So our motley crew just claimed a cruiser in our last playsession. It was a big deal for us...we have decided to move shop onto the new ship but it has been significantly damaged. I will 'splain...

1. The ship had an atomic detonate inside one of the port macrocannon batteries. As a result both batteries are literally gone.
2. The resulting explosion vaporized a giant chunk of the ship
3. The bridge was annihilated in a catastrophic booby trap that triggered when the previous captain died
4. No other damage was done to the ship, we took it down completely through boarding actions and sabotage.

Here is my main concern: Atomics generate all kinds of radiation...is there any way to fix this in the grim darkness of the wartorn future?

How long does it actually take to repair damage of this kind assuming the repairs are being done in a proper shipyard?

How long does it actually take to remove and install new components onto a ship assuming the hull is intact?

I can't remember seeing this laid out in the main rulebook or supplements. But I am assuming that I just missed it.

Followup question - Can a bridge of antiquity be transferred from one ship to another like any other component?

Q Atomics generate all kinds of radiation...is there any way to fix this in the grim darkness of the wartorn future?

A I don't think its dicsused in rules, but it's a poor star ship that can not handle radiation. There are all kinds of sourses of radiation in space. Your crew should be able to do radiation clean up as one of their standar operating procedures (being grim dark of 40 k expects lots of techno praying and deaths of disposable crew members)

Q How long does it actually take to repair damage of this kind assuming the repairs are being done in a proper shipyard?

A Rogue core book provides rules for Hull points repair via aquisition checks at space dock (the description you provides sounds like a hulked ship so I would start at 0 hull integrity and go up. As far as installing new weapon components I think one of the supplements (probably battlefield koronus) provided guidelines for component installation times depending on the kind of system you are in.

Q Can a bridge of antiquity be transferred from one ship to another like any other component?

A I think it can (it's the archeotech ship component right?). Bridge components can be transfered betweent different ships as long as they meet hull type requirement just like any other components. (If components comes in different size/power versions depanding on whcih hull its installed, new hull would have to match type to old one).

My rough estimates is that it would take weeks at least and months at most. To perform above repairs. I would be more concerned in aquiring compotent crew to men your new cruiser (the impression I have is your current vessel is smaller size).

So our motley crew just claimed a cruiser in our last playsession. It was a big deal for us...we have decided to move shop onto the new ship but it has been significantly damaged. I will 'splain...

1. The ship had an atomic detonate inside one of the port macrocannon batteries. As a result both batteries are literally gone.
2. The resulting explosion vaporized a giant chunk of the ship
3. The bridge was annihilated in a catastrophic booby trap that triggered when the previous captain died
4. No other damage was done to the ship, we took it down completely through boarding actions and sabotage.

Here is my main concern: Atomics generate all kinds of radiation...is there any way to fix this in the grim darkness of the wartorn future?

How long does it actually take to repair damage of this kind assuming the repairs are being done in a proper shipyard?

How long does it actually take to remove and install new components onto a ship assuming the hull is intact?

I can't remember seeing this laid out in the main rulebook or supplements. But I am assuming that I just missed it.

1) There are absolutely ways to handle radiation cleanup in the grim darkness of the grimdark 41st millennium, where there is only darkness and grimness. That being said, it's an exposed, blasted-open piece of hull. Sufficient to say, you'll probably need a sealed-off spaceward dry-dock. I remember there being one on Port Wander, I don't remember if Footfall has any, but the crew should be able to find the right repair yards somewhere, provided they can make it there in one piece.. eeh.. half-piece?

But yes, even the crew should be able to handle basic radiation cleanup, but with only your crew and in space, it would probably take months, if not years. They'd need radiation-proof voidsealed equipment, and tremendous amounts of cleaning equipment and basic resources (such as water or similar, they need something to bind the radiation and wash it off, for starters, amongst other things). You won't have this in the dead of space, and it's expensive.

2) How long? Well, for the damage you describe, you'll have to patch up half the ship and have it scrubbed. This will be extremely costly and take a long time. It's impossible to estimate with the rules, I would think. But many, many months, perhaps even a year or so. So unless you have multiple ships in your fleet, this may be a good time to set an adventure on a voidstation with lots of timeskipping and dealing with the players (and the crew) finding alternatives (or alternate lines of work) in the meantime (at least for those that aren't directly assisting in the reconstruction).

3) There's guidelines for this in the rules. I'd point you in the right direction, but I'm not dealing with Rogue Trader at present and I haven't got the books here at the moment. But it's in there somewhere, I think it's in Battlefleet Koronus, but possibly Into the Storm.

4) I always imagined the Bridge of Antiquity being a natural part of the bridge itself, for which reason I would assume that it cannot be moved from one bridge to another with ease. Provided that the ships match up relatively well, however, I imagine that there's actually nothing stopping you from cutting off the entire Bridge on one ship and moving it to a new one. It might look odd, depending on the kind of ships involved, but it should be doable. Moving only the Bridge of Antiquity component from one kind of bridge to another kind of bridge? I would say no, but it depends on what you envision a Bridge of Antiquity to actually be.

Your new crusier is pretty messed up, I'd say with a proper workyard like at Port Wander or on the orbital facilities around the lathes iy will probably take about six months to two years moving repeatedly in and out of drydock as well a base aquisition roll paying for it to bring it back online. On the upside the nature of warp travel can expediate things so just make some long haul cargo runs to burn the time and keep the bills paid in the meantime and let each week fly by in one day from your perspective.

Heh. I'm trying to picture this scenario in my head.

"Hey guys, I have an idea. Let's nuke it and turn it into a fixer-upper."

Wow...An Atomic pretty much means the ship is Hulked automatically. I believe the rules in Into the Storm say exactly that. Even a Cruiser is toast. I would say that an Atomic is probalby equal to a single MIRV warhead and is 500KT warhead. That is the equivalent of 303,030 Cubic Meters of TNT! Remember that exploding outside most ships it has the potential to automatically kill them (average of 5.5 hits at an average of 11.5 damage is 62.5 damage) Inside the Hull there isn't enough armor for even a cruiser to survive. When used in my game I just roll on the Crit 11 table to see if it detonates or Hulks. That doesn't mean you can't rebuild it, but you are going to have to REBUILD it. I would have you roll for each component on the Hulked Crit result to determine if they survived. Damaged components will need repairs, and Destroyed componetns replaced. As to specific answers:

1) Atomic Weapons are usually pretty clean weapons, as they are more efficient. Clean Atomics don't generate nearly the ammount of Radiactive Contamination you might think. That is what you need to worry about. The radiation is gone, you just need to deal with the radioactive material released or created by the explosion. That is definitely possible, although you might want to use disposable people/servitors to do much of the work and I would say it takes 1-3 months depending on the ammount of resources you have to do it. That can be done anywhere you have the resources to do it, so any significant colony world. It would be faster in a shipyard of course.

2) As described you aren't just doing repairs, you are basically rebuilding the ship. When my players have salvaged a hulk, I use my guidelines for new ship construction and reduce it by half. The rule I use for building cruisers are total SP of ship minus SP of components you have available in years. Yep, years. Cruiser construction takes decades of work. For rebuilding a Hulk I cut that in half. Even salvaging a hulk like that takes a couple of decades. You will need a major shipyard for this. Either a Forge World, major Planetary Shipyard, Imperial Navy Yard, or a size 10 Colony with a Shipyard Upgrade (Manufactorum, Shipyard).

If the ship had been taken rather than Hulked I would use the rules for Hull Point repair and add the time to remove and replace every destroyed component. For damaged components I would add the time to install the component as a repair time. That is still going to be a couple of years. This is the kind of work you pay a yard to do and leave to continue your normal activities. The work will require the same sort of Shipyard as a Hulked ship due to the complexity of the ship and damage. I based these numbers off of numerous descriptions of shipbuilding times from multiple sources. This is one of the reasons for players not to use Atomics on ships they might want to keep.

3) Essential components take 2 weeks plus SP cost in weeks to install or remove. Suplimental Components take their SP cost in weeks to install or remove. I would make the player remove the destroyed components wreckage before installing the new ones.

4) Your Bridge of Antiquity can be moved, as long as you are taking it from a Light Cruiser or Cruiser. If not, then you can't use it in your new cruiser. The Bridge comes in two sizes, and only the Light Cruiser/Cruiser one can be used in a Cruiser.

This is a topic that has come up several times in my games, so I have a pretty standard response to it. The players nuked Korad Vall's flagship, all they got out of it was the bridge (which took years to cleanse and purify) and the gratitude of Footfall and the Imperial Navy. It is true to the setting and makes rebuilding a ship a major undertaking, while still making it possible. The players take extra risks to capture ships relatively intact, and get rewarded for the extra effort by getting ships they will actually be able to use. Atomics are great for a 'Oh Crap!' button, but the penalty for their use is that there is rarely any salvage.

Wow...An Atomic pretty much means the ship is Hulked automatically. I believe the rules in Into the Storm say exactly that. Even a Cruiser is toast. I would say that an Atomic is probalby equal to a single MIRV warhead and is 500KT warhead. That is the equivalent of 303,030 Cubic Meters of TNT! Remember that exploding outside most ships it has the potential to automatically kill them (average of 5.5 hits at an average of 11.5 damage is 62.5 damage) Inside the Hull there isn't enough armor for even a cruiser to survive. When used in my game I just roll on the Crit 11 table to see if it detonates or Hulks. That doesn't mean you can't rebuild it, but you are going to have to REBUILD it. I would have you roll for each component on the Hulked Crit result to determine if they survived. Damaged components will need repairs, and Destroyed componetns replaced. As to specific answers:

1) Atomic Weapons are usually pretty clean weapons, as they are more efficient. Clean Atomics don't generate nearly the ammount of Radiactive Contamination you might think. That is what you need to worry about. The radiation is gone, you just need to deal with the radioactive material released or created by the explosion. That is definitely possible, although you might want to use disposable people/servitors to do much of the work and I would say it takes 1-3 months depending on the ammount of resources you have to do it. That can be done anywhere you have the resources to do it, so any significant colony world. It would be faster in a shipyard of course.

[...]

On those two notes, I'd like to say a few things.

For the atomics in the 41st millennium, I have a very hard time seeing it as being anything less than 100 Megatons, full Tsar-Bomba, and due to the retro-sci-fi nature of the setting, most of those are probably bomb-like rather than missiles, but of course, I'm sure that if weapons are specifically downscaled, they'd be less than 100 Megatons, and if someone would desire to do so, there'd probably be torpedoes to. So it's a minor point.

What isn't a minor point is the radioactivity of 40k atomics. The specific reason atomics are never used, and the reason they are outlawed, is entirely due to their radioactive nature. Atomics are described as completely nuking (no pun intended) planets into the stone-age and covering them with radioactivity that is near-impossible to clean up.

Atomics render entire planets unable to support human life, which is the one reason they don't use them - arguably along with atomics not being precise enough (usually) to hit enemy strongholds and - more importantly - penetrate them.

Yes, yes, I know that in the real world, modern atomics need not be very radioactively dangerous, and we also have pin-point precision bunker-busters. But for the purpose of the internal consistency of the 40k setting, those things are just pipe dreams unless you're the Dark Mechanicus or someone in the Imperium that isn't a violent, deranged, technologically backwards reactionary (hah! fat chance!).

In general, in 40k, atomics most definitely result in major radioactive fallout. It's the reason they're banned or flat-out simply not used - and the AdMech probably considers it stone-age technology anyway. Why nuke something when you can bomb it with macrocannons?

Fair enough. I could see larger warheads being common, I chose a typical smaller strategic size as an example of a minimum sort of warhead. 10-100 Megatons is definitely possible. Do note that at those yields, your cruiser is probably in pieces. Dirtier warheads are also likely to be common, although I might rule that higher quality Atomics are less dirty. Realistically, you lose quite a bit of blast power in making a dirtier bomb. Some of the effects that ruin a world are actually because the weapons are detonated at ground level. The dirty and other debris becoming radioactive is part of why they are so dirty. You might find that detonating a Atomic in a ship creates similar radioactive materials (particulary Cobalt and other susceptible materials).

Always always always remember that technology in the 40k is not just ill-understood and all that.

It's also based on technologies and ideas dating mainly from the first half of the 20th century, with some extras thrown in taking inspiration as late as the early 1980'ies.

This applies to understnading of nukes (ie, only extremely rudimentary) and to many other debates on technology.

It's not just ork-tek that largely runs on belief.

Wow! Thanks for all the great information guys! To Clarify a few points,

• The bridge would be moving from a light cruiser to the cruiser.
• The ship was riddled with explosives, but the atomic was a smaller one thankfully. We disarmed all the other explosives, but the atomic detonated agaist the outer hull on the gundecks. The GM ruled that because we were able to get it so far from it's initial home situated nicely between the fusion reactors and the ammunition storage for the nova cannon, the ship is NOT hulked. But it is pretty **** close. Though both the weapons batteries on that side of the ship are gone along with a large gaping hole at least 1.5 kilometers long.

Having read all this and shared with the GM, we are estimating between One and Two years to repair, remove the radiation, and retrofit the ship. This all assumes that we can successfully acquire all the guns and components we need to do it. We recently secured the colony where the shipyards that were being used to maintain the cruiser before. This was done by a combination of blood/ toil / and some sharp negotiation!