I found the bulk transport options in Into the Storm to be wholly unsatisfactory, so I made a couple up. The Lamprey is designed to replace the Halo Barge in the book as an actual bulk transport, its capacity roughly modelled after very large cargo ships. The Longship fits in between the very smal Arvus lighter and the massive Lamprey. It is roughly modelled after Military Cargo transports like the C5 Galaxy, except its 40k, so it hs guns on top.

Comments welcome,

enjoy!

Lamprey Halo barge
The Lamprey is a massive Lifter at over 300 meters long and 50 meters high; it is capable of transporting vast quantities of cargo and super-heavy vehicles such as Hephaestus Ore Seekers and Baneblade tanks. The Lamprey is so large that it requires a specialist dock connected directly to the ship’s Cargo hold, it is far to large to fit inside a standard Lighter bay.
While most halo barge’s home berth is an orbital or spaceport, The Lamprey class Halo Barge is designed to accompany a cargo vessel, giving it the ability to move huge cargo loads without relying on any planet-side infrastructure.

Type: Spacecraft. Tactical speed: 15m / 7 au
Cruising speed: 800 kph / 3 VU in space. Manoeuvrability : -40
Structural integrity: 60. Size :Massive
Armor : front 20 side 20 rear 20. Crew : Captain, 1 pilot, 1 co-pilot, tech priest, 6 tech laity, 12 gunners, Loadmaster, dozens of rating stevedores
Carrying capacity: 200,000 tonnes of cargo, 20,000 troops with support vehicles, an armoured company, an entire prefab colony.
Weapons: 12 turret mounted heavy stubbers (stowed during air and void transit, designed to defend the ship on the ground)

Special rules
Spacecraft: (normal spacecraft rules)
Fragile: Though it is an exceedingly large vessel, a halo barge is not a military vessel, and it's sides are easily split. Add +2 to any critical damage.
Bulk cargo lifter: A halo barge is designed to do one thing, transport large volumes of material to and from orbit. To do this it requires a spaceport,or at least a hastily constructed ferrocrete platform. A halo barge making a rough landing is never to return to orbit, its fragile spine broken under its own weight.
Home berth: The halo barge is too large for most lifter berths, requiring a specialized hanger attached to a cargo hold, this is typically found on the on the keel, though need not be so. In order to accommodate a Lamprey Halo Barge, a ship have have a Cargo Hold and Lighter Bay, Compartmentalised Cargo Hold or Main Cargo Hold component.
Availability: Rare

‘Longboat’ Cargo Lighter
A sizable lighter, the longboat sees service across the sector.The Longboat is large enough to transport a sizable cargo, small enough to land in a standard Lighter bay and durable enough to make hot landings, make it extremely popular.

Type: Spacecraft. Tactical speed: 20m / 9 au
Cruising speed: 1,400 kph / 4 vu in space. Manoeuvrability: -20
Structural integrity: 40. Size: Massive
Armor : front 24 side 24 rear 24. Crew : Pilot, Co-Pilot, 2 gunners, Loadmaster, 4 Rating Stevedores
Carrying capacity : 70 passengers plus either: 100 tonnes of cargo, 300 troops, 2 enormous or 4 hulking vehicles.
Weapons:
1 Dorsal Gunner-operated Autocannon (Turret, 360 degree Facing, Range 300m (3 AUs), Heavy, S/2/5, 4d10+5 I, Pen 4, Clip 60, Reload 2 Full)
1 Forward Gunner-operated Autocannon (Facing Forward, Range 300m (3 AUs), Heavy, S/2/5, 4d10+5 I, Pen 4, Clip 60, Reload 2 Full)

Special rules
Spacecraft: (normal spacecraft rules)
Availability: Scarce

Net. I'd add the "shadowblind bays" from Into the Storm to the list of components allowing to take Lampreys, though.

Nice idea, but i do think the amount of troops your squeezing into the Lamprey is a bit high, 20.000 people in a space 300m by 50m by (100m?) isnt really possible imho, maybe change the transport capacity to be around 1000-2000 people.

BossTroll said:

Well, doing the math on that, assuming you have one that's actually outfitted for moving people in bulk:

1 meter = 3.2 feet, assuming tightly packed standing room only you fit 2 people in a 1x1 meter square

Assuming the halo barge is 300x100x50 (which sounds about the right ratio from most of the heavy cargo shipping I saw when I was in the Navy) then a single deck would be roughly 30,000 square meters... so 60,000 people for max 'no space for luggage or moving about' capacity for a single deck.

Assuming a single deck is ~12 feet (which is vaguely what I remember, again from the Navy) then you're looking at roughly 3.75 meters per deck, which would make 13 decks the maximum mathmatically available... but you'd have to factor in width of the hull, etc (as normal support stuff like air vents, cabling, etc, is factored into the 12 ft. per deck) so it wouldn't be unfair to say there would be ~11 decks available.

60k people per deck, 10 decks, means that if you stuffed everyone in like cattle onto bare-bones decking set up in a single, large space. This clearly assumes your cargo decking was configurable to allow what I'm talking about, you'd actually be able to carry 660k people in a 300m x 100m x 50m hull (or 30,000 sq. m x 11 decks)

Of course, this is assuming max capacity with no obstructions. Legitimately, you'd probably remove at least 25% of the floor space per deck for structural supports, heads (aka bathrooms/toilets), bulkheads, doors, personnel and cargo elevators / ladder wells, etc. giving you and effective area of 22,500 square meters per deck to work with. Installing basic amenities brings "Standing room only" cap to something more like 495,000 max cap. for 11 decks

If you scaled that back, assuming 'very crowded' carrying capacity is more like 50% of 'OMFG' capacity, then you're still looking at being able to cram 200 - 250k ... figuring that "comfortable" is probably closer to 30% of 'OMFG' capacity, and you're looking at carrying ~140k people plus a decent amount of luggage.

Of course, this is only a passenger barge at that point, a huge airliner. If you'd want to do cargo or transport troops, then for the most reasonable "quick" estimate. you really would want to sit down with some graph paper and make a decent outline of the deck in question to get an idea of how much space you'd allocate to various functions, to include cargo (and not all types of cargo are created equal!) and weapons/vehicle stowage... and don't forget ingress/egress points for all the above.

As a parting note: I looked up the dimensions of the amphib I served on (similarly sized, but 1/3 the width) allocated 10.9 square meters per member of the crew (to include marine component, and all additional systems/stowage) ... so, assuming you picked identical ratios of space, gear, stowage, etc as the Navy did, you're looking at lugging approx 22,700 troops + aircraft + tanks/apcs/etc.

Anywhoot, hope that is at least a little informative as to just the raw numbers of how many people you could legitimately cram into a "small" space, if you could consider ships small. For those interested, the ship class is easily found on Wikipedia, look up the LHD series currently in use by the US Navy.

Thanks Storm, that's great info. For the troop numbers of the Lamprey I simply took the carrying capacity of the Longboat (aka: Galaxy C5) and applied the same troop - capacity ration (about 3:1) which gave me, 600,000, but I though being able to put half a million men on the ground was just a bit much, I so I dropped it to 20k.

Mordechai, I wasn;t sure about the Shadow Blind Bays, does the components also have regular Cargo bays, or is it just paying for the hidden ones? Because they woundn't be very steathly if you've got an enourmous halo barge directly connected to your 'secret' cargo hold.

How do you fit a shuttle that's about a quarter of the length of the smallest ships available into those ships though? 300m long is bigger than a Thunderhawk gunship, one of the largest shuttles bar titan landers and Imperial Guard dropships.

You are forgetting that most ships will use shuttles from a nearby base in order to move extremely large numbers of supplies or men, rather than carry such shuttles with them unless the ship is designed for such transports. That's how it's worked in the majority of the fluff so far in 40k.

I'm not forgetting anything

"The Lamprey is so large that it requires a specialist dock connected directly to the ship’s Cargo hold, it is far to large to fit inside a standard Lighter bay."

The Lamprey is humungus, that's why I called it a lamprey, it's almost big enough to be starship by itself, except it clings on for the ride, like a lamprey . In order to accomadate one you need to build a dedicated dock into your ship. In any case I wouldn't expect to see one attached to a raider, really it shoud be for transports or light crusiers or larger. You could go in for more special rules if you wated, like it counts as a component in terms of crit locations or something.

As for scale, I'd expect the imperal guard dropship is basiclly a militarised version of something like this, and I doubt you see one of those popping out of a raider hull either.

"While most halo barge’s home berth is an orbital or spaceport, The Lamprey class Halo Barge is designed to accompany a cargo vessel, giving it the ability to move huge cargo loads without relying on any planet-side infrastructure."

The point of the Lamprey is that in the depths of the Koronus expanse there often isn't a nearby base to load megatons of resources you're taking back to imperial space, you need to bring something along with you get all that stuff into your ship. The Halo barge as written is too small for the job.

And beside, I think it's a pretty appropriate solution for a Rogue Trader "I'm sick of dealing with these **** Stevedore unions! I'll just buy my own **** barge!"

Agmar_Strick said:

Well, in the description of the Shadowblind bays, I understand there is a normal cago bay and then, a mirror, secret one, with hidden stowage bays, etc... In my opinion, you can still have the lampreys be present in the non-hidden part of the cargo bay, not of course in the discreet part. In game terms, you can have a Lamprey on a 2 Space component, but not on a 4 Space component who has the same effect on trade but add somehting else with the 2 more spaces ( the Crime effect ) ?

If it is attacjhed on the hull of cruiser what modifiers in terms of speed,manouvrability , space,power,armor,shields,sensors,silent sensors for the parrent ship will incur, especialy in combat?

I love this idea, partiularly the Lamprey. Ever since i saw the stats for the Halo barge i thought "Thats a bit tiny for a 5km long cruiser, loading a full cargo would take forever".

I've also considered imperial guard lander ships. I figured that they should be able to land many thousands of troops at once. This seems perfect.

I'd like to see a ship done up as an imperial guard transport vessel (and yes, i know Imp guard don't get their own ships, it would be a naval vessel FOR the transporting of imp guard). I figure if a barracks component holds about 5,000 troops plus equipment, a troop ship would really be required to hold at least 5 or 6 times that. Hard to fit into a transport, doable on a cruiser if you strip some guns. Maybe possible on a light cruiser. And of course it would need the ability to those troops onto the surface of a world at full speed. probably with air cover to help the barges land safely.

I just posted this in the general RT forum, but it is nice to apply here:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Only a link since i dont know how to paste on this strange forum.

Basically if you calculate correctly for the lamprey. (a cool idea) You probably want to upscale cruiser crew numbers as well. The mass to volume numbers just dont add up.

OTOH one problem with a dropship that large? Dropship as in military application. It is utterly useless unless youre transporting Baneblades or titans. Simply 200k mudhoppers or even 10k soldiers makes it too much of a target. Currently the biggest we get officialy is 40 peeps. Agreed too small. But around 1000 soldiers or so is large enough. I would be afraid of the eggs in one basket thing.

Besises the correct application of basic physics giving us crazy huge numbers, a really cool vessel.

Moredechai, well based on that i'l add the Shadowblind bays into the list of suitable Cargo bays.

Thor, I hadn't really thought about that to be honest, though it would probably be suitable to make a component along the lines of the "Storm" Drop Pod Launch Bays.

Halo Barge Receiving Dock

A Receiving dock is a specialised dock designed to offload mass cargo Lifters, such as the Lamprey Halo Barge. it is also designed to safely shelter large lifers and shuttles such as the aforementioned Lamprey.

Cost: Power:1 Space:1 SP:1 (the space is low as the majority of the component is outside the hull,. compensated by the unwieldy trait)

Receiving Dock: the Receiving Dock is only useful if there is somewhere to store the goods, therefore to install this component the ship must also have installed a cargo hold (see lamprey description). Additionall, the receiving dock allows good to be loaded and unloaded more quickly. When working towards an a Trade objective, the players earn an additional 25 achievement points.

Unwieldly: Having what amount to another ship clinging to a starship reduces performance, decrease manoeuvrability by -3.

Voronesh, firstly you Paste by using IE, it doesn't work in Firefox or Chrome...

indeed, the numbers on the Ship are a bit fishy, but that doesn't bother me much, ships are OMFG massive and have OMFG sized crews. not sure why the halo barge bugged my enough to write up a replacement.

I disagree on the issue with ships though, as IMO, an imperal guard massed troop landing would be many millions of men, so its not one big ship, but dozens and dozens. dunno how canon that is though, numbers are always weird in 40k.

Agmar_Strick said:

I pet peeve of mine is the whole numbers thing in 40k it is honestly so messed it it just shows they are not trying at all. RT has actually been a breath of fresh air with some reasonable numbers for crew on kilometers long vessels.

As an example lets take the battle of Armageddon which GW actually released a full force list of all Imperial and Ork forces for the campaign. Look up in the codexes how large these formations are and do some math. The result? The massed might of entire sectors of the imperium with hive and forge worlds across the segmentum flooding Armageddon with troops, the nigh endless hordes of the Orks... Add them ALL together and you get less fighting personnel than ANY single one of the major powers fielded in WW2. IIRC it came out somewhere around 3 million. Only one example of of many.

Ahh thanks. Too bad im using firefox, and Safari doesnt even let me write here :S

But i feel im in good company here. Yes the numbers are crazy. D-Day had more troops than the biggest, baddest war on a Hive world. Yes RT is much better than the standard GW fare when numbers are concerned, but its just crazy when i look at the numbers and i feel i could write em better when i was 10.

Instead if a Dropship carrying half a million of troops, i would simply use many small vessels. So more like 1-3k troops per landing vessel, but instead use 200+ of those dropships.

This Lamprey is perfect for a Battleship though. The problem i see with that thing, is that anytime near a warzone would insteadly vaporize it. It has prolly 10% of all your troops. BUT its perfect for an INSTANT HQ with additional tank workshop and a full blown warzone hospital. Thats what i would do. Put every supply and control measure in there, and use i dunno something of a different size to get the regiments down.

You know what just hit me? Its basically the Imperial version of the Tau (Manta) flying titan- equivalent.

Voronesh said:

Back in WW2, when we landed on Normandy, there were a variety of landing craft... the small 30-40 person lander is a good analogue for the stereotypical amphibious lander you see in so many WW2 movies. One thing you didn't see much of, as they came in only after the beachhead was secured, were the transports specifically designed to more or less beach themselves in a manner that they could be pulled back out to sea, which is what I'd consider the .mil version of the halo barge to be.

It's not there to contest a landing, it's there to off the metric butt-ton of troops to back up the guys who took the beachhead in the first place. They'd only be coming in once a "safe" air channel was secured, typically after air and space superiority were achieved. Or, in other words, if you were the guys resisting on the ground, if you saw these landing, the gig is just about up.

On the flip side, one of these would carry a modern US division. With 10 of them, you could lift the entirety of the US Army at the same time room to spare. Add another 3-4 and you could throw the US Marines in as well.

The Lamprey is very specifically not a troopship, but you can put troops in it. An actual troop tranport might be more durable, but I think at that size, you'd still want to land it at a spaceport (temporary or otherwise). As you say Storm, this size of ship should be used to re-enforce the initial troops and set up a HQ, not dump them in a firefight (thats what pods are for).