"Shipwright: Used to design, upgrade, and create voidcapable vessels."

So, my question is, can my players use this to make new ship hull types? and to use it to make changes to exsisting ones?

"Armourer: Used to design, upgrade, and forge weaponry, from personal arms to starship batteries."

My other question is, can they make new types of weapons on a ship? or use some small tech and magnify it to ship weapon size? or just use allien tech and integrate it into there ship?

The answer to both of these questions is a question of it's own. "Do you want them to be able to do these things?" While I would say that designing a full ship is well beyond the means and capability of almost any character, reffitting a hull to accept non-standard components or developing new components based on the things they uncover in the expanse should be possible, provided they have the resources, ie a friendly shipyard or forgeworld willing to let the characters get down to the business of perverting a starship.

Khensu said:

Well if they have the correct skill assign a difficulty to the task with a minimum required number of successes over time (an extended test). In my campaign designing a new vessel from the keel up would be Hellish -60, require the dedicated cogitors of a shipyard (Influence test/Mechanicus), and take a minimum of X DOS after a period of 1 or more years. More DOS required per class size of ship.

If they want to mess with archeotech or xenos tech the appropriate Forbidden Lores should be tested as well not to mention the need for extensive reverse engineering to understand the basic workings of the advanced/xenos apparatus.

As a general rule require a minimum of infrastructure for anything to do with a voidship. Thousands of workers, skilled ones, large drydock et cetera would be bare minimum, no tot mention the needed gargantuan tools.

New ship types, hulls, refits? New Weapons? Sure, if you want them to. If not, say no. In general the only people capable of this are xenos or centuries old mechanicus shipwrights with entire forgeworlds backing their experiments.

If they have all these things and still want to do it, allow them to do so...say to them: "Okay Majos Varn, you want ot re-design this Lunar Hull into a Armageddon Battlecruiser with Plasma Batteries acquired from an Eldar vessel. Put your character sheet aside, roll a new character, we'll see you in three years game time. We'll make the tests then - no need to get ahead of ourselves. Whats the name of your new PC?"

In my campaign the story of recovered STC fragment with plans to old cruisers on it is given, two cruisers, complete plans, very primitive easy to produce tech on each ship type. It still took a forgeworld a century to ramp up production. That is really, really fast. Building a single vessel of a unique class and no more of that class would be insanely expensive even by RT standards.

bobh said:

Three years? You're being a bit generous there - it'd be more like 60, at least, and that's assuming the Magos doesn't get shot for being a heretek due to working with disgusting xeno-tech and creating a ship that hasn't been vetted by the Adeptus Mechanicus leadership back on Mars.

and how much tiem would you give a player to make his own weapon?

something like an existing one, but with his specials and needs, like a gun that is twin-linked storm, or something like that? or a Gun that shoots tearing ammo, or something?

I use these rules in the campaign i've been running since early this year.

bobh said:

we started using this rules too, well done

bobh said:

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

As far as I am concerned, in the Imperium, there is no such thing as a "new ship". All ships are basically refits of older ships that are repairs of even older ships that are copies of copies of copies from the antiquated scrapyards of the Dark Age of Technology.

The only "new" ship that they ever get are reassemblies of older ships, or scrap, by the Adeptus Mechanicus, straight from Forge Worlds, using techniques that are likely guarded jealousy, with the approval of the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition. To get a hold of the appropriate sanctions, the appropriate warrants and papers alone is a baffling task beyond comprehension. Add to that access to facilities and a documented, approved AdMech workforce.

If I were the GM, I'd consider letting them "construct" a "new" ship, but it would likely have to be with the seedier clientele of the Imperium, such as pirate Voidstations and mechanics and so on - and it would be a major undertaking, worthy of a campaign on it's own, involving the entire group, not simply a few rolls, money and a fast-forward time period.

As for "new" weapons, xeno refits, armors, batteries, etc; Go wild. Just remember that you set the boundaries and that you have to be able to say "No" .

There are occaisionally new ships. The main problems is they can take anywhere from years to centuries to build, and it's rare even the smaller void ships take less than a decade.

Sure there are new ships. The Cobra class destroyer is described as being the closest thing the Imperium has to a mass-produced starship, with a decent shipyard able to turn one out in a scant few years.

Fgdsfg, why would the Ecclesiarchy need to approve of a new ship? While the Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy can overlap in many areas, why would the construction of a new war machine be one of them? Sure, priests would bless chapels and other various chambers, I don't see why the Priesthood of Mars would need to ask permission of the Priesthood of Terra to do what they do, any more than the Departmento Munitorum would ask the Ecclesiarchy's permission to invade a rebelling world or the Administratum to colonize a new one.

Tyraxus said:

Fgdsfg said:

The Mechanicus controlls all technology by treaty with the Emperor. The Ecclesiarchy has nothing to do with it and has no power over the Mechanicus.

ItsUncertainWho said:

This. The Mechanicus is technically an allied empire, not part of the Imperium, although they've grown so intertwined over thousands of years that the joins are effectively seamless. Hell, it's questionable whether even an Inquisitor retains his suite of powers on a Forgeworld via right of his station or via recriprocity granted by the Treaty of Mars (and I'm sure there's some in-universe debate whether a Magos of a Forgeworld would be within his rights to tell an Inquisitor "Shove off, I'll take care of this, this is Mechanicus soil" or not; in games I run the Magos most certainly can but generally won't due to politics).

ItsUncertainWho said:

Since multiple people seem to be failing their comprehension rolls: Approval .

This. The Mechanicus is technically an allied empire, not part of the Imperium, although they've grown so intertwined over thousands of years that the joins are effectively seamless. Hell, it's questionable whether even an Inquisitor retains his suite of powers on a Forgeworld via right of his station or via recriprocity granted by the Treaty of Mars (and I'm sure there's some in-universe debate whether a Magos of a Forgeworld would be within his rights to tell an Inquisitor "Shove off, I'll take care of this, this is Mechanicus soil" or not; in games I run the Magos most certainly can but generally won't due to politics).

The Treaty of Mars predates the formation of the Inquisition by far. The Treaty of Mars was formed at the eve of the Imperium, while the Inquisition rose from the ashes of the Horus Heresy. I would say that the Treaty of Mars would not afford the AdMech any exemption from the Inquisition, nor would it stipulate that the Inquisition -do- have authority; I think the Inqusition by large depends on their carte blanche over Imperium subjects.

So I would say the absolute opposite - The Inquisition could most absolutely crack down on the Adeptus Mechanicus or a forge world of their choice, but likely wouldn't, out of fear of the AdMech or Magos in question throwing a bitchfit over the whole thing. Just like between the Space Marines and the Inquisition, I think there's a lot of "Why don't you just piss off?" between the Inquisition and the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Edit: I want to take this opportunity to again voice my hatred for the forum software. The quotes are broken and there's no way for me to fix it.

I'm loving this discussion, but in the interests of not derailing the thread any further, I've reposted our conversation in its own thread in the main RT forum:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=123&efcid=3&efidt=572655

Fgdsfg said:

If it makes you feel any better, the old system was far worse.