korjik said:

Simply not allowing it would be a reasonable and assertive position to take...

However, I don't see a mutiny happening, because numerous system ship operate without a warp engine and gellar field so long as its doing so in system. So long as both are shut down together, you're just operating your starship as a system ship for a time. You're no more likely to have a warp mishap than the countless system ships that operate that way all the time.

HappyDaze said:

If a GM cant screw the players as much as he feels like, completely inside the rules, he dosent really know what he is doing. If the players dont realize that the GM is a player too, and playing against him is generally not any fun, they dont really know what they are doing either.

Especially when the player apparently didnt even read what the game designer posted....

korjik said:

I'm not sure where you're trying to go with this - am I supposed to be the "player" in your reference?

HappyDaze said:

I guess you completely ignored my post above about actions and consequences. It's ok, I'm used to you acting like everybody in the world shares your opinion on how a tabletop game shouldn't challenge the players at all in any meaningful way and should just be a wankfest that caters to their every desire.

Also, I've only posted two house rules. One was about murder servitors. The other was actually because I felt the flamer wasn't useful enough for a Pyromaniac missionary without a full action.

I have no desire to kill players. None . Barring outright stupidity or being a jackass, if a player dies in an encounter even though they did everything they possibly could to avoid it, I have failed. Because I didn't estimate an appropriate challenge level.

By the same token, if I don't challenge my players, I've also failed. Players who don't get a challenge will most likely get bored. And even if they didn't see it that way, I'd probably get bored and quit working so hard on this crap. Like the poster above said, I'm playing too. My NPC's are my players. I put a lot of work into them. And if you want me to be a Hemingway (" There is an Ork. He is green. You shoot him. He gets 8 damage. ") I'm going to get bored and go do something more interesting. There's a bunch of Black Library novels I'd like to read.

And guess what? Stacking your ship full of guns and flipping your engines on and off for an extra +20 power when you're not in the warp? Tends to make the game unchallenging.

Fortinbras said:

You don't get it. I can and do challenge my players without having to pile on house rule after house rule all intended to screw them. I've never seen anything from you that isn't intended to weigh the odds against them. To me it reeks of GM dickery, and your statement paraphrased as "It's OK, I own the books, so what I say goes" tells me youre the type of asshat my group would never tolerate at the table, so just keep deluding yourself that what you're doing is for the best - and perhaps it is for your type of players.

HappyDaze said:

Your group is a strange place where the GM is a magical rotating chair based on popular vote, rather than the thing no player ever wants to do and is usually occupied by the person who bites the bullet for the good of the group and plays it. I'd rather be playing a missionary who sings the praises of the Emperor while spreading delicious cleansing flame upon demons, mutants, heretics, and xenos. Barring that, I'm at least going to do things my way.

Either way, shut up.. Your petulant whining about my methods is insufferable and you apparently can't do it without having a huge immature temper tantrum. I come here to share my thoughts. Like them, or hate them, but at least mind the forum rules and be polite. I dislike your methods just as much, but I don't attack you personally for them.

Fortinbras said:

Very good points Fortinbras and I agree.

However in defense of HappyDaze, I have to say that before this clarification it sounded to me like you were saying you would royally screw the players simply because they did something you didn't like.

I have to say, it seems fairly.... odd to say the least, given that getting power to a system that has been knocked out by heavy space weaponry takes a couple hours at most, that willfully turning off or on the power could take days . Now, going off of emergency repairs, I could see requiring an ordinary (+10) tech-use taking 1d5-1 turns, one less turn per DoS. A 0 or less indicates that the transfer happens almost immediately, and the new component can be used that same turn (as opposed to the start of the next turn). From the time the test is started on the component being unpowered counts as unpowered. (So no using the guns as you power them down to get your warp drive back online). 3 DoF or more indicates that you've offended the machine spirits in some way.

GM can be inventive with what happens when offending the machine spirit, but generally at the least it should continue to draw power, but count as unpowered, and should remain this way for 1d10 days. At this point it is possible to physically disconnect the component from power (requiring a Difficult (-10) Tech Use Test and 1d10 turns, one less turn per DoS), but doing so will cause the Machine Spirit to refuse to work for a minimum of 1d5 months after power is resupplied to them. Any attempts to power them down will add another 1d5 weeks to this time.

So, there you go. It is possible to change around power, but has its risks. It also takes time. Of course with all the bonuses that a good explorator can get it might be a bit too easy, but I don't think it should be harder than emergency repairs.

Karoline said:

Well as to why it takes longer.. I have a thought there.

I would say that if all you wanted to do was to just power down a component it would not take that long even to power it back up. However what is the point of this? What you are really trying to do is redirect power from one system to another. To do all this you are going to need to have your crew and tech priests lay unimaginal amounts of power cabling crisscrossing kilometers of twisted (and used by the crew) ship corridors, as you attempt to transfer power from the thousands of sub-components of one system to the thousands of sub-components of another system. Remember even 1 power point is a HUGE amount of power.

I would make this take quite some time. Due to the mickey mouse nature of it I would make any component powered this way a malfunction chance. Also I would have a command or morale penalty (or some sort of other penalty) for having your corridors clogged with power cabling. In fact without extended supply vaults I would rule you simply did not have enough spare power conduit to even attempt it.

Why would you have to lay kilometers of power cables? Both systems should already be connected to the power system. It isn't like you'd have to run new lines from one component for to another. And even if that is what you'd have to do, you'd only need to do it once, then you'd have the lines all nice and set up for the future.

Basically all you'd have to do is (on a ship scale) unplug one thing from its power socket and plug in another. I realize it is a little more complex than that, but I have trouble believing that it involves laying brand new power cables.

Karoline said:

A couple reasons.. First given the scale and capabilities even a single power point must represent the emperor alone knows how many megawatts or more probably gigawatts. Amperage on a huge scale. You do not simply plugin or unplug stuff like that while the power is on. So to do it without blowing out your systems you would need to power down your generator... If you are willing to do that I would indeed let players do it the way you say. That would not be quick and you would be utterly helpless and there is the whole life support thing.

Second if you run the lines real nice (so you can more or less just flip a switch and do not have the penalties) one time and do it up real nice.. sure but you have just created a custom ship component that takes up one space. Hello drydock as they litterarally have to design the thing and tear apart nearly every wall and bulkhead on your ship to get it installed.

The only exception is I might allow it to work that way with an archeotech system. Those systems may have ways of dealing with the huge power loads involved.

Yeeees, but consider the nature of 40k ships. They're built with superstition and cargo-cult understanding of why this goes there and what happens if you appease this machine spirit by pulling this lever. Say you your Geller Fields and power down the Warp Core after emerging back into realspace to power your main guns. The enginseers are forced to reroute that power through conduits that were never intended for such a high load, risking blowing out capacitors and infuriating machine spirits. it takes careful appeasement for such a thing to be attempted, the appropriate rites need to be performed and conduits must be laid.

The Conversion Matrix from Into The Storm allows you to do this as a free action at any time, but it's archeotech nature speaks for the difficulty of doing such a thing normally.

As far as I know, you have an "unlimited" number of Free Actions in your turn (only limit is your GM's common sense...) Since using the Energistic Conversion Matrix is a Free Action, my Conversion Matrix is effectively a +5 speed, because I'll turn it on right before I conduct a Maneouver Action and turn it off again afterwards. What's your opinion about this?

Also, you can use the Conversion Matrix with every type of drive, not only archeotech. While the Conversion Matrix has to do all the "work", the engine still has to be able to take the additional power, which it receives instantly, without blowing up. Other components, from which you draw the power, have to suffer this immense energy fluctuation, too, and also the cables, etc.

gomme said:

The rule is that you can't do the same action twice in one round. Activating and then deactivating one component in the same round shouldn't be allowed. That is effectively doing the same action twice.

Fortinbras said:

I agree entirely with Fortinbras here. You disagreeing with his way of doing things is one thing, but personally insulting him is another. I've always believed in the principle of treating people how I'd like to be treated myself, and as such believe that if you aren't going to attempt to be respectable even if you disagree with a person, you should probably just say nothing at all.

I'm in the same boat as Fortinbras, in that the games I like to play are the ones everyone wants to play in, but not run, which means 90% of the time I bite the bullet in order to be in any game. What you are suggesting is that GMs aren't allowed to make house rules to suit their games and players. Teaching some players that actions have consequences is important, and so house-ruling to that effect is more than reasonable.

@Fortinbras: What I read from Sam is not that you should allow them to move power around, but that it's technically possible, but in no way practicable in the middle of a battle. If they want to have their guns powered, and require the warp engine to be off to do so, they'll have to spend several hours, or even days, setting it up like that, and then when they want to leave they'd have to spend the same amount of time putting it right. This means that they can't suddenly turn on all their weapons between turns when caught off-guard, and equally, if they are set up to fight and are outnumbered and outgunned, tough, they'll have to try to break away and go into silent running or try new tactics to win, because they can't just turn on the warp engine again and run away.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Good, but it's not even nescessary. The warp engine alone provides enough power for a +3 bonus and I'm sure you have some non-combat systems to power down in the heat of the battle. Geller Field, Cargo Bays, etc. That's easily another +1 or even +2. A (light) cruiser could turn off one of it's broadsides, if it's fighting only one enemy or simply doesn't need that side in that turn. Given the fact, that official word is, that powering up or down a system takes hours or maybe even days with several unpleasant side effects concerning the machine spirit, I think the Conversion Matrix is rather powerful for a 1 / 1 / 1 component, even though it is an archeotech component.

MILLANDSON said:

I really feel sorry for both of you that you're 'forced into' the GM's seat. That seems to me to be a source of discontentment, and that can lead to making certain decisions without really seeing what the group might want. I'm not sure how both of you have come to the conclusion that my gaming group is 'magical' but we certainly do make our choices by popular vote. Regardless of of how you got to the GM's seat, you're just one person at the table, and if the consequences you want to impose are not in keeping with what the group wants, then you don't really have a right to impose anything - it's a game. I suppose that I was out of line for calling Forti an asshat, but that's exactly how he comes off in my eyes. While Milli might think it's best not to share things that are not 'nice', I'd rather just be blunt since sometimes it helps to make the point much more clearly.

Nope, no discontent here. I'd just like to actually play once or twice

You are, however, trying to judge us and our GM styles without any sort of knowledge of what our group's/players' tastes in style, genre, etc are though, which comes across as incredibly patronising and insulting.

All of my groups (I have 4: One for RT/DH playtesting, one I'm running a RT game for, one I'm running a Hunter: The Vigil game for, and one I'm playing in, which is Vampire: The Requiem), and in all of those the players would be disappointed if the GM didn't try to screw with them every so often. It adds spice to the setting, and shows that, like in real life, sometimes luck just turns bad or that bad stuff sometimes just happens.

You don't see me judging your GM style, so I'd appreciate it if you showed both myself and Fortinbras the same courtesy and quit with the piss-poor attempt at psychoanalysis.

Fortinbras said:

You know i get the feeling you arent playing with friends. And why do you even play with them at all. If i sit down for an RPG i want to be at least on a friendly basis. Plus switching something off that you dont need, is hardly powergaming. You dont even know PG except complain about it when there is something you dont like. More like lets keep the players as small as possible for as long as possible.

Besides the official answer makes only sense. Emergency gellar field should have been a good hint. Besides the warp engine is only used for just warping, the plasma drive handles real world moving.

Due to me not having found an edit button yet.

@ Fortinbras.

Ok you did backpedal there quite a bit. But the quote above smelled alot like a temper tantrum: If it doesnt work my way i quit and they cant play without me.

In regards to general feeling. I like being the GM (how i hate that word, in German theres a niceer on, that better defines the position and moves it away from the ageold ADD GM (Spielleiter) close but has a suble difference to (Meister)).

I like to play too, but sometimes i like to simply bring up a story. But i also look at stuff from the player view, and when i designed a cruiser i felt bored "it could fit nearly everything." I went down to a light cruiser (top down approach), i felt challenged even when i switch the warp drive off (letting the geller field up only makes sense) "how do i get power, 2 Lathe broadsides and the archaeotech lance (mars like approach here).

It eats up so much power, has to be installed at the correct size. Why have the plasma drive produce an extra 12 energy, when the warp drive takes those away again. Only makes sense if youre able to switch it off. Its not lik i could install a smaller warp drive, or a larger on anyway.

Voronesh said:

Look in the white bar at the very top of your posts.

I still think, this is a cheap attempt to powergame and put as much firepower into a ship as possible without suffering any drawbacks. You'll be able to make "jack-of-all-trades" ships, even with raiders, frigates and eventually transports, too. Take the Orion-class sprint trader (Into the storm). It's major drawback is the low armor, yes, it's ridiculously low. But another drawback is/was that you can only put in a transport sized plasma drive with low power output. Now you can completely "ignore" this drawback and install tons of components, that mainly need power. It's even got a keel weapon slot and costs only 25SP. As long as a macrocannon/macrocannon combo is better than a macrocannon with a lance, this thing is the "glass cannon" destroyer of RT.

And I somehow can understand a GM that doesn't want to have the usual DnD powergaming. Nobody says you have to intentionally build a crappy character or ship, but some things simply go too far and only lead to an arms race between the players and the GM. And that is not because the GM wants to kick the players' butts for screwing around with the rules, but to keep the game challenging for the overpowered PCs.

gomme said:

I understand what you are saying and even agree with most of it.

Just for me I don't see a huge issue here because whatever the PCs can do the NPCs can do as well.. still a level gaming field so hard to say its power gaming.

llsoth said:

But typically limited to a short time after making the post.

llsoth said:

I'm sorry, but that is rediculous. It is possible for weapon fire to knock out the power to a component without causing any other lasting damage to said component, and it is possible to fix that damage in under 30 minutes. This indicates that it is possible to cut the power to a component quickly without causing lasting damage, and it definetly indicates that you can reconnect the power at least without the generator being off, which generally means that the reverse is likely to be turn.

Ugh, stupid not being able to paste.

And yes, I can agree about tech in 40k being finicky and requiring the right rites and such, but at the same time your part about 'conduits not designed to handle such power' seems... well, I really don't know what you're talking about. I mean, if you have power connections to a macrobattery array, I'm fairly sure it is designed to handle the power that goes to the macrobattery array, even if you don't plan on supplying that power 24/7. And you can't be talking about some kind of power surge because there is spare energy in the system between turning off one component and turning on another, because that would mean that any 'unpowered' crit would cause such a surge, as would building a ship that doesn't use every last point of power.

I'm not saying it is going to be 'flip a switch and power is rerouted' but the idea that it takes days of time and kilometers of power cables and the 'ripping out of every bulkhead on the ship' to reroute power seems absolutely absurd.