Erm... (concerning Dark Frontier)

By Varnias Tybalt, in Rogue Trader Gamemasters

I have been pressganged to GM the demo adventure called Dark Frontier this sunday (we take turns for the GM's seat in my group), and I've noticed something wierd.

Soon after the "accident" during warp transit the explorers find themselves in orbit near this Yu'Vath fortress and according to page 6 in the pdf it says:

Another detail they will quickly realise is that their vessel is locked into orbit around the star. Neither their plasma drives nor their warp engines will operate. It appears they are completely trapped. Luckily, the mysterious force that pins the Sovereign Venture in place has no effect on their smaller gun-cutter, which they can use to get around the system.

So far, so good. The PC's vessel seems to be stuck in a fixed orbit and unable to fire up their engines, but the gun-cutter still works. But then on page 8 (in the "GM Guidance: Space Battle" box) it says:

The GM can also build Lynara's ship using a Vagabond Merchant Trader as the base hull (although the GM should remember that her ship is locked in place and cannot move). If you do this, keep in mind that the Explorer's goal is not to destroy all the Void Wasps, but simply get close enough to the planet to launch a gun-cutter.

Im assuming that this means "launching the gun-cutter [from another vessel]", implying that the Explorers are to use their own vessel to navigate through the Yu'Vath fortress' defenses and launch their gun-cutter. How would this be possible when their own vessel is supposed to be locked in place just like Lynara's vessel is?

From what I understand this would mean one of two things:

Either the writers mean for the explorers to try and navigate through the Yu'Vath defenses with their gun-cutter alone (which seems pretty hard since the Void Wasps were supposed to be frigate sized vessels. From my understanding a frigate's turrets alone would probably shred a little gun-cutter to pieces if there are several frigates)

Or they actually intend for the explorers to use their own vessel. But if this is the case and the vessel just starts working suddenly, what's to stop the players from simply leaving the area since their plasma engines (inexcplicably) seems to be working again?

Im not trying to come off as nit-picky here, but my group consist of quite a few players used to think outside the box, and if they spot a chance in an inconsistency in the scenario they might just pack up their stuff and escape.

Any thoughts?

Perhaps Lynara’s ship is in a different orbit to the characters ship. Half the time it is far from the Yu’Vath fortress and your guncutter can reach it safely. Then it’s orbit takes it through the Void Wasps and close to the surface of the planet. Its in this window that they will have to launch the guncutter from Lynaras ship in order to reach the surface before the Void Wasps can swarm them?

Varnias Tybalt said:

The GM can also build Lynara's ship using a Vagabond Merchant Trader as the base hull (although the GM should remember that her ship is locked in place and cannot move). If you do this, keep in mind that the Explorer's goal is not to destroy all the Void Wasps, but simply get close enough to the planet to launch a gun-cutter.

Im assuming that this means "launching the gun-cutter [from another vessel]", implying that the Explorers are to use their own vessel to navigate through the Yu'Vath fortress' defenses and launch their gun-cutter. How would this be possible when their own vessel is supposed to be locked in place just like Lynara's vessel is?

From what I understand this would mean one of two things:

Either the writers mean for the explorers to try and navigate through the Yu'Vath defenses with their gun-cutter alone (which seems pretty hard since the Void Wasps were supposed to be frigate sized vessels. From my understanding a frigate's turrets alone would probably shred a little gun-cutter to pieces if there are several frigates)

Or they actually intend for the explorers to use their own vessel. But if this is the case and the vessel just starts working suddenly, what's to stop the players from simply leaving the area since their plasma engines (inexcplicably) seems to be working again?

Im not trying to come off as nit-picky here, but my group consist of quite a few players used to think outside the box, and if they spot a chance in an inconsistency in the scenario they might just pack up their stuff and escape.

Yeah, the Space Battles section seems to be a mistake. The box is only there for people who have the RT rules (DF is supposed to be an intro adventure), if you aren't running a space battle then it seems that the shuttle is launched from Lynara's ship, which provides fire support from its current position, distracting the Void Wasps enough that penetrating the blockade is possible. Ordnance sized vessels such as the guncutter are very hard to hit with capital ship weapons, so it isn't really unrealistic.

Running the space battle as described in the GM Guidance box isn't really feasible, as the human ships can't manoeuver.

macd21 said:

Yeah, the Space Battles section seems to be a mistake. The box is only there for people who have the RT rules (DF is supposed to be an intro adventure), if you aren't running a space battle then it seems that the shuttle is launched from Lynara's ship, which provides fire support from its current position, distracting the Void Wasps enough that penetrating the blockade is possible. Ordnance sized vessels such as the guncutter are very hard to hit with capital ship weapons, so it isn't really unrealistic.

Running the space battle as described in the GM Guidance box isn't really feasible, as the human ships can't manoeuver.

I thought as much.

Now I agree that captial ship weapons would have a pretty hard time to track a small gun-cutter, my main concern with the Void Wasps is their turrets. If they really are frigate sized vessels as their description says, they're bound to have turrets of some sort, and if they are as many as the scenario suggests, one singel gun-cutter going up against all that turret fire from several frigates working together would be near suicidal.

Still, it would provide a great moment for the group's Void Master to truly shine. Im gonna have to ponder over this one a bit...

Hi,

I had the same concern and here is how I thought to handle them:

Any large capital ship can only go towards the center (the fortress) not away. Going the "wrong" way stress the engines and may cause them to burn. In fact this is what happened to Lynara's ship when she first arrived (I wonder what happened to her crew).

So the PC have their own ship which they can go forward and do the space battle afterwards they are either on the fortress or dead...

anyway I am about to try this out in 20 minute time so I will write feedback,

Cheers

Roy

Turrets are only an issue if the guncutter get really close to a capital ship. They are strictly short range.

Dalnor Surloc said:

Turrets are only an issue if the guncutter get really close to a capital ship. They are strictly short range.

Yep, as Dalnor says, turrets are intended to keep small craft from getting too close to the ship. The are strictly point-defence weapons, more like anti-missile systems than offensive weapons.

macd21 said:

Yep, as Dalnor says, turrets are intended to keep small craft from getting too close to the ship. The are strictly point-defence weapons, more like anti-missile systems than offensive weapons.

I have two issues with this. First the Void Wasps are alien vessels, so it's hard to predict the exact nature of their turrets. Second, im not entirely sure that a gun-cutter is actually faster than a frigate. Frigates tend to be quite small but have really powerful engines on them. So while a gun-cutter might be able to "turn on the spot" and do other forms of delicate void acrobatics, a frigate could very well catch up with it and be able to bring it's turrets to bear.

Of course, now you might be thinking: "That's crazy Varnias. Surely such a behemoth could not be faster than such a small and light vessel as a gun-cutter?"

And if we were talking about seafaring vessels and boats, I might have agreed with that. But we're talking spaceships now, whose only real limitation to their speed is their own inertia and little else. Which makes me question if a gun-cutter could actually hope to outrun a frigate. If it can't, then said frigate could easily come within turret range.

Varnias Tybalt said:

I have two issues with this. First the Void Wasps are alien vessels, so it's hard to predict the exact nature of their turrets. Second, im not entirely sure that a gun-cutter is actually faster than a frigate. Frigates tend to be quite small but have really powerful engines on them. So while a gun-cutter might be able to "turn on the spot" and do other forms of delicate void acrobatics, a frigate could very well catch up with it and be able to bring it's turrets to bear.

Of course, now you might be thinking: "That's crazy Varnias. Surely such a behemoth could not be faster than such a small and light vessel as a gun-cutter?"

And if we were talking about seafaring vessels and boats, I might have agreed with that. But we're talking spaceships now, whose only real limitation to their speed is their own inertia and little else. Which makes me question if a gun-cutter could actually hope to outrun a frigate. If it can't, then said frigate could easily come within turret range.

Can't recall if we have stats on the Void Wasps or not, but the following can be assumed:

Turrets - theoretically the void wasps could have super-turrets, true. They'd have to be amazingly advanced, however - Eldar turrets can't do that and they're far more advanced than humans. If the Void Wasps have that level of technology the PCs don't stand a chance anyway, so it's irrelevant.

Frigate speed vs guncutter speed: again, as we don't have stats we can't be sure, but a guesstimate of their speeds based on BFG fighters, bombers and frigates would put their speeds as roughly equal. However, their speed in this case is pretty irrelevant. Even if the Void Wasps were twice as fast as the gun cutter, they couldn't get the turrets into range. The difference in maneuverabilty between a guncutter and a frigate means that even if the frigate catches up to the cutter, it just has to adjust its trajectory slightly. The frigate will fly past, its turrets out of range. The cutter can literally fly circles around it, staying out of range the whole time, all the way to the planet.

But, as I said, their speeds probably aren't that different anyway.

The PCs have several options on getting close to the 'star'. The main point is that Lynara's ship is indeed in a different orbit than the players'. In fact, it is close enough to be able to use its macrobatteries against the wasps, whereas the players' ship is out of range of all its ship weapons. The adventure states this, and explains that Lynara hadn't used her weapons against the wasps previously because she didn't see a reason to risk angering them for no gain. Additionally, there are numerous smaller transports and ships (both larger and smaller than a guncutter) in use amongst both the colony and Lynara's ship to harvest the debris field. One of the player options, for example, could be to send in a swarm of these smaller ships as a distraction for the PCs' guncutter. The PCs could also think to manveuver some debris pieces, hiding their guncutter on the debris, to try to avoid the wasps.

Anyway, it isn't referring to the PCs' cruiser nor Lynara's merchant transport maneuvering, since those are too large and have been locked in orbit.

Talking "outrunning a bigger craft":
I assume that IN THE LONG RUN any big stellar craft will be able to catch up with smaller vessel if they have strong enough engines. Just like a sports car will catch a motorbike after a while. But first, the motorbike will "out run" the sportscar since it´s accelration is far better.

This is how I would handle this "issue". The guncutter is able to outrun a frigate "in the short". And since this is a rather short distance to the planet...

I haven't run this yet, but I'm concerned about the beginning where the Servitors all go berserk. My players opted for the 'Murder Servitors' when making their ship.

Are those supposed to be inactive until called upon? How much havoc could/should they cause over and above what the Module calls for?

Maxim C. Gatling said:

I haven't run this yet, but I'm concerned about the beginning where the Servitors all go berserk. My players opted for the 'Murder Servitors' when making their ship.

Are those supposed to be inactive until called upon? How much havoc could/should they cause over and above what the Module calls for?

They're napping till used, but I'd think a xeno-corrupted machine spirit could waken them easily enough. They ought to be truly scary considering what they do in ship-to-ship combat, better than the generic gun and combat servitors in the enemies section. Not a dreadnought, but something close. OTOH, they (and the other servitors) probably aren't under active enemy control, just kind of berserk.

So, things you could do:

1) Run a personal combat scenario with one or more of the PCs and the rest of the players running lesser crew members. The goal is to get past the first murder-servitor that's activated and maybe a few maddened tech-servitors or servo-skulls, then shut down the data-feeds to the cryo-vaults so that the rest of the murder-servitors stay asleep. If they fail, or if none of the PCs are willing to risk themselves, the servitors awaken fully as in 2.

2) Abstract the fight as a series of H&R raid Command checks (no piloting roll needed, obviously). Give the maddened servitors a nominal leadership to roll against and the +20 bonus. Each time they win they break something per the usual rules. Each time they lose, their bonus drops by 5 or 10. They're incapacitated or safely contained when the bonus reaches zero.

3) If the players have enough problems already, the wakening servitors just go mad and damage their component, then collapse. Same thing happens if they have to be beaten in H&R actions.

4) Or if you really want to be nice, they never even twitch during the crisis. Maybe the machine spirit managed to shield their frozen minds. Maybe they're infected with an insidious xeno data-worm and will turn on the PCs at some future point. Maybe this isn't such a nice option after all.

The component(s) damaged by any fighting can be repaired as usual. Having the servitors break the ship's engines would be a less ham-fisted way of crippling the ship's mobility than the "alien tech freezes your ship" thing in the adventure, although they should still be warp-locked even after repairs. Gotta meet that Bone Warden, after all. happy.gif

Maxim C. Gatling said:

I haven't run this yet, but I'm concerned about the beginning where the Servitors all go berserk. My players opted for the 'Murder Servitors' when making their ship.

My group did as well... And im gonna have extremely fun with this fact. They are to experience that murder servitors CAN in fact bite their owners in the ass.

Yes, I am a little more evil than usual when im in the GM seat. demonio.gif

dvang said:

The PCs have several options on getting close to the 'star'. The main point is that Lynara's ship is indeed in a different orbit than the players'. In fact, it is close enough to be able to use its macrobatteries against the wasps, whereas the players' ship is out of range of all its ship weapons. The adventure states this, and explains that Lynara hadn't used her weapons against the wasps previously because she didn't see a reason to risk angering them for no gain. Additionally, there are numerous smaller transports and ships (both larger and smaller than a guncutter) in use amongst both the colony and Lynara's ship to harvest the debris field. One of the player options, for example, could be to send in a swarm of these smaller ships as a distraction for the PCs' guncutter. The PCs could also think to manveuver some debris pieces, hiding their guncutter on the debris, to try to avoid the wasps.

Anyway, it isn't referring to the PCs' cruiser nor Lynara's merchant transport maneuvering, since those are too large and have been locked in orbit.

I was thinking of making one of the reasons for Lynara not firing before being that she didn't have quite enough firepower. And the PC's ship was at outer range...but combined, they would have enough firepower to break through if they planned their attack to coincide with their ships lining up in orbit.

Another reason to cooperate with Lynara and why they never tried to get themselves out before. I understand the 'religious extremism' angle, but sooner or later something would have to break in the name of survival instincts. Indeed, it said Lynara was most interested in Greed over God-Emperor,...so at what point does she put aside her religious ideals without the PC's help? If you think about it, she could use her ship to help the Mutie's plant the bomb and then just ...leave. Never actually having to come within 100km of a Mutie. Or once free, she could use her ships guns to obliterate the Mutie colony. Back-stabbing, but hey, they're Muties and it's her duty to rid the Galaxy of their kind of scum..

The premise intimates that Lynara and MelvinWhatzizname don't really need the PC's to get out of their dillema, that they just need some sense talked into them. I think there should be a more concrete explanation of why the inhabitants of the system could never get away before other than just hard-headedness.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Maxim C. Gatling said:

I haven't run this yet, but I'm concerned about the beginning where the Servitors all go berserk. My players opted for the 'Murder Servitors' when making their ship.

My group did as well... And im gonna have extremely fun with this fact. They are to experience that murder servitors CAN in fact bite their owners in the ass.

Yes, I am a little more evil than usual when im in the GM seat. demonio.gif

Yeah, Varnias...I hear ya! What I'm worried about is if I go easy on them, then they'll feel they didn't get their money's worth on the Murder Servitor purchase.

See if I go easy, then it's not justified to let the Murder Servs be bad-ass when the PC's try to use them in the intended way...so I feel obligated to jack up something very expensive, at the least, and whack a lot of NPC crewmen in the process... gui%C3%B1o.gif

Maxim C. Gatling said:

Yeah, Varnias...I hear ya! What I'm worried about is if I go easy on them, then they'll feel they didn't get their money's worth on the Murder Servitor purchase.

See if I go easy, then it's not justified to let the Murder Servs be bad-ass when the PC's try to use them in the intended way...so I feel obligated to jack up something very expensive, at the least, and whack a lot of NPC crewmen in the process... gui%C3%B1o.gif

Im thinking of using the stats for Arco-Flagellants for Murder Servitors, but I'll have to think about it. Still the mental image I have certainly fit the picture. gran_risa.gif

Varnias Tybalt said:

Now I agree that captial ship weapons would have a pretty hard time to track a small gun-cutter, my main concern with the Void Wasps is their turrets. If they really are frigate sized vessels as their description says, they're bound to have turrets of some sort.

Eldar Frigates don't. Eldar ships both normal and druichi don't have turrets as a general rule.

Dahak said:

Varnias Tybalt said:

Now I agree that captial ship weapons would have a pretty hard time to track a small gun-cutter, my main concern with the Void Wasps is their turrets. If they really are frigate sized vessels as their description says, they're bound to have turrets of some sort.

Eldar Frigates don't. Eldar ships both normal and druichi don't have turrets as a general rule.

Instead they've got holofields that make attack craft and torps about 84% less effective in BFG. No need to bother with turrets for them - and remember that the xeno-tech holofields in RT are nerfed versions that are less effective than ones properly installed on a ship built from the keel up to use them.

Varnias Tybalt said:

macd21 said:

Yep, as Dalnor says, turrets are intended to keep small craft from getting too close to the ship. The are strictly point-defence weapons, more like anti-missile systems than offensive weapons.

I have two issues with this. First the Void Wasps are alien vessels, so it's hard to predict the exact nature of their turrets. Second, im not entirely sure that a gun-cutter is actually faster than a frigate. Frigates tend to be quite small but have really powerful engines on them. So while a gun-cutter might be able to "turn on the spot" and do other forms of delicate void acrobatics, a frigate could very well catch up with it and be able to bring it's turrets to bear.

Of course, now you might be thinking: "That's crazy Varnias. Surely such a behemoth could not be faster than such a small and light vessel as a gun-cutter?"

And if we were talking about seafaring vessels and boats, I might have agreed with that. But we're talking spaceships now, whose only real limitation to their speed is their own inertia and little else. Which makes me question if a gun-cutter could actually hope to outrun a frigate. If it can't, then said frigate could easily come within turret range.

Inertia will still break a ship appart if it tries to turn to fast. The stress of the sudden maneuver could break a ship in half.

Gregorius21778 said:

Talking "outrunning a bigger craft":
I assume that IN THE LONG RUN any big stellar craft will be able to catch up with smaller vessel if they have strong enough engines. Just like a sports car will catch a motorbike after a while. But first, the motorbike will "out run" the sportscar since it´s accelration is far better.

This is how I would handle this "issue". The guncutter is able to outrun a frigate "in the short". And since this is a rather short distance to the planet...

Keep in mind that we're speaking of spaceship - there's no friction to limit the small craft's maximum speed. Unless others factors are intervening, the ship with the lowest acceleration can't hope to catch up.

What will screw the cutter in that case is twofold :

- they can't keep up the thrust as long as a capital ship. They wil run out of power/reaction mass/whatever consumable is used way faster.

- they don't have void shileds and have a far thinner armor, which means they're exposed to stray micrometeorits, space dust and the like that a capital ship can shrug off effortlessly.