nuff said.

I don't understand it simply put and I am missing something obviously...

There are three ways to inflict critical damage to a ship: Score a critical hit (roll as many Degrees of Success with a weapon as it has Crit Rating), use a Hit&Run action successfully or inflict damage to hull integrity when a ship has none (is crippled). In the former cases, you usually roll 1D5 and apply that to the Critical Hit chart from page 222, while in the latter, you simply calculate how much damage is left after void shields, armour and possibly remaining hull integrity and then look up that number on the crit chart.

Note that a critical hit resulting from the crit rating of a weapon always inflicts at least one point of damage to hull integrity.

...you usually roll 1D5 and apply that to the Critical Hit chart from page 222...

ok, this is confusing part. how do you know that you usually roll 1d5 except that it is mentioned in passing in combat example?

Well, it says so both at the Hit&Run section (page 218, paragraph starting with "If he succeeds") and the Weapons and Shooting paragraph (page 220, paragraph beginning with "When firing a weapon"). For the Crippled part, I refer you to page 221, paragraph "When a Crippled ship"

thanx. you are a lifesaver. is crit damage cumulative?

Since I couldn't find any reference of it being cumulative, I assume it isn't. It's not like there aren't a lot of components to be destroyed by a few lowly 1 and 2 crits.

Nope, it isn't cumulative. Ships are just **** HARD to destroy totally in 40k.

Cat that Walked by Himself said:

Only when the ship is out of hull integrity.

Bilateralrope said:

Nope, even then it is not cumulative.

GalagaGalaxian said:

Ouch. Hopefully players prefer looting to blowing up enemy ships.

Bilateralrope said:

Yeah, well that's sort of the point in this game. What good will an enemy vessel, destroyed to it's constituent atoms do a Rogue Trader and his merry band of Explorers?

Better cripple it until it is defenseless, board it, fight the remaining crew and salvage what's left instead, wouldn't you agree?

Bilateralrope said:

Its not that hard to totally destroy an enemy ship, just combine weapons into a single salvo rather than fire them independently. Great for getting past armor (just less criticals).

I've noticed a while ago that there's a simple way to radically increase the damage inflicted once you're into critical territory: Take out the enemy's shields. Bang, 1D10+x extra damage per round.

while we are at the subject of blowing up ships...

do you guys find teleportarium + murder combo servitors overpowerd?

Cat that Walked by Himself said:

I find it to be extremely useful.

Still, im going to implement a house rule concerning the Teleportarium the next time im meeting with the group, and that is that you can only use the Teleportarium once each strategic turn, instead of being able to use it as many times as you like each strategic turn like the RAW permits.

That should keep the combo as powerful as it should be (hey, suddenly being spammed with a bunch of semi arco-flagellants that just "pop up" would be pretty dangerous to any ship) without being overpowered, because if another PC would wish to do another Hit & Run attack, he or she would have to Pilot a boarding craft through turret fire as usual.

Cat that Walked by Himself said:

Probably, but from what I gather, only 1 in 10 PC ships would have such an option so maybe it should have a bit more bang for the buck.

Graver said:

I assure you, nerfing the combo down to only being usable once per strategic round won't make the combo useless. It's still going to be a serious threat to any vessel (regardless of size or skill of the crew).

Taking that combo when you can will still be worth every penny... Or throne... Or Gigathrone, or whatever the hell kind of sums Rogue Traders deal with.