So I'm first-time GM-ing Rogue Trader tomorrow evening (Into the Maw) and everything else about the game is pretty straight forward, apart from the space battles.

Is there any tool to help me get through all the rules etc? Or an example of a battle to show how it works? A video?

Would be greatly appreciated!

Welcome to the forum and welcome to Rogue Trader!

I don't know any tools or examples myself, but I can try and provide an overview here. Narratively, the thing to remember about space battles is that they're long - 1/2 an hour per round, so describe them as such, and feel free to facilitate your command crew (PCs) to collaborate and make strategic decisions.

To the rules:

1) Start

Your ships are going to start at an initial distance from each other, in a particular orientation. Rogue Traders space battles (at least when they're complex) are the one time I use miniatures in RPGs, because things like facing are actually important. The distance will be measured in Void Units (VU) which are not a fixed distance, but between 1,000 to 10,000 km depending on nature of the space you're in (dense gravity wells to open space). The actual distance doesn't matter, just the VU.

2) First Ship Acts

The ship with the highest initiative will go first, with all it's character & crew taking actions. Actions come in to 2 flavors, regular actions (like talking, etc) that take a negligible amount of time, and Extended Actions , which occupy the character for the entire round. Nearly all the 'things to do' listed in the book are extended actions.

Every PC can perform 1 Extended Action. In addition, the crew/NPCs can perform a number of extended actions based on particular house/optional rules. Extended Actions performed by the crew use the Crew Rating as their skill level. (ie, crew rating 30 roll Pilot as though their skill level were 30). Exceptional NPCs (likely to be on the opposing ship) use their skills for any Extended Action they perform.

Some Extended Actions affect other ones, so order of application can be important. Lock on Target , for example, can provide a bonus to Fire Weapons . So the Lock on Target roll would need to be performed before the Fire Weapons. This is one of the primary reasons why the command crew (PCs) need to discuss their overall plan for the round before the dice start rolling.

Notes on Moving:

Voidships are restricted as to how much they can move. With no adjustments, a voidship will move either it's full distance, or exactly half its full distance, than rotate up to 90 degrees (45 if a cruiser). Thee helmsman may make rolls to adjust this.

3) Next Ship Acts

The next ship in the initiative count will act, completing all of it's actions just like the first one. Repeat until all vessels have acted.

4) Back to the top.

So here's my overview of space combat.

Step 1: Initiative.

In space combat the initiative of the ship is based on it's detection rating the same way as personal combat is based on agility. The initiative of the individual player characters doesn't factor into space combat, which makes sense since each space combat round is a half hour long.

Ships go in order of initiative just like in personal combat.

Step 2: Ship's turn.

When a ship's turn comes up it can take a manoeuvre action followed by a shooting action.

A number of extended actions can be taken at any time during the ship's turn by it's crew.

A PC or specific statted up NPC can only take one action per turn, be it manoeuvre, firing, or extended.

You can also use your basic crew rating for many of the rolls. Exactly how many is up to the DM but two common methods is to say a flat 3 or a number equal to the 10's digit of the crew rating (crack crew with a 40 crew rating would have 4 actions etc)

Manoeuvre action: The explanation starts on page 213. A ship's default manoeuvre is to move straight ahead either 1/2 of it's speed or all of it's speed, followed, if it chooses, by a turn. That's the default manoeuvre and takes no checks or specific actions by the crew. I expect that minimum forward speed is meant to make space combat feel like combat between sailing ships. That default manoeuvre can be modified with checks, most of the possible manoeuvres available are on page 214-215. Most (maybe all?) are modified by the ship's Manoeuvrability rating.

Whomever is your pilot will likely be taking the helm and directing any fancy manoeuvring and the ship will use his Piloting (spacecraft) skill.

Firing action: Exactly what it sounds like. At the end of your Manoeuvre you can if you want fire your guns. There's various rules that come with various types of weapons, and most of the important stuff on how to shoot comes on page 219-220 while taking damage is a little after that, but it works more or less like it does on personal scale. Unlike on personal scale your heading and your weapon's firing arcs will dictate what direction the weapon in question can be fired in.

Whomever has the highest ballistic skill among the PC's will be directing the guns so that the ship uses his/her ballistics skill.

Extended actions: Fall under the catch all of whatever isn't a manoeuvre or firing action. Things like repairing damaged components, putting out fires, sensor scans, hit and run boarding actions. They're detailed on page 215-218 Sometimes you'll want to say boost the ship's engines with Flank Speed or it's manoeuvrability with Aid The Machine Spirit before taking your manoeuvre action, or scan the enemy

Step 3: Next!

Once a ship has taken all of it's actions move onto the next ship down the initiative. Rinse and repeat until the combat is over.

Thank you both! This is helpful. I'll report back on how it goes!

As extended actions can only be performed once per turn (IE you can't perform two 'Put your backs into it' in one turn) it might be handy to make the extended actions into cards that the players can then look at and say "I'm going to perform this one with player XYZ assisting to ensure we get the most out of it".

I found a link to starship action cards, which is posted in page 2:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/58799-starship-combat-action-cards/page-2

Hey those cards are pretty nice, thanks! I think it went pretty well yesterday, we got up to the first ship battle in 'Into the Maw', where they go up against 2 raiders. Is it just me, or will they not do any damage unless they score more DoS to get more shots with the macrocannons? If the Rogue Trader ship is 18 armour, and the raiders are doing 1d10+2, how is that supposed to work? Also, one of the players succeeding in a Hit and Run, and damaged the Life Sustainer component, thinking it would be like damaging the O2 in FTL. But I couldn't find anything in the rules about damaging that component.

Indeed, they do not have rules for damaging every component. You would clearly lose the benefit of the component, for one. (if they have a positive bonus from the life sustainer). I'd consider inflicting morale damage for it, but for the most part, it's the kind of thing thats a "we better fix this once the battle's over" rather than an instant impediment.

For shots, that is correct, under standard rules most vessels require at least 1 DoS to get past armor. This becomes particularly difficult if you use RAW shields, which apply against each vessel. (Don't forget macrocannon damage is added together before being applied to armor) A pair of transports with thunderstrikes and average crews have something like a .1% chance to damage each other per volley. (Note, many -but not all- people use a combat fix you can find in this forum under "Mathhammer")

From this point forward - what is actually "questionable" or "broken" in the Ship Combat System?

I've been watching (if not all of em lol) Battle Fleet Gothic videos on youtube recently - as an example - I saw in one post how Fighters vs. Torpedoes was an issue for players/gms.

So it made me wonder how "off" is the system in Rogue Trader and what do I need to look out for "power creep" or bad mechanics wise?

Morbid

To the OP, I'd give a piece of advice on that first battle. Take your time and get it right. Your players will get faster with time and by your 3rd or 4th combat it won't take but 10 minutes per round. If you don't get it right, in the name of game-speed and expediency, then you'll probably get it wrong and you and your players both will be re-learning the ship combat system every time you run one.

Don, why not start another thread on that one. There are many problems with the ship combat system. Math-Hammer addresses some. Others are necessary. It's a topic that deserves its own thread and we shouldn't hijack this guy's.

OK no sweat - I'll post it elsewhere

Stay GAMING

Morbid