Ok so for a game I'm in I'm playing an Explorator who's specialized in making stuff for the rest of the team, mostly weapons it looks like (big surprise). As a result me and the GM are working on a set of actual crafting rules. These crafting rules are specifically meant for use in Rogue Trader with it's Profit Factor and Aquisition rules.
This is a rough draft. I have two concerns.
1: It might be a little over-complicated.
2: It might make crafting an unattractive option compared to purchase due to multiple points of failure (but then again being the player I might be biased).
Let me know what you think and any suggestions you might have.
Grumble grumble. Not familiar with formatting codes for this MB so I guess it'll look a little crude.
Facilities
Facilities encompass both the workspace and the tools, as well as any helpers that may be required. The Scale of the facility is a function of the number of concurrent items it can produce at a time, not the gross size and mass. A factory that can be building 100 lasguns at a time is obviously much smaller than a shipyard that can work on 3-5 frigate class voidships at a time, but it is considered to have a larger scale.
Additionally specialized facilities can help you more reliably make equipment, though it's no faster nor better quality than it would otherwise be.
A facility specializing in one type of item like Bolt weapons, non-power armour, or Tanks, gains +20 on the craft roll, but only for succeeding on creating an item. This additional +20 cannot go towards successes for increasing quality or build speed.
A facility specializing in one specific item, Locke pattern bolt guns, Guard Flak armour, or Rhino APC's, gains an additional +30 to the craft roll, but under the same restrictions as before.
-10 Poor quality might be makeshift tools or even just an omnitool. You're exposed to the elements. Is there a flat rock nearby? If not you're building this thing in your lap. The help is a bunch of barely trained knuckle draggers that need to be reminded that you need to constantly remind which end of the saw to hold.
Poor quality automatically increases the time requirements of a project by 50%
+0 Average quality is just that, average quality. It likely includes a work bench sheltered from whatever elements as well as a reasonable amount of tools including hand tools and power tools and welders and saws and such. The help is your run of the mill, low level tech priest who have the average degree of training or non-tech priests with a knack for this sort of thing even if their training isn't as complete. Keep an eye on them and things will go well.
+10 Good quality . You've probably got a few semi-automated facilities like polishing machines and a plating tank and a forming presses. In addition the tools are all of better quality than the average. Even your chair is comfy. The help is highly competent, experienced tech priests led by a couple of Magos. They require minimal micro management. Life is good.
+20 Best quality . You've got a dedicated cogitator and at least one special purpose servitor to aid you in your work. Your precision tools can work **** near to the microscopic level and have more bling than most officer's uniforms. Your bench looks more like a laboratory than a workshop. The massage chair and flavored recaff machine are complimentary. The help? Well they're all highly skilled and motivated, all tech priests and mostly of Magos rank. They'd usually be running their own facilities, but the chance to experience this sort of elite facility, and sometimes work on their own projects. Supervision? Unless you're a superstar chances are you're the one who needs their supervision.
Best Quality automatically negates one degree of failure if any degrees of failure occur.
For exampe
The ordinary skill 30 technicians at an ordinary facility attempting to produce Guard Flak armor normally have a 30% chance of success. If they roll an average 50 they fail to produce useable armor.
However if that facility is a Guard Flak Armour factory their chance of success jumps up to 60%. If they roll a 50 again they gain no degrees of success to spend towards speeding up the build time or improving the quality of the armor.
The entire purpose of this is so that your average trained worker still has a reasonable rate of success for building ordinary quality stuff, but for people away from the lasgun factory it's a little trickier.
Crafting time: How long does it take?
Crafting time uses a modified version of Table 7-2 from the Core Rulebook pg 185. For items that are composite items (say a helmet with built in magnoculars or a bolter with a melee attachment) sum up the crafting time of each component. The crafting test is rolled against the rarest (and thus most difficult) item.
5hours-2 days = The simplest of items. Usually small and requiring little finesse or precision work.
EG Knife, staff, spear and some other primitive weapons. Civilian Firearm, Flintlocks, disposable pistol, shot pistol, shotgun (double barreled).
Backpack, Filtration Plugs, Clip/drop Harness, demolition charge.
2-8 days = Items requiring a semi-complicated mechanics or simple electronics.
EG Most SP weapons, most Las weapons, Solo Bolter, flamers. Chain weapons and Shock weapons as well as all remaining primitive weapons (including Mono upgraded). Most grenades and explosives as well as launcher weapons.
Flak armour, most simple armors.
Red dot laser sight. Chrono, Gas mask/rebreather, Grapnel, Standard voidsuit, Servo Skull, Voxcaster
5-20 days = Complicated items requiring significant processing or precision work. Most electronics.
EG Remaining Las weapons including hell guns and Lascannon. Ripper pistol and assault stubber. Remaining bolt weapons. Standard melta and Plasma weapons. Simple power weapons (Axe and Sword) Complicated explosives and launcher weapons like the Autolauncher and Hunter Killer missiles and plasma and filament grenades. Some exotic weapons (Dart Casters, Needlers, web guns)
Simple Bionics like bionic locomotion and limbs and respiratory filter implants
Carapace armor, armored bodyglove
Most chemicals.
Auspex scanner, AutoQuill, Preysense equipment, Selenite voidsuit, common servitors.
Most simple vehicles like motorcycles and Rhinos.
15-60 days = Very complicated items requiring much precision work and great patience (and probably skill) to complete at all. Usually has many parts, sometimes works with exotic systems and materials or mating different systems.
EG Beamer Melta, multi melta, plasma cannon, Wrath plasma pistol, Thunderhammer and power fists as well as other remaining power weapons. Remaining imperial exotic weapons like Screamer sonic rifle and forearm power blades.
Advanced bionics like Calculus Logi upgrades, MIU's, and mechadendrites.
Xenomesh armor, Synskin.
Suspensors, Grav equipment like grav chutes and plates, most servitors
Most standard vehicles like your average tank, Aquilia lander, or Stalker walker.
45days - six months = Items that are very large or extremely complicated, or both. Requiring specialized skills and great care, you may throw out several days work and start over simply because it's not quite up to snuff.
EG Power armor. Omniscopes. Force field technology. Advanced or very large Vehicles like Gun cutters or Land Speeders (counter-grav tech). Items that are composite of multiple items of slightly lower build times.
Years = These items often comprise a person's life's work and legacy, or are items created on massive scale.
EG: Best quality power armor. Voidship. Creating new items worthy of becoming sanctified by the Adeptus mechanicus as approved standard designs usually take years to create, test, and refine .
Step 1: Templates and knowing how to make it
What you know how to make is a function of your skills and the item's availability.
In the beginning you know nothing! Perhaps you can make an improvised weapon or stitch together a crude shirt, maybe you can maintain your weapon or vehicle with Tech Use, but that's it.
If you have the appropriate trade skill you know how to make items of that type that are availability Plentiful or more readily available.
For each of the following you go up the acquisition list by one step.
Trade skill at +10, Trade skill at +20, Common Lore: Tech, Forbidden Lore: Adeptus Mechanicus, Forbidden Lore Adeptus Mechanicus +10, Forbidden Lore Adeptus Mechanicus +20, Talented (trade skill).
The order doesn't matter as it's a simple abstraction of the accumulation of knowledge. Regardless of the combination of skills you cannot automatically know any template above Very Rare. In addition knowing how to build Archeotech and items not of Imperial manufacture are not appropriate to this particular system.
For anything above your automatic knowledge you can roll against your trade skill with a penalty equal to the item's availability. Success means you know it, failure means you do not. You can re-roll whenever you gain a new skill from the above list.
At your GM's discretion you could gain templates via Acquisition rolls or roleplaying.
Also at your GM's discretion you may be able to make Xenos Tech items if you have the Forbidden lore Xenos, or even Archeotech items if you have that Forbidden lore, but it is advised against being able to do so without significant effort. Also knowing how to build something and having the skills, materials, and tools capable of doing so are entirely different things Consider making learning the templates or acquiring the appropriate tools a form of endeavour all in it's own..
Memorization of large numbers of templates is extremely difficult at best and characters without the Total Recall talent are advised to keep an archive of templates, either via blueprints or dataslate for reference. Otherwise it may require an intelligence test to remember the specifics of the particular template. You don't normally “loose” known templates, but you may have difficulty remembering them at a particular moment.
Step 2, Purchasing the materials
Purchasing the materials to produce items is an acquisition test modified by the rarity of the item and scale as usual.
If you wish to purchase materials for a general class of item (say bolt weapons, carapace armour, or communications electronics) you purchase it based on the rarest item in that category you wish to make.
Purchasing materials for a specific item (Say bolt pistol, storm trooper armour, Vox caster) you get a +10 bonus to your profit factor for the roll.
If you wish to purchase a limited amount of material for a specific item rather than the usual supply that regenerates when you reach an appropriate port or similar resupply point (the specific number of units determined by scale), you get a +10 bonus to your profit factor for the roll.
For example
Magos Proust wishes to create a single bolt pistol for his captain. He decides he wants a few spares on hand as well should the need ever arise, but he doesn't care to make them continuously so he doesn't need a continuously replenishing supply.
Bolt Pistols are Rare (-10)
He only wants 2-5 bolt pistols total so the scale is (+20)
The materials are specifically for bolt pistols (+10)
And he wants to make it a one time purchase (+10)
In the end he gets a +30 to his Rogue Trader's profit factor for the roll to find that material. Much easier than finding 2-5 bolt pistols, but then again he has to actually have the time and facilities to put them together and there's always the chance he'll mess them up and loose the materials.
On the other hand Magos Proust really likes bolters, and the ship's munitorium does have the capacity to produce weapons on a higher scale. With enough time and effort he could equip entire companies of marines and soldiers with bolt class weapons. Let's do that instead.
The highest rarity he wants is [tt=Very Rare]We'll say he decides that Storm Bolters at Extremely rare are pushing it.[/tt] (-20)
The scale he wants is Minor since the munitorium can only produce about 30 units at a time. (+10)
The material is a general class and it's not a one time purchase so he gets no bonus for either of those.
In the end he gets a -10 penalty to the Rogue Trader's profit factor for the roll to secure a continuous supply of bolt weapon parts. If he somehow manages to make that roll though he can churn out as many bolt pistols, solo bolters, bolt guns, and heavy bolters as he has time and skill to make and so long as he keeps getting to resupply points.
Step 3: The Roll itself.
Once you've got all your ducks in a row the crafting itself is pretty simple.
Roll a craft skill check with all modifiers from the above sections (Facility quality mainly).
Success gives you a common quality item.
If you have degrees of success you can spend them to increase the quality of your item or decrease the crafting time.
You gain a Good quality item if you spend at least 2 degrees of success to do so.
You can also speed up the build time as noted on Table 7-3 Pg184.
Degrees of success spent on speeding up build time can't be spent on getting a good quality item and vice versa.
If you fail or achieve one degree of failure you can still create a poor quality item (if you want).
Attempting to craft a best quality item is something you must decide on before rolling. It requires you to move the item up one step on the time scale and achieve at least 2 degrees of success. If you only achieve 1 degree you gain a good quality item, bare success is Common quality. Failure results in nothing as your character can't stomach bringing a Poor quality abortion into this world when they were aiming for Best quality.
With best quality you cannot use degrees of success to speed up the process no matter
A ship's munitorium isn't dedicated towards it but it does has sufficient facilities to produce small arms and armours on the minor scale (10-30 units at a time). The facility's quality is the same as that of the Munitorium itself.
Most voidfaring ships have sufficient facilities to work on Trivial scale projects without interfering on normal operations, but exactly what can and can't be worked on and the quality of the facilities is up to the Game Master.
Edited by Spatulaodoom