I have a player who's a freak about vehicles. His gun-cutter is his baby (plans on having a Ward Accessor installed so only he or those under his supervision can board it). He came to me and asked me about altering the vehicle. Either changing the weapons out or the possibility of adding more. Now I'm pretty sure there aren't any hard rules to support this, so my question is:

Does anyone have any rules (or even ideas) about how to allow players to alter their vehicles? First off, should it even be possible? Change is nearly heresy in the WH40K universe, after all. How many weapons could you add to a vehicle, if any?

I was thinking that if adding or changing out weapons, you could only add or change out weapons that can be fit on the same size of vehicle (meaning you can't put weapons equipped on a Massive vehicle onto an Enormous vehicle).

Help would be greatly appreciated.

I would say yes, you can definitely modify the vehicle. Have him make an acquisition for each weapon system he wants to have added or component to be swapped. Then he has to get them properly added, for that you could use the rules for adding starship components but reduce the time involved by say 1/3.

I agree that you cant just go adding weapons willy nilly to your vehicle, or it will turn into a very orkish vehicle (penalties to speed and maneuverablility?). So unless he wants that, he can only swap out one weapon for another of similar size and weight.

Pretty much every variation of the guncutter that can exist has existed in one pattern or another. If he can do the research - or get someone in the Ad. Mech.to do it for him - he can probably find what he's looking for and then it's just a matter of Acquisition checks to get the parts (possibly a Trade skill check to construct them from scratch) and either more Acquisition checks or some Trade skill checks to get the work done.

After looking at the vehicle section of Dark Heresy Apocrypha and the vehicle section of Into the Storm (and the weapons catalog from The Inquisitor's Handbook ), I believe it is quite possible to customize your player's gun cutter. I don't know the rules for adding extra weapons, but I suppose they would cut down on the vehicle's maneuverability.

The regular gun cutter has four heavy-weapon mountings (two pilot-operated auto-cannons, and two gunner-operated heavy bolters). From looking at the material, I can assume that you can exchange the heavy weapons usually onboard the gun cutter with other heavy weapons. For example, you could trade the pilot-operated auto-cannons with lascannons, because both of these weapons are classified under the "Heavy" class. Refer to the rules below if your player wishes to swap out weapons:

Range: Unchanged (100m = 1 AU; round fractions up) *

Class: Unchanged

Rate of Fire: Unchanged **

Damage: Unchanged (Type also unchanged)

Penetration: Unchanged

Clip: Up to the GM. Usually a multiple of 50 for spacecraft.

Reload: Unchanged **

Hope this helps.

* The guncutter AU range may be a typo, but I would suggest rounding up

** There may be typos within the gamebooks. The heavy bolters for the guncutter are said to be twin-linked, making their RoF: -/-/20, Reload: 4 Full

Well seeing as there is a lack of Vehic upgrades and build rules… I usally just Eyeball it. Find something in one of the books near enough to what the players want and make modifications as needed. Once ginned up a Lemun Russ battle tank by talking a look at the transport and making a few adjustments. So as I said just wing it. as for modding being hertical…… Your Rogue Traders….the law is more a set of guidlines then….laws.