I love this thread.

*sigh*

my personal favorite is the firestorm class frigate. upgunned sword that has one hell of a punch for it's class. slap a cloaking device on it or an eldar holofield and you really start to get annoying.

for bigger ships I'd have to go with the lathe class monitor cruiser. archeotech goodness in a pretty hard hitting cruiser that if properly outfitted can stay out in the expanse for a very very long time. bad guys will think twice about attacking you in a ship that big, and you can exploit the hell outta anything you find out there.

weaver95 said:

I also have a soft spot for the Firestorm. It's such a good fighting ship for the money, although a bit short on space for additional components. A good lance and proper macrocannons and a good Master of Ordinance and people will cease to bother you as much.

Aaah, it was good when we made mincemeat of The Fell Hand. He ran and survived though, but had he stayed and fought we'd slain him.

You need to read your Errata:

Lathe-class Monitor Cruiser (page 153): The Lathe-class Monitor Cruiser is listed as having one Dorsal Weapon Capacity Slot. This is incorrect. The correct listing is "Prow 1, Port 1, Starboard 1."

Excuse my ignorance but I don't recognize some of these transport classes, are they from Hostile Acquisitions or Battlefleet Kronus?

Psion said:

Sadly Hostile Acquisitions does not have any Ship Hulls. Battlefleet Koronus has quite a few mentioned in this thread including the Meritech Raider, the Turbulent Heavy Frigate and the Conquest Star Galleon (Yesssssssssss).

The Orion Star Clipper and the Firestorm Frigate seem to be the favourites though, and those are both from Into The Storm.

I actually have 2 personal favorites. The Meritech Shrike Raider and the Overlord Battlecruiser. Picture this, a Meritech Shrike Raider with the Planetbound for Millenia upgrade providing it with a teleportarium and a modified drive. This is the fastest, best armor, best detection, and best turret rating possible for this class of ship and what it can't take out with it's +5 to hit guns it can run away from.

The Overlord Battlecruiser combines the extra shields of a cruiser with the ability to fire more guns in one direction than anything but a Repulsive Grand Cruiser. But not cursed. Or forbiden extra armor. Well, maybe I am approaching this from a more militant direction that others, but these are amazing ships.

The Dauntless and Cobra have always been favourite ships of mine from BFG days mainly because I think they look cool. Both work prety well in RT as well. Admittedly I'd never opt for the Voidsunder on the Dauntless as a standard Lance Battery is far more flexable and able to fire to port or stb'd and thus add its fire to your Broadsides. As for the Cobra finding enough space for additional components is a problem if you wish to keep the torpedo tubes (who wouldn't) but a couple of good quality components at build can free up enough to make an interesting smuggler or void preditor.

Finally I have a real soft spot for the Jericho again this is because I like the look rather than its stats. Having said this however the ship has sufficient space that with the right components it can really rake in the achievment points and profit or become brilliant speciallist. I recently genned one as a dedicated Salvage vessel of an NPC and shoehorned in both Salvage systems and Ship stores allowing it to rack up profit by stripping out hulks. All in all, perhaps not the best flag ship but a vaulable addition to those RTs looking to cheaply expand their fleets

The Orion Clipper wins the Contest of Cool, with the Meritech Shrike coming in second. The Secutor wins the Power Prize.

But for my tastes, nothing beats the Star Galleon, for much the same reasons as eBarbarossa already said. The backstory, the grandeur, the class of tooling around in that vessel just takes the cake.

Erathia said:

Thanks, I was curious as I didn't recognize a few of the transport hulls mentioned as I didn't recall seeing them in the core book or Into The Storm. So Battlefleet Kronus covers more then just warships then? I originally passed on it because I was a bigger fan of trade and exploration endeavors then straight shoot-em-ups.

Off the books I do have, I have to go with the Orion. Fast and good cargo capacity, plus room for a few surprises to deter most interlopers, definitely a nice little ship for wheeling and dealing in the Expanse and Reach.

Errant Knight said:

Personally (and I doubt i'm alone) as a GM I feel the Orion is too good for the cost (I think I put it up to 28 SP in the last campaighn) and I don't like the weapon fit with it being the only IOM ship with keel mounts.

As for the Meritech deff agree. In my first Campaighn I ran the party started with one of these though odly equipped it with torpedoes. They ended up using it to great effect and even captured a virtually intact Carnage class (mainly due to my appaling rolling).

Psion said:

BFK has 3 Transports, 3 Raiders, 3 Frigates, 2 Light Cruisers, 3 Cruisers, 4 Battlecruisers and 3 Grand Cruisers. The Conquest Star Galleon (Cruiser-sized) is actually a hybrid Cruiser/Transport and can take Transport components, which is pretty neat. I have buit a long-term Exporation oriented vessel out of the Star Galleon, and given that it can take Main Cargo Holds it will definitely suit your Trade endeavours.

I use this ship I did it in adobe, cut and paste in adobe photo shop from the original images of course.

I don’t use the RT rules for ships or ship combat so I don’t know what stats it would have it’s a battle-cruiser class and its called the “Arcadia” (I grew up with Space Pirate Captain Harlock and Battleship Yamato) one of kind legendary ship of in our campaign.

Hmm. Well, it's one of the older designs- keel-built, rather than the more modern high-sided spine-built the Imperial Navy favours now. Offhand, I wasn't aware of any keel-built battlecruisers, but it's a big galaxy…

Looking at it, however, I can reverse-engineer a weapons fit. Sort of. 1 dorsal slot, 1 prow slot, 2 port slots, 2 starboard slots. Prow has torpedo tubes- looks to be either the Mars or Fortis pattern, as there are 6 tubes there. Fore broadside components look to be launch bays. Can't get any more specific than that (aside from "not a Hold Landing Bay"). Aft broadside slots look to be lances, and likely not one of the Battery variants, but a single weapon; at a guess the Mezoa Hybrid.
Dorsal- looks like a relatively light macrobattery- the Sunsear, perhaps? Alternately, it could be empty, or non-existent, with us seeing Additional Flak Turrets. (Actually, given the pattern of guns around the lance barbette, I suspect we'd be looking at Flak Turrets anyway)

I couldn't guess at more than that, not and have any chance of accuracy. I will say that it's probably got a Modified Drive, the Saturn Ultra, if I was building the thing, as if you're building a BC or BCV, you may as well go for that one, and ships of that vintage were often known for having surprisingly powerful and efficient engines.

Erathia said:

Sounds like I might have to see about ordering a copy of this book. Thanks

I'm kind of leaning towards the Universe-class Mass Conveyor… I ran out of "utility" type components to add to one long before I ran out of space… I have a long-term goal set for my players, and I intend to let them choose either the utility Universe or a hybrid Conquest, already fitted out and ready to run, at the end of it (each has a story as to why it's being given away, too), and making the Universe was so fun. I tried to imagine everything they might need besides combat capability, and I found I never ran out of space.

Combat-wise, it's got a servitor crew (with reclamation facility, because no drawbacks), three Disruption Cannons,, a Hold Landing Bay (two sets of fighters and a set of assault boats), Murder-Servitors and a Munitorium, Fire suppression Systems, a Minelayer Bay, and Defensive Countermeasures. The DCMs are a temporary thing, intended to be replaced if the RT ever gets his hands on a Teleportarium. This way, it even has combat utility - I thought stun cannons and component targeting made more sense for a utility-type, also very low space requirements are a plus. So it didn't exactly skimp on combat ability, just took the cheapest / lowest space stuff it could find, and still does ok as a supporter of their Dauntless (we only had the corebook when the campaign started).

Out of combat, but still mobile, the monster is running three Main Cargo Holds and a set of Shadowblind Bays, an Extended Supply Vault and an Arboretem (intended to help support their flagship on long missions too, don't forget), and a Salvage System to obtain surviving Components from enemy ships (don't worry, they don't typically have to fill up the Holds or weld it to the outside… see next section). This stuff is powered basically nonstop and so is always functioning, like the combat stuff above, although they may knock empty Holds or the Salvager offline to run some of the stuff in the next section without having to stop.

Stationary, and I do mean stationary, this thing basically becomes a mobile mini space station. It deploys two Lux Nets for extra power, activating its Spacedock Piers to allow up to four other vessels to dock and be repaired, refitted, etc. The Manufactorum and Medicae Deck come online, producing basic stuff and allowing full medical services for the Explorers, while the Asteroid Mining Facility provides the resources and fills the holds and an Empyrean Mantle makes it harder to notice (since the docked ships are as near powered-down as they get, they're already hard to detect on augurs anyway). It has three Ship's Stores components, providing 30 Space for keeping salvaged Components, and can fit these to itself to customize the ship on the fly or to any of the docked ships. Finally, it has a Plasma Scoop, which is normally kept unpowered at all times, but when leaving station-mode and returning to active transit, it can offline one of the things in the first two sections (probably the Salvager or Defensive Countermeasures) to refuel itself off a star and smelt the ores it mined while it was sitting idle. Additionally, if it doesn't mind being nearly totally unprepared for combat (maybe if it plenty of escort firepower), it can offline all the non-essentials and run the Asteroid Mining Facility while mobile, so it can move through an asteroid field or belt and just devour everything if needed.

….in combat, of course, it's still not the greatest, especially since the actual skilled crew are very few (two Navigators, two helmsmen, a captain and a first officer… anyone else the Explorers want on it they'll have to recruit. No Astropath, since it intends to be in vox range of their fleet at all times), and the weapons aren't the greatest. But can get two Disruption Cannons on a single target, has a really tight turning radius, can box itself in with mines to keep enemies at a range, or let them close and find out that the "defenseless" ship can selectively destroy components pretty well. Combat Void Patrol and the assault boats are decent support for defense and offense, and the rest of the fleet should be able to do the necessary damage to rout or cripple the ones focusing on the Universe before the DCMs' duration wears off. Armour isn't great, but it has a ton of Hull Integrity, so it won't go down quick.

Edit: OMG wall of text, I lost track while I was writing it. Does this forum have a tag I can use to hide the exact component breakdown, so people that don't want to see it all can just see my first and last paragraphs? I'm a little verbose T_T