Auxiliary M-1.r life support (no power, same space, +1 ship point): Because stale air is better then no air.

Auxiliary Geller Field (no power, no space, +1 ship point): If your plasma engines are destroyed or if your warp engine is destroyed, you won't be around to care. If your navigator is killed, you'll probably have a (lesser) spare. But if your Geller Field is destroyed, you're stranded. Since they don't take up space or power, you might as well have an extra laying about.

No two essential components are essential enough as these two to warrant an auxiliary. Except maybe for the warp/plasma engines, but they are far too large and their destruction is far too catastrophic. So for an auxiliary component you reduce the power to zero. When the auxiliary is active the main component will not require power anyway. Space remains the same. Increase the ship points by +1, because otherwise you cold take infinity Geller Fields with you, as long as you only power one at a time.

Is there anything stopping you from taking two?

Fgdsfg said:

Page 199 Core Rulebook: [...]A ship must ha ve one (no more) Component from each of the following categories,[...]

Red Bart said:

Well.. dang.

I suggest you check out the RT book "Into the storm: Explorers Handbook" it gives extra equipment not listed INCLUDING a auxilliary gellar field and 2 more types of void shields you can use instead as well as a host of other items you might like. Here is an example of the Emergency Gellar Field directly excerpted from page 156.

Emergency Field
Some captains equip their Gellar field generators with emergency
cogitation circuits that activate the field automatically upon
detecting the warp. Though many scorn the idea because of
the extra power draw, and others are distrustful of automated
circuitry, such devices have saved ships in the past.
Auto-engagement routines: If the ship unexpectedly
enters the warp, roll 1d10. On a 3 or higher, the Gellar Field
activates automatically, protecting the ship from any warp
intrusion that may have taken place.

That's still only one Geller field which could be destroyed/sabotaged.

hey you can always simply houserule that you can have more than one component if you wanted to...if your willing to get rid of the space and extra power for them...i dont see why not ( personally i think the ENTIRE void shield setup is a total BS waste of time but thats just me...i still follow the rules for them though ( too lazy at this point to screw with creating a set that actually works anyway..lol ) ) Though if i were to houserule the voidshield setup id definitely do something like:

A ship can have as many void shields generators as it has locations ( IE IF a cruiser has 2 Port / Starboard and 1 Dorsal/Prow locations then the ship can have 2 void shield generators on port/starboard EACH and one on dorsal and prow each in addition to the ONE basic unit that covers the entire ship..thereby reinforcing the ships shielding in those areas commensurate with the ships size/class so that battleships become truly fearsome and able to shrug off damage better HOWEVER...a rules change i would make is this:

The void shield ONLY stops energy based weaponry and does NOT affect/effect ANY solid projectile weaponry ( aka macro cannons or torpedos for instance ) And the "Lances"...total BS waste...sorry but energy IS stopped by an energy shield ( aka void shield ) so they do their damage to the void shield FIRST..and if that damage is greater than the total Voidshield rating for that area...THEN the target will take the remaining damage to its hull bypassing armour factor ( thereby giving you serious pause to make sure your ship has good shielding since lances are still viable weapons with good rolls.

So basically your ship would have the usual primary void shield generator/array AND the option of having an EXTRA generator at each location you had a weapons hardpoint on...1 extra generator PER hardpoint at those locations...so say a battleship has 3 port/starboard hardpoints..then you can mount an extra 3 voidshields at the port AND starboard if you want to pay the cost in space and power to house and run them. Those extras can be any layer level of VS ( single/dual/triple/quad ) as long as your ship is large enough to house that particular array

Done this way a battleship that did mount maximum VS protection would be able to blunt lance strikes al but totally..forcing the enemy to close ranks so it could open up with its broadsides and mainguns....giving the battleship a fighting chance....but still totally vulnerable to a broadsides of macrocannons etc..so the system done this way would really only be useful against lances and the laser batteries etc...as well as eldar ion and pulse weaponry too

OK you got me convinced to do it this way now after thinking bout it..lol i like this setup better..lol but yeah..if you wanna houserule it i really dont see why you couldnt include more than one of the components ( especially a backup life support ) but youll have to pay the price in power and space loss as well as any associated SP points EACH time you take that particular component...great way to bleed a dynasty dry fast....

Cobramax76 said:

Done this way a battleship that did mount maximum VS protection would be able to blunt lance strikes al but totally..forcing the enemy to close ranks so it could open up with its broadsides and mainguns....giving the battleship a fighting chance....but still totally vulnerable to a broadsides of macrocannons etc..so the system done this way would really only be useful against lances and the laser batteries etc...as well as eldar ion and pulse weaponry too

...How is that better? Lances are already terrible, macrocannons outstrip them in every way by RAW

Every way BUT range...macros are terribly short ranged...Rogue Traders have to pay our PF/SP to get their ship repaired and are out the time thereby losing more profit... Its easier and prefferable to cripple your target from a safe distance away ..which is where lances come in..in addition to their ability to bypass the armour according to RAW ( which is something macros DONT do )

Cobramax76 said:

Actually with the salvo rules, Macros do bypass armour after (on average) 2 hits past void shields. It's one of the major complaints about the space combat system.

Yeah i definitely agree the space combat system is for the most part FUBAR..lol but easily fixable/houseruleable so..meh...already done..lol

Easy fix: reduce all ship armour by 12, to a minimum of 0. Lances get tearing, broadsides get storm. Combining salvoes is removed and armour applies to each hit. Fixes everything wrong with starship combat.

Errant said:

Giving the Tearing quality to Lances seems like a good idea (I don't know about the other fixes you mentioned, but that one seems to work great, I'll start using it on my games).

Sounds like a simple fast fix to me Errant..My compliments to you on a elegantly simple fix

Not my fix, actually. Just one I advocate a lot. Comes from this thread: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=160&efcid=3&efidt=500039&efpag=3