I'm going to start a rogue Trader game in the next month or so. I've played it before, but never GM'd it. I decided I really wanted to run a a game based around Mass Effect 2, obviously a lot would be changed, but the over-all theme would be the same: gathering allies to fight an unspeakable horror, collecting weapons and upgrades for your ship, and trying to learn more about your foe.

I have a few questions for people who have played Mass Effect.

1) What kind of hull would you say the Normandy - 2 was? I'm pretty sure in the original game the Normandy was stated as being a frigate, but the Normandy -2 was stated as being much larger. Maybe Light Cruiser?

2) Some suggestions on Weapons and upgrades the players could look for for their ship?

Also, any suggestions for a new GM would be much welcomed.

Personally I would use Mongoose Traveller to run an ME campaign, but if you want something ME-STYLED with the saving of the universe and the ship unlocks and such, there's worse ways to handle it. As to the Normandy itself, you'd probably be best fabbing up a custom ship. Even the smallest ships in the Imperial Navy are easily five times the size of the SSV.

In 40K terms I would put the Normandy 1 as a raider with the Normandy 2 as a frigate. As Errant mentioned, the Normandy, either one, is tiny in comparison even to a raider.

I was planning on increasing the scale of the ships. Otherwise they simply aren't comparative.

Nothing speaks against just using the same stats for smaller ships, to keep with canon about the Normandy's size. Judging by other ships around - and her capabilities - I'd definitly put her to raider/frigate classes though.

SqueakMaan said:

Good idea. RT is all about big ships. If you still want your heroes to have a small crew, you could have their ship be partially automated in various ways. There's the option of a servitor crew and some xenos races, like the Demiurge, have automated ships as well.

Not really worried about the crew. That'll stay pretty much like the game, you have your core group... and the rest. They never really mattered until they got taken away.

SqueakMaan said:

Well, I guess that is true. Just remember that unlike Mass Effect, in RT there's no reason you're players can't say "this objective looks hard to take. Let's take a few goon squads to help."

Oh I intend to give them plenty of reasons to want to do that.

SqueakMaan said:

Well, outstanding. Sounds like you're on the ball already .

The Normandy was built as a very fast stealth vessel. Its shown in the game as being quite punchy for its size but significantly smaller than the true warships. This to mean says raider. With an Empyrean mantle. Give it a servitor crew and then you can spend lots of time detailing the few human crew.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

It's also ludicrously expensive for its size, given the sheer size of the Element-Zero core it requires to be as quick as it is comparatively. It's firepower isn't actually all that great in the grand scheme of things (the Normandy 2, is better, being bigger and having more advanced systems than its predecessor), simply because in the Mass Effect universe, firepower is always proportionate to size (a bigger ship can A: mount more guns and B: mount a bigger spinal gun). No matter how good it's individual weapon systems, however, the Normandy (either version) is hardly a match for ships like the Destiny Ascension (the Asari flagship) or the Alliance's Everest or Kilimanjaro -class Dreadnoughts, at least not by itself.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yeah, if I remember my Mass Effect fluff, it's been a while, the Normandy 1 cost the equivalent of a Dreadnought, or more. I think the core itself was large enough to power 2-3 normal ships.

I would look at a Raider with the SP cost of a Grand Cruiser. The trade off would be lots of one-of-a-kind archaotech goodies. but almost no space for extras.

ItsUncertainWho said:

You know, that reminds me of an NPC Inquisitorial scout ship I statted up. It had the Viper Scout Sloop hull and some of the most advanced stealth augmentations that the Imperium can field. Even with such a small ship, it's quite possible to fit many of those stealthy systems onboard. Just don't expect to be able to fit much else.

But I agree with your essential point. Start with a Raider but give it high SP. Maybe Grand Cruiser SP is a bit high, though. Perhaps a normal cruiser would be a bit better. Or, just use SP for additional systems, if at all. Such a special ship like this perhaps shouldn't even be given an SP cost. That would rather imply that there are numerous ones that can be picked up, although at an incredibly high cost.

numb3rc said:

Well, an STC fragment can go a long way with the AdMech.

Hey thanks guys, some really good points in here. I'm thinking possibly a frigate, with a high SP, it's not gonna start off too super. That'll be a part of the plot, finding upgrades and such to improve the ship.

Actually, that STC fragment idea is something I was already working on. IT would certainly go a long way towards getting the Tech Priests on the party's side.

ItsUncertainWho said:

A Heavy Cruiser, actually, but the sentiment is the same (I'm replaying the first game at the moment, just passed that bit). The Drive Core alone cost 120 million credits, equivalent to the cores required to construct 12,000 Fighters.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

You are correct, I checked the Mass Effect Wiki shortly after I posted.

I had forgotten that in ME2 they do state that other Normandy class ships have been built by the Earth forces.

Replace the Krogans with Orks. Asari with Eldar and Reapers with Necrons.

After going through BattleFleet Koronus I think the Turbulent class Heavy Frigate would make a particularly good version of the Normandy-2. Granted the penalty to command is a little annoying, but there are so many different ways to overcome that it's almost silly.

Gribble has pretty succinctly summed up the race substitutions for the game. I also considered Kroot for the krogan, they lack the hulking-ness but they make up for it in mercenary-ness

The Kroot could be swapped for the Salarians.

ItsUncertainWho said:

I don't see the link... Salarians are fast-thinking, short-lived, highly-intelligent beings whose greatest military strength is their nigh-unmatched intelligence network. The Kroot are a deliberately savage species whose culture is based on the notion of "survival of the fittest" and whose combat prowess is a combination of inhuman strength and considerable stealth.

If you're going to use the Kroot to replace a Mass Effect species, they're far closer to the Vorcha - both are savage and highly-adaptable species that commonly work as mercenaries.