I've read the Ark of the Forsaken section of the Lure of the Expanse a few times now. I'm trying to work out what is the Light of Terra.

What is known

It's an Imperial Navy battleship.

It was old even by the Angevin Crusade.

The hull at least *may* date back to the first wave of human expansion.

It was reported as constantly in the vanguard of the crusade.

It had "thundering cannons" and "sky-rending lances".

It has barracks, ammo stores, and shuttle bays. These may or may not be ship component size versions.

Launch bays, torpedo tubes, and nova cannon are not mentioned. They may or may not be present.

"The Wargars live mostly in the great ammo stores, making huts from ancient macrocannon shell casings and burning flash-powder to fill their chambers with the smell of war."

There are thousands of Wargars. These are not small ammo stores.

The images on pages 53 and 73 show a sloped armoured prow.

Macrocannons that fire shells have a maximum normal range of 6 VU, equivalent to weapon batteries with range 30cm in Battlefleet Gothic.

No written macrobattery in Rogue Trader that has a range of 9, 11, or 12 VU fires shells. These (or the range 45-60cm equivalents in BFG) all fire energy, generally laser or plasma.

How the existing battleship classes from Battlefleet Gothic compare

Emperor-class: out, because the Emperor has no lances.

Retribution-class: a strong contender. Traditionally used in very aggressive roles, it has lances, and it mostly relies on lots and lots of weapon batteries.

Apocalypse-class: possibly. It has lances, but very few weapon batteries. The nova cannon and long-range lances lend it to more of a "sniping" role but it could be sent charging into the fray.

Invincible-class fast battleship: unlikely. It's relatively new and quite fragile.

Nemesis-class fleet carrier: out, no weapon batteries,

Oberon-class: a contender. Often used in dangerous armed patrols. Has weapon batteries and lances, a well-rounded vessel. Not as much raw firepower as others (esp. the Retribution).

Vanquisher-class: maybe. The sole known example was built in M32. It does have a mix of lances and weapon batteries, leaning towards lances.

Victory-class: doubtful. Many lances, few weapon batteries, and the nova cannon does not lend itself to vanguard fighting.

Theories

The closest candidates to my mind are the Retribution, Oberon, Apocalypes, and Vanquisher. However, there is the niggling problem of the macrocannons (whose shells the Light of Terra definately holds in bulk) and the range of the weapon batteries on all of those vessels. 60cm / 11-12 VU for all of them.

Two solutions comes to mind.

* The macrocannons on the Light of Terra are a pattern that fire shells twice the distance of normal macrocannons.

* Grand Cruisers and Battlecruisers are stated to have battleship grade weaponry. Some of their weapon batteries are 30cm / 6 VU in range but have higher strength. So the Light of Terra traded off range for sheer firepower. This vessel would need to get to very short range for a battleship to launch attacks but would devastate anything near it.

Either the Light of Terra is an existing class with unusual macrocannons, or it is an unknown pattern that needs to close to short range to launch broadsides.

I can't for the life of me remember who did the "Reclaiming the Light of Terra " (my link seems to imply that FFG has deleted the thread by now, for space purposes, probably) that spelled out the details of such a ludicrous endeavor, but in the details there, it is spelled out as an Emperor-class Command Carrier; disallowing a class simply because it "doesn't have lances" won't do, as the Imperial Navy, like the Rogue Traders, will certainly custom tailor specific ships for specific roles. Granted, I don't think that the fluff on the Light actually says it, so I won't say he's right for certain, either, but the stuff does fit, based on the build for RT for that battleship, I think they are both at Dark Nest, or whatever that site is called. Sorry to not be more helpful, but I don't want to paste the whole long thing without the author's permission, but if they see this, and say so, I'll toss it up; it's a long block of text and fluff, and expensive, in game, to pull off.

I have no objection to someone running the Light of Terra as whatever class of ship they wish. I've seen suggestions to replace it with a cruiser or star galleon. I'm simply going with what the text says and trying to extrapolate. I believe I saw that endeavour a while back, it looked great for the scale of the task of salvaging a vessel of that size.

Edit: Certainly a rogue trader could replace weapons and components as they see fit. But the ship is originally Imperial Navy and those generally have preset weapon loadouts by class.

those generally have preset weapon loadouts by class.

Only when first built. It's called out multiple times throughout the fluff that no two ships are identical, that the older a ship is the more it will differ from any supposed "standard". Constant repairs and refits, millennia of captain after captain tweaking and tailoring things to their liking...

The apparent "standard loadouts" are a hangover from the miniatures wargame aspect of BFG; in effect they're more an abstraction or average than a "Jane's Fighting Voidships".

That is a fair point. I'll chew over it.

The vessel is described as being "the equal" of the Divine Right, an Emperor-class, but that's not the same as "same as".

Heck, it might even be a class that's not built any more, or is more associated with renegade or even Chaos fleets.

Personally, I like the idea of it maintaining the scale of a battleship, so that you can have the players running around for maybe hours, in game, have room for thousands of spread out yahoos of different flavors, and the stores of loot the Light is said to have carried. Of course, since the hull is still sort of/mostly intact?, I can see wanting to tone it down to a manageable class when the players inevitably say "We want to salvage this thing!" RT seems to have an idea of keeping battleships out of our hands, and even Winterscale doesn't seem to have one under his belt, maybe that's what Karrad Vall is building out in booney-space, so if you don't want your players to harvest a battleship chassis, it can be good to have it be a grand cruiser, or something, but I'd like it to stay a full on battleship, personally. If the players want to try, I'd let them; it's a net -10 PF loss by the end, needing battleship-class parts that I don't know where you'd get them, and keeping it quiet for the 30+ years it would take to finish would be tough. The Navy, the Ministorum, some Orks, and more might all come looking for the Light , once it became known that it was around. If you could "take up ownership" of Zayth, or maybe Vaporius, and get the Light there, you MIGHT be able to defend it a few times, but I doubt you'd manage to keep it, especially if you left to go find other goodies.

I have a pirated scenario I wrote up where the crew would find an Oberon-class battleship, the Emperor's Deliverance , and it would be in similar shape to the Light of Terra , but with some cooler mcguffins, and worse foes aboard. If they wanted to try, it could easily ruin them several different ways, and if they succeed, they'd have a battleship, possibly one to give da Wurldbreaka and Undred-Undred Teef a moment of pause, but I can't make the weapon work how I want, so...and not running a game with crazy players.

Personally I'm inclined to keep the scale. The OP was hashing out my own thoughts on what the class might be, based off the text. I absolutely agree that keeping a battleship (or similar ship) long enough to repair and outfit it should be a long, dangerous, and ruinously expensive affair. But the end result...

The Desolator-class battleship is old enough that it is also a candidate, if sticking to BFG loadouts.

I am curious. If the crew were able to successfully salvage that ship, limp it back to port, wrangle ownership from Imperial Authorities, why would there be a loss of Profit Factor? Couldn't the players simply just make some difficult rolls with PF and acquire parts/labor, etc. to get the ship back into operational mode? The ship was already "operational", and the books walk you through repairing, refitting and time for ships. Perhaps I am missing something, or is this a GM prerogative to make such a prize unattainable?

For my group, what should have been a one shot adventure (or 1/2) of one, turned into a 3 session adventure as the players seized control of the ship, countered the extra difficulties I implemented and "acquired" the ship. I havent set the ship type yet, or repair difficulties, etc., but I fail to see the issue of rewarding players something like this, what am I missing?

My take is that if players want to seize and repair a battleship, the reward is having a battleship. There are very some significant in-game reasons why this is not a trivial matter.

The Light of Terra is "operational" in the sense that it is capable of one more warp jump. Remember, Roth is looking for "glorious doom", not expecting to survive the trip. The vessel has taken a beating from years stuck in the warp and then drifting uncontrolled through the debris in the Heathen Stars. It is far from intact.

Previous background from Battlefleet Gothic, etc, talks about many, many years for battleships to be repaired. And that's with naval facilities focusing all their efforts on those repairs. Any battleship sized components would have to be sourced somehow, though some of the grand cruiser weapons would be suitable. Anything specific to battleships simply isn't going to be left lying around to be bought. Even just maintaing the ship once it's operational is no joke either - a quarter million crew and that many weapons chew through supplies.

Speaking of the navy - they'll want it back because it was - *is* - their ship. There's no indication that they ever just give up a claim to a battleship. Even if the navy can be bought/bribed/scared off, other powerful factions will literally kill to get their hands on such a vessel, even one in a poor state. Winterscale would love to have a battleship (his dynasty used to own one) and the likes of Karrad Vall are unlikely to not try to snag it.

I have no objection to players getting a battleship - if they can overcome those issues.

From what I understand, officially, Battlefleet Calixis either does have a Battleship, or if they do, there are maybe 2 or 3 Battleships tops. I highly, highly doubt the Imperial Navy would give it up. Especially considering how the Sector Lord is written up - he wouldn't pass that up either.

Now - that said, I think sometimes dangling insane loot in front of PCs is a bit dangerous/ not good adventure writing. If I wanted the PCs to be able to take the ship, I agree with others and would make it a Grand Cruiser. If it is a Battleship - I'd feel like a ****** dangling carrots in front of my PCs and not letting them eat it.

@HeavensThunderHammer

The Battlefleet Calixis flagship of the current Lord-Admiral is a Retribution-class battleship called "The Fist of Adamant". Every other ship that's detailed is a grand cruiser or smaller, which leads me to think the Fist is the sole battleship. To double those numbers? Battlefleet Calixis would jump at the chance.

That said, I agree with you to a point. Putting a battleship into Lure of the Expanse without even a note to what happens if players try to seize it is a big oversight and a tad cruel. That said, there's a lot of merit to big rewards for appropriate amounts of effort.

On the other hand, they intentionally skipped on giving rules/stats for battleships, so maybe they just named one, and glossed over others, in favor of not having to then stat them out, and give us battleships. Certainly, competent or imaginative folks can fabricate them, for their own games, but it's the game's little way of saying "you CAN, but we didn't expect you to."

I'd expect that BFC probably has more like three or five, I'm pulling that number out of the usual place, but it allows them to be in several places, without having to tie up that one extreme resource, and then be surprised when it is needed elsewhere. Otherwise, Scarus and Ixaniad might have some, and could reinforce, if needed, and if the sectors get along well enough. if nothing else, the forces of BFC might be the main chunk of what the Imperium is using to fight in the Periphery, against Waagh! Grimtoof and Severus, so they probably had another battleship, or three, and one or two had to go do that, under Ghanzorik's command.

Has someone covered the task of disconnecting the crazy captain from the chair ?

I assumed that unloading a storm bolter into his head would be a bad thing.

Fluff indicates that he's "immortal" as long as the ship survives, but he's being maintained by the ships archeotech (I made a version of a bridge that does this to you, based off of him, and he'd actually be pretty tough to finish off), but if you assume he has murder servitors hidden in the walls of the bridge, that could ruin your day. He could call upon all the tribes, telling them that outsiders have assaulted the Oracle. They might be mostly primitives, and all, but there are tens of thousands of them, and you'll not have happy odds. If the GM wants to enforce you NOT just trying to salvage the Light , they might hold that card in a back pocket, and have Roth sick the savages on you, if you won't comply. I doubt you can bring enough people, and not wreck the ship entirely, to survive that result. These are just two little maybes, and the one with the natives is even plausible (you might try to tell me there can't be any functioning servitors that aren't in full stasis caskets, but their definitely are plenty of people to throw at the team.)

I worked up a scenario in my head where a party could convince Roth to acquiesce, and it even ended with him being removed, and interred near St. Drusis (this was before I knew about Chaos Commandment ), but that honestly worked in my head more only because it's what I wanted to happen, and an acting GM wouldn't likely make it anything so easy.

When I ran it I gave him an archotech void shield around his throne (originally intended to protect him and the upper officers against bridge hit critical. Not that I ended up needing it, they didn't attack him, but it was there just in case. The piles of nuts, bolts, mushrooms and other offerings piled up in perfect little ritual stacks gave away really quickly that it would be bad for relations with the crew if they attacked. I also had him with a ship-wide vox switch, so it was clear he could be heard around the ship (indeed the party heard him once before they got to the bridge) I also cut down the amount of time between restoration and warp jump, so it literally became a "Run in, grab something, Run out."

That ended with the players running into the Military Armor Deployment Bay while the captain was counting down, spotting a Baneblade, the entire party jumping into it, having the Explorator rapid go through the rights of starting very, very quickly and having the Captain flooring it to full speed at the loading doors while the Arch Militant blew them open with the main cannon before the baneblade with the entire party inside shoot out into the void, floating past the Warp Event horizon seconds before the Light jumped.

Still counted among one of the most epic moments of the campaign.

I would say a modified Emperor (likely) or Oberon (less likely). Mainly because of the illustration in the book:

http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/0/2800x2000_13_Wreck_of_the_Light_of_Terra_2d_sci_fi_spaceship_space_picture_image_digital_art.jpg

That is the port side, and it has two massive launch bay components, one macrocannon broadside component and the hint of large turrets or turret bases on the dorsal slot - no idea what used to be housed there. It would be one of the "easier" modifications to replace the standard dorsal macrocannons with dorsal lances. Tho that modification is relative - An average Cobra-class destroyers can likely be built faster then an Emperor modified to carry battleship caliber lances.

Cheers for the ideas! I'm planning to run Lure of the Expanse (first time running, have played it twice) in the near future. So the notion of what class and type of ship the party will find is one to ponder.

My RT game when we came across the Light Of Terra, we managed to deal with the Captain and send him to his grave in some fashion that escapes me now. what we did then was entries piloting the Battleship out into some dead space at a constant speed. SO we could go back to Port Wrath go "oh, hey guys. Just FYI, we have the Light of Terra under our control, and are willing to having it over, got anything lying around you can give us?"

At this point in the game were were pooling about in out starting Dauntless Light Cruiser (which was well 'ard), ended up getting salvage rights to a Chalice battlecruiser, and priority repairs for it, and Imperial shitload of kudos. We also looted a bunch of stuff from it, Tanks, fighters/bombers, guardsman armour/weapons.

I was like "So much want!" but I knew it was implausible to keep such a vessel without an upkeep test. and a lot of prying eyes and probably hostile interest.

No way I'd allow my players to have a battleship. Just no way. Only ran it once, simply gave the old man a dead man's switch and let the players notice it. I don't care for the temporal aspects of the mini-campaign, as I've mentioned in several other threads so have never run it again. It was okay once, but never again. I figure I can do better.

I haven't run it yet. But If my players really wanna go for it. I'm likely to let them take it after making them jump through serious hoops. Then say "This is a battleship that's a few steps removed from being a hulk, it's going to take decades at least to repair it and get it ready to rock and roll." Then when I'm ready to open that can of worms, hand it to them. But I play it sorta high powered, so the idea of my players getting a battleship eventually sits okay with me.

As I said previously, I'm okay with players seizing even a battleship if they overcome all the difficulties, which are many, expensive, and/or lethal.

I think my longer campaigns got to the point you might call high-powered. The Dynasties owned a dozen vessels (or more), had several colonies, multiple trade routes, and allied houses and dynasties...but no BBs...never...no.

Everybody has their line in the sand. Since ships seem to be the aspect of our campaigns that have most easily gotten out of hand in the past I draw my lines around ships. I mean, you can draw up a BB-destroying cruiser. Why bother with a BB? Most of my house rules are about ship construction. It's a fun part of the game, but probably the most broken.

To me it's more a question of why not? Well obviously there's a number of story considerations, not just the acquisition and upkeep, but the largeness of the stick you handed them. The other serious concern is how far you can stretch the rules that far without breaking them. Serious considerations but all the same I'm cool with it. My expanse is set up in such a way that while it would be a huge boon to their dynasty, it wouldn't let them run roughshod over everyone else. It wouldn't necessarily make them the biggest boys on the block.

I get where you're coming from. I haven't had the ship problem yet so maybe that's why I'm a bit less cautious. My players naval growth has become somewhat concerning, and I'm likely to hit them with more orks and the like. At least until they have more obligations to keep all those ships in the background. So while I may find out some time for now that battleships are best left alone. At the moment, I'm sort of looking forward to seeing what happens when they play through this adventure.