Another Stars query - What parts of the Planet Generation rules do Gas Giants not use? They certainly do have everything up to Orbital Features, but do you role for Atmosphere? Climate? Resources?

lilybf said:

At the top of Page 19 it outlines that for Planet Creation you go through Body, Gravity, Orbital Features, Atmosphere, Climate, Habitability and Landmasses. Gas Giants are then said to stop after Orbital Features. Resources are not specifically covered in that list, but looking at the Fantasy Flight Planetary Characteristic Sheet , Resources are meant to "appear" in Territories. Since Gas Giants don't have territories, they don't have resources.

On the other hand, there's nothing stopping you from keeping Resources on Gas Giants with a little creativity. Convert the base minerals into various types of gases that can be refined into fuels, and then have Exotic Resources be strange gas-based lifeforms, or remains of Xenos science stations or something similar. The Plasma Scoop from Battlefleet Gothic was specifically designed to allow mining plasma from Gas Giants, so if you wanted to construct more ship-based resource gathering, Gas Giants would be the perfect fit.

Thank you, that's very helpful. =)

Actually, gas giants can provide huge tracts of resources, if you look in the right place. Namely, look at the moons. A small moon has a 50/50 shot of a resource, and large moons use the rules for planets, so each moon has a planetfull of stuff. A big gas giant can easily have multiple large moons… and if you get a Massive gas giant in the Outer Reaches, the moons count as one step closer to the star - which means they're effectively in the biosphere.

Remember the Svard system from the adventure in the GM's kit? That system had three more or less habitable moons around a gas giant, plus an orbital installation mining the gas giant itself. You can easily roll up a system that rich. Heck, in Real Life , Jupiter has four big moons. Wonder what the resources of that system would look like? (In 40K, Jupiter and its moons are a major forge world.)

Cheers,

- V.