We are currently playing a rogue trader campaign and are enjoying it very much. We aren't at the point yet, that we had balancing problems with macro-cannons.

But i see the point and have some thought to solve this problem. I am no friend of houserules that change a lot of table-entries or written text. That's why i personally don't like the "mathhammer" solution. Players look in the books and are confused why their weapons now do less damage than in the tables. But that's just my experience.

My idea is to just modify an existing voidship component. In this case: Armor Plating and Armoured Prow.

(the "excess void armor" component in "lure of the expanse" is crap.)

Houserule:

Armor Plating (supplemental component)

Additional adamantine plates protect this vessel from harm.

Armor : Increase this vessel's Armor by 1. This component may be chosen once plus one more time for every full 20 points of hull integrity the voidship has. For every additional time after the first, that this component is chosen decrease the damage of every macrocannon and bomber hit by 1 before adding together the total damage of the hits.

Dead Weight : Decrease this vessel's Manoeuvrability by -2. For every additional time this component is chosen, decrease the Manoeuvrability by -3. If this component is taken more than once, decrease the speed by 2 for a raider or transport and by 1 for frigates and cruisers.

Armoured Prow is a component just for cruisers. Add the following to the description:

When hit from the prow direction, decrease the damage of every macrocannon and bomber hit by 1 before adding together the total damage of the hits.

Example: a Lunar class cruiser (core rulebook p.196) could take the (houseruled) Armor Plating component up to 1+3=4 times. The lunar cruiser would then have 21 Armour, speed 4, Manoev -1 (+10-11) and would have paid 8 space points for the excessive armor platings. In this case every macrocannon would have to decrease the damage of every hit by 3 points.

A plasma battery with 1d10+4 damage and 8 hits (10 hits -2 for void shields) would then on average do 31 damage instead of the original 55 damage. Against the Prow (with armoured prow component) it would have been only 19 damage. On average, it would take at least 6 hits to even deal damage with a macrocannon against this cruiser (with shield rating 2).

This way it is possible to create a very heavily armoured voidship, that is fairly resilient against the macrocannon rule, but at the cost of mobility. The armoured prow houserule adds a tactical element. With it, it's best to get into the rear or the flanks of the cruiser to damage it with macrocannons. But cruisers are the most lethal in the side-firearcs..

Do you have any thoughts on that? Any critic or points that i missed?

Ehhhh. I'd have to try it out, but it still seems like it would only be a nerf to players with higher BS, rather than a bonus to NPCs and characters with lower BS that could only score a hit or two. The convenient thing about the mathhammer rules is that it evens out the power curve on both ends, so powerful characters are still going to deal heavy damage, while even an incompetent crew can do SOME damage.

Macro-Cannons are good allrounders in RT and with high BS they even outperform most other weapons.

Yes this houserule would not only weaken high-hit macrocannons, but macrocannons in general would be worse against this ship.

It is intended to augment the rock-paper-scissor principle.

An armoured ship like this lunar cruiser would be best attacked with lance weapons, torpedos and the like.

As was pointed out in the Mathhammer thread, all you need to do is add 12 to every Macrocannon weapon and just subtract the shots one at a time. The effect is the same, and then you get to tell your players "Your Ryza now does 1d10 + 16!!!!!!!" and hope that they don't think about it too much.

Really every ship should be attacked with lances and torpedos, because lances and torpedos are great. The problem is they are hard to get past void shields and incredibly expensive respectively. I haven't tried your change but it does seem interesting If the armoured sections are components then would critical hits destroy them? That could be a neat change for starship combat, where smaller raiders dart around trying to crit thte armour off your ship making it increasingly more vulnerable.

I'm not sure if it's simpler than Mathhammer because you're still directly modifying a common stat in the game, and you are making Macrocannons less powerful instead of more.

As was pointed out in the Mathhammer thread, all you need to do is add 12 to every Macrocannon weapon and just subtract the shots one at a time. The effect is the same, and then you get to tell your players "Your Ryza now does 1d10 + 16!!!!!!!" and hope that they don't think about it too much.

Really every ship should be attacked with lances and torpedos, because lances and torpedos are great. The problem is they are hard to get past void shields and incredibly expensive respectively. I haven't tried your change but it does seem interesting If the armoured sections are components then would critical hits destroy them? That could be a neat change for starship combat, where smaller raiders dart around trying to crit thte armour off your ship making it increasingly more vulnerable.

I'm not sure if it's simpler than Mathhammer because you're still directly modifying a common stat in the game, and you are making Macrocannons less powerful instead of more.

+1