hello this is a write up of a major "boss" ship for a campaign I am writing. This beast is not going to show up till level 6 or 7 and is the flagship of the Morr dynasty ( which is not based in the kronus expanse, but has brought it's fleet in to take over the players holdings.)

I Mostly envisioned it as a fleet breaker and command ship.

It is mostly kited out for long range combat while the support ships move in and engage the targets at short range. It also has great anti-boarding defense incase anyone gets too close.

Despite it's awesome firepower I believe it's Achilles heel ( the fact that 3 components tend to explode if damaged, not to mention the loss of power if the Aux plasma banks go up) should mean that determined or smart explorers should have a fighting chance...if they survive the first broadside lol.

Name- The Drakes Trumpet

Class- Repulsive grand cruiser

speed-7

detection +20

armor-20

maneuverability +18

hull-88

turret rating-3(4)

weapons-1 prow, 1 dorsal, 2port 2 starboard

crew rating-50

past history-wrested from space hulk

Quirk- wrothful

vessel of the fleet -2SP version

space-90 (90 used)

power 96(107) 107 used

crew-100

moral-101

essential componets

plasma drive-best saturine class S

Warp engine-mislnslav h616b

void shields-triple void array

bridge-fleet flag bridge

life sustainers-vitue pattern

crew quarters-voidsman

augur array- deep void

geller field-warpsbane

supplemental componets

4X Best quality best turbo hecutor-patteren plasma broadsides (2 port/2 starboard)

range 13, strength 6, dam 1d10+3, crit 4

prow- fortis-pattern torpedo tubes

dorsal- best quality void sunder lance- range 7 dam 1d10+5, crit 3

best quality aux plasma bank

flak turrets

munitorioum

observation dome

reinforced bulkheads

best quality barracks

best quality tenebro-maze

several atomics

crew improvement

best quality storm troopers

torpedo load out-24 standard plasma( 6 in tubes)

12 standared melta warheads

12 seeking vortex

bonuses- good rep imperial navy

+5 navigation

+20 command(+50 to repel hit-and-runs/boarding)

any feedback would be appreciated, is it too much?, are players going to rip it apart?, is my math way off?

I included to updated weapon stats to show which stats changed with the improvements.

Just for theory it's support fleet will probably include 3-4 raiders/ frigates, 3 carrier light cruisers, and a cruiser with 1-2 support ships( freighters/ troop ships).

It has a Tenebro-Maze, so the potentially explody components will pretty much never go up.

It's final power depends a lot on the power of the characters on board it. My current party has a mostly unimpressive frigate, but its BQ Laser macrobatteries and the Arch-Militant's effective 90 BS make it a force to be reckoned with.

It looks perfectly fine for a boss encounter to me (except that the battle seems like it will take some 20 hours to play out with that many ships), but none of us here have any idea about your PCs, their ship(s) and their playstyles. Personally, if met with a ship like that I would send my highest fellowship characters (at least 70) on a fast ship with a +60 bonus to attempt to board the grand cruiser, and have them burn fate points for maximum degrees of success. When setting up ultimate fights like this, you may have to count on the players accepting costs they normally wouldn't in order to win.

Command checks get even easier to max out if you happen to have an Ork handy.

Sorry I should have mentioned there are no players yet, I'm just trying to map out a long term campaign. I only added the other ships as a what if.

any feedback would be appreciated, is it too much?, are players going to rip it apart?, is my math way off?

I'm afraid that's one of those questions that cannot be meaningfully answered without knowledge of the players/PCs and their ship(s). If they get an old transport and stick with it forever, this would be overkill to the point of sillyness.

If they instead go for a warfleet, and collect ships like stamps, this looks nice or even underpowered.

As already mentioned, the tenebro maze potentially prevents the detonations of the explod-y components, so the weakness you suggest is largely irrelevant.

That said, the only thing that worries me are the atomic, really.

They are to be deployed via torpedoes I pressume?

Atomics have their own method of attack. Part of their power is that you can launch a potentially infinite number of them in one round, depending on your interpretation of the "one character can fire all ship weapons" rule.

While they have a clause that says GMs might allow creative ways to sneak atomics into other ships, you can easily get around the old 'teleport atomics into enemy ships' and 'stick them in boarding torpedoes' tricks with the power of truth - neither of those methods are creative, but completely obvious to anyone with at least a double-digit IQ. Not to mention everyone from the original author onwards probably ripped it off from that one sci-fi show.

Obviously.

Atomics are still the only really worrysome aspect of that ship.

Sorry I should have mentioned there are no players yet, I'm just trying to map out a long term campaign. I only added the other ships as a what if.

Then you need to plan before on what opportunities they will have to get something that can actually beat that beast.

You will probably have to forget about it in case they stick to anything shorter than a Cruiser though.

(I have a group using a SP70 Raider SOAKED with best craftsmanship components and archeotech for example, the ship is great for pretty much anything BESIDES heavy duty combat)

You will also need to understand the concept of skill parity.

A ship with that load-out is irrelevant if all it has is a crew rating of 30.

It just cannot compete against a much smaller ship with the sort of modified skills/attributes that player characters are likely to have, especially that late in the game.

In many ways, skill is more important than components, and indeed if fired with a skill of 30, there is no meaningful difference between broadsides and the smaller batteries. Likewise I personally dislike the Voidsunder Lance, as you need no less than 6 degrees of success to make it worth its huge demands in space and power.

If the PCs have the skills and characteristics I regularly see in just rank 4-5 characters, you will need to crew this ship with competent NPCs if it is to be anything but a joke.

As others have said, the NPC crew is this ship's main weakness. For example in the campaign I'm currently in we have a (not so) plain old Firestorm frigate that ca take this thing on without much trouble:

Our Void-master (my char) has an effective pilot+maneuver skill of 137 (147 for Evasive Maneuvers from Helmsman ship role). This means that as long as I roll 97 or lower on the check I get min 5 degrees of success on Evasive Maneuvers check which means a rating 50 crew absolutely can't hit us.

Meanwhile we have 2 80-90 BS skill characters manning a Sunsear Laser Battery and a Sunhammer Lance, a Navigator with Unnatural Intelligence that can give +50 to BS via Stacking the Deck andva Rogue Trader captain that adds another 15. Which means that some of the time we'll achieve what's needed to damage the Grand Cruiser (3 laser hits to disable shields and 1 lance hit to do damage).

Well it was a thought experiment, thou I think everybody missed where I have the crew skill already at 50 , but I agree that a normal party will probably still come out on top. Which is why at some point I'll more than likely roll up some level 8 NPCs to man it. Thanks for the feed back.

on a slightly related note, as it's roll is supposed to be long range bombardment would it be better to swap the torpedoes with a nova cannon? I keep getting this image of a really mean surprise round with one of those...lol.