George Labour said:

Actually no you can't. Have you ever heard a shot from a "silenced" gun? Even a small one stil gives off a large enough bang to be noticed and the bigger ones just forget it alltogether. Just search for it on youtube and come back from this ridiculous idea.

As to puncturing a hull with a normal weapon: the idea is entirely ludicruous. p 221 of the Core Rulebook:

<i>A Question of Scale ... Players may notice that the shipboard weapons roll similar amounts of damage dice as their handheld weapons, and may be tempted to lean out their ship's airlock with their trusty lasgun. Obviously, ship to ship combat is measured on a completely different scale than any other form of fighting even if the dice are the same. Handheld or vehicle mounted weapons are unable to harm a starship, <b>and the trusty lasgun wouldn't even scratch the paint of an enemy vessel.</b></i>

Basically, todays Kevlar "bullet-proof" vests aren't even 10 centimeters thick. Now fastforward to the 40k universe and put in place a hull that's several meters thick with on top of that more meters of adamantium bolted to it. That's right: no friggin' chance in hell that you'll blow a hole in it. As to blowing holes in the windows... it's equally ridiculous imo. Whatever the windows are made of, it'll be more then sturdy enough to withstand severe impacts, impacts much more severe then a boltgun. If not there'd be huge problems with steering the vessel through space without loosing tons of crew (bridge-crew included) because windows are broken. These are vessels where the expectation is that there'll be fighting going on on the inside. Daemons, enemy ships, hit and run actions, infiltrators, a psyker losing his sanity and whatnot. There are myriads of reasons to ensure the sturdiness of a ship, including it's windows. It'd be pretty ******* ridiculous to have a hull that's 5-12 meters thick (armour included) and then put in windows that can be penetrated by a shotgun. Imagine a macro-cannon shell penetrating a window that's that thin. You'd be able to blow out whole chunks of the enemy vessel with a simple hit (given the description of a macro-cannon volley).

Sister Callidia said:

I was just putting forth the point that that kind of endeavor objective/adventure is not something I think Rogue Traders usually get involved in.

Fortinbras said:

Nothing said about 'components' here. It'll be more on a local scale. I treat it like a submarine, only the inner hull is a 'pressure' hull. But what's the trouble if an airlock gets punctured and everyone starts breathing void? Tough luck for the ratings and armsmen, we'll yank open another can.

Its more of a problem if PC's are present without propper gear...

Well even then it's not an explosive decompression. It would be more like a slow leak, allowing ample time to evacuate the compromised section and seal it off.

Fortinbras said:

I'll take my hollywood-ified version, thanks. Either its small enough that there is plenty of time to evacuate, or its over in one explosion..

George Labour said:

Every time someone compares SP weapons to bolters, the badly thought out list of special ammo comes out. Lets look at what's wrong with it:

Acid, incendiary and organ grinders (flesh ripping) are also available for bolters.

Manstoppers (armor punching) have less penetration than standard bolt shells.

Blazer shells (flame belching) are primitive damage, meaning you can forget about using them on anything wearing armour. If you want flame, get a flamer.

Executioner shells (self guided) are single shot only.

That just leaves snare rounds. But if you are carrying a weapon dedicated towards not killing the target, why don't you pick something like the snare gun (Radical's handbook, pg 152) or a webber (though that takes an exotic training) that won't accidentally kill the target ?

Bilateralrope said:

Well, I don't own DH supplements, for one. Only Rogue Trader ones.

Bolters are indeed harder to silence, primarily because once you ht your target, the shell explodes as well. A sniper with a SP may be far enough away and with the right suppresors hide fairly well after sniping a targer, and if his target is also secluded he may be able to kill someone without anyone noticing. You can kill that rogue planetary governor while he is in the wash, and none of his handmaids will notice till they check on him.

You shoot the same guy with a bolter, and the bullet explodes letting everyone know something just happened unless he is truly isolated.

As for the hull breach, well to quote The Hunt For Red October "Some things in here dont react well to bullets", it doesnt have to be a hull breach, it could be damaged to immediate environment, like blast door controls, lights which are only lightly armoured, power cables and lines and so forth. You could logically say the outer plating of a hallway wall will absorb a las shot or shotgun shell but not a bolter or melta gun and therefore valuable wiring for the immediate area (not the whole ship) can be damaged, plunging the hall in darkness or flushing the hall with fire suppressors or opening and closing and locking blast walls and doors.

And if somehow you did manage to breach the hull, it isnt a instance of GM DICKERY it could be rising action in a story, as you try to quell the uprising created by the rogue psyker everyone thought was contained in the prison deck, you rush across the open platform when a stray bolter shot ruptures a weakened part of the hull (perhaps a portion damaged in a recent space battle and only partially resealed) causing the void to invade. Now, while fighting the psykers thralls, doding laser fire and running across a catwalk, you also have to compete with the force of the vacuum invading the ship. Everyone make STR checks. Makes it more exciting.

Otherwise, it sounds too much like "Oh no, the bolter hits the wall, dont worry players, Im not a dickenzen and nothing but puppy dogs, flowers and slim jims come flying into the room. Everyone is happy and holds hands. Even the Rank 8 psyker decides to stop fighitng you as me putting you up against him is a **** GM move so he apologizes. Here, date my sister!"

You also dont want your crew running around with bolters blasting up every place they go. Every little fire fight would involve little rockets. Even when you miss, instead of just singing a wall or knocking a whole into the plaster of a room, you blow a good foot or so of wood or plaster or rock out of a wall or floor or ceiling. Plus its costs money.

I could see the Rogue Trader in charge of the fleet letting his trusted military classes have one (The Arch Militant, the Void Master) but not everyone.

If your party wants everyone running around with bolters and power armour, just smile at them and hand them a copy of Deathwatch instead.

Oh and most importantly, its probably easier to smuggle in a autopistol then a boltgun.

Okay, no bringing realism into my game of dark eldritch techno-fantasy. Let it sink into the warp with all that 'that's not realistic' baggage so I can enjoy my space ships built like cathedrals (with giant stained glass window and naked singing man babies) , transhuman acid spitting super men, and aliens made of fungus that talk like thugs in a Charles Dickens war story despite them never having even heard the words bad cockney accent.

In Into the Storm there is a rifle bordering on being an anti material rifle that has an actual honest to your GM rule about being harder to hear than just about every other weapon available. It's also got one heck of a range on it and isn't much heavier than a bolt gun. So yes, the issue of noise reduction is there. I don't think it can fire organ grinder rounds but it sure as heck can fire autogun rounds. Throw a red dot sight on there, combined with a few talents, and the bonuses gained from aiming and its accuracy trait and you have a tool capable of brain surgery at nearly a mile out.

For that scenario even the purpose built 'marksman' bolters begin to pale as they don't get much in the way of noise supression, and aren't as easy to get. They also don't have the same range, especially using the supressed bolt rounds.

Now as for the whole 'we can just nuke it' answer....most people that play RPGs are going to have to talk to people without commiting genocide everytime they don't get their way. Even if that weren't true it does prove there is a weapon better than the bolter that you can use, which you can acquire more easily.

Onto why I wouldn't be using a snare gun or bola launcher instead of snare shells, it's simple. I can put a fire selector, combat attachment, auxilary grenade launcher, exterminator cartridge, combi-weapon(which could be a webber as well), and a sight (red dot or motion predictor, your choice) on a shotgun with a 15 round clip, and the option for single, semi, and full auto fire. Then you no longer have to fret over fumbling for a specific tool for the job. One clip for snare, one for executioners, and the last feeding from an ammo backpack loaded with your shell of choice.

With the exception of the executioner shells you might also find it more likely for those items to be readily available in comparison to boltguns.

Now granted if I took all of that I'm likely an Ork but it still shows why someone might go that route.Though there's also the option of getting several and equipping your loyal house troops with them.

Are bolters nice? Yes, yes they are. However I thought the question was 'are there reasons why you don't want all bolters all the time'. I beleive there are.

Finally heavy weapons inside a ship. This actually comes up in The Frozen Reaches adventure, and I beleive the Fall From Grace fan adventure. The inside of a void ship isn't just walls and hatches. There are pipes, chains, hoses, gew-gaws, and widgets all over the interior spaces for the parts of the vessel dedicated to vessel operations. Fuel pipes, coolant lines, plasma ducts (as in that really hot stuff that melts things), etc, etc, can all be punctured, exploded, ripped, and so on thus creating bad problems for anyone in the immediate area. That's one reason you don't see boarding teams using high end anti tank gear, the other being the size of such toys.

Think of your typical WW1, WW2 style movie submarine, Add the power of the sun in liquid form, plus a fleet of oil tanker's worth of other fluids Now throw a goth metal album cover onto that and you get the interior of many imperial ships.

Whether you're one of those folks trieing to maintain 'realism' or are like me and try to invoke a certain theme to your game you have a very good explanation as to why the basic shipboard weapons are whatever's handy to clobber people with, or shotguns firing low speed scatter shot. Unless you're an ork.

Peacekeeper_b

I do not think anyone is arguing that the GM can not use hull breaches in his story telling. The way I read it, it is about game mechanics IE at what penetration value do you start endangering your ship.

My point is look at the enemies your crew needs to fight... Orks, Rak'Gol, Genestealers, etc. They are horrifically overpowered. Pretty much everything they have to fight is WAY tougher in almost every way. There is no choice in the matter the crew needs to have Bolters, Hellguns, Meltas, and everything else you can give them. Can you imagine a crew with shotguns and lasguns (which is a big upgrade) trying to stop a Rak'Gol boarding action?

George Labour said:

Actually its stats suck.. no other word for it. It is less effective than a hand cannon. Damage is a mind blowing 1d10+4 Pen 0 (basically a shotgun). It is not even close to being a Barrett (or other .50BMG weapon). Even if you say the heavy stubber is a .50BMG analog it would need to do 1d10+5 Pen 3... and if that is all you can get out of a M2 analog it means we make better weapons today than in 40k.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Uh, max damage of a Bolter - 15 w/ PEN 4.
AP of a "bulkhead" in the Rogue Trader corebook, which I presume means any generic interior part of a ship's hull - 32.

Yeah, no, it's not ridiculous for a player to insist that no, their character in fact did not just get blue in the face for lack of oxygen because the round didn't penetrate. I'm generally a supporter of player actions having consequences, but this isn't one of them.

I think you have some compelling arguments, though I will say that quoting a movie from the 1980's (where he was referring to nuclear warheads) probably isn't sufficient evidence for some posters around here to buy it, especially when they did in fact have a gunfight in the missile bay with zero repercussions, but otherwise your opinions about the general power level of a Rogue Trader campaign are purely your own. Rogue Traders should have access to far more resources than Deathwatch, if you ask me.

You might notice most of the 'sniper' or duelist weapons have similarly low initial damage. The eldar ranger rifle, kroot rifle, wrath plasma pistol, and the nomad hunting instrument are examples. You might also notice most of them have the accurate trait.

With the accurate trait you can get up to 2d10 more damage on an aimed shot. Thus a good marksman with the right gear can deliver quite the hit from much further away than almost any other weapon. Combine with higher pen ammo to overcome that issue and it's probably the next best thing to a Vindicare's Exitus rifle. Plus it's far easier to get.

Now as for the problem of your squishy redshirts fighting orks and rak'ghol I'd suggest using the mass combat rules, or the horde rules from Deathwatch. This is of course assuming you want your disposable NPCs to accomplish something without GM fiat. I personally prefer to use them as mobile scenery and let the players do the 'real fighting. Any combat the redshirts do I usually just pick a likely outcome based on the story's needs.

It's also worth mentioning that the majority of major crew weapon use is likely to be done on a macro level, such as in hit & run or boarding actions during space combat. Unless your players go out of their way to build specialized boarding teams then what your individual armsman carries is largely irrelevant.

Of course, with the new rules coming with Battlefleet Koronus, that will change slightly.

George Labour said:

I agree that accurate is a good trait to have just that the weapon itself was unimpressive... Get a Nomad if you want to tear someones head off at 2 miles.

Yes the nomad is the superior piece, but lacks the silencer. Depending on your GM and the skill set of your group's tech priest you may have to make a choice between stealth and damage. I also was trieing to keep the number of books require minimal. Failed miserably though.

Really, there are two questions here - 'Is there a thematic reason to take anything but Bolt weapons?' and "Is there a mechanical reason to take anything but Bolt weapons?'.

Mechanically, bolt weapons are fantastic pieces of gear that would enhance not just your players, but also the thousands of ceew they could potentially arm with them. Let's face it, it's not hard for a RT dynasty to outfit 30k worth of armsmen and ratings with bolt pistols if they want to. No, bolt shells are unlikely to do any damage to an interior bulkhead unless you manage to RF the God-Emperor's love out of that wall.

From a thematic point of view, Bolt weapons are the weapon chosen for the very elite of the Imperium. Most of the bolters around the place are priceless heirlooms that any RT worth their salt would strip out of the hands of any rating foolish enough to wave it around and flog him for the blasophemy of someone of their social class touching a sacred bolter. Fluff-wise, las-weapons are fantastically reliable in most situations... as long as they're maintained. THat's why the Guard have so many cleaning litanies. In a shipboard situation, most of the naval armsmen are going to have weapons handed out to them that have likely been kept in a arms locker for the last six months and maintained even less often. Autoguns, shotguns, shotcannon... these are the sort of weapons that you can keep on a shelf for ages and you know they'll still go boom when you pull the trigger.

For household troops or personal bodyguards, the situation becomes very different. These are the individuals that maintain their gear, that need the best of the best because they are dedicated soldiers. They're the ones that get bolters and other, more exotic weapons.

professor_kylan said:

Not on my ship. Arch-Militant Katerina Fleischer, the Mistress-at-Arms is constantly in the Munitorium supervising the maintenance and proper inventory of the ship's weapons complement.

Also, I don't know if you've ever shot a firearm, but those suckers can require just as much cleaning as a Lasgun or Bolter. Maybe not as much as a bolter, but they're certainly not "pick up and shoot, toss away in the armory" type things. 4 times a year, at the very least. Definitely after they see major combat use, though.

That does give me a good compelling argument for encouraging players to put a Munitorium on their ship, though.

Fortinbras said:

True. If you are on the OTHER side of the bulkhead you get the 32 AP. But there are things ON the bulkhead (bothsides) and in the bulkhead if it is a bipanelled bulkhead (which I would imagine most ships wpuld have, you know, to provide areas for cables of electrical wire or coolant or plasma heat or vents or comm gear to traverse) otherwise all these things are still vulnerable to attacks.

And juest because that 80s movie didnt have an consequences happen doesnt make them moot. We have all seen movies where such things have had consequences.

The point is, if done right, even if it seems highly unlikely, it can add to dramatic effect and make the game more exciting, even if the PCs dont think its fair.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Aye, just because you might not be able to shoot clean through the bulkhead, doesn't mean there aren't essential systems either hanging on it (like electrical cables, etc) or inside it (gas, water, etc pipes). Any weapon that is capable of damaging those systems isn't a weapon you want in the hands of untrained ratings.

Fortinbras said:

Worth noting in 40k that many of the simple weapons seem to have a durability that makes an ak-47 look positively dainty. That's one of the reasons for the sheer quantity of them that are made. Imperials like their gear hefty, long lived, and so simple an ogryn can use it. Wouldn't want to have to educate your peons after all, they might start getting ideas in their heads about what to use their plasma guns on.

Can you just imagine the fun to be had if a pack of underdeck cannon haulers were equipped with melta weapons? You know, the guys you likely press ganged, will never see a sun again, die in their hundred every month, and might not even know they're on a starship...

I think I'm veering off topic now though so I'll try not to ramble off onto this tangent further.

MILLANDSON said:

What, if any, game penalties would you propose for too much firepower in a confined interior space? Because otherwise I think we're arguing purely over cosmetic points or perception.

As for maintenance, the only reason I bring it up is because I have trouble with the idea that a snub-nose pistol can be dug out of a dusty locker after several years and it should perform its function, but a Cadian-pattern Lasgun, arguably the most ubiquitous energy weapon in the Imperium of Man, would not.

I'd say that the local lighting system could go down, throwing them into dark red emergency lighting if lucky, or pitch black if they aren't. They could also damage the bulkhead blast door controls, meaning they either can't lock that section down or it goes into emergency lock-down and shuts them in. Not only that, but if they hit gas pipes, it could flood the area with flammable gas and cause an explosion if so much as a spark ignites. Hell, even hitting a steam pipe could result in them being flash-burned, and if not that they'd then have visibility drastically shortened, as the steam stops them from being able to see much more than a metre or so in-front of them.

Basically, all the things that would not be good to happen in any sort of confined industrial space/submarine/ship.

Millandson has some really good points.

I would, depending on the location allow the potential hit of a gas line. WHich is pretty bad for any player being present.

But while explosive decompression is a reality, the PC simply have no weapon that can achieve it. The pressure inside the ship is 15 pounds per square inch, so yeah thats alot, but that armour can withstand pyros meltacannon shells (kinda); so unless multiple multimelters are strapped together, you wont get a hile big enough for explosive decompression. Simply more of the slow leak fortinbras mentioned.

Plus if i want to run around in Power armor and Boltgun and chainsword, DW isnt really the answer, i only get huge amounts of rules (well the game that started with DH really has hit its limit there). PLus all of the sudden Marine weapons do more damage than normal ones. Since im form the Tabletop game first and the RPG second, that kinda stinks. It really gives me that bad taste in my mouth, since i cant sick my Chaos Space marine renegade chapter on any RT group ever. Yeah theres 5 Khorne berzerkes from that boarding torpedo on your ship, yes the horde rules are in effect, and they just killed a few hundred armsmen in close combat, what do you do? Heh DW rant off ^^.

It also seems that plasma is piped through the ship from the generatorium as part of the vessel's maneuvering systems. While those vents are probably kept deep inside the hull, they have to approch the surface at some point. Or at least this is what I've picked up from reading numerous bits of fluff on 40k naval encounters. Obviously there's nothing saying that the manuevering thrusters use the same plasma as the ship's main engines, but I beleive they do.

That means that a bad hit in the wrong place could see hull melting heat spewing into a space not built to contain it. Much worse than stem.

-

If the power systems get fried then the grav plating might malfunction, hopefully just turning off, but it could potentially do something very painful as well.

Another possible result of heavy weapon's use in a compartment, the doors start opening and closing randomly which can result in messy moments. Hilarious to orks, not so funny to the guy who has to get through them.

If you've played Dead Space you might want to use that as inspiration for what happens to a ship when its insides start getting trashed.

And now i think this deserves its own topics "Bad things that can happen in a ship"

I recently had some stray fire cause a non-flammable gas leak in the bowels of a ship where the PCs were fighting some malfunctioning Murder-Servitors (used the stats for the Battle Servitors in back of the RT Core). I had Toughness tests to avoid Fatigue levels (respirators & filter plugs helped), check every TB turns. It was a nasty complication, especially considering how hard the trio of servitors was to put down.