Ok, so you've just crippled a raider who was harrassing you, you've boarded him, and taken him over. So, What do you do? You have no working warp drive, and a speed of 1. How do you get that ship back to the yards to refit? I cannot find any rules for towing ships.

How damaged is the Warp Drive* ?

If it's repairable, then you repair it (and other components) so that you can fly it back. Make sure you have trusted crew in control of both ships, otherwise it will arrive at the wrong port.

If the warp drive can't be fixed, then the ship isn't going anywhere.

*and other components needed for warp travel. Including the Navigator.

So there aren't rules for towing?

Bilateralrope said:

You absolutly need to repair the gelar field,warp drive ,plasma engine,life suport and have some navigator on the captured ship. If you cannot have this components up and running go to the nearest shipyard and hire an warp tug and repair vessel. You also need to make sure that the prize ship is hidden with no hostile crew on board so that they would not rebel against you.

Your ship has multiple npc navigators. Send some to the derelict ship and make the derelict ship stay close to the main ship so that they be helped by your ship remaining navigators.

No, there are no rules for towing.

Make some up.

I do a week prep time, a tech-use roll to make the tow, then a modifier on the navigation to make the trip, then a pilot roll to keep losing the tow or having the ships collide when transiting into and out of the warp. My players had to spend a couple fate points to keep from dropping a tempest class frigate last time they towed something.

Nope, no rules for towing.

In my campaign, ships cannot be towed.* That means players have two options. First, fix the captured vessel up with emergency repairs so it is warp-capable, put a trusted prize crew aboard along with the navigator's NPC understudy, and have it follow you back to port. (I allow convoys, with one ship following in the warp wake of another, so a NPC navigator can benefit from the PC navigator's skill.) Second, leave the derelict hidden somewhere with no live crew aboard, make a note of the orbit, come back later with the supplies and whatnot to get it running... and hope it's still there. Space is big; a powered down derelict might go undetected for quite some time.

* However, ships can be carried. Per the 40K fluff, there are some BIG freight haulers with an extended warp field that can carry small vessels through the warp. This is how system ships can get across interstellar distances.

So, if emergency repairs won't get a ship warp capable, you need to either come back with a ship stuffed full of tech-priests and spare parts, or hire one of the big tugs to go into the dangerous areas of the expanse to fetch it back to port. Either could well be an adventure in and of itself.

In my campaign, my players have captured two ships, thanks to a staggering tendency on their part to trigger either a warp drive explosion (twice) or a plasma drive explosion (thrice). One, they put a prize crew on and took home. The second they left a lifeless derelict and might come back; then again, that second ship is a Chaos cruiser and is just a tad tainted. Actually, if you don't blow it up outright, it's very tough to break a ship so badly that it won't make warp after a PC explorator does extended repairs.

Cheers,

- V.

I always wonder how to tow a derelict in space, since at first I thought everyone would say it is possible. Apparently not, and in fact it could be the other way around: many peolpe would say towing derelict is not possible.

Please give more inputs concerning towing-or-not-towing, since my campaign's has a tendency to find derelicts. Thanks in advance everyone, I'd keep an eye on this thread

Telosse said:

Well, you could tow it. Problem is, the towed ship would be sitting outside the gellar field while you are in the warp. You had better hope that when you drop out of the warp, you only bring out what you took in, and that the ship hasn't been mutated

Towing should be possible, the Imperium is towing whole star forts through the warp. As Bilateralrope pointed out you should have a working geller field on the ship though.

That's quite a 'logical' thing to consider: The Gellar Field.

Well, of course we can just tow them through the warp, and then cleanse the derelict once again (while hoping it's not "the ship" that has been mutated, only few lesser daemons... or maybe one or two greater ones... hmmm..)

What about the Ship required to tow them? I hardly can imagine a loki-transport towing a repulsive class grand cruiser.

Tow it inside the towing ships Gellar field

Telosse said:

Make the towing rules what you want them to be. That is part of being the GM. You dont need permission from Fantasy Flight or anyone else to do that.

from france

look at the tryxis caravanne . they are towing all their ship except one with chains

korjik said:

Basically correct but the question if it fits with the given background is understandable.

As far as I know towing is definitive possible and I know of nothing that strictly contradicts the possibility of extending your own ships gellerfield around the towed vessel. (I would possibly give a higher chance for some bull happening while in warp)

the 8 spider said:

Can you give me the page number and the book name?

You mean the stryxis?The alien merchants.

Ramilies starforts can be towed through the warp therefore it is certainly possible.

You'd need a gellar field on both ships or all you'd get would be a twisted lump of mutated metal on the other end. Probably with eyeballs. And tentacles.

I'd say that you'd either need specialist towing vessels OR a bigger vessel to do the towing. A frigate might not be able to tow a raider, but a light cruiser should be able to. Towing a cruiser would require a grand cruiser, battleship, specialist tugs or multiple smaller vessels.

Towing using multiple smaller vessels (except specialist tug boats) should be hella risky.

Another method of bringing the derelict up to warp capability again would be a larger vessel equiped with a mobile dock, allowing for installation of components (very slowly and not ideally) in space.

Many rogue trader dynasties simply won't have the expertise or necessary vessels to reclaim a derelict vessel with a destroyed warp drive, selling the location so a more powerful dynasty can do so should be a good money spinner though.

thor2006 said:

Battlefleet Koronus, the part where they list all the different alien starships, from Rak'Gol up to Chaos ships. Even the fabled Kroot Warsphere is in there.

Koronus also gives rules for a new ship component that actually allows you to transport ship components. Essentially allowing you to transport a Geller field whereever you want it to be. Getting the Plasma Drive and Warp drive there would require a whole transport ship devoted to doing such a thing. OTOH getting the cheapest transport for the dynasty and outfitting it for just such a job could work. Multiple component storage components (god that sounds stupid) and a 2nd crew quarters to transport a full second crew for the newly aquired vessel.

Heck if the RT dynasty gets ahold of the new Universe class transport, its all over. That beast can fit salvage arms, if a ship is hulked beyond redemption, get enough component storage to get a grand cruiser safely to Port Wander, and to top it off, it can receive 4 docking arms to turn it into an impromptu miniature space station (including +10 to aqisition rolls for repair, add a manufactorum for turning it into +20) it can be even used to replenish morale like a space station. You want anything done that includes starships this beast would be able handle it all in one go. Its a truly mobile home away from home. And that is including the fact that 40k starships are already huge. Before i forgot to mention it, 12 kilometres of steel, more than 2 kilometres of height (i did count pixels on a scan from the pic).

Who needs to hire warp tugs, you only need to shoulder the buy in price of 45 SP.

Oh yeah, maybe i should have put up a banner to declare this post a commercial for the Battlefleet Koronus book.

Voronesh said:

Using only salvage arms can the derelict ship be towed through the safely through the warp without the need of a gellar field component to a repair station like the breaker yards where the missing components can be added?

Can a bought component be stored on the outside of a ship or in a normal cargo hold like Main Cargo Hold?

from france

from my topic about list of ship

Stryxis

Stryxis Xebec hull light cruiser Batllefleet Koronus p 96

Stryxis caravan vessel hull transport Edge Of The Abyss 79

the 8 spider said:

Can you take Stryxis and use them as your own?

thor2006 said:

You mean Stryxis ships? They're usually the vessels of other races, a lot of Imperial ships. They'll sometimes offer to sell hulls off the caravan.