I suppose it helps that the book says nothing on battleships, and only stats two that I've seen; the Kroot Warsphere from BFK, and da'Wurldbreaka from Edge of the Abyss, but I really don't see how they are that big of a step up from Grand Cruisers. Again, they've got a bit more health, maybe two more weapon emplacements, and are even slower, but you've got to find class parts for them, and they are even slower. Perhaps if the two above ships didn't suffer from the same weak stat block writing much of RT did, when compared to a player-pimped crew, I'd have more reason to doubt, but as is, my only real argument against them is that neither the local battlefleet, nor the most powerful RT in the Expanse SEEM to have any, so giving the party one seems uncool there, but it isn't going to let them pacify Undred'Undred Teef, and battleships are rather often destroyed in the fluff works, so maybe they aren't that great. Ships of the Imperial Navy is a pdf I found once, and it RT stats out Battleships, as well as other stuff, but some people said it doesn't scale as well, and it was before BFK happened, I'm pretty sure. Still, they don't seem so broken there. A ship I was working on, the Emperor's Deliverance, is an Oberon-class BS, and the only worry I ever had about it was the special snowflake cannon I wanted to mount on it, but could never make work, based on the fluff I wanted to use. The fact that the Deliverance is a battleship, though, really didn't make it seem MORE worrisome.

Yeah the writers seem to stay pretty quiet about battleships. They conspicuously don't directly name anyone who has them, and stop just short of stating them out. The closest thing I can think of is a reference to there being more battleships in the expanse than suits of the chitinous armor. In my version of the expanse there's a handful of known ones. Most of which are in orbit at or near Inequity, a couple of lines may have one. Even then while they're badass, and I imagine they treat cruisers the way cruisers treat frigs. They're not immortal, they can be killed and captured if their captains do something stupid of get unlucky. Just like anyone else.

That said, before I actually drop them into play for reals. I think it'd be wise if I did a couple test combats to see if there's anything obviously gamebreaking. Until then though I'll just keep on presuming that the ships in that PDF are proper balanced. Shaving or adding a few points seems like the worst of it. Grand Cruisers aren't that much smaller.

The line about battleships and suits of armour may or may not have been hyberbole. There could be a few battleships roaming the expanse. After finding the reference to the Angevin's Destiny in the Inquisitor's Handbook (two names for flagships in Calixis? really?) I'm more inclined to think there are at most a handful in Calixis and just the Light of Terra in the expanse.

There isn't a big gap between the ship sizes in Rogue Trader, certainly not compared to that in Battlefleet Gothic. A grand cruiser should be frightening and a battleship much more so. The Fist of Adamant if it ever shows up in one of my game will have a bunch of special rules and a selection of utterly lethal components, upgrades, and PC-level-or-better officers. One-on-one, a battleship should reliably crush any smaller ship, bar unique environments or black hole guns.

It's definitely a hyberbolic sounding line. How many PCs have ended up with a suit of that vs a battleship right? And there is no more direct references to battleships that I can remember. There being a few in the Calixis sector and just the one in the expanse is definitely the suggestion that sorta comes across when taking the fluff at face value. I just like it a little bit turnt up, that way I can always dangle a more solid stick over the player's head. "Yeah you got a really tweaked out cruiser, something that can hulk multiple enemies in a lucky turn, and make relatively short work of similar capitals. But there's a few battleships out here that can crush you without putting themselves in mortal peril." It makes my players a little scared, but also a little greedy. "One day we're going to catch one of these guys with a light detachment, we're going to go all or nothing, lose ships, burn fatepoints, but we will take one." Which is exactly the sort of mentality I want.

That the expanse is slowly becoming this massive powder keg, and things are going to get crazy in ways that even the more paranoid RTs haven't considered. That the Imperium doesn't care if they get their cut, and RTs blinded by pride and greed mostly don't care if they can keep their books in the black and their enemies in the ground. Which sounds sorta cool, but is mostly a thin a excuse so I can drop a super unexpected really tiny tyranid splinter fleet on some of their holdings, and other things that don't quite fit what's been shown published materials.

When it comes to how they're balanced, I imagine battleships are to cruisers, what cruisers are to frigs. but again I'm a while yet for putting any in the poo, so I haven't bothered with any of the house ruled ships yet.

As I already said, it's your game, do as you like, but someday your players might learn to min-max ships by the RAW and then your game is in trouble. You'll need to change the rules, and even changing them won't help much if your players have a battleship. I'll repost an old post here...

Posted 10 January 2015 - 01:06 PM

Now what if your players take their wondrous design philosophies and apply them to a battleship hull? What will you challenge them with? It needs to be a starship because they will want to play with their new toy. I've run fleet battles. You'll need to use squadron rules and learn where to narrate results instead of rolling dice because a 20-30 ship battle can take up multiple sessions if you don't plan it out well.

We all come to forums to share our GM experience with each other. Hopefully we learn. I'm suggesting that a battleship will derail your game. I know that you'll counter with statements that tell me about how you'll make them earn it...and it will take lots of time...and...and...and it will still derail the game when it finally comes to fruition.

Now maybe you've thought this through and have an idea that is still going to make the game fun, exciting, and not excessively bogged-down.

But for me, I'll stick with my original, "No way I'd allow my players to have a battleship."

Those are pretty good points about some of the balance issues with the ships in the game. I couple of though I've houseruled, but that doesn't change the fact that it's relatively easy to come up with really tough setups. And yeah like I said, I've hardly had hundreds of turns playing with battleships. I really honestly don't know how the crunch is actually going to work out.

I can say my players are as of this moment not particularly ambitious when it comes ship building, and mostly defer to whatever configurations I hand them. Though that's something that could always change. As far as challenging them. I'd be likely first to zerg a few sub BB capitals at them, let them feel like bosses. And if that was too easy, then eventually introduce BB sized enemies. I am a bit worried that the rules not actually being able to accommodate ships that size. I also 100% agree about going narrative with a bunch of ships. I think the most I've ever had in play was like 9, and that took quite a bit. Having 30 in play sounds like a massive undertaking that might be fun to do once, just to say "Woah why did we do that, it take 10 hours."

But I'm not worried about the game getting derailed because the PCs have a really strong voidship. I'd let them have their moments of pushing people around, and then when I crash big orks into them they'll get scared. Most of our combat isn't naval, and when it is the players seem to get excited anytime they think they can capture a ship, or anytime one of their own ships takes half Hull damage. Which is a pretty low set of expectations, that just happens to work for my table. I can see it getting out of control in other games pretty quickly, and there's always the chance I'll be moaning here a few years from now how I simply can't run a game around it.

A battleship is just a ship though, yes it notches the 'level playing field' up by one but honestly, does it matter?

You arch-nemesis now sits in the other BS in the Expanse, it just pushes the game up a power level but nothing actually changes.

Take the adventures written, a BS would change it slightly, other RT's may play more keepy-awayee not wanting to cross broadsides but ultimately its a carriage for the players.

Thematically its cool.

So yeah its a challenge but honestly, hows it different from a Grand Cruiser or Battlecruiser? Im honestly asking =D They are big, typically slow well armed story vehicles.

So you throw a BB at their BB to challenge them. That's good. But players tend to capture enemy capital ships instead of destroying them. So what do you when they field their new captured BB with their old BB? Throw 2 BBs at them? And next time it's 4, then 8, then 16. The whole thing quickly spirals out of control.

Hey, you've made up your mind to see what happens yourself. Go for it. The same problems still exists with smaller capital ships.

The easiest way to deal with large out of control ship parties is to send in just one man of an annoyed party ( inquisition, navy, mechanicous, etc.)

Next time the players are in dock, he or she, slips in with a new batch of indentured recruits and then starts there merry journey of sabotage, nothing big at first, maybe just a random glitch in the sensors, lose of 1 speed for a turn, weapons having a -10 to hit for no reason. Then start to have whoever sent then start making demands ( who most parties will ignore ) the longer this goes on the worse the random penalties become until either the players or a nemesis makes there move. At this point the larger acts of sabotage happen ( mass crew riots, random rolls on the crit chart during battle, random windows opening in the warp).

The key is to not tell the players why this is happening and see if they can figure it out themselves.

But its a roleplay, not a computer game, the rules are not set, every item, every ship and every skill/talent is in service to the story.

And there is no save against story.

As much as I would like to start playing around with a BS I honestly cant think of ever letting my players get one in operational capacity without years (out of game) progress, it's just so incredibly difficult to find, keep control of and repair the BS.

I wouldn't just throw a BS against a BS, there would be a world involved, a story world with circumstance and plot, if theres an enemy BS rolling out it's got scouts, supply convoys, cruiser screens and hunter-killer ships, it becomes a game of BF Gothic, so the players better be good or 'power up'

The main plot I would drive if my players ever managed to build/steal/repair and maintain a battleship, it would be a flashpoint to start a crusade to civilize the expanse by the Imperium, their charted abused in such a way they can not refuse "You have one of our Battleships, fine, sure, consider yourselves bound to this new Crusade" - Love, Emperor.

Edit: htsmithium -good idea, I can use that =D

Houserules to make the game saner make more sense to me than trying to keep the larger ships out of player hands. A combination of less extra PF from components, a variant of Mathhammer for starship combat, and toning down the "no brainer" components makes the game less easy to break.

Well yeah fleet growth getting out of control is one of my number one concerns in general. Even now they'll center their whole battlleplan around capturing a frig if they're not in mortal peril. I have to start throwing more unattractive xenos void ships at them in general. But yeah, that is for sure a concern of mine EK.

Edit: The main meta advantage I have(besides endless waves of orks) is that my players usually split up their biggest ship classes into separate battle groups. This is so they don't overburden my ability to balance combat, have an excuse for their offscreen groups to do well, and can still call them in if they plan for things to get really tough. But yeah even still having multiple offscreen BBs isn't exactly something to be taken lightly.

This is why I charge a void ship's Hull SP as a reduction in Profit Factor for operating a vessel. A second Cruiser starts looking a lot less attractive if you've got to find seventy-some profit factor to burn so it can join you on endeavors. It also helps get across how absolutely powerful Chorda and Winterscale are with their massive fleets. It also makes ransoming a ship back to it's owner a better option than keeping it yourself, which they've done with a dynastic flagship (and the Rogue Trader himself).

After all, if it were just a small handful of profit factor to run a voidship, your slightly-better-than-average hive gang could manage it, and there would certainly be no reason for the Imperial Navy to mothball vessels when they're only operating a few dozen in the sector.

The easiest way to deal with large out of control ship parties is to send in just one man of an annoyed party ( inquisition, navy, mechanicous, etc.)

Next time the players are in dock, he or she, slips in with a new batch of indentured recruits and then starts there merry journey of sabotage, nothing big at first, maybe just a random glitch in the sensors, lose of 1 speed for a turn, weapons having a -10 to hit for no reason. Then start to have whoever sent then start making demands ( who most parties will ignore ) the longer this goes on the worse the random penalties become until either the players or a nemesis makes there move. At this point the larger acts of sabotage happen ( mass crew riots, random rolls on the crit chart during battle, random windows opening in the warp).

The key is to not tell the players why this is happening and see if they can figure it out themselves.

I have to respectfully disagree. The easiest way to deal with this is to not let it happen in the first place. Arbitrary encounter by GM fiat is more of a last recourse.

Houserules to make the game saner make more sense to me than trying to keep the larger ships out of player hands. A combination of less extra PF from components, a variant of Mathhammer for starship combat, and toning down the "no brainer" components makes the game less easy to break.

House rules are an absolute necessity. Too many RT systems are broken. Just the same, I'd point out that your fix takes several steps while mine takes only one...no BBs. Hey, if you run LotE there's a BB in it. I wouldn't suggest leaving it out. It's good flavor. I ran the mini-campaign once and will never run it again. The BB is one of the smaller problems with that series, time being the by far the biggest. I just don't put BBs in my games, so the issue never has to come up. GCs and BCs are great incentives, I don't need BBs to move players. I usually don't run larger ships at all. I'd rather throw a pirate flotilla of raiders at my players than a whaler. They'll be a greater challenge, do more damage, and the players won't capture them all. Those that are captured don't wind up destroying play balance. Win - win.

Personally I would run additional costs on additional ships, cant remember who came up with it but basically the first digit of its SP cost.

So if the Dynasty has a core ship (free) and 2 escort Swords, the PF would be (temporarily) reduced by 8 as running fees.

But im playing a potential Empire game, depend son the players tbh.

House rules are an absolute necessity. Too many RT systems are broken. Just the same, I'd point out that your fix takes several steps while mine takes only one...no BBs. Hey, if you run LotE there's a BB in it. I wouldn't suggest leaving it out. It's good flavor. I ran the mini-campaign once and will never run it again. The BB is one of the smaller problems with that series, time being the by far the biggest. I just don't put BBs in my games, so the issue never has to come up. GCs and BCs are great incentives, I don't need BBs to move players. I usually don't run larger ships at all. I'd rather throw a pirate flotilla of raiders at my players than a whaler. They'll be a greater challenge, do more damage, and the players won't capture them all. Those that are captured don't wind up destroying play balance. Win - win.

Whether battleships are in the campaign or not wasn't the reason I introduced those houserules. I was irritated by certain components and strategies being nigh essential because they so badly outclassed others. A simple raider with vanilla rules, sunsear laser batteries and a PC crew is a thing to behold. In any case, grand and battle cruisers are legitimate by the vanilla rules so banning them would be a houserule in itself.

I do like sending squadrons of smaller vessels at PCs though. It makes a lot of sense in universe too - most factions can't afford cruisers and upwards.