I'm having issues with capitol ships and space combat. It just feels like the big capitol ships with broadside batteries don't have the fire-power appropriate to their size and menace.

It's happened a couple times now that my players in their frigate have nonchalantly strayed into close range of a cruiser's broadsides and come out relatively unscathed and it's beginning to irk me somewhat. The firepower of these capitol ships should be something to fear, and my players scoff at them.

It seems like the macrocannon broadside on a cruiser is merely the same as the normal macrocannon on an escort, but only has the potential to do more damage in the hands of a truly skilled gunner.

Is this intentional? Are players supposed to scoff at the big capitol ships and ignore their big guns, or is this an oversight?

I have some ideas about how I could tweak them to fit my vision of them more - the simplest being each hit counts as 2 hits (like the 'Storm' ability for hand-held guns) - still up to a total of 6 hits though, so they don't go way over the top.

The advantage of Frigates is that they are small and manouverable, the advantage of capital ships is that they are well armed and long lasting.

A single Cruiser is tactically at an disadvantage against the faster and more manouverable cruiser, that is why the have an escort of several frigates, to make sure their tale is never unprotected, to goad their enemies in the way of their power broadsides.

I wouldn't change the Space Combat rules, they are simple and clear, you could on the other hand give the gunners a talent which would help them, since those ships would hve the best gunners available.

Master Gunner:
Prereq.: BS 40

Add 2 to the damage of any Macro Battery hit.

Just look at the normal gun fighting talents, you can alway make adaptations for space combat....

Firstly, a Lunar Cruiser is the only ship that can bring three batteries to bear on a starboard or port attack. Secondly... yes, I'd assume a Cruiser has frightfully effective gunners (BS 55+) with the Void Tactician talent (+10 BS) along with a Ship Master's bridge (+10 BS), possibly an Auto-stabilised Logis Targeter (+5 BS), a Munitorum (+1 Damage per shot), a charismatic crewmember to make the crew Put Their Backs Into It (+5 BS), and a trained auspex operator to Lock On Target (+5 BS, +5 more for each 2 DoS). If you're very unlucky, the people on that ship also use the class abilities of the Rogue Trader (+10 to an action) and the Void Master of Gunnery (reroll misses). All in all, it's very possible to reach a BS of 80 or more.

A poorly-equipped and -manned cruiser, on the other hand side, certainly won't be as much of a danger.

And finally, there's still the official Bigger Fish: the Battleship, which would probably start somewhere around 5 or 6 broadside slots.

To essentialy steal directly from BFG, which the designers said they are fans of and based the combat system from, guns go up more or less linearly with scale, while mass goes up exponentialy, making cruisers much greater in resistance then in firepower when compared to a frigate. even more so when going to battleship.

The Sword escort has a FRL str 4 weapons battery. A Light Cruiser has 2 str 4 batteries, but they're on broadsides, split with a forward only Str 3 lance on the prow. A full lunar cruiser has a Str 6 battery and a Str 2 Lance battery on each side and an armored prow (with torpedos). A Retrabution battleship actualy only has a Str 12 battery (or 3 str 4 batteries if you perfer), but twice the range of a cruiser, and some nice dorsal lances.

Hum, actualy, looking these over, its not that a cruiser is underpowered, its that escorts have been up-gunned. They really should only have one weapons slot, or 2 using 1/2 powered weapons. I mean Firestorm only has a Str 2 battery. A single firestorm actualy has to both get full dice and hit with everything to even damage a cruiser.

On the other hand, it kinda makes sense to increase the relitive effectivness of the little guys, as that's what the PCs are likely to have. But if you want to shift the balance, I think it'd be easier and likely more accurate to do by modifying the components, then by modifying the rules. (wow, I think i'm backtracking on something I said in the "Raiders are to tough" thread...)

Thanks for the responses.

That is pretty much my point though. If you take a normal NPC crew (let's say krak crew - BS40) and put them in a frigate armed with 2 macro-cannon batteries (2 stacking attacks with str 3), they're more effective than that same krak crew in a cruiser with a macro-cannon broadside (str 6). The str6 on the cruiser's guns can only be taken advantage of by an extremely highly skilled crew (like BS60+).

The advantage a cruiser should have is its firepower, whereas the frigate should be able to use its maneuverability to avoid said firepower. If a frigate can shrug off the firepower of the cruiser, then that's a problem in my mind.

I'm also trying to avoid having to stat up entire crews for NPC ships. I'd like to just assign a general stat (ie like 40 for krak crew) and be done with it.

The last encounter I ran, which irked me so much that I posted here, was the PCs in 1 Frigate and 1 raider vs the NPCs with skill 50-60 in 1 Lunar Cruiser and 3 frigates. This fight went entirely the PCs way - they stomped over everyone.

While this is awesome for the PCs, I'm finding it hard to actually challenge them in space combat.

Hi,

Now I see your true problem, sounds a bit like a random encounter.
Those ships suppose to have high level officers and gunners....so called NPC's.

Yes the general crew of such ships should have a skill of around 40 for frigates and 50 for Cruisers...

If I would use light and heavy cruisers I would actually stat out the captain and his bridge officers as if they were actual characters, this way you can make it truly challenging for the pc's....since they are competing against actual NPC's instead of a simple crew with an overall stat of 40 to 50.

Imagen Lt. Micheal Seraph, a voidmaster with BS 55 and Ag 50, a Good Craftsmanship M.I.U. manning the ships gun while Captain Uriel Angelles (use Rogue Trader career) is handing out commands where to shoot while their Helmsman (another Voidmaster) Ishmael is closing in.

Now those broadsides are getting dangerous.

Lt. Micheal Seraph now has an effective BS of 75 (Half Range, +10 from M.I.U. and +10 from the Command special ability)
He fires the Port Macro cannons first an rolls a 54, 3 hits - 1 from Void Shields is still 2d10+6 (17 on average damage)

With Voidshields down he fires the Prow and Port Lance Batteries, first he rolls a 42, blasts hit home, the second rolls isn't that good, 70, but still a hit.
3 hits with a Lance result in 3d10+12 (Average 28) direct to the Hull....

Meanwhile the captain can still order his crew to man the shuttles and do some Hit and Run attacks, though difficult against a group of trained Explorers some lucky dice rolls might do the trick.

If the Heavy Cruiser has any support ships the Rogue Trader Frigate is dead in space in 1 single turn...

Thanks - you do make a good point. I'll try running some test encounters with more skilled crew and see how the broadside batteries fair.

Perhaps my 'generic crew stats' need to be a lot higher than I expected.

Quicksilver said:

The Firestorm also has a Str 1 forward lance in addition to that Str 2 Battery per BFG. If you consider a Mars pattern Macrocannon Battery and a Titanforge lance weapon, sounds about right; you just get a Str of 3 instead of 2... Here in RT you're going to need to pull at least 2 hits to breach the Cruiser's void shields; and a 3rd hit isn't going to amount to much unless you manage to meet the battery's critical threshold. Then you punch a hole in the cruiser with your Lance. You won't be doing a lot of damage, but there's potential. A small threat, much like a hornet stinging a person. And who knows, you might get lucky and cripple a vital system somewhere along the way.

-=Brother Praetus=-

If that was all that fit on a Firestorm, that'd be perfect. The problem is the ones running around with Sunsear batteries and a lance, or what is in some cases worse, the Swords or light raiders running around with double Mars or double sunsear batteries. Really, a frigate should have to almost max out its damage to actualy injur a crusier. They's why they're used in squadrons. I don't have the book infront of me to run the numbers, but it seems like if you lighten or limit the size of batteries that can be put on an escort, you'd eliminate alot of these problems.

Quicksilver said:

Well, then there is also the matter that we are mostly talking about options presented to Rogue Traders. A typical frigate of the Imperial Navy should fall close to the line of what we see from BFG. A Firestorm would have a prow mounted Titanforge Lance Weapon and dorsal mounted Mars Pattern Macrocannons. The Sword would likely have two Mars Macrocannon Batteries; and a Tempest , being a "strike frigate," might see a double mounting of Sunsear Batteries. That said, any excess power would likely go to Augmented-Retros, and free space to Reinforced Bulkheads. Where as a RT with a Sword might prefer the heavy batteries to extra bulkheads and retros; and will likely be wanting to squeeze in some sort of cargo space. I've been trying to design my Naval ships in parallel to BFG stats, where ships of each class mostly match up with each others capabilities. It's when they fall into the hands of a Rogue Trader dynasty that we should see serious divergence from a common design theme.

-=Brother Praetus=-

If you want to give you pc's a generic Raider encounter just to damage them a bit and show them the dangers of the Expanse, go with regular stats.

If you want epic encounters use tactics....3 raiders can be really dangerous to two vessals....if you use the proper tactics...its not only about high traits.

A Lunar Cruiser should wipe them of the chart when using the tactics I displayed you earlier, its the only vessal that can bring 3 guns on a single target in a single round.
And when fighting multiple enemies, only one ship needs to bring down their Voidshield for the turn after that they are free game.

Santiago said:

The trick is to have the NPC ships use the same tactics as the PCs use.

Telling the PCs that their engine room reports boarders setting charges is a great way to scare the bejesus out of them.

Three escorts should really make a lot of trouble for a cruiser, if they are flown well. Three escorts played unimaginatively are going to get chewed out by a cruiser. All the PCs have to do is focus all firepower on one target a turn and its a three or four round war.

Fast ships can really cause problems. flying in a ships weak zones, fore and aft on cruisers, is a good plan, as is concentrating fire.

As for the macrocannon broadsides, they are nasty. My groups cruiser actually has one broadside slot empty on each side of their cruiser. But with all the bonuses they get (lock on target, rogue traders +10%) in addition to the Arch militants high ballistic skill, they get a lot of hits on enemy vessels. And then, with no shields left, the lance battery generally finishes the job.

And lets not even go there on ramming and boarding. My PCs, in a fight against a pair of raiders, rammed and boarded one in the first round, utterly destroying it. They then used a their macrocannon broadside to smash the enemy ships engines and cripple it, leaving it vulnerable to further boarding actions. Nasty stuff.

It's not quiet as easy as simply using tactics.

If the PCs were piloting a cruiser, and raider / frigate decided to loiter in short-range in the port arc, that raider would be obliterated! However, and this is my problem, the PCs decide to loiter for 2 turns in the port fire-arc of a lunar cruiser and come out with barely a scratch - and they weren't even doing evasive maneuvers or anything.

The reason for this is simply that the PCs have much higher skills & stats and special abilities than generic crew. In the hands of generic crew, broadside batteries are little more than plain macro-cannons. They only shine in the hands of extremely highly skilled crew or other stacking bonuses. And this is my fundamental problem with them. Generic Crew can do more damage using two str3 macro-cannons than they can with a single str6 broadside.

In fact, generic crew firing 3 str3 macro cannons (1prow + 2 side) will probably do more damage than the same crew firing 1 prow lance, 1 broadside battery and 1 lance battery.

Then don't use the "generic crew" stats. You think the captain and officers of the enemy ship are just going to be generic? When they are manning a cruiser?

MILLANDSON said:

Exceptional officers should be the exception.

Plus, even generic crew can use the different orders to get bonuses.

Also, 2 macro cannon batteries SHOULD be nastier than a single broadside, both mathematically and fluff wise. Two broadsides however > 2 batteries.

generic crew, BS 30

Rogue trader captain, +10% bonus

short range +10% bonus

Put your backs into it +5% bonus or more

Lock on target +5% bonus or more

Thats 60% already. If the ship has a decent gunnery master you can boost that by another 10%-20%. Decent bridge or archeotech augurs anothe 10-15%.

A pair of macrocannon broadsides like you might find on a well equipped cruiser could easily end up with a large enough series of hits to strip the shields and do some damage. Then the lances go to work.

Cruisers, don't forget are HARD to kill. Very hard.

I personally want to get my PCs used to not being able to kill enemy ships as easily as they kill people in personal fights. Ships should retreat in many instances.

Plus, even generic crew can use the different orders to get bonuses.

Also, 2 macro cannon batteries SHOULD be nastier than a single broadside, both mathematically and fluff wise. Two broadsides however > 2 batteries.

generic crew, BS 30

Rogue trader captain, +10% bonus

short range +10% bonus

Put your backs into it +5% bonus or more

Lock on target +5% bonus or more

Thats 60% already. If the ship has a decent gunnery master you can boost that by another 10%-20%. Decent bridge or archeotech augurs anothe 10-15%.

A pair of macrocannon broadsides like you might find on a well equipped cruiser could easily end up with a large enough series of hits to strip the shields and do some damage. Then the lances go to work.

Cruisers, don't forget are HARD to kill. Very hard.

I personally want to get my PCs used to not being able to kill enemy ships as easily as they kill people in personal fights. Ships should retreat in many instances.

Iku Rex said:

As should crews piloting cruisers. If they've got a cruiser, their important enough to have some vague stats beyond "generic", in my mind.

MILLANDSON said:

Not that I'm running the adventures straight from Lure of the Expanse - or any other published adventure for that matter - but why then do the ships in these published adventures not have stats for the extended crew of each NPC Rogue Trader's ship?

You've got the stats for the ship, the generic crew stat (ie standard / krak / veteran etc) and the stats for the RT captain.

The books tend to assume the bigger ship will pose a bigger threat, but this is not the case.

Then increase the crew stat, if that is the only stat you're going to use. Up it to a level where you think it'll be a challenge for your players, but not so much that they just wipe them out.

I generally give NPC ships the same sort of extra rules as the player's ship will have, so the NPC ship will have a void-master piloting it and manning the guns, and the like. A reroll for piloting and gunnery checks helps make them a lot more challenging.

Don't use generic stats for crew.

look to things like Pirate captain and merchant trader statblocks, and use these as jumping off points to make "generic" statblocks like "void gunner", "ships chaplain/priest", "master of armsmen", and "Navigator"

They don't need godlike stats or anything but mostly they need to be there for the purposes of Extended Actions

This really helps out the other ships, because they will often have someone of above crew quality manning the helm or batteries, and they can start boosting themselves with Extended actions.