Are there any rules (canon or fanmade) for how to handle AP Bonuses when the explorers have more than one ship?

I ask because just adding all AP Bonuses from all Ships seems ridiculously broken.

Maese Mateo said:

This is a question that I've asked in the past. It seems to be a function of:

1.) Just how many ships are we talking about

2.) Just how pimped out are these ships

3.) Group play style (that prefers higher or lower rewards)

4.) How often the group BURNS PF for purchases(from the Into the Storm Rules, because more PF burnt, the more PF needed brought in)

Right now, I'm storytelling two different Rogue Trader games:

1)

*One group has a Cruiser (the ship they start with), a vagabond-class transport and a goliath-class factory.

*The other group has a Orion-class transport (their main ship), two Riders and the next session are going to capture an Universal-Mass Conveyour from some pirates.

2)

*The Cruiser is VERY pimped up. They have two Luxury Quarters and many components which gives them like +300 or +400 on Trade, Creed and Criminal Objetives.

*On the other game, AP Bonuses from components are a lot less (+150 or so to Trade, +100 to Creed and +50 Exploration), although the Universal-class has 4 Main Cargo Hold which is a lot. I haven't calculated the Riders AP Bonuses.

3)

This is the same answer for both. I like a middle point. Good rewards are awesoe, but I think the game begins to be pointless once you get +25 Profit for doing a Lesser Endeavour during a single session.

4)

They have burned Profit only once in the Cruisier game. Never in the other one. Both groups don't like much the idea of permanently reducing the Profit Factor. They preffer to spend a Fate Point to re-roll or for a +10, and if they fail try again next session.

It's a problem of justifying reducing bonuses for ships they've gotten, which are supposed to be rare treasures, and game balance. I'd work it by making them engage in multiple endeavors to get the full bonuses, and then halve the second ship's bonuses, and then quarter the third's. Simple reason: diminishing returns. There's only so much of X any one place is going to need, especially for trade, and other effects just tend to bleed together when used together quickly (How nice. Another vaulted Cathedral. Inspiring, really).

So, if the players want to make the most of their ships, they need to have them invested in more than one endeavor and split their resources (and possibly PCs) with all the associated risks, or take lesser bonuses with make it easier to accomplish single endeavors, or take more time.

But splitting up the party/ships across multiple Endeavours is even more of a headache than colossal AP boni, and a sliding scale of AP bonus would undermine the sheer usefulness of having a large, balanced trade fleet, rather than the pocket battlefleet players will go for instead.

The system I'm trying out is to simply halve the AP bonus of any ship not the RT's Flagship, and to add 25 AP to the goal of an Endeavour for each ship beyond the flag. This way they're encouraged to design the flagship appropriately, and to include a decent number of Transports to maintain all the warships.

Plasmafest said:

The main problem I see with this is players making bad constructed ships on purpose to get more AP Bonuses. For example, a transport with 4 Main Cargo Holds and 4 Luxury Quarters but with no weapons. A group would never do that to their flagship (becase that ship is begging to be destroyed on space combat), but since you already have a fleet of 4-5 ships (specially if you have a Cruiser has your flagship), you can take the risk and build such a ship for the raw AP Bonuses it gives you. Even half the AP Bonuses to Trade/Criminal Objetives is a lot.

The options that came to my mind is giving a flat AP Bonus per ship to each Objetive, and only apply the Component bonuses of the flagship (since that's the protagonist ship, the one the players control). Each additional ship on the fleet gives +50 AP to any objetive for an Endeavour, for as long as the ship in question was useful and relevant for that kind of objetive (for example, a Transport with no weapons is hardly useful for a Military Objetive, but can be very useful for a Trade or Criminal Objetive).

That way additional ships work more like Components and encorages players to improve and take care of their flagship. It also encourages players to take risks and split their fleet so that while they are doing some important Endeavour, their NPC Ships can perform other Endeavours on their own (using the Background Endeavours rules from Into the Storm).

What do you think?

you could try having each similar component on another ship only add a fraction of the bonus, i.e. 10% or each multiple adding Less (second adds half its bonus, third adds 1/4 fourth adds 1/8). anything below 10 points gets ignored.

I'd prefer to see at least some proportion of a ship's actual AP value being used. An abstract value, while straightforward, tends to de-personalise the ships, making them rather samey, i.e. making a planet assault; a pair of armed Raiders providing the same bonus as a bombardment cannon toting Light Cruiser supported by a Barracks equipped, troop-carrying Transport.

The achievement point rules do need some work. If you don't want to write and test some elaborate house-rules, then I suggest upkeep tests. At the GM's discretion, you can make tests for things the PC's are using overmuch. Also, misfortunes reduce PF, and you can simply cap the possible amount of PF awarded from an endeavour, or make endeavours tougher so they rack up negative achievement points.

I'm toying with the idea of making the extra PF non-linear. Maybe the first extra 100 achievement points are worth +1 PF, but after that it gets more expensive. Maybe 200 AP for the next +1 PF, 400 AP for the next, then 800 AP...

Cheers,

- V.

Plasmafest said:

That depends on how active it is; sure, having two grand endeavors is going to be a pain, but if you have a Lesser Endeavor tacked on, it's not going to hurt much. This is the sort of opportunity that can be used to encourage player initiative; instead of having the GM hand out plot cookies, the PCs can come up with ideas of their own.

The system I'm trying out is to simply halve the AP bonus of any ship not the RT's Flagship, and to add 25 AP to the goal of an Endeavour for each ship beyond the flag. This way they're encouraged to design the flagship appropriately, and to include a decent number of Transports to maintain all the warships.

That kind of gimps the point of having other ships in the Trade Fleet all together, though -- you might as well just load up on military ships and have your one trade vessel when it's needed. Though there is something to be said for self-sufficiency.

You may want, instead, to develop Grand Endeavors with very high Achievement Point requirements that offer great rewards once the Achievement Point threshold is reached, and offer Peer and Goodwill contacts -- relieve a system-wide famine, ferry troops for a war, develop deep-space mining operations, etc.