That's an intriguing path. A bit of self-sufficiency won't hurt, though I got the impression that the Manufactorum was rather limited in what it could produce.

With a Manufactorum, Salvage Systems, and a Small Craft Repair Bay, keeping the attack craft operational should be easier right?

I've plugged this into a Dictator first, and it can fit.

IMO, attack craft are under-rated.
Yes, it takes plenty of PF to restore them if they are damaged... But the majority of the ships in the expanse don't have TR above 1 and much less frequently have Interceptor Craft (or launch bays) to protect them from bombers.
If you are focused on having a real carrier and not a boarding voidship with shark boats, you can divide 2 bays into 9 Bomber Squads and 3 Interceptors...

And then... Think of the massive damage these will do on anything short of a Cruiser when attacking together, at long range, and possibly even as you are silent-running.

Not even Raiders can properly run away from you. The masses of bombers should count as a +40 to intimidation rolls for getting the enemy to surrender.

Yes, you need nice batteries for going against TR3/elite crews/other carriers, but still... Being able to call-in on a Starhawk bombing run (which are way more precise and controlled than an actual OB) when you are planet side is awesome.

Why have you taken a bunch of las batteries rather than the sunsear broadsides? And to answer your question - the repair bay is absolutely essential, while the uses of the manufactorum and salvage systems are up to the GM.

And Yorke... is all your advice based on house rules? You do realize you can't simply expect other groups to run with your exact interpretations and variations on the rules, right? You may be leading Marwynn to make enormous amounts of assumptions that simply won't hold up against the actual rules.

You think it's appropriate for a *Grand Cruiser* to be effective against "anything short of a cruiser". Did you really think that through?

Most raiders can move up to 20VU in a round, and will easily outrun small craft. Starhawks have a movement of 6VU per round, and will pretty much be outrun by everything. They are of questionable use on planets as well - as previously mentioned, unless you have good pilots odds are they'll crash and burn the first time they make a sharp turn.

And Yorke... is all your advice based on house rules? You do realize you can't simply expect other groups to run with your exact interpretations and variations on the rules, right? You may be leading Marwynn to make enormous amounts of assumptions that simply won't hold up against the actual rules.

You think it's appropriate for a *Grand Cruiser* to be effective against "anything short of a cruiser". Did you really think that through?

Most raiders can move up to 20VU in a round, and will easily outrun small craft. Starhawks have a movement of 6VU per round, and will pretty much be outrun by everything. They are of questionable use on planets as well - as previously mentioned, unless you have good pilots odds are they'll crash and burn the first time they make a sharp turn.

I totally agree with you Marwynn needs to check with his GM on the uses of components like the manufactorum or salvage systems.

And yes, I thought that through. GCs (which TR3 can make starhawks life very difficult) or carriers should be difficult to find in the expanse. That's no house rule, that's fluff. If you or his GM will be frequently throwing GCs at the PCs, that's not something I would have anticipated. Even in such cases, the strategy of crippling the ship's VS (and as an exception sacrificing some craft) so you can deal the killing blows with the lances or massive las-broadside savos would still be valid.

Unless the GM is also arming pretty much anything with Hecutors or related long range macrobatteries, the enemy ship has to get close to you in order to shoot its guns... And unless you are fighting major/awesome NPCs, I don't think they will have the Tech Use skill to push even a raider to speed 20 mate.

9 Bomber Squads is the equivalent to a Str11, Crit 4, +40 to hit, 1d10+4 damage (each hit is summed together before armor is subtracted) macrobattery. With an immediate range of 6, or 36 if you have time to spare. Ignoring voidshields.

And I don't expect anyone would leave it to the last moment possible to launch the bombers/fighters - they can be launched and go way ahead of the ship considering most open space battles start at 30VU (sensors range) - and so they will have some turns to close-in (6 STs are their autonomy... So a range of 36 VUs is quite nice in my opinion).

And I completely disagree a planetary bombing run is more difficult than bombing a voidship travelling at hundreds of km/s. If the guy has the "flyer" skill, it should be actually much easier than a voidship bombing run.

Edit 1: thinking of the initial build with 4 bays, that could be a Str18+ +70 chance to hit or so to hit (I didn't calculate precisely this time, meh).

Edit 2: each launch bay gives +50 Achievement Points for military endeavors that use them (+25 for each point of Str).

Edit 3: note that carriers demand preparation, for you to hammer the enemy with all of that complement you need to fall back until all the bombers you need are launched (2 squads per turn per launch bay). The Ultimo Arrays are important so you are not caught by surprise at close range by a silent running ship.

Why have you taken a bunch of las batteries rather than the sunsear broadsides? And to answer your question - the repair bay is absolutely essential, while the uses of the manufactorum and salvage systems are up to the GM.

I think I may have played around with the components somewhat. I just realized I actually had Power/Space for them.

I'll present it as a possibility, the GM will let us know how useful they'd be.

I do appreciate the insight guys.

Yorke, I appreciate you explaining your reasoning, but I must still disagree with you. So, to counter your points, in order:

Most xeno species have either higher crew ratings or higher turret ratings than human ships, and even among human ships anything from a frigate and up might have 3 or higher with flak turrets. It's not every ship, but it's a pretty sad Grand Cruiser that's afraid to take on a smaller ship, regardless of its size. Furthermore, I fail to see what any strategic crippling (especially one that takes 3-4 turns to manage) could accomplish that a good shot in the ass won't.

Sunsears are as cheap as, longer-ranged than and all around better than the alternative, so the only reason a GM wouldn't give them to enemy ships would be to artificially weaken them. If he actually wants you to annihilate the opposition effortlessly, well, then you don't really need any advice to begin with. Most raiders have speeds around 10 and decent maneuverability, so if they have half-decent helmsmen they could get their speed up via a simple Adjust Speed action. Since it's small craft and not torpedoes, you don't even have to go around them - you can just blast right on through their VU so long as you end up 7 or more squares behind them.

What good is a strength 11 macro-battery? How often can you expect to get 11 DoS on a BS test? Far more effective, then, to have two batteries of S5. The damage is alright, but stick a munitorium in your ship and your macrobatteries won't be far behind. A simple tenebro-maze will negate most of the problems of having one, and will also take care of any strategic crippling you might be up against. As I showed before, the gunship is more than capable of pulping anything it's in range of, and lacks the logistics problems, range problems and turret problems of the carrier. In the time your bombers have moved 36VU, the gunship has already annihilated the opposing fleet a few times over - with a skilled crew, getting a Repulsive to move 16VU before firing isn't too difficult. For a sunsear-armed raider, it's easier still.

I'm curious as to where you get 30VU as sensor range. I might have missed something, of course, but an Active Augury has a range of 20VU, +5/DoS, so detecting even hidden ships out to 40-80VU should be easy enough.

Bombing a voidship in space combat is based off the commanding officer's Command-skill. I'll give you that if your GM allows planetary bombings to work the same, it'll be a piece of cake, but if your Crew Rating 30 mooks have to actually roll Pilot (Flier), you've got a 50/50 chance of a crash every time, if I remember Into the Storm's flying rules correctly.

Your bonus to hit caps at +60. I suppose that *could* give you 11 DoS, but it won't give you 18. I have no response to the achievement point question, since I've never used the endeavour system - you may have an excellent point there, I have no idea. As for the scanners, they sound like a complete waste to me. You need only a single success to detect an enemy within 20VU, and how hard is it really to get your Scrutiny+Detection up to 95 if you have someone who's put the slightest bit of work into their Perception. Even if you play with randomly generated stats (Emperor protect me), odds are good *someone* will have a decent score.

Small craft do have a gazillion uses, but the only time I'd ever put any on a ship as rare as a grand cruiser would be if I were completely desperate to be able to attack enemies that are behind me.

Ok, I currently have a migraine and have taken meds - what the heck is DoS?

Degrees of Success

Example: U need a 50 to succeed and rolled a 10. You have 4 DoS.

Thanks - like I said, " on meds ", and couldn't recall what it meant.

That being said, I like the class, even if it ( like most human ships ) have Weak Aft Syndrome. Over all, I think it's probably the best of the big ships, not being stuck with just one good configuration.

Just a question for the Sunsear Las Broadside... just how useful are they? Strength 6 means I'll need 6 successes, a hit and 5 degrees of success, so we'll rarely put those to good use (at first). Then there's probably 2 more Sunsears and a Sunhammer lance battery after that.

Is it worth it?

My GM has expressed that 'upgrades' will be rewards for particularly tough situations, and there are no straight acquisitions tests simply due to the nature of our campaign. We'll be establishing the logistical lines, setting up trade routes, blowing up raiders, etc. The acquisitions will apparently be for non-standard stuff; the standard stuff we have to earn the hard way until our PF is over a certain threshold. Don't know the thresholds, but it seems suitable for a crusader-esque campaign.

I can squeeze 4 Sunsear Broadsides, a Sunsear battery, and a Sunhammer Lance battery on a Repulsive with some room and power to spare. Is this "future proof" or will we be looking longingly at other weapons? Would it be really that bad to go with Sunsear batteries instead of the broadsides?

(And are Lances decent enough for orbital bombardments? They seem to do a lot of concentrated damage.)

Strength 6 means you can get up to 6 hits, if you only score 3 degrees of success you still get 4 hits. Their real advantage is that "Range 9" modifier, which only loses to Hecutor Plasma (which is the default option for everyone if you can afford it) and the Staravar Laser Macrobattery, which is Archeotech.

I think common consensus on the forums is that Hecutor Plasmas are the best Macrobatteries, followed by Sunsears because in ship combat positioning and range matter a great deal.

I believe Battlefleet Koronus talks briefly about orbital bombardments, but basically lances are not decent enough for orbital bombardments. They are, however, excellent at orbital annihilation.

Edit: Also, Mathhammer , Mathhammer , Mathhammer . I cannot recommend strongly enough the shorthhand fix of increasing Macrocannon damage by 12 and making every shot come off against armour individually, and making Broadsides Storm also finally makes the extra Space/Power cost worth it.

I did read that thread before, thanks. We'll probably enact some houserules after we get our feet wet,.

Storm for the Broadsides (2 hits per DoS) seems like a reasonable thing, but then again who knows just how high we can get the ballistics and all the modifiers to be.

As for Hecutors, 1d10+2 with Strength 3 doesn't seem like a lot. Assuming you get all 3-4 hits that's just what? 14 average damage against armour, plus the crit? Salvo'd they'd be better of course.

As for the ship itself, any suggestions for a different hull? We're not married to the Grand Cruiser at all.

The problem with the Hecutor Plasma is that they have lower strength and a higher power requirement than sunsears, which is why I usually go with the latter unless I have a large fleet and don't need the big gunboats to do anything else than just shoot. Not only that, but on ships of cruiser size or smaller you're stuck with the regular batteries as opposed to the Hecutor broadsides, in which case the sunsear broadside (especially with extra range) are much better in my opinion.

If you get BQ Sunsears, those are pretty much going to carry you through the entirety of any campaign.

As for DoS: personally, I always assume point buy, since assuming rolled stats just means you just shrug your shoulders and have nothing to work with. Assuming your arch-militant is of the standard shooty variant (Fortress World - Stubjack - Call to War and 20 points into BS), he should have 70 BS at the start of the game. Getting an MIU is just standard practise (for a total of 80, and 90 once you get the XP for it) at least in my experience (your mileage may vary since there are no rules for what an MIU works with), and with the rogue trader yelling in your ear/a logis implant from Augmenticist, 5 or so DoS should be fairly likely.

If you want to go for a simpler use capital ship, I'd recommend the Avenger with Castellan VS and Hecutors on each side (I usually exaggerate on stuff, so you might want to follow Magellan's suggestion instead).

3 Broadsides, 6 Voidshields, 21 Armor.

If you have the balls and 1 extra right for archeotech, slap Excess Void Armor together with a Modified Plasma Drive - and Auxiliary Plasma Banks if need be. Armored prow is also nice, but not a must-have. (would get you to 28 prow armor)

Castellan Void Shields is my favorite Archeotech for Grand Cruisers (they come from a different book that came out before the Triple Void Shield Arrays, so you need to check with your GM if they can be applied to GC Voidshields).

As for DoS: personally, I always assume point buy, since assuming rolled stats just means you just shrug your shoulders and have nothing to work with. Assuming your arch-militant is of the standard shooty variant (Fortress World - Stubjack - Call to War and 20 points into BS), he should have 70 BS at the start of the game.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only GM on this forum with players who don't do character creation to try and max out one single statistic before the game begins... setting aside the Astropath who started with WP of 62 anyway. Still though, by the time you hit Rank 3 or 4, your players should be rolling at a target of over 100 in something at least once a session.

This is why I really like Hecutors, because they have a Strength of 3, but after that you hit the Crit Rating which is where it shines. Being able to deal multiple critical hits with each volley is what makes it stand out to me.

Also, Hecutors or Sunsears work nicely together with Godsbane (bring VS down with the battery, cut through the armor with the later).

well as a gm I never allow point buys, mostly because a few really bad experiences with min/maxers. the campaign I started a few weeks ago I let the players pick there path, but would not tell them what they got until they where done...this has led to a death-world navigator with a fel of -1 when he talks to anyone dirtside and a missionary with enemy ecclesiarchy.

as for the grand cruiser you could always drop down to two really good raiders. with 85 that is 43/42 for each. meritechs start at 34 which leaves you with 9/8 SP per ship for toys, that actually gives you one more SP to equip them with compared to an repulsive. granted you may not be able to go best quality on everything, but you could start with two very decent ships and could even have them perform different roles...i.e one a gunship and the other be a hit and run specialist or such.

The Avenger is a work of art, 'tis true. My personal favourite if I'm not making a battlecruiser. Do note that even if your GM allows you to use Castellan shields with grand cruiser triple shields, they only work against one opponent per turn. That opponent will be pretty much shut down, sure, but it's still only one opponent.

Before you ask: excess void armour is from an adventure path, so that's another thing you'll have to clear with your GM.

Ultimately, I should make it clear that you don't *need* to be nowhere near as killy as the mega-sunsear-monster I put together up there. You could totally go Prow: Nova Cannon, Dorsal: Bombardment cannon (or take two BCs), two broadsides and two hangar bays and still tear up the entire Expanse, unless your GM is a cruel, unforgiving bastard like me.

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No, Erathia, you're not. Rolled stat-games abound all over the internet, and for those players it's just a matter of spreading your cheeks before the throbbing members of the random number gods.

Unless you actually roll well on something, in which case it's time to change careers and start maxing that stuff like there's no tomorrow.

As for the Hecutors' critting ability: I suppose, but they still take a lot of power, and by the time you've tallied up your macrobattery damage your opponent will be dead anyway, so there'll be nothing left to crit.

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Htsmithium: Are you using NPCs as statted by FFG, or anything near the same power level? Those things are abysmally weak and useless, and will be flattened by any half-decent PCs - even those using rolled stats, I'll bet.

Either of those raiders will be taken down by one volley of a single gun on the GC, just sayan'.

actually I meant if the ships were crewed by the pc's.

To be honest I did not notice the part where the OP said he did not want to uprage his ship, I figured be able to start with a small fleet to build upon would be cool.

I was thinking of using a Mars Nova Cannon, Sunhammer Lance Battery, then 4 x Sunsear Las-Broadsides on the Repulsive. Should I swap out the Sunhammer for a Godsbane or Voidsunder?

And yeah, we kind of want to stick with just one ship. We may get more ships (if they're salvageable), but upgrading to a bigger ship feels wrong.

How useful is the Nova Cannon anyway? I used to use those in BFG back when you had to guess the distance.

Nova cannons are pretty crap. *If* you roll high on your 1d5 you can do a lot of damage, and *if* you have a massive range advantage you can fire it up to 80VU for a couple of turns while your opponent struggles to close. Otherwise it's really mediocre and expensive. Great for planetary bombardment, though, if you didn't need the planet for anything.

Man, it looks like all the fun weapons are rather useless without some house rules.

Here's the latest 85 point attempt. Nothing fancy, no archeotech either. I'll have to ask about that Castellan Triple Void Shield. I tried to incorporate the Hecutors because I do like the added range.

(The upgrades (Displays of Wealth and Stormtrooper Detachment) were set by the GM. Which leads me to believe that the Stormies are chaos scum and the displays of wealth are all forgeries, leading to some embarassment. Or they're stolen. Or cursed. Or both.)

How useful is maneuverability for a large ship like this?

Man, it looks like all the fun weapons are rather useless without some house rules.

Other than that, the rest was left up to me. I myself was leaning towards an Orion to ambush and reave in the void, but alas, the rest of the crew wants plenty of ship combat.

We've all agreed that we want a Conquistador campaign. Chart new worlds, plot new warp routes, establish colonies, exploit the natives, and blow up anyone we don't like.

So, to me that says Exploration and Military. Possibly Creed as well.

Now, most people here have been trying to build you warships, but is that what you want?

If you're using the endeavour system (which I really like), consider getting a few components to assist in you expected endeavours, Observation Dome, Trophy Room, maybe a Temple-Shrine and almost certainly a Barrack. These would help you make money ... I mean generate Profit Factor.

Sunsears and Hecutors are good, and if you group's focus will be heavily on ship combat, you should consider them seriously, but don't let them take up all of you space/energy. Or if they do, consider getting hold of a second ship, and equip it to generate riches. Blowing ships up can be fun, but leave you poor.

raiding worlds, colonizing them or turning them to the Light of the God-Emperor and extrating a back-log of tithes... surely this is all more profitable?

As for your basic hull, you can do far worse than the Repulsive.

Or you might consider a pair of Raiders (as mentioned above) or even an idea I've been toying with recently; namely 2 raiders and a transport. The raiders will be outfitted as cheap warships, while the raider will be build for profit.

And remember that you don't have to fill all available space/use all available energy right from the get-go.