On RT Core rulebook, page 203 there are a componente called: Cargo Hold and Lighter Bay. I know that i Lighter is a ship to handle cargo. But, this meaning that to carry shuttles, gun-cutter, etc on your ship, you need that component?.

No every ship has shuttles, and maybe a guncutter or 2. The lighter bay is simply a cargo hold with additional space for shuttles. ...

CodenameXXIII said:

I don't believe the Lighter bay is meant to count as handling combat ships as well.

Ships already come with hanger bays for a few combat ships and shuttles, but not on a large scale. The lighter bay is a mass loading dock.

I believe true fighter, bomber, and guncutter hangers are going to be in the upcoming fleet expansion book.

Every RT Vessel has several smaller craft, I gave my pc's:

1 Aquila Lander (the limosine)
2 Gun Cutters
20 or so Arvus Lighters
10 Halo Barges

But sound like a lot but do keep in mind they have to be able to resupply a 15k + crew in days not months

I gave out simmilar to the above, though with only 2 (all be it bigger) barges. It's enough for people to resupply and get fresh food/water (the majority of the moral boost) in a couple of weeks, even if theyre are no local landers to use.

Santiago said:

Amusing..every RT seems to have a Aquila Lander to impress the topbrass. Doesnt matter how many arvus lighters he has but they would get scorn for not having a flash looking ship.

Captain Harlock said:

Of course

When you are rich enough to buy entire planets, tooling around in something simply utilitarian is beyond the pale.

It is not enough to simply actually be better than 99.999999999999% of the population (or so the average RT believes) you have to make sure they realize it as well.

Santiago said:

Usually this is done by station-based ground crew and support craft. I personally think you're overestimating how much carrying capacity a ship of that size has (without a dedicated cargo bay component, I mean)

If you have to resupply via a remote system (like Naduesh), I think it might take more than a few days, possibly a couple of weeks.

To the original poster, as you can see by the threads about cargo bays/lighter bays, we're all really hoping they clear this up in Battlefleet Koronus.

SOME COMPLETE NERDING OUT ON RESUPPLY FIGURES

The USDA says the average person eats 4.7 pounds of food a day. A frigate is kitted out for keeping 25,000 people supplied for 6 months.

So....4.7 pounds of food x 6 months x 25,000 people = 21,443,750 pounds. Converted to metric, that's 9,726,721.384 kg. The unit of cargo in Rogue Trader is a metric ton. So divided by 2000 that's 4863.360692 metric tons for a full resupply. Even with all of those ships running a couple of shipment runs a day you're going to be there for awhile. Presumably resupplying a ship in dock requires more than a hundred shuttles and barges.

Fortinbras said:

I agree, it is going to take quite a bit, especially when you take into account all the other supplies you will need as well, everything from cloths to repair parts to macrocannon shells. It will take an enormous logistical effort especially for the bigger ships.

As a side note the RAW is 3 weeks for consumables on a uninhabited planet (with R&R ground side for the whole crew in shifts), 2 or 1 week (if you are will to spend extra cash) at a civilized port for a full restock (these also restore morale). Seems fast to me without some serious transport capability.

I like the idea of house-ruling the Commerce Bridge to dramatically reduce loading times, since that's what it says it does in the description.

Presumably it would be some sort of autonomous air traffic control protocol to speed the landing/launch and loading/unloading?

Fortinbras said:

Sounds good to me.

Also maybe a commerce roll with degrees of success and failure speeding up or slowing down the time taken to resuply in a civilized port.

Maybe a survival roll for the uninhabited ones?

Good points, but I'd rather keep it simple, so I would only play it out, if time is of the essence. And keep in mind, that you'll not always be out there for six whole months, so you won't need to resupply so much at once. If your traveltime was only a week, it's done rather quickly, since there will be help from the dock's / planet's own cargo lighters. If you're out at an uninhabited planet, you'll have to wait a lot longer, of course.

And only to show you that I really appreciate your very nerdy supply figures , wouldn't 9,726,721.384 kg be 9727 metric tons? (and not just 4863 t). I think, with the division by 2000 you did the conversion to the metric system twice.

Consider also there is not only food to get : water, ammunition, clothes, raw reparation materials, spare components... though a part of of food can be reduced if you consider your ship dispose of hydroponic bays among it's life sustainer system.

Something more about weight and volumes:
At first, 4.7 pounds means normal meals not a specially prepared rations. Sublimated and canned food can weigh a little less, about 1.5kg and be nourishing enough to feed one adult man. I take sizes and weights for the russian IRP-P(MRE), it's 35x23x6cm or 0.00483 cubic metre. One cubic ton of cargo is roughly 1.133 cubic metre and can contain about 2 hundreds of these. So one halo barge can take about 8 000 rations. 8 barges can take 64000 rations so for my ship they need to make 62 flights to fully resupply ship (Havoc-raider, 22 thousand people). This is about eight days in a "panic" mode (if a barge make 8 flights per day) or sligtly more than two weeks in "normal" mode. I must note that it's a full resupply and a ship not often runs out of food completely. I think such situation is a sign of a hard adventure and it's normal to take a month or so for refilling suplies and repairing.

P.S. Sorry for my english, it's not my native language and I have no much practice.

Now, is the USDA figure of 4.7 pounds of food a day for the average human being, or the average American? Because I have to say I imagine the average naval rating in 40k would eat a fair deal less than the Average american.