In order for ships to engage in combat, they need to have matched speed and direction to a large extent. The dance of space combat is done at low relative velocities and distances.

If one side does not wish to engage, then there is a Stern Chase.

I am not an expert by any means but if we were to look at travel outside of combat should we not look at the ships velocity in Gs as stated in the profile if we were to add relative math and science to a 40k universe rather then using combat speeds?

Ain't expert either, my point was that I'm happy with FFG don't taking each hull speed into account. As to grav acceleration - I can do some math, but physic is beyond me. To be honest I don't like the idea of 3-4 weeks, just to slow imho.

I'm not sure if - let's say grand cruiser can travel with 1,5% of speed of light or more anytime, but I don't get any source about this so won't argue.

I read somewhere that there's craftworlds intersystem speed mentioned in one of the printed adventures, somebody can confirm?

Well, the science is all done already

I recall that thread was a lot of fun and oddly enough some of the calculations roughly match the estimates from the new book of course not taking into account individual ship speeds just average speeds.

Darth Smeg said:

Darth Smeg said:

<bows head before ancient ones wisdom>

I like how this game makes space feel big again, with its long travel times, terrifying dangers and wotnot. It really does help keep that 'Bold Explorers of the Age of Sail' vibe going. And it is a refreshing contrast to so many Sci-Fi settings where there is nothing epic or adventurous about space travel at all, and travelling to another planet, or even another star, is really just like jumping in the car and popping down to the shops.

Warning Maths………

Assuming

water is recycled.

2kg provisions per day.

density of provisions 1

50,000 crew

500 day trip will require 50,000 tonnes, requiring 50,000m^3 of storage. A square 36 meters on its side.

Most ships recycle or grow their own food, such as corpse starch, for the crew on the lower decks.

Fresnel said:

Good thing that ships are kilometers long, then.

Exactly. I cannot see how food is quite the issue the RAW says it is. A hold 37 x 37 x 37m is tiny compared even to a raider.

The six month limit does not instantly mean starvation. Infact in the core book it does say starevation should never happen earlier than a year. Wiith the six month of supplies you have relatively fresh stuff, and after that your stuck with stale foods that arent providing everything the body needs, and your morale slowly drops because of it. The ship should never run out of water, but the water might go stale, again hitting morale, but not having your crew thirsting to death.

2kg per day is enough for an soldier on active duty. Such rations contains all that is required to keep the soldier in fighting form.

500 days is over 16 months. A 37 x 37 x 37 meter volume is tiny compared with Imperial vessels. Even vessels without 'hold' components should be able to find space for this, or x10. These vessels are measured in megatonnes… Really 1 tonne of rations per crewman isn't a great deal at these scales.

For interest,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-2143222 6

50k cubic meters = 1300 TEU

Note: when I say supplies, I don't mean only food, but all the consumeables that a crew will go through.

Ships have alot of components filling them up, who's to say how much room is actually available for supplies (which includes more than food). The 36 meter cube includes pretty much no packaging/storage, no refrigeration equipment, no securing of the cargo. It does not include any organization that lets the whole thing be accessible as needed. The actual area securing those supplies would be considerably larger. Also, while a ship may be kilometers long, have you thought about how huge a 36meter cube actually is. I can say for certain several of my houses could fit inside it. How many ships do you imagine having the room to instal a few extra civilian houses inside? Personally I don't imagine many do. Also note that these supplies do not take even 1 unit of space on a ship.

Now you could easily strap on supply containers to your outer hull and take a LOT of extra supplies, just hope no one shoots at you much before you use them. Also as others mentioned there is filling your actual cargo bays, which judging from that artical could carry an immense amount of supplies, also if your ship has the vaulted ceilings upgrade I can imagine someone using cargo nets to fill up all that overhead space.

Also note that in my opinion having rations just filling the halls will prevent them from being rationed, as every crew will have unscrupulous ratings that will take a bit extra for themselves when no one is looking. Unless you are also going to be providing for extra security for the extra supplies, your precise calculations will end up being a bit off.

However, if as the gm, you deem it appropriate that ships carry alot more supplies, well deem it so to your hearts content. One of the cool things about rpgs is that you can alter settings to fit you and your groups viewpoint, and any gms should make the game fit them as needed.

The 2kg figure is from an army ration pack, lots of packaging plus toiletries. I imagine there would be galleys with stores distributed about the decks, part of the living quarters component. These stores can secure huge containers of things like flour, rice, beans, oil, concentrated fruit juice, plus dehydrated irradiated meat (perfectly safe btw), powered egg and milk (all fortified of course). Better than 19th century navy rations! I don't imagine anyone but senior staff getting fresh food.

Consider a frigate 1.4 x 0.3 x 0.3km. This is a volume of 126,000,000m^3. My 50k provisions would be 0.03% of this volume, but this is enough for Cruiser for 9 months! Yes, it is less than 1 space, it's about 1% of a space.

Ymmv, but I don't think the current RAW on this stands up. It also addresses the OP's issue.

RaW agrees with you that the supplies on a ship do not take up a significant portion of space. It seems to me what your disagreement lies is that you believe a ship will have plenty of room for more, and still take up an insignificant amount of space. Considering how much space extended supply vaults take up, I would agree that RaW gets itself confused about how much space those supplies need.

I would like to point out though that the contents of a military ration pack falls short of the neccessary supplies. There is medical supplies from medicines and bandages, to immunizations and stimms. There is replacement stores of clothing. There are tools that get worn out and need replacment, along with parts that need the same, lightbulbs dont magically appear out of thin air. The consumeables a crew needs to keep a ship in good order out on a voyage take alot more than food.

I would also imagine that though the volume of the ship itself is huge a real possibility is that not all internal volume is in use or particularly habitable. This ships take decades, centuries, or even longer to build sometimes. We might end up with entire subsections that were sealed off or forgotten through the building process. On the note of supplies I would say that food, water, and oxegen are the smallest percentage of what the 6 months rule is refering to. From a nerrative perspective and not from Rules as Written or Rules as Intended the following components refer to different types of supplies. Extended Supply Vaults in my games and nerratives represents multiple warehouse sections that hold bulk hardware replacements and non food, water, or personal items. This supplies include maintanence tools and supplies, extra parts for all onboard systems, and anything that the ship needs to run at peak performance. This compenent, the Extended Supply Vault is optimize for bulk cargo rather then the standard supplies holds a ship containes that has all items mixed and matched. We move on the the Arboritum I think is the components name. From a nerrative perspective I see this more like hydroponics vaults that supplement the ships food and water allocation and also regenrate the quality of air on a ship. While the purpose of the component is in my opinion to grow its own food instead of having prepackaged supplies the nature of the supplies that are implied for the 6 months are now more around the lines of agricultural equipment and supplies such as seeds, livestock, soil, nutirtion packages, and other filtration and maintance equipment.

Now this is a house rule in my games but I find that it is a good rule of thumb when it comes to Cargo Holds and food, medical, or other types of supplies. each 25 AP a cargo hold can manage equals 1 standard month of a specific type of supply. So for example Base 6 Months, Extended Supply Vaults increase base time to 12 Months, and if we add the Arboritum it increases base to 18 Months. In the context of starvation I would say that with all the components above you would be looking at 18 months limit of fresh supplies, 36 months when real starvation starts kicking in with a maximum tresh hold of 48 months if you have a player running the crew role that allows you to increa your supplies by rationing them.

Following the example above in my games you have a Base of 18 months with all the components and you choose to use a 100 AP Cargo Hold to hold 4 additional months of foodstuff. That would mean if you have thecrew extension of resources you can reach a limit for true starvation at 56 months. The counter balance of my house rule is that since you are using the AP that the hold could provide in trade for additional supplies you do not get the bonus AP unless you use the supplies to barter with them.

Sorry for the extra stuff in the post but I thought using an example might help others adapt around the inconssistant aspects of the rules and real life math.

Asajev said:

Each of the Components you mentioned doubles the base time. Two doublings results in quadrupling the base time (to 24 months) since this is not D&D with weird 'additive multiplier' rules.

it was always my interpretation that it increased the multiplyer by one and no one had a problem. has FFG made a remark on this interpretation?

Note that imo water and oxygen are recycled in the 'life support' component.

Of the rest, food makes up the vast majority of of our needs (by volume). Assuming most crew live like 19th century seamen in consumption - rather than modern westerners - all the rest is small change.

The consumables needed to maintain ship systems is an unknown and therefore can be made the 'real' issue for long duration voyages. However, malnutrition needn't be an issue - but p227-228 suggests it is.

By this logic the manufactorum componet should aid long duration voyages by making consumables and refurbing worn parts.

Fresnel said:

Water supplies are probably needed for ship systems too. Water may be a significant consumable. However, recall that the crew live in a pressurised vessel - if there was significant leaks, air would be the major issue. Oxygen can be got from water, so again water might well be an important consumable, but not for just for drinking.

However, ice can also be found virtually everywhere, so restocking water can be done between ports - in realspace. But again I point to the vastness of these vessels. The crew are ants in a cathedral. Their water needs are tiny.

Your point about common rations being near Tudor navy style takes the Grim/dark setting too far imo. We have Genetors capable of all sorts of Genetic engineering, but basic nutrition is a lost science? Advances in preserving food and the importance of good nutrition was driven by the 19th century navies. It wasn't about being humane to the crew, it was about effectiveness. You cannot whip a sick man to health.

Rations can be acquired at poor to best quality. I imagine 'common' being military grade rations (with shelf life measured in decades) to be made by every agri-world in the imperium. Thats a lot of worlds, servicing the Imperial navy and guard, and RT would be dipping into the vast export market for these. A place like Footfall will have Transports coming in with nothing but military grade rations imo - a staggering amount.

Ymmv of course.

Asajev said:

In the absence of a special rule to the contrary (such as with increasing Unnatural Characterisitics), the standard rules for mathematics apply. If you double an amount twice, you've quadrupled it. D&D has made many gamers fall into thinking its 'additive multipliers' rule applies in those games too, but that's not necessarily true.

thank you mate, so a ship with Extended Supply Vaults, Arboritum, and the Ship Role for rationing would give the ship a base of 48 months or 4 years?