Seriously, 5km is a long way to travel, in an emergency people are going to need to get around fast so how do they do it?

In my Campaign i am thinking of saying Imperial Ships have a Gondola track (something like aboard the Ishimura in Dead Space) as well as lifts between levels. One of my players is a bit doubful of this, saying that Imperial technology is just too clunky for something like that. My counter argument is clunky or not, a ship that size needs a transit system to be viable.

Additionally my group's ship has a Tenebro maze so i'll probably add enormous bulkhead doors that close around the track in the event of lockdown (but can be bypassed by the captain if needs be).

This sound good? any comments or suggestions?

The only people on most ships that need to move around are the command staff and security forces. All other crew will likely live and work in the same areas of the ship and won't have much need or reason to be out of their area.

You could also have small personel transports that hold 5-12 passengers, larger train-like transports, such as amuesment parks, that hold 50 or so, and small 2-3 person golfcart like vehicles. Although the gondola or subway style would work well.

B5 used a tram system in the core of the space station and the Excalibur starship had a subway car like system.

Other options: Logans Run pod/tram vehicle, ski lift style, steam,, coal, promethium, or electric powered trains, zero-gee archeotech people tubes, hugely oversized pneumatic tubes.

Wonkavators.

I gave my group servitor-borne rickshaws, with a palanquin for the RT. "Make a hole, peasants!"

On their cruiser, my players do have steam trains - the Rogue Trader got a platinium & gold platted armoured one, the Profit Express- to go around. Thanks to Ostentatious display of Weath, they even have a track around the hull to show off when they have visitors. They also have horses to ride around, there are a stable in the Arboretum...

There are some good ideas here.

Every ship is going to need some form of mass transit / cargo haulage system. Even if crew are quartered near their duty stations, there still need to be mass crew movements during a boarding action. Also, there is the matter of repairs. Given the size of the ship, and the clunky nature of 40K technology, some of the spare parts will inevitably be quite large. And, what about cargo? Unless the cargo bays open directly into the void, that needs to get hauled about, too. In other words, a ship is a small city in space. There should be some sort of roadway or light rail system to serve as the main arteries of the ship.

Of course, the exact form of the system could vary a great deal... Light rail or tube, roads with lorries, or more exotic repulsor-lift plates, it's all good. And, that's just for human ships. Can you imagine what orks would use? And the traffic inside a chaos ship is likely to be hellish.

Cheers,

- V.

Well the next ship , will have is going to have some "highways" running through the ship, so that i can get around on bikes(the into the storm ones) along with the light mechanized infantry, also to allowed wounded crew to quickly be transported to the medicea center.

This should be useful both against enemy boarding parties, and reduce damage to the crew on the ship.

Thanks for all the great suggestions!

I guess on reflection i will probably go with the subway idea with big clunky engines to carry the carriages around rather than a powered Gondola (i'll save that for when/if my group board a lost ship from the Dark Age of Technology).

I am going to have to use that Servitor-Rickshaw idea somewhere though...

5 km isn't that far. What I envision is most likely a central "spine" corridor that has a tram-like system, and then people walk from there on to their main destination. The trams would run constantly (lots of spare power), meaning that it would take around 15 minutes to get anywhere on the ship. Depending on artificial gravity tech, I'd also have trams run on the ceiling and walls of the central corridor. In the case of boarding, they may or may not be shut down.

A clunky rickety tram system, complete with massive showers of sparks, hissing of steam and the driver being a hard-wired in servitor, attended by crew men that keep the trams running in distinctive uniforms of heavy rubber aprons, gloves and boots for protection from the electrical discharges. Some sections of tram tunnel are plunged into darkness, and some lines are no longer in service (to many trams went missing...). For vertival travel, lifts. Massive cargo lifts and smaller personel lifts in the nicer parts of the ship. Most of these lifts are like a coal mine lift, not a nice one like in a shopping centre. Wide sweeping marble staircases in the bridge areas of the ship as well.

I know for instance our dauntless, uses a pressurised vacuum system for the transportation of macrocannon shells from munitions lockers to the guns. A somewhat smaller tube is used for the rapid transportation of personnel/wouned/security.

For the rest of the crew, its walking. Or in case of my wife, driving a Leman Russ MBT through the somewhat wider hallways near the core of the ship. But that is a somewhat entirely different problem we have to deal with.

Plasmafest said:

We've had the servitor palanquin for our "Fat Nav", complete with appetizers and scantily clad young men covered in oil. Sort of the worst aspects of Baron Harkconnnen and Jabba the hut really...

Oh and "Monorail!"

On ship belonging to the crew is a Xeno/Madcap/Stem-punk invetion that uses heat and steam(from the genertors and cooling systems) as source of energy to transport poeple at high speed's (up to 3G's) and in vast sizes (up to 25-30). Created by minor aliens the ship use all they "empty-free" space for atachment of many-rail balls that are rolling in difrent directions of the ship with gyroscope to leave the passngers in horizontal position. And few normal lifts and "skyways" for heavy duty machinery and cargo to transport it. There are alsow the so caled "Underdecks" no one likes it so there are only old lifts and stairs lots of stairs.

Grr @ forums.

Summary: the cruiser had trains, and giant elevators that would shift carriages five decks up or down. The Rogue Trader had access to secret passageways and a personal train.

The current ship is a Shrike. Only a couple of km long, so maybe some kind of perpetually moving walkways or something. The Shrike is pretty much a heretek design, so something more exotic wouldn't be too out of place.

Segways!

….What?

Why are you looking at me like that??

Yes, I know I'm necroing the thread, but I HAD TO…

Gavinfoxx said:

Turbolifts. Clearly.

We use a mixture.

The main passage along the spine of the ship has both a train (for VIPs like PCs and security forces) as well as moving walkways. There are cycle rikshaws - capable of transporting up to 4 passengers (or less with cargo) - for other areas.

Things my RT group has used to get around their ships in various games and at various points:

Segways

Tandem bicycles

A log flume

A man called George who was equipped with two halves of coconuts

Pegasus and Charlie the Wonder Horse (two mutant/cyber flying horses)

To be honest by the standards of my group their transport options are fairly tame…..

My RT's ship, a chaos-stolen maze of a ship, is essentialy Venice is Space. Which means no passages large enough for moterized traffic (other then the occational moterbike). Needless to say, nobody gets anywhere quickly. Which is why there are agility checks to see how many 1/2 hour rounds it takes for a character to arive where their going.

Or you can ask the Teleportarium for a shortcut - but that's risky.

Bron said:

I want to play in this group.

I pretty much pictured the ship like Pillar of Autumn. with the main hallway big enough for vehicle traffic, although for the most part its just walking. Or more likely for the crew, running, to keep them in shape. 5k isnt that long, and the chance of anyone needing to go from bow to stern fast is low.

Get the Vaulted Ceilings upgrade from RT: Into the Storm and drive around in Chimera or Rhino APCs. Show all those naysayers who said that a Mechanized Infantry regiment was a poor choice for deep space combat.

If you've already got high, open ceilings, then why not go whole hog and bring your hoverbike, thus making every trip to the donut shop reminiscent of the Endor chase?

One of my players managed to purchase enough combat bikes to outfit all the players and all the security forces on his ship… they use those… and elevators.

New supplemental component time I think for that, some good idea's.

Power requirement, Space required, bonus to putting out fires and reduction in crew lost during depressuriation's.

You just know some Captain is out their playing servitor pin bowlings everytime they go to the lower decks but for cramped ships you just can't beat crowd surfing I think.