So one of our group has mentioned to me that founding a forge world would take longer than it would take to get to rank 8 and that you move up too a Hive world first and then build up from there.

I was wondering what other peoples take on this is.
I think that it would be possible to found a forge world assuming you had the right connections, sufficient influence and favors owed and that it starts from day one as a forge world that needs development.

Either way, I think there could be some interesting ideas springing up from this topic, so lets go!

I don't think that a Forge World first becomes a Hive World, because they are actually quite different, although a Forge World can certainly be called Hive-like.

That being said, founding a forge-world is likely something that takes hundreds of years at best. While you may certainly found one, and work towards making something a true Forge World, before it'll actually be classified as one, it would likely take centuries.

Indeed, Forge and Hive worlds are two different "end points" of world evolution, not including the issue of who controls the world.

I could see a Rogue Trader that is (very) tightly connected to the Mechanicum being contracted to found a new Forge World somewhere, particularly if it was "out of the bounds of the Imperium", where the Rogue Trader would have an easier time contracting out support services to support the colony until it could more fully establish itself. The major (or minor) difference is that Forge Worlds are, by definition, controlled by the Mechanicum. So your Rogue Trader is going to be more of a temporary exclusive contractor then the actually colony owner.

The issue with the Colony rules and time scales has been covered elsewhere, to summarize, GM adjustment is required for timing issues.

Unless a massive amount of coordination was done with the Adeptus Mechanicus to flood the planet with workers and pre-fab industrial gear to build up as massive an industrial complex as possible in as little time as possible, it just isn't possible to do it in a single life-time.

Forge Worlds don't necessarily need to have massive populations (of sapient humans anyways), but they need millions, if not billions of workers or servitors, and factories as far as the eye can see. They are a massive undertaking to create, and like Hive-Worlds, more likely to spring up naturally from colonization than from intentional creation (although most planets colonized by the Adeptus Mechanicus usually wind up this way eventually). As was also said, the Adeptus Mechanicus has sole authority over Forge Worlds, so to found one would to essentially agree to turn it over to them at a certain point (likely in exchange for trade benefits, free supplies for life, etc).

You could certainly found a future-Forge World, but unless you play the descendants of your characters in a game (at least) several centuries down the road, your world won't be a Forge World within the natural life-spans of your characters.

Actually, if we don't adjust Stars of Inequity's rules, it shouldn't take you that long to get a world with crazy levels of Production. Assuming you're able to grow every 90 days, which is kinda nuts, that's 4 times a year and you only need to do that 18 times.

If you allow multiple colonies on the planet, which I don't think there's a rule against as each colony belongs to a territory, then you could have a decent industrial world in less than 5 years.

Now, there's a lot more involved in a forge world than making it a factory planet, but it's probably a good start. In a few centuries your dynasty could have a forge world-in-the-making.

All the work will need to be done beforehand, I'd imagine. Convincing the Lathes to help seed a Forge World would be a Greater Endeavour in and of itself.

when I ran the Svard adventure, the PC group wanted to take the little moon of Cog,

and say "that's our forge world"!

I told them "look, it takes 10 different qualities for a planet to be eligible to be a forge world,

and Cog only has 4 ½ of those items."

what are the 10 items ? I dunno, I was winging it.

Abundant Minerals or Asteroid Belt.

No Previous Taint or Heresy

Conducive Atmosphere (Air, not romance)

Defensible Area of Space.

Access to Markets (ie near imperial planets)

Access to Adequate Food & Supplies

Molten Core (still active geologically for more minerals in future)

???

???

???

so yes "Founding a Forge World" is one of those 9500 point endeavours

that you list on a legal size piece of paper

My last campaign lasted about 2.5 years of play time and met every weekend for 4-8 hours of play (nightshift workers who really like to game). By the end of the campaign they were about rank 8 and had about 10 major colonies. The Engiseer/Magos of the group focused on developing Mechanicum colonies while the rest of the party was more focused on developing 'perfect' Imperial colonies. In game time the campaign took place over about 80 years, and they had four size 10 colonies (including two Mechanicum Research colonies). I basically took the mechanical rules for normal colonies and adjusted the names to fit Mechanicum titles. Instead of a Ecclesiatiarchy Mission they had Data Temples.

The players were very focused on developing their own subsector in the Expanse, and overall pretty successful. At the end of the campaign the players had managed to sort of recover a number of STCs, mainly by using bits and pieces from various sources and a very 'experimental' approach. The Magos was able to turn that accomplishment and some serious work he did helping the Mechanicum into getting his 'Forge World' recognized by Mars. Note that this involved a number of storylines around recovering STC fragments and rooting out problems in the Mechanicum in the Calaxis sector to build political capitol. At that point I moved, but we may pick the game back up over Skype/RollD20.

Unless a massive amount of coordination was done with the Adeptus Mechanicus to flood the planet with workers and pre-fab industrial gear to build up as massive an industrial complex as possible in as little time as possible, it just isn't possible to do it in a single life-time.

Forge Worlds don't necessarily need to have massive populations (of sapient humans anyways), but they need millions, if not billions of workers or servitors, and factories as far as the eye can see. They are a massive undertaking to create, and like Hive-Worlds, more likely to spring up naturally from colonization than from intentional creation (although most planets colonized by the Adeptus Mechanicus usually wind up this way eventually). As was also said, the Adeptus Mechanicus has sole authority over Forge Worlds, so to found one would to essentially agree to turn it over to them at a certain point (likely in exchange for trade benefits, free supplies for life, etc).

You could certainly found a future-Forge World, but unless you play the descendants of your characters in a game (at least) several centuries down the road, your world won't be a Forge World within the natural life-spans of your characters.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I agree it would probably take a couple hundred years to properly build a true Forgeworld but, given Juvenat treatments and the Warp's peculiar habit of stretching time, you could certainly be their to see it's fruition! Remember; in 40k there are humans that are pushing 1000 yrs old! As to build time, The Entirety of the united states was built in just over 200 yrs! Now imagine if you started with 40k lvl technology and a mandate to build, how much could you accomplish in two hundred years?!

Unless a massive amount of coordination was done with the Adeptus Mechanicus to flood the planet with workers and pre-fab industrial gear to build up as massive an industrial complex as possible in as little time as possible, it just isn't possible to do it in a single life-time.

Forge Worlds don't necessarily need to have massive populations (of sapient humans anyways), but they need millions, if not billions of workers or servitors, and factories as far as the eye can see. They are a massive undertaking to create, and like Hive-Worlds, more likely to spring up naturally from colonization than from intentional creation (although most planets colonized by the Adeptus Mechanicus usually wind up this way eventually). As was also said, the Adeptus Mechanicus has sole authority over Forge Worlds, so to found one would to essentially agree to turn it over to them at a certain point (likely in exchange for trade benefits, free supplies for life, etc).

You could certainly found a future-Forge World, but unless you play the descendants of your characters in a game (at least) several centuries down the road, your world won't be a Forge World within the natural life-spans of your characters.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I agree it would probably take a couple hundred years to properly build a true Forgeworld but, given Juvenat treatments and the Warp's peculiar habit of stretching time, you could certainly be their to see it's fruition! Remember; in 40k there are humans that are pushing 1000 yrs old! As to build time, The Entirety of the united states was built in just over 200 yrs! Now imagine if you started with 40k lvl technology and a mandate to build, how much could you accomplish in two hundred years?!

This is true, and in Rogue Trader, one can, and often will, run into these kinds of lifespan-altering things. There is even the Ship History that can cause potential time-travel if one rolls right (or wrong), so it is quite feasible that one could potentially live that long. But as you also said, it would take at least a couple hundred years to build up properly. Most humans won't live long enough to see it happen, and unless the characters take several breaks between campaigns that each last decades at a time while utilizing rejuvinat, or get lost in the warp for a good long stretch, they'll be Rank 8 or dead from misadventure long before they reach that stage, necessitating new characters.

As to how much they could build given the proper mandate and tech, like I said, coordinated effort with the Adeptus Mechanicus.

I guess you are technically right, but really it'd have to be the call of the GM on that one, regardless of what rules say. It seems iffy to me that it could be done in a single human life-time (even the 40K version). Possible, but not likely

Time estimates being iffy, I'm not sure about WHY you might want to do it. Every time I imagine a new character who owns a world (two so far), I imagine what it would be like if they had great magnafactoria on them, or orbital starship construction facilities, but so many of these things require the AdMech, and more in a way of shooing you off, and building their secret stuff in secret, rather than keeping you on as a benefiting partner. It would be nice for them to have access to your money, and they MIGHT be willing to look at you as a good trading partner to give better rates toward, but THEY would need to build the Forge World, and THEY would then choose to own it; none of your other people would know how to do some of the crap a Forge World purportedly needs, and your say over almost everything would be minimal, and kept quiet in favor of maintaining your preferred customer rates. Also, without the AdMech using their pull to bring in the Navy, you might not be able to fend off the inevitable invaders, be they Orks, Chaos, or others, who will come to take your rare goodies. Personally, I just don't see any Rogue Trader, or anyone other than the Adeptus Mechanicus, for that matter, being able and willing to lay the groundwork for a true Forge World, and then reach the final stage of succeeding at that endeavor. It would be nice to own your own, but either the AdMech would come take it, being they vaguely have the right to, or they would've been needed to help, and already hold it by proxy. My take on things, anyway.

Actually, a lot of war material (ships in particular) is produced by mercantile houses and hive worlds, with only oversight and technical help from the Admech. BFK has a decent section describing how shipbuilding occurs in the Imperium, and may of the worlds described it the various books have merchant houses that produce goods under the supervision of a few tech-priests. In fact, in the Calaxis sector the Lord Fabricator has been trying to offload manufacturing from 2 of the 3 Lathe Worlds for centuries. This means that there are even more possibilities for arranging manufactorums or laboratories with disgruntled Tech Priests on your colonies.

As far as defense, it is probably easier for players to earn favor with the Imperial Navy directly and get an Imperial Navy base set up on one of their colonies. The Mechanicum colony equivalent is a Explorator Fleet Base. An Imperial Guard/Skittarii base isn't a bad investment either. Theses are all Support Upgrades (or renamed equivalents) listed in SoI.

Also note that most groups include a senior tech priest or Magos in the form of an Engiseer. I actually have never seen a group that doesn't. That august person has a decent chance of building up the contacts to maintain personal control of any Ad Mech based colony he establishes. Being in the Expanse reduces the likelyhood of a political takeover of a Magos' personal colony. If you can build it up enough, you have a decent chance of trying to get recognition as a Forge Wold. This is over the course of a century or two. There are a lot more forge worlds than just the Lathes out there. Servicing the Explorator fleets and collecting bits of Archeotech and STC fragments is a good way to earn that respectability. Working towards that goal made it easier to determine what the players were going to do next, and therefore plan game sessions. It also made my last campaign strangely political with a Magos who specialized in social skills (Factor of the Lathes) using social fu as much as technological might.

I would argue the important part here is the difference between a Imperial Manufacturing World and a Forge World.

"A forge world is directly controlled by the Adeptus Mechanicus. All are completely dedicated to the manufacture of the various machines of the Imperium, the pursuit and preservation of humanity's ancient scientific knowledge and the worship of the Machine God."

All Forge Worlds are, by definition, controlled by the Adeptus Mechanicus. There is nothing that precludes a Rogue Trader (in theory) from founding a world and filling it with nothing but a-hundred-million manufactoria and mines, stripping every scrap of Iron out of the crust and producing hundreds of thousands of tons of goods per Administrative Time Unit. It's a world with incomprehensible technological production, but it's still not a Forge World.

I'd even argue that those would be Hive Worlds since most hives are centres of industry in and of themselves.

Yes, one could create a Manufacturing World in place of a Forge World, as the Explorers would then get full say in how the world is run, and control it how they please, but we all know Forge Worlds create the best stuff. Hive Worlds and Manufacturing Worlds can crank out lots of things, but only Forge Worlds create the most lethal and advanced technology in the Imperium.

Like I said, it's unlikely the players could ever have much say in the goings-on of a Forge World, even if they did found it, as they are all ruled over by the Adeptus Mechanicus. Questions of development time aside, beyond getting trade benefits for life for their involvement in the planet's founding, the only way I could see the players having any sort of true involvement in how the world was run is if the Rank 8 Explorator somehow got himself promoted to Arch-Magos, and cut a deal with the Explorers and their Rogue Trader dynasty to pass along their agenda alongside his own in the day-to-day runnings of the planet.

Of course, there's the answer for how it could be done right there: somehow get the Explorator promoted to Magos (maybe by giving him all the credit for the planet's discovery). Of course, the Explorator would them become as powerful (or even more powerful) than the Rogue Trader dynasty he was previously working for, as well as straddle the boundary between Elite Character and NPC, but it could make for some interesting RP between the now Arch-Magos Explorator and the Rogue Trader character over how they want to get things done.