Okay, fairly new to Rogue Trader and 40k roleplay in general, but I've been playing the tabletop game for a while and my players and I have a solid understanding of the fluff.

So one of my players has been reading the (excellent) Soul Drinkers omnibus and wants to know if he could rig a space hulk as his flagship in RT. Now, I know there are going to be problems with this, but aside from actually clearing the hulk and then rigging it up to be functional, what would they be? I'm especially interested in Imperial responses to this (and what could be done to make this idea work).

Nerdynick said:

Well, the clearing it and the fixing it will be the two biggest issues, for sure. First they'd have to clear it (which could conceivably take quite a while) so they can run a full inspection of what needs fixing. Then they'd have to leave to go get whatever parts they need. If they don't have the manpower to leave a substantial guard detail behind, they might return to find the ship infested or being salvaged by someone else. Then they have to clear it again before they can begin making repairs. Then they might get attacked by pirates or something while they're making repairs, creating a "defend this point" scenario.

Also, part of fixing the ship up will likely involve de-icing it. Any part of the ship that had atmo when it was operational (which was probably a large part of it) will probably have icy buildup from various gases that leaked out and froze up in the darkness of space while it was derelict. Any parts that still contain atmo (to account for critters infesting the ship) might explosively decompress if they're opened the wrong way. That could cause further damage as well as sending people flying. Of course, if the ship still has breathable atmo it probably isn't that old (unless the air recycling system is still online.)

Depending on the age of the hulk, they might also have trouble finding parts for it. They may have to retrofit some newer components to get things running, you could make a couple sessions out of hunting down the needed parts. The players may also want to get various pieces blessed by a tech-priest, possibly even bring a couple out to the hulk and get the whole thing spiritually cleansed. Then, when the ship is finally ready to be powered up, there might be some secondary damage due to age. Components that looked fine on initial inspection might suddenly break when they're asked to actually DO something for the first time in however many years.

So yeah, you could write a whole adventure around just trying to get the thing in working order again. Doing so will also make the flagship that much more memorable for the players when they finally get it.

Once the ship is in working order again, they'll have to register it for service, so there will be some red tape to deal with there. The players might also have to deal with whoever used to own the ship beforehand (if it's too old for a single owner to still be alive, perhaps it belonged to an orgnaization that's still in operation.) That could be as simple as the owner demanding his ship back, trying to buy it off the players or somehow blackmail them to give it to him. It could also be as complex as a secret division of the Imperium trying to recover some long-lost artifact they presumed had been destroyed with the ship, and all the covert shenanigans that would go along with them trying to get this macguffin without alerting the players, or trying to determine if the players already found it while fixing up the ship, etc, etc.

If the players don't plan to rename the ship, but rather keep the existing one, then they might run into further problems with people who had previous dealings with this ship (seeing it out and about again, assuming the players know something or have something just because they're in the same old ship.) Perhaps whoever originally destroyed the ship and left it adrift will be displeased to see it flying again. Even if they do rename the ship, there might be some unique distinctive aspect of the ship that gives its origin away so these plots can unfold.

Whether or not there was anything infesting the hulk when the players found it, there might be some reason that one of the other factions in the universe has interest in the hulk. Perhaps the Tyranids or Chaos had set the derelict on course for some particular star system with a special payload on board (which may or may not have been the infestation itself) and now that the ship has been taken off that course, they might want to destroy it again or at least take some sort of revenge on the bumbling fools who interfered with their plan.

Woah! Major logistic undertaking there. There's so many possible problems with this (though of course none are insurmountable):

1. Clearing/securing the hulk - this is a huge undertaking in it's own right... in fact, entirely clearing a space hulk of it's former residents is probably a lifetimes work or more. Securing enough of the vital areas and components to make it viable as a vessel is probably the best that could be expected. The ship's security detail would be on constant high alert for ever-more.

2. Warp influence - Space hulks spend millenia drifting in and out of the warp and the very structures become saturated with chaos. The possibility of crew corruption, low morale or full on Daemonic incursions would be much higher than for a regular ship.

3. Suspicion - Simply because of the possibility of the 2 points above, most Imperial agencies would automatically assume the worst of a space hulk translating into their space. Even if they knew it was a RT craft, they would be very wary of any so-called imperial citizen willing to use such a ship. Some factions would nuke first and completely skip the questions.

4. A space hulk is a jumble of different craft melted together - The likelihood of being able to coordinate enough plasma drives and thrusters to provide effective, controllable realspace locomotion is tiny. It would require a team of tech priests working for a few years to even attempt it. I guess the speed stat could be anything from 1 to 5, depending on how many functioning star drives you decide are part of the hulk (and pointing in mostly the same direction). I would say the manouverability modifier would be in the -30 to -50 range.

5. Determining how many of what type of weapon mounting is available, while entirely your call, would be very tricky. The potential to make the whole thing ludicrously overpowered, even for a RT game, would be huge. I would advise extreme caution.

In saying all that... what a cool idea!!! You're talking a whole campaign arc just getting their dream ship outfitted. =)

Best of luck

De-icing? Frozen gasses? Wouldn't they just boil away in a vacuum even if the temp is really low?

Some areas could be frozen, or flooded (from burst pipes) some areas would be empty, I always think of the movie Aliens when I think of space hulks, with water dripping everywhere, dark, low lit, sputtering lighting, weird noises.

And after all that mess you end up with a big huge bulked thing that has almost no maneuverability, is probably incapable of proepr Warp Drive and requires enormous resources to keep it running. In the end, it will probably be to inefficient to run.

I think that you are much better up with salvaging what you can and make tons of profit there but that is me.

Another problem (which I've either half-recalled from old fluff sources or completely fabricated, not sure which) is that something the size of a Space Hulk dropping out of warp tends to to open warp rifts, generally a bad thing.

In the game i'm running, the PCs found a Space Hulk and decided to use it as their base of operations. Drafted in some local Astartes to get in and cleanse it, then managed to get on board and power up enough engines to send it hurtling into orbit around a nearby world which they then colonised. THey bought the Mining Rig ship component, powered up one of the hulls remaining in the hulk and started to 'mine' it for whatever they could get.

They're now in the process of slowly stripping ships off of it (mainly transports) and adding them to their fleet. So far they've resisted the temptation of stealing the Murder-class cruiser, as they've been unable to confirm whether it was lost before the Murder-class started to defect en masse or afterwards, and there's a local inquisitor that'd be unhappy if tey ressurrected a chaos warship.

Well, you as the Gm are going to have to live with the results so...do you want them in possession of a free roaming hulk? If the answer is yes, i'd start with a small one. Just exploring a hulk of small size could take years. Not to mention clearing one out. And during that time perhaps it would merge, with a bigger one?

Is there a way you guys can see to get around the reaction of "Oh ****! A space hulk! Open fire!". You know, the one that comes over most Imperial citizens?

Nerdynick said:

-Devotional symbols showing allegience to the Imperium of Man the size of small cities

-Vox-spamming every system they jump into with identification signals

-Astropathically informing the local Imperial Navy, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adminiatratum and Ordos everytime they intend to enter or leave a system, even one thought uninhabited.

Even then, they're still going to get fairly regular shows of force from more or less every single faction within the Imperium, and a fair number without. I'd be making at least one Mechanicus antagonist, trying to get onboard to loot the place, regardless of who claimed ownership.

VeryUgly said:

I've always thought of most Imperial ships having the low flickering lights, dripping fluids, and tight confines throught most of the habiltable areas. Spaces Hulks I picture as far less hospitable.

HappyDaze said:

That depends. On the outer hull, certainly. Inside the ship, maybe not. The worst parts you'd want to watch out for are moving parts, of course. Engine components, bulkheads that lead to important areas, etc.

I don't claim to be a physics expert or anything, but to me it seems like a reasonable problem to present with a crew trying to repair a long-abandoned and inoperable hunk of junk that's been floating in deep space for god knows how long. If this idea offends you somehow or if you feel it's "unrealistic," feel free to ignore it or come up with something better.

Speaking for myself, I've already suspended my disbelief regarding the presence of psychic powers that basically emulate magic in any high fantasy setting, daemons born of subconscious desires, aliens of all description and origin (which still manage to be basically humanoid for the most part) and a whole host of different weaponry that probably wouldn't work in the real world if their design was ever explained in sufficient detail. Suggesting that a drifting derelict spaceship might need to have some components de-iced (or cleansed of other hardened lubricants or chemicals, if that floats your boat) doesn't really sound all that far-fetched to me.

Ice is totally natural in space, hydrogen, water, oxygen, carbon gas, etc most gas are sublimed into ice or snow in contact with the deep 0 kelvin of space.

Hydrogen ice is extremely dangerous, a small source of heat would probably vaporise it and may create a detonation.

(Just noting that 0 kelvin isn't practically attainable in real world physics and certainly not in a random section of space (especially in a solar system where there's copious amounts of solar radiation))

Okay, so how many ships *usually* comprise one space hulk?

Dozens, scores, whatever number you like. Very often they are not whole ships, and there's often some non-ship mass in there too.

Well, I was more looking for a baseline to randomly generate how many ships/masses comprised my players' soon to become flagship (if they stay on their planned course anyway)

There isn't really any baseline. The only governing factor in the scale of a space hulk is typically how long it's been drifting. For reasons unknown to the Imperium, dead ships will tend to accrete into hulks. It's fundamentally a question of how much of a boon/drawback you want this thing to be. A large hulk will be a vertiable treasure trove of lost technologies and ships, but is also highly likely to be chock full of threats to your players. A smaller/newer hulk will have accordingly less ships and a lesser threat to survival.

Nerdynick said:

It's worth noting that a hulk comprised of several ship fragments and being held together mainly by its own gravity out in deep space probably won't be salvaged for use exactly in that state. Even if the PCs weld everything together as it is, those joins will be weaker than a single whole ship and would make it vulnerable to coming apart in combat later. (Not to mention the stresses of warp travel or operating the ship near a planetary gravity well.)

Part of the salvage/repair operation would likely include removing the smaller chunks of once-ships (as well as anything non-ship that they don't want in there) and then firmly assembling whatever's left into one ship with a single outward hull. It might still look all Frankenstein's monster, but it would probably be the equivalent of, say 2-4 standard ships, in terms of size. You could design the final floor plan by cutting up existing ship floor plans and pasting them together into a larger monstrosity.

""Okay, so how many ships *usually* comprise one space hulk?"

MINIMUM: 1...unless its not a ship...

Hmmmm, this idea seems to be coming full circle with the Soul Drinkers again.

So when the Soul Drinkers broke off from the Imperium, they scuttled their fleet to keep it from being useful to those who had betrayed them. Now, I don't remember if the 'scuttling' involved realspace explosions or not, but I'm pretty sure that the fleet was cast adrift in the warp afterwards. I'm thinking that a large number of ships without an active gellar field translating into warpspace in close proximity to each other is a pretty sure recipe for a space hulk.

Now, before people start calling me crazy for giving my players access to a fleet of space marine vessels melded into one, I don't intend for this to be a cakewalk. The Soul Drinkers DID remove everything of use, salvaging it for parts for the Brokenback. So any left behind weapons (which there wouldn't be much of) would be without ammunition. Considering the woeful states the ships would have been in individually, the Space Hulk itself would be in worse condition. I doubt there would be any atmosphere or gravity until the players restored it. And this is on top of the usual baddies inhabiting the place.

So I think i have a good premise for an entire story arc there, but I need to know a few things. Mainly what the fleet composition of the Soul Drinkers, a previously fleet based chapter, would have been. The Ultramarines have 8 Strike Cruisers, 3 Battle Barges, and 12 Rapid Strike Vessels. Whereas the fleet-based Black Templars, the largest of the Chapters, have "Dozens of Battle Barges, Strike Cruisers and other craft such as training vessels and huge forge ships.

With that in mind, what would the fleet of the Soul Drinkers have?

Sweet Emperor, the more I read about that chapter the more I hate Ben Counter. "Hey guys, I have an idea. Let's secede from the Imperium, blow up all our ships and then make our home in a barely-habitable cluster of dead ships and wander around the void because a magos took our toy away and this guy that's totally the Emperor said we should!" "BRILLIANT!"

Anyway. As a Second Founding, I wouldn't say they had more than a dozen vessels all told, including their Fortress-Monastery.

Oh come on, no love for the Soul Drinkers

Each to his own I guess. I feel it was a unique idea compared to the majority of 40k novels (especially space marine stories, which tend to follow the same plots). And they did have decent excuses for doing all those things.

If I remember correctly, the Soul Drinkers' newly acquired hulk was so large that entire sections needed to be sealed off from established habitable zones simply because there was too much unexplored space posing a potential threat. Given the "fused" nature of the hulk as a whole, I doubt it would have been possible for it to function at 100% efficiency. I imagine flushing the toilet in one part of the hulk might accidentally fire off a macro-cannon on the other side...

As far as propulsion and infrastructure went, I believe that they managed to coordinate only those systems that suited their needs. Another thing I found interesting was that there were a number of alien vessels making up the hulk, including one with a hanger full of alien fighters and transports! A treasure trove indeed!

Hmmm, on reconsideration, I changed my mind about actually having them acquire a space hulk made from an Astartes fleet. Common sense finally kicked in after the last session.

Not that they won't fight the space hulk....

While it looks like you're going to nix the whole idea of not allowing the players to have a Space Hulk as their base of operations/flag ship. I say as Game Masters, we should always try (Key Word here is: Try) to say "Yes." Just as a when a player uses a wish spell in a fantasy RPG, we answer it exactly as stated, with many, many fun and terrible consequeneces.

In the case of this situation I would say yes. Here is the steps that I would take as GM:

1. Initial finding of Hulk. Problems on it - Chaos, Ork, Tyranid, Alien or all of the above. .

2. Call in a Favor with Space Marines to clear it - maybe part of the deal is there is a small cruiser with that particular Space Marine Chapter mashed in with the rest of the Hulk. Might be cool to use the new FFG Death Angel Card game to simulate the clearing of it, or even Better the Space Hulk board game if you got a copy. The deal is once it's cleared, the Space Marines remain to guard the area until you can get that cruiser detached as salvage.

3. Add in problems with the Inquisition as they get word of it, they want to check out the cusier and other ships there as well, they send in a ship or two. So now, you've got inquisition ships and Space Marine Ships.

4. You bring in the salavage crew, along with a couple of haulers. A couple of other ships come out of warp due to a storm and ask to dock and rest. Depending on the Players action, they should realize that this has potential to become a space station/way station/rest area for those needing it.

5. The players negoiate to have Adeptus Astartes remain on the Hulk until such a time as they can completely free the crusier or whatever it is in the depths of the Space Hulk.

6. Players now have an opportunity to play as a Deep Space 9 sort of thing. Running, developing a Space Station. This includes forays into other parts of the Hulk that are unexplored, how they'll handle the alien showing up, with Inquisition and Adeptus Astartes there. Handling Resupplies, Politics, populating the ship, continuing to salvage the rest of the Hulk and building new areas.

7. Perhaps due to something in the hulk, have it visible in the warp as an area of extreme calm.

8. Other rogue traders or organizations may become interested in the hulk as the Players explore it and start up other engines from the derelicts there. Perhaps a become summons an Imperial Guard unit, or Adepatus Mechanics as well or another Rogue Trader wanting "Their" ship back. Not to mentio aliens, etc.