So I was looking at Ship Components, and I thought to myself, "Wow, after looking at all these disparate components, it is unfeasibly difficult to make a really really good science component for a dedicated exploration vessel. I mean, conceivably, you would want the capabilities of a Crew Reclamation Facility, Librarium Vault, bits of a Xenos Librarium, a Manufactorum, a Medicae Facility, a Laboratorium, and a Pharmacia. There should really be some sort of archeotech facility that, if you can get it, makes getting those capabilities at least conceivable." So, I need some help homebrewing some sort of ship facility like this. I'm thinking Space 3, Power 4, 6 Ship Points, Archeotech. And here's a rough idea of what it would be able to do:

EDITED VERSION HERE:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/127227-houserule-ship-component-idea/page-2#entry1359692

(previous depreciated version is as follows):

Space 3, Power 4 Archeotech
*Can only be put in a Heavy Frigate, sufficiently sized Transport (Space and Hull both of at least 40), Light Cruiser, Cruiser, or Larger ship
*Can make Drugs with a Scholastic Lore Chymistry or Trade Chymist test
*+20 to repair, analyse, identify ancient or xenos artefacts, or craft single or small batch items
*+20 to tests involving general data analysis, counting as a best quality emplaced cogitator
*+20 to medicae tests, may treat triple medic's intelligence bonus, triage extended action has +10, whether for a human crew (medicae) or a servitor crew (tech-use)
*+10 to extended repair and acquisition to purchase repairs for the ship
*+10 to all non forbidden lore investigation tests, as well as forbidden lore archeotech and forbidden lore xenos for technologically-advanced xenos races encountered during or before the end of the age of technology, even if this tech is not regarding identifying artefacts
*Fully appropriate for the manufacture, upgrading, repair, and installation of implants, augmetics, robotics, servitors, etc.
*component itself also requires forbidden lore archeotech to repair, it's bonuses do not generally help with skill tests to repair itself (as those tend to happen when it is damaged)
*Counts as having Good Quality Superior Damage Control and a Fire Suppression system for this component only, even if that component and upgrade are not otherwise on the ship
*Reduces crew population loss for the ship by 3, minimum 1
*Already counts as best quality/archeotech for morale purposes
*+50 to exploration endeavors, and +75 to trade endeavors or +50 to criminal endeavors where drugs and small amounts of other custom manufactured items would be useful

Can you all tell me what you think, or what I should change? It seems overpowered, and I want it to be balanced, but the idea is to enable categories of gameplay that the game does not normally have without an excessive amount of investment. Also, I need ideas for a name for the item. Thoughts?

What is "exploration?"

I think that does far too many things at the same time.

Essentially, Every 1 or 2 bullet points should be it's own component.

There are also several sections that don't really need to be starship-scale facilities to be done. The cognator and and the ability to make drugs, for example, which are really personal scale operations.

Most of those are in their own components. The whole point is to make one single component rather than a bunch that's unfeasible to get, even if you have a cruiser and a ton of power, space, and ship points (and who has all that??).

Crew Reclamation Facility, 1 power, 1 space, 1 ship point, Rogue Trader Core pg 205

Librarium, 1 power, 1 space, 1 ship point, Rogue Trader Core pg 205

Manufactorum, 2 power, 1 space, 2 ship points, Battlefleet Koronus, pg 39

Medicae Deck, 2 power, 1 space, 1 ship point, Battlefleet Koronus, pg 39

Laboratorium, 2 power, 1 space, 3 ship points, Hostile Acquisitions pg 72,

Pharmacia, 1 power, 2 space, 2 ship points, Hostile Acquisitions pg 72

This is waayyyyyyy too many components/ship points/power/space for a science and creation minded rogue trader; a lot of these should be able to be combined. Hence my idea, and I need help refining it.

This is all easily explained by repeating "It's a grim and dark setting" to yourself over and over again in a spooky voice.

You've pretty much written up the explanation as to why that component is ridiculously overpowered right there, but I'll finish up the summary statistics. Combined you have 9 power, 7 space and 10 ship points. You can cut down on power and space by assigning good quality components to give yourself 6 power, 6 space and 14 ship points. Regardless we keep that record of this costing 26 points. Your component costs a net total of 16 points, and that's not factoring in the extra bonus from having two more built in upgrades for that component alone. It's ridiculously overpowered.

Also from a fluff perspective if this amazing facility of unparalleled science from the Dark Age of Technology really did exist, you would not be allowed to keep it. The Mechanicus would take it from you in a heartbeat, and if you tried to resist they would kill the engines of your vessel, convince the machine spirits in your life sustainer that a 99% Carbon Monoxide atmosphere would be a hilarious joke, and manufacture virus torpedoes until you were dead and that component was theirs.

What's the solution to a science or creation minded Rogue Trader? Have a bunch of Transports (or maybe one if you do this on a Star Galleon) follow you around with these facilities installed, and then be forced to protect them in combat. Painful and inconvenient, but that's what you get for wanting to believe in this heresy you call "science". I don't even see a single temple in your build idea.

How about 5/5/10 then?

And please. Science and research happens all the time in the 40k setting. Its just repressed and sat on once it comes up with something.

My suggestion:

Altar of the Omnissiah

Arcane and holy, this vast space is dedicated to the mysteries of the Omnissiah. Most were first forged during the Great Crusade to aid the Mechanicus in cataloguing new threats and new wonders. Many were lost, destroyed or taken by traitors, but many more were retained and recovered. The Altars themselves utilize a great many STCs and have the ability to create "seeds" that can be installed aboard voidships to grow into a full Altar of the Omnissiah after the appropriate rites and material sacrifices are made.

Power: 3

Space: 3

- Any Tech-Use Test aboard the ship can be made with a +20 bonus as long as the component remains active.

- The Altar functions as a Laboratorium and a Manufactorum. A Good-quality and higher Altar also grants the Librarium's benefits.

The Altar can be enhanced with further upgrades, each costing 1 Power and 1 Space:

- Medicae Deck

- Pharmacia

It just sucks doing things by the rules. When the rules get in your way, pull out your Monte Haulizer and compact several magic items into a single magic item. It's more convenient. Never mind the buzzkills out there who laugh at your game and crack jokes about adolescent behavior. What do they know about fun?

I just sucks doing things by the rules. When the rules get in your way, pull out your Monte Haulizer and compact several magic items into a single magic item. It's more convenient. Never mind the buzzkills out there who laugh at your game and crack jokes about adolescent behavior. What do they know about fun?

He's right, if it's fun for you then do it.

Science is done all the time, but it's not done very much on starships because in a grim and dark future where there's only war, it's more practical to fortify a planet and do things there. Unless you have an Ark Mechanicus, in which case there's more than enough space for your heresy research. The only example I can think of ship based research comes from the Shira Calpurnia novels where their solution was to spread research facilities out around a Rogue Trader's floatilla.

Well here's a question... SHOULD there be this many existing components for such similar things? Is it a problem that there are are six different sorta-sciency, similar components? Should some of them just be houseruled to have more effects or to be combined?

I mean, would a simple, "+10 to common lore and scholastic lore tests, tech use involving analysis or repair of artefacts, the crafting of small batches of technological and pharmaceutical items, repair of small items in general, medicae tests for healing, and research-style investigation tests, etc." be fine?

It depends on your view. Personally I find the inclusion of Medicae facilities a little odd given that I don't want someone building a laspistol why I'm having my Genestealer eggsac removed. It would put me on edge, and also seems like it'd be difficult to keep both environments stable. Remember that this should theoretically be a room on an ancient spaceship that you've salvaged, so even then they'd try to keep things designed reasonably in tune with each other.

Of the six components, splitting it down into two groups makes sense. Laboratorium, Librarium Vault, Pharmacia and Manufactorum are pretty easily combined and don't really need any further bonus than that. Throwing together Medicae Deck and Crew Reclamation Facility being combined makes sense also. For the latter you could even allow something like "Ships may automatically make a free Triage action once per Strategic Turn if this component is installed" due to its increased efficiency.

I was being sarcastic...kinda.

Look, there's no reason a lab should take up significant space aboard a 3 million cubic foot cruiser. If my players wanted to amass a library that gave them +10 at some aspect of several skills, I'd have no problem with that, and it wouldn't take up any space. That just seems silly. They'd have to take the time and make the acquisition rolls, but...well...here, read this.

http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2012/03/how-many-libraries-of-congress-does-it-take/

At some point you have to wonder what kind of search engine they have in the year 40k.

I believe this is a 40k Search Engine:

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120712015048/warhammer40k/images/5/5c/Scribe.jpg

I agree with Errant that if it doesn't take space equal to at least a medium office building, it's probably not worth noting with a space & power requirement.

But that's only if ships are logically and efficiently designed, and time after time the setting makes it clear that they are not. Endless corridors exist so that people can run from one end of the ship to another for their duty shifts, and along the keel of the ship are mass transit systems because you can't reasonably expect people to be able to go from one area of the ship to the other with any great regularity. Places that aren't occupied with necessary movement systems are crawling with almost certainly redundant piping, and actual freaking shrines in every access corridor so that you can put incense and pray to ships for them to work.

There may not be a logical reason why you can't put things there, but the setting has thousands of terrifying, everpresent undercurrents of dogma and illogicality in its every setting. We can think of these things belonging because of our system, but literally trillions of people grow up who would be incapable of having these thoughts because they're branded as heretical. You can't find people who will do this installation because it would anger the magical spirits that they are 100% convinced exist and believe that they have proof for. All the Knowledge skills you can buy would only reinforce this belief because that's what you are taught unless you embrace heresy and get labelled as a renegade.

If you've played Battlefleet Gothic the difference between Chaos and Imperial void ships are clearcut. Chaos wins point for point in literally everything except front armour, because they don't devote huge sections of precious ship space to having giant adamntium clad aquilas that double as battering rams on the prow of their vessels. The are faster, hit harder, and range better because they probably start having thoughts like these. It is a perfectly legitimate argument to break away from the Imperium and join the Runious Powers, the Meritech or the Tau because they believe the way forward is to have thoughts like this.

Also I believe the majority of the Imperium are involved in some sort of record keeping, and they keep records on everything. Multiple, redundant records that exist likely as a source of occupation for what troops we can justify not waging endless war on everything.

Calculated as a cylinder, a Jerico is over 2 million cubic meters. It has 45 Space. Even if we assume 75% of the vehicle is already taken up by corridors, shrines, tubes, wiring, structure, that leaves 500 thousand cubic meters, or 11,000 cubic meters per unit of space. Assuming an average 3 meter roof (between cathedral spires and submarine like sections) that's just over 3,500 sq meters of floor space. Or the size of this house (plus 3 others for the corridors, tubing, shrines, etc.) That's still plenty of space to squeak in a room without anyone noticing.

Also, Imperial BFG designs are not inherently inferior to chaos ones. The armored prow is significantly better in BFG then it is in RT, and 6 torpedoes is arguably more powerful than the prow weapons batteries Chaos ships usually have. Particularly in battles consisting of 4 or 6+ cruisers to a side. There wasn't a collective decision in the 39 ^th millennium to rip out half the batteries and put in Aquila shrines. (If anything that's going to happen to Chaos vessels where they have much more active and involved gods to appease. ) There was a shift from solo-ship tactics based on hit & runs to mutually supporting fleet tactics based around torpedoes.

All excellent points, but I'm trying to brainstorm why the setting exists the way it does rather than make a "logical" arguement as to why a Workshop takes up as much space as quarters for 1/3rd of the crew. The way I see it at least one of the following has to be true.

1) Ship at a space is absolutely at a premium due to extremely inefficient design that no one really understands.

2) Rooms are impossibly, implausibly large because too much of it is given over to needless ornamentation and the aforementioned inefficient design.

3) The ship is built to a certain pattern and modifying that is either extremely dangerous. or literally unthinkable in the system.

4) Ships require major retrofitting to install a new component, so it's not as simple as just dragging some new Forge furniture into an empty space and calling it a shrine.

I allow my Astropath to have evacuated a section of the ship in a 100 square foot radius around an otherwise unremarkable room so that he can push shipboard powers and not endanger anyone which I'm fine with, but there has to be a reason why the components work the way they do rather than give people free things.

Well, of the various components, it always bugged me that ships weren't assumed to have , at the very least, really really good medicae facilities. Of:

Crew Reclamation Facility, Librarium, Manufactorum, Medicae Deck, Laboratorium, and Pharmacia,

The main one that screams to me, "Why does this exist as a separate thing that takes up space and power at all?!" is the Medicae Deck! With a possible second of Librarium, because I assume ships have Cogitators and Holo-Desks, and even putting a freaking huge book/scroll library shouldn't take a LOT of space, should it??

I think the idea of a Medicae "Deck" is meant to be literal, as you probably have Medicae facilities, but none capable of treating hundreds or possibly thousands of people in a quick and efficient order.

Also a Librarium gives you a +10 to ANY Investigation Skill Test. Apart from the bizareness of including Interrogation and Inquiry (I am going to spend some time reading up about how to hurt you), this includes every single Common and Scholastic Lore which spans a minimum of 10,000 years of history. It has to be able to theoretically include every Imperial Guard engagement ever fought. Every Xenos Beast ever mentioned by a Magos Biologis on a Death World. The entire recorded speeches of every Ecclesiarch ever given on any planet.

If you wanted to limit it to a specific skill in a specific period then I can believe it, but when you think about the depth of knowledge contained inside there the entire ship should be filled with scrolls.

Note to self: Invent Universe Class Mass Conveyor named the Librarium of Alexandria.

Note to self: Invent Universe Class Mass Conveyor named the Librarium of Alexandria.

I am so stealing that for my next adventure hook!

So if we wanted to come up with a smaller set of reasonable, but still setting appropriate 'techy scholarly sciency buildy components, like you would see on a mechanicum research base, but on a voidship', what WOULD the rules actually look like? How many components would there be? What could they do? If it was reasonable to get some version with added Archeotech, what would THAT do?

Well, you could always build a ship with a Crew Reclamation Facility, Librarium Vault, a Xenos Librarium, a Manufactorum, a Medicae Facility, a Laboratorium, and a Pharmacia. Probably at least Good Quality. Likely add on an Ultimo Auspex. Stars of Inequity gives lots of Archotech ideas, but it could vary from increasing the provided bonus, to a morale bonus, to being hard to destroy.

But the problem is more that most of those SHOULDN'T be separate components, and making them good quality reaaallly gets the ship points up very high, and the space/power requirements are excessive. In other words, some of these components should be default behavior of a ship, some should be combined, some maybe shouldn't exist at all, etc. etc.

Also, it's stupid that a Manufactorum can't get on the bigger Transports or a Heavy Frigate...

The frigate I can see given its size, though it goes back to poorly scaling ship space, for the other most GMs seem to allow them to take Cruiser items. There's no reason for them not to be separate components though. And arguably they should knock the Ship Points high - Mechanicum vessels aren't cheap, they're works of art and marvels of engineering.

I feel like (and this may be false) that you're confusing the ability to do something with a facility dedicated to doing that thing. Every ships has Medicae beds and a chief Churgian. Any ship can perform Triage, install a cybernetic component or apply your annual dose of Rejove. That's just part of having Life Support & Living Quarters. A Medicae facility is an extra several thousand square feet of hospital with all machines that go Bing! and anything else available to planetbound 40k facilities. It's like supplementing a few dozen of these with a full ER ready hospital. Just like not having a Librarium Vault doesn't mean you can't make Lore checks or keep hundreds of books (Hell, my RT has that many in his personal study), but adding it means you're adding a large public library sized records room alongside it.

Well, mostly, I guess I could see Manufactorum/Pharmacia joined, and the trade/criminal bonuses be a more generic 'when you can get a relatively small scale manufacturing deal, you gain a bonus to these endeavors', and Crew Reclamation Facility/Medicae Deck combined (basically, if you have enough medical facilities, you can actually simply do an order that lowers morale and lowers crew losses by turning injured into servitors...), and Librarium/Laboratorum combined, I suppose? And Manufactorum allowed in that ONE heavy frigate (or I guess homebrew heavy frigates?) and the bigger transports...