My question is:

How many layers do the average hive spire have? I don' mean hive-spire as in the top layers only, but the layers from the top peak, to the lowest levels of the underhives, not counting the layers crushed in hivequakes.

Are we talking hundreds of layers or are we dealing in tens of layers, with every layer stretching obscenely high? My reading of it so far have been that the layers are enourmous, constituting entire 'worlds' in their own right, and therefore I had made the assumption that the layer count must be in their tens. But I wanna get it from someone who have actually read up on this stuff

So.... any info?

My take is the same as yours, with the number of levels in the tens. Seldom higher than 20 in my case. The fewer levels you use the easier it becomes to make each level interesting and distinct.

Levels as in floors, I'd say easily in the hundreds. Not including any sub-levels! But regarding the layers I would agree in keeping the number low for the reasons already mentioned. I always thought that Taris from KotOR was a fairly good example for a hive city (obviously a 40k one would be way more gothic and dirty though), having layers with specific names such as "Upper City", "Middle City", "Lower City" and the notorious " Undercity ". I do not think you'd need more layers than these four, as each is just special enough to stand out from the others and perfectly embodies the Imperial caste system.

That said, obviously this is just a general concept, and reality will differ from world to world, both in name and in number - you could easily take the concept of a Middle City and divide it into three separate layers, for example. Some planets might even have a special "industrial layer" populated purely by vast manufactoriums and makeshift worker barracks between or inside the factories. Naval outposts or important Munitorum worlds might have a "military" layer on top with large sub-atmospheric docks and garrisons. The possibilities are endless!

I’m thinking the same as you: in my opinion it’s tens not hundreds of levels.
In my imagination though every level is made up by many domes, which work as sublevels or quarters: I picture that some of them are bigger, others smaller; even their ceilings can be higher or shallower.
I think this mess helps give the idea that the hive was built higgledy-piggledy, whenever they needed to enlarge the city they added a dome where they thought it was better suited.

As an example, I set my campaign mostly on Fenksworld and had my group become the Inquisitor’s new cell in Nova Castilla: I made the hive fifty levels tall and about twenty deep, with the lower surface levels (from +5 to -3) being the older city («Vetus Castilla»), which is made up by endless smaller domes with low ceilings (10 to 20 meters tall). I stressed the sense of oppression such ceilings give.
Then, the higher you go, the taller you find the ceiling of that level’s main dome, around which many other smaller sublevels did grow.

Modern skyscrapers have over a hundred floors, right? -And the truely massive hives, like Necromunda's Hive Primus, have spires that touch the upper atmosphere.

Of course, the Calaxis Sector is a fairly "young" sector by Imperial standards, and wouldn't have too many "ancient" hives- most would probably still be "sprawling" horizontally rather than growing vertically.

This is a question I asked myself when designing my hive for my players, I kept it quite simple to start with, Upper Spire, Manufactorum, and Sprawl(underhive), these then again are subdivided into more levels. The Upper Spire for example is then divided into Super rich, very rich and rich levels and districts and so on and so forth.

So far it has worked describing things in board terms, and shifting levels, as most will interlink at certain points, I have Manufactorums spanning not only horizontally in terms of space but also some occupy more than one level of the manufactorum section. Same with some of the Hab blocks, they span from the sprawl to the upper spire, with security access, elevators. very much like the building that is in 5th element but the higher you go the less apartments per floor.

Hope my interpretation of a Hive has been somewhat helpful.

I love each and every one of you

You helped me make a decision and your help is very much appreciated.

I've decided my general (as general as a hive is gonna get) hive template, will make a hive consist of 4 categories:

Spire

Middle

Bottom

Subterranean

With the categories divided divided into 3 levels:

Spire: Ruling, nobility, lower nobility

Middle: Well to do hab-level, middle-class hab level, lower middle-class hab-level

Bottom: Less than middle-class hab level, Manufactorum, Warehouse

Subterranean: Underhive, Dregs, Pits

Ever level is then divided into between 1-3 actual layers, each of them stretching skywards like it's nobodys business.

I can work with this. Thanks alot guys and gals alike

You maybe thanking us now, but wait until you get on the the map drawing stage.

And to add a page from the Necromunda background for future references:

Necromunda prime pretty much had five layers:

-Ruling house (the absolute top)

-Other noble houses

-Middle class (Most part of the city)

-Lower city (pretty much lawless, where the gangs rule)

-Underhive (pretty much only the desperate, crazy or young and dumb adventurers ever venture there)

Everyone of these layers however stretched across dozens to hundreds of levels.

But then of course not all hive cities look the same. Some are a high cone reaching the upper atmosphere, others may be less than a kilometre in height, but stretch over most of a small continent. Where there aren't more precise descriptions (as for the Scintillan hives or on Fenksworld for example), you're pretty much free to make it look as you want, as long as you can justify it should your players ever question some part of it.

My take on hives was that they had a internal honeycomb structure. Each cell (or dome as we tended to refer to them in our games) could be very different, some could be nothing more than a solid mass of manufactoria while others could to a metropolitan city-scape with skyscapers, roads, aerial transport and masses of interconnecting bridges. The underhive is where the domes are partially or completely collapsed.

There would be a broad stratification as you would expect, but each dome is distinct.

I tend to have most of my "hives" end up sprawling messes up to the point that they run out of room, then they dig down, simply because its easier to dig a hole than make a skyscraper and thats sort of how humans tend to build things. At some point if the ecosystem goes to **** or the planet is simply too horrible to put up with, then they might evolve a city over several thousand years to being an enclosed system with its own masses of hydroponics, water recycling and air filtration systems.

Remembering of course, the hive must be entirely self sufficient, you cannot move enough mass into something with billions of hungry mouths quick enough, supplement it maybe but not rely on it because if a ship gets lost in the warp or whatever, everyone dies. So very large amounts of the interior are probably a lot "greener" than people may expect, even if it is just large vats and ponds of algae producing oxygen and harvested for food. The really hard bit to come to terms with is energy, the plasma reactors to keep the lights on and air moving would put a battleships to shame and you'd probably stick them down in the lower areas simply because they'd not really fit anywhere else.

The other thing to consider is that hives take no ****. Many of them have massive gun batteries on them capable of cracking an Ork Rok and wrecking anything else short of a space hulk that tries to mess with them.

Yeah but ships do get lost in the warp, and billions do starve and riot. But hey, its a dystopia.