I can't help but find a rules package for each Chaos God somewhat unimaginative. We're got a whole expanded universe to play with free from balance concerns. Here's some of my ideas for special components to that end -

Sirensong Emitter - Attached to the main vox masts, the Sirensong Emitter contains the essence of a trapped Daemonette. Enemy ships find thier vox frequencies bombarded with a cacophany of hell-spawned screeching, lasvicious moans and other soul-rending sounds.

Divine Chamber of Farsight - A rune-inscribed chamber below the ships bridge, the ship's sorcerers gather here to perform vile rituals to bargain hidden information from the Warp.

Machine-code Contagion - Enemy ships that open insecure comm-links and noospheric complexes are prone to infection from Warp-born Machine Spirit degredation broadcast from what used to be the ship's medical decks. The machine-spirits of infected cogitators rapidly rebel and decay, effectively shutting down the enemy from within

Yet another rather obvious upgrade:

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Augments & Enhancements (special: limit one per ship)

Improved Defensive Turrets

Power 2
Space 0
SP 2

Wall of Fire: Increase the ship's Turret Rating by one.

External: This Component does not require hull space. Although it is external, it can only be destroyed or damaged by a Critical Hit.

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Same costs as the xenotech version, half the effect. Seems about right. I've capped it at one/ship to avoid silliness with using them to soak crits via Tenebro-Maze, although it may not be strictly neccessary.

I have two here

Name: Cryo Vaults
Location: Additional Facilities
Power: 3 (capital ships: 5)
Space: 1 (capital chips: 2)
SP: 2
The Ship has a large amount of cryo vaults below deck where additional thousands of crew can be safely transported without taking up additional working space and needs neither food nor water.
More Manpower : Due to the larger number of crew that can replace dead ones, it takes longer before the population is severely damaged as a whole. Increase Population permanently by 3.
Wake Up Boys : An explorer can use an extended action on waking the cryo-freezed crew members and get them to replace the room of people who recently died. This requires a successful command tests and takes 1d5 rounds though the explorer is not preoccupied except for the first round. When done the ship regain 10 Crew Population. This can be done only once until the Cryo-Vaults are refilled.

Name: Shielding
Power: 1
Space: 1
SP: 1
Advanced augur-blocking technology, reinforced armour plating and sealable emergency doors protect one of the ships components from harm.
Secured : When taking this, choose a component that is not the Bridge or Drives, that component are never damaged by critical hits, whether coursed by enemy weapons or Hit and Run attacks, likewise it is never effected by fires, depressurisation or the like.
Not Impregnable : While the component it is protecting cannot be harmed this component can, it is only revealed by a Focused Augur extended action by four degrees of success and can then be targeted by Hit and Run attacks and critical, if it is damaged the protected component can then be damaged normally.

The Cryo Vaults' Power, Space and Ship Ponts might be adjusted if found too high or lowl.

Tetragon Tanebrae said:

That seems a little too powerful, especially for the low cost; changing Secured to only protect against a limited range of critical hits (or granting a save against damage, fire or depressurisation) would be preferable - as it reads now, the shielded component can't even be destroyed by the ship being reduced to a hulk (because that's a critical hit result) unless the shielding is disabled first.

It does seem a little silly that you need four augur successes in order to realise why your guns are bouncing off their gellar field generator, especially for only one SP and Power. Instead of making it an individual component, call it an upgrade for one which basically gives it another wound. How about this:

Name: Shielded ...

Power: +1

Space: +1

SP: +1

Advanced augur-blocking technology, reinforced armour plating and sealable emergency doors protect one of the ships components from harm.

Secured : The shielded component ignores the first critical hit it receives. Four degrees of success on an augur reveal that the component is shielded, otherwise it only becomes apparent to the enemy after blocking a crit. An Emergency Repairs check restores the shielding.

NPC ship traits:

Rolling Death

Note- This rule is intended only for extremely powerful NPCs. IE Heavy Necron assault groups, Greater Daemons, heavy 'Nid raiders, Dreadnought or terminator squads, Ork warboss warband.... For PC forces use the sticking around rules.

On a hit and run attack the attacking ships forces may choose to remain on board ship. Each round the assault force may roll a new command roll or simply attack the ship's crew (1d5+2 crew, and 1d5+2 morale). The attacker may also make an addition scrutiny roll to discover components on the ship. Each additional round increase any morale losses by the number of additional round the attack has been on the ship. The PCs may choose to confront the attackers in character scale combat.

If the attacker fails a command roll and the defender makes his command roll the attack is routed off the ship. If the defend beats the attacker in the opposed command roll, but the attacker rolled under his command total (skill + modifiers). Then the defender was only able to prevent major damage to the ship and crew. The defender loses 1d5 crew population and gains 1 morale.

Still working on this house rule:

Sticking Around

If an attacking assault group for the PCs, and most NPCs decides stay on board an enemy ship. They can at great risk continue the fight. This very dangerous as the defenders greatly out number the assault group.

-The next round a command roll is made at -10 for every additional round the attacker has stayed including the current round.
-The attacker gets no bonus for ship components other than murder servitors.
-If the attackers command roll is failed his assault group is repulsed unless he is cut off.
-If the defenders succeed on a command roll with more successes than the attacker the assault group was cut off, and was killed/captured.
- In the case of murder servitor assault group which get cut off. The attacker may not use murder servitors again until he make a success full aquistion roll to replish his servitors. (Unless he has a crew reclamation component in which case a non combat repair roll can be used.)
-If a PC is leading an assault group he may be captured or killed at the GMs option if cut off.

Archeotech:

Scartix Engine Coil:

Raiders and Frigates:

Power: 4

Space: 1

Cruisers and Light Cruisers:

Power: 6

Space: 2

Speed: +25%

Rarity: Near Unique

This enhancment integral to the ships plasma drives and thus cannot be the target of critical hits. Any critical hit which destroys the drive also destroys this enhancement.

Plasma Relays:

Power: 3

Space: 1

Rarity: Near Unique

This component increases all plasma weapons range by + 2 and damage by +1

Superior Conduction: This component reduces power requirements for all plasma weapons by -1

Unstable: A critical hit to this component automatically deals 1dd hull damage to the ship and the component becomes unpowered.

Plasma Broadside

Space: 1

Power: 1

Rarity: Standard ship component rarity.

This component configuration allows two plasma cannon batteries to be mounted as a single broadside. There must occupy a port or starboard weapon slot. This cannot be used by ships of less then cruiser class. All other costs for the plasma cannons must be paid in addition to the cost of this component.

that should be 1d4 under the 'unstable heading. I hate not being able to edit posts.

Dalnor Surloc said:

I don't like this idea much to start with (h&r is a little too good to begin with IMO) but if you are going to use it, why the heck wouldn't Barracks continue to apply in later rounds while Murder-Servitors do? The +20 comes from having more bodies to throw at the problem, which presumably would let you hold out longer against the tide of angry armsmen that are mobilizing to hunt you down and kill you.

Re: Plasma Relays & Plasma Broadside:

On both of these, wouldn't it be easier to just invent a few new plasma weapons to simulate the Tyrant's superfired broadsides or looted chaos/archeotech guns?

Dalnor Surloc said:

This is too overpowered. It implies that the attackers will have an easy day of going from one starship component to the next and just cause havoc, something which wouldn't be the case. During an H&R the attackers will most likely board the vessel as close to their target as possible in order to plant demo charges with minimal fighting to get to that target.

Once they are onboard it would be pretty much impossible to move from one component to the next because all the corridors and hallways would be flooding with armed shipsratings in their thousands, and an away-team is usually composed of a few dozen people at most.

I say leave the H&R action as it is, it is already way too nice for the attacker anyway...

Varnias Tybalt said:

It's not that easy the rules imply that the defenders are attempting to do just that. The command roll is -10 the 1st round, -20 2nd.... With virtually no bonuses to the attacker's command roll. So your base command roll is 30 to 40 with a -10 the 1st round. Sure you can use murder servitors to boost your odds, but a bad roll disables them. You could also use a PC with a high command score, but then you risk the PC being captured or killed. The only bonus is you don't have to do the pilot roll the next round, and might be able to continue the H&R if you are out of range.

Dalnor Surloc said:

I get your point. It's just that I feel that the only appropriate penalty would be somewhere in the -40 to -60 range the first round rather than just -10 in order to reflect the incredible odds stacked against the boarders if he linger for too long. After all, a couple of dozen people (or even murder servitors) against thousands upon thousands of crewmembers just won't have that much of a chance.

Giving the boarders a mere -10 to Command the first round is being way too lenient on the foolish boarders who think they can gamble sticking around for longer when they should be gunning it back towards their assault craft immediately after having set the demo charges.

Here's a pretty mundane one, but something I thought would make sense for smaller ships or people that don't want a huge cargo load:

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Small Compartmentalised Cargo Hold

Power: 1
Space: 3
SP: 1
Hull Type: Any

Small cargo holds have been installed across the ship, spread out to minimise their effect on the vehicle's handling.

Storage Area: When working toward a Trade objective, the players earn an additional 50 Achievement Points toward completing that objective.

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I have a Raider that I liked a lot and wanted some storage, but didn't like the other option of the Cargo Hold and Lighter Bay. I just figured it's like someone used half of the normal compartmentalised cargo hold space to install components in, thus costing half the power and half the space (rounded up).

Xenotech:

Mimic Engine:

Power: 8

Space: 3

Rarity: Unique or Near Unique

This component is designed to fool sensors, disguising the ship as another ship of about the same size. This component functions against sensors of ork, Imperial, Chaos, Eldar, and Tau ships. It has no effect on Necron or Tyranid vessels. The mimic engine can mimic specific ships, as long as the ship it is mounted in has previously encountered and performed a focused auspex scan on the ship to be duplicated. This does not alter the ships actual appearance, so if the ship is within 2 VU of another ship, the ruse is quickly seen through.

Power Drain: This component cannot be used at the same time as Imperial void shields or any similar defensive system.

Heavy Lifter Bay

Space: 2
Power: 1
SP: 1
Transports only.

Any warp-vessel will be festooned with a wide variety of smaller craft for ferrying cargo, crew, and passengers between ships, stations, and planets. A ship mounting a heavy lifter bay has vast swarms of these vessels, giving it the heavy spacelift capacity necessary to run a major mining operation, strip a ruined vessel, or survey an entire planet. In battle, these craft can be turned to use as impromptu assault craft, transporting hundreds of armed troops onto an enemy vessel.

Improvised Assault Craft: When conducting Hit and Run attacks or boarding an enemy vessel, the heavy lifter bay provides a +10 bonus to Command Tests.

Heavy Spacelift Capacity: When working towards an Exploration, Trade, or Criminal objective, the players earn an extra 50 Achievement Points towards completing that objective.

Much better than the Cargo Hold and Lighter Bay, which costs the same in terms of space, power, and SP - but for transports only, who are meant to be better an this kind of thing.

Argoden said:

Well, it might work for polite conversation too!

"I say - those are some very crammed cells you've got there!"

"Yes, it's where we keep our nutty psykers, I'll tell you what happened once when we forgot to activate one of the wards...."

p.s. ooops, forgot to check length of thread...