644what is a rating? because I keep reading it was ratling with a typo
>>30046833Read up the thread you... you... double retardWe've had this bloody tiff like twice already.
>>30046653>get item before placing order>don't need to place orderAnd both causality and our economy collapsed.
>>30046885But if they didn't need to place an order, how would the Rogue Trader have known to give them the cargo in the first place?
>not using it to play practical jokes"Why yes my lord, we are absolutely certain that your teenage daughter will order this "So you're expecting a baby" data slate one week from now."
>>30046941thatsthejoke.jpg
>>30046885>>30046941Every fucking time.
>>30046885>>30046941>>30046988I'm seriously considering having the crew receive a distress beacon, arrive before it was sent, and then have the situation develop such that they send the distress beacon that brings them to where they were at.
>>30047021All they need to do is bide their time till the order was placed in real-time.Then deliver immediately.You just need to give them the date and time of the order (planet local time).
>>30041284Ok this is just slapstick.
>>30044457Oh yes.>Newcomer, where are you from? >Is that near the vox arrays? >Planet huh? You strangers sure use odd words.
>>30046805That only works on the upper decks. The lower decks don't have the luxury of open rooms with high platforms (unless you buy that as an upgrade). It's more like a submarine. A massive, multi-kilometre long submarine. Hundreds of mines of cramped, dark, dangerous tunnels.
I've been compiling a list of these quirks, or most of them at least. We're at 74. 26 more and we'll have a fully fleshed out percentile table.So, anyone else have anymore good ones? I'll do 75...According to the original dictates of the Warrant of Trade, any crew member can challenge the Captain to a duel to take the position of Rogue Trader, so long as they have passed a "Trial of Worth". Unfortunately, the specifics of the Trial of Worth were not laid down in the Warrant, so the Captain is free to dictate the terms whenever challenged, so long as they are actually possible to complete. Obviously, the incumbent Captain typically sets the trail to be as dangerous and close to impossible as he feasibly can. The trial has only been successfully passed three times.
In the sani-steam room on deck 84 there is a regular "quacking" noise that occurs at regular intervals exactly every 5 minutes and 32.4 seconds. No one has been able to find the source, but the crew of that level use it to time their showers.
due to an accident in the warp, the ship was stranded for millenia, with the ratings devolving into a skeleton crew of apelike abhumans, under control of the still human officers. these abhumans still understand basic orders but will take slightly longer to follow them, and cannot be given more complex orders. they feed off the forest of warp tainted plants which rapidly grew in the lower levels of the ship
>>30047636Okay...The ship holds a tribe of Kroot picked up from a wrecked warsphere.They have been confined to one of the midship holds so they are not underfoot for the crew.While your officers appreciate the asset in case of a boarding, your crew has reported a sense of unease as all the usual rodents and some pets seem to have disappeared and many claim to hear strange noises in the night.luNobody saw anything, naturally. But they are sure, the strange xenos are to blame.
the servitors on the ship seem to lack any human flesh remaining on them, if they had any to start with, the ship may be host to some men of iron or well disguised necrons
in the lowest oldest parts of the ship, echoes of an old battle between two sets of non humans can be seen playing out, like transparent ghosts, the tactics change each time the battle starts up, denoting some level of awareness but they seem to not bother with the crew
The ship is a recovered Chaos warship, and the Engine Seers have developed an odd penance culture, constantly punishing both themselves and the ship to cleanse it of its past sin. The ship is regularly banged with wrenches, starved of fuel for "fasting", and occasionally they demand periods of shutting down the ships sensors and lights so the ship can "meditate" on its sins. The captain is not amused.
Deep within the bowels of the ship, the water-cooled reactor is home to a new race of abhumans consisting mainly of fish-men, mutated from the reactor emissions to be able to thrive in the murky depths, tending to the machine spirit of the ship. it is believed by some of the crew that these people were in fact designed by the ship to ensure all systems were working in the lower decks of the ship
among the crew musical wars start to break out...Advancements in musical instruments climaxes with crew of grunge rock bards clashing with clan of heavy metal viking bards;decks threatened by collateral damage from killer solos. Crafty punk rock gypsies armed with enchanted accordians seek to capitalize on ensuing mayhem; all are united in effort to stick it to uptight officers trying to bring them down. Powerful vibes attract glam rock demons and dirty hippies.
There is a "secret" fight pit on the lower decks the crew doesn't think the captain knows about. Bloody underground fighting leagues battle for scrap, booze, and fame. The captain tolerates this and recruits the winners into his personal body guard. If only he had seen the signs of the burgeoning cult of Khorne...
There is a small webway gateway opening positioned in one of the lower cargo bays, though obviously it can't be seen when inactive. It is heavily guarded at all times. Eldar will very rarely emerge and deliver cryptic warnings. In return for services rendered they promised to fulfill three requests for the dynasty. That was two generations ago, and there is only one favor left. The previous two did not go as the Rogue Traders at the time had hoped.
somehow every generation a member of the crew ends up having a very elaborate tattoo on his back. He has no recollection of how he got it or where it came from but the tattoo turns out to be a map to a long forgotten part of the ship. sometimes the map leads to good things..other times it leads to bad things
And that brings us to #86. 14 to go.
>>30048219I doubt we'll last that long, we're already on page 10.A new thread may be needed.
