I wouldn't say it's so much an abuse of the rules if it happens so much as it would be abuse of an overly permissive GM. That's one of those cases where you have to step in and enforce the spirit of the rules rather than the written letter.

The problem IMO is not with the Flip Belt but with the Pilot skill. What does piloting something that's several km long and takes 30 min to turn 45 deg has to do with agility?

So much this. The Operate/Pilot skills in WH40kRP have always tended towards being a ***********. Worst is that there's no reason for it to be that way.

Piloting a large Voidship should clearly be either Intelligence or Fellowship, depending on the ship and the manner you control it.

I wouldn't say it's so much an abuse of the rules if it happens so much as it would be abuse of an overly permissive GM. That's one of those cases where you have to step in and enforce the spirit of the rules rather than the written letter.

The problem IMO is not with the Flip Belt but with the Pilot skill. What does piloting something that's several km long and takes 30 min to turn 45 deg has to do with agility?

So much this. The Operate/Pilot skills in WH40kRP have always tended towards being a ***********. Worst is that there's no reason for it to be that way.

Piloting a large Voidship should clearly be either Intelligence or Fellowship, depending on the ship and the manner you control it.

BC had Pilot Void Craft based on Intelligence, then, come OW, it was back at Ag.

Piloting a large Voidship should clearly be either Intelligence or Fellowship, depending on the ship and the manner you control it.

As a side-note, while I do agree a pilot/operate (voidship) skill would be better keyed off Int, houseruling it as such is a pretty big Void-master nerf. Even if you change his Int. advancement to cheapest (it's currently most expensive), it still adds another stat he needs to keep high (and a stat he doesn't get that much benefit from anyway) and odds are most people would find a Seneschal (you can get any skill +10 and talented at character creation with the right origin path) a more viable voidship pilot build than a Void-master.

Piloting a large Voidship should clearly be either Intelligence or Fellowship, depending on the ship and the manner you control it.

As a side-note, while I do agree a pilot/operate (voidship) skill would be better keyed off Int, houseruling it as such is a pretty big Void-master nerf. Even if you change his Int. advancement to cheapest (it's currently most expensive), it still adds another stat he needs to keep high (and a stat he doesn't get that much benefit from anyway) and odds are most people would find a Seneschal (you can get any skill +10 and talented at character creation with the right origin path) a more viable voidship pilot build than a Void-master.

Oh, I agree, but that's an issue with how the character advancement works in Rogue Trader and what roles certain characters are assumed to fill. The Voidmaster is schizophrenic in the way he's portrayed as a Admiral/Fighter-Pilot.

It makes sense for a fighter pilot to mostly be Agility-based, with hair-trigger reflexes. It also kind of makes sense if you view giant ships as being kind of Age of Sail-equivalent and having to haul the giant wheel around (also makes me think of the scenes of piloting a Garden in Final Fantasy VIII).

I might make that more of the helmsman's station in the future rather than anything neat and clean like the con on a Star Trek/Star Wars ship. It would at least justify use of Agility better.

I think the rationale behind making it agility is based on the idea that it's a very training, instinct and muscle memory intensive skillset so when you're doing it well you no more think about it than the centipede thinks about moving all his legs. Also if you make it Intelligence you open up the can of worms regarding what intelligence actually means in game mechanics. Does it refer specifically to actual intelligence or does it refer to a combination of intelligence and education level? If it's the former how do you increase it with (XP) training?

I've got a character with an Intelligenece of 27 but nothing else about his background or skillset would suggest he should be some sort of drooling moron who can somehow operate any gun he finds but can't drive a truck without flipping it. So typically I just assume he's got the equivilent of an eighth grade education which fits with his homeworld, I often express this by playing his as posessing poor impulse control, having him mispronounce words he reads or failing to comprehend really complicated intellectual concepts but being clever enough to trick people through underhanded methods or demonstrate tactical thinking and "street smarts".

I think it makes sense that the Voidmaster makes his ship pilot tests based off agility the idea being he's experienced enough behind the con that he has a feel for the old girl, the tactics employed as to where he flies it and what everyone else does along the way fall under the umbrella of actual role play.

It makes sense for a fighter pilot to mostly be Agility-based, with hair-trigger reflexes. It also kind of makes sense if you view giant ships as being kind of Age of Sail-equivalent and having to haul the giant wheel around (also makes me think of the scenes of piloting a Garden in Final Fantasy VIII).

I might make that more of the helmsman's station in the future rather than anything neat and clean like the con on a Star Trek/Star Wars ship. It would at least justify use of Agility better.

Still, it takes 2 hours for most voidships to complete a run of the mill 180 degrees turn. Even if it takes you 10 minutes to spin the wheel, you're just turning in 130 minutes instead of 120 minutes, so not really plausible to justify the use of agility by that.

It makes sense for a fighter pilot to mostly be Agility-based, with hair-trigger reflexes. It also kind of makes sense if you view giant ships as being kind of Age of Sail-equivalent and having to haul the giant wheel around (also makes me think of the scenes of piloting a Garden in Final Fantasy VIII).

I might make that more of the helmsman's station in the future rather than anything neat and clean like the con on a Star Trek/Star Wars ship. It would at least justify use of Agility better.

Still, it takes 2 hours for most voidships to complete a run of the mill 180 degrees turn. Even if it takes you 10 minutes to spin the wheel, you're just turning in 130 minutes instead of 120 minutes, so not really plausible to justify the use of agility by that.

At the same time, there is absolutely nothing fun about those kind of strict, stupidly-long timing rules.

Imperial voidships are pretty **** big, the large turning time is probably to compensate for gradually shifting the kilometers of metal without accidentally snapping the vessel in half. Presumably the need for piloting during Come to a New Heading or another complex action is to be able to push your vessel beyond what is normally safe, and react instantly to the stress that it's going under to ease off the pressure at just the right moments without sacrificing what you're trying to do.

At the same time, there is absolutely nothing fun about those kind of strict, stupidly-long timing rules.

Your opinion. I rather enjoy the aestethics of those nail-biting turns.

Haha. I just can't see it being that fun to remind players that their one action took so long. It takes something out of the harrying ship-to-ship firefight if every maneuver takes half a day.

I have "houseruled" that Pilot voidship is an intelligence based skill as in BC (It makes more sense!). As stated above, Piloting a voidship is a balance of applied physics as it applies to moving and fighting in a flying city! Also as it also takes 30 minute turns, it seems to me that there is plenty of time to think of what you're doing! Even if one decided they were only 3 minute turns it would be the same thing!

Int makes sense in some ways, problems in others (particularly for the Void-Master). The VM doesn't necessarily make sense to have (or need) high Int to do its primary job, but making piloting a voidship key off Int probably requires the VM to have Int on the cheap (or at least medium), or be competing with really strange classes to fill the "best ship pilot" role.

Int makes sense in some ways, problems in others (particularly for the Void-Master). The VM doesn't necessarily make sense to have (or need) high Int to do its primary job, but making piloting a voidship key off Int probably requires the VM to have Int on the cheap (or at least medium), or be competing with really strange classes to fill the "best ship pilot" role.

Even if the VM had cheap int, it's a nerf because it adds another stat you need to keep high, and a stat you wouldn't gain much usefulness on that class outside voidship piloting.

Like I said before if you look at 75% of Int based skills they're things that are probably more education centric than demonstrative of cognative superiority. Hell look at the Mechanicus implant that increases intellignece if you really examine what it's doing per how it's written it's basically just giving him total recall regarding technical specs, blueprints and an encycopedial it's not actually making him smarter. It's just making it so he very rarely if ever has to crack open an actual book to know what the hell he's doing. It's like the difference between having a brain that can calculate pi to the hundredth place as opposed to just having a calculator wired into your head that you can control by thought.

So I say it again, the Int stat in alot of ways probably has more to do with education than an actual inate talent.

Int makes sense in some ways, problems in others (particularly for the Void-Master). The VM doesn't necessarily make sense to have (or need) high Int to do its primary job, but making piloting a voidship key off Int probably requires the VM to have Int on the cheap (or at least medium), or be competing with really strange classes to fill the "best ship pilot" role.

Even if the VM had cheap int, it's a nerf because it adds another stat you need to keep high, and a stat you wouldn't gain much usefulness on that class outside voidship piloting.

I agree completely. This is a place where there's no quick, easy house rule, and in fact the baseline rule, while not being completely realistic, actually doesn't have a huge negative impact. So why change it?

Int makes sense in some ways, problems in others (particularly for the Void-Master). The VM doesn't necessarily make sense to have (or need) high Int to do its primary job, but making piloting a voidship key off Int probably requires the VM to have Int on the cheap (or at least medium), or be competing with really strange classes to fill the "best ship pilot" role.

Even if the VM had cheap int, it's a nerf because it adds another stat you need to keep high, and a stat you wouldn't gain much usefulness on that class outside voidship piloting.

I agree completely. This is a place where there's no quick, easy house rule, and in fact the baseline rule, while not being completely realistic, actually doesn't have a huge negative impact. So why change it?

I don't advocate changing it, on the contrary. My group discussed this exact same issues at the time I decided to roll the Tau Void-master I'm currently playing and decided against moving voidship piloting to Int for the aforementioned reasons.

_{On the point of long time periods to turn the ships, i have no problem but one of my co-players is an ******* about precisely how thecombat between 2 or more voidships works. He keepson saying that when we fire, it takes up to a half hour for rounds to ravel and hit the other ship due to distance but that seems incredibly stupid as i have never heard of spacebattles constantly being that far away. I makes sense with ships nowadays all the way back to the late 1800s, but these are supposed to be epic space battles for frick sake. yes a VU is quite a bit of distance but really? heck, as a result of this, the people currently left on the ships to look after them have to skip several turns to compensate for the turns of the ground team which are much faster.Back to the flip belt, yeah, that was blatant writing abuse and frankley it's kinda out the window at this point. As for the "mech" or whatever it is at this point, I need to clear it up tonight, the GM says that since it is a device i'm technically wearing and not piloting, it is linked to MY movements and therefore only needs tech use to activate/calibrate after putting on, which can be done by my groups tech prest. I will try to get the info on this abnormal thing on here as soon as possible. anyway,perhaps there are alternate ways to increase agility though my weeaknesses are willpower and perception ( 25 and 23 if i remember. don't have sheet with em now) so Those i think i need to fix PRONTO to become decent.Although now i have that and also, i'm gonna have to make a new thread on Tech Herest, what qualifies as that, and aquisitions of certain items (because a certain member loves to combine different things which i think is 1: bull and 2: Tech Heresy)}

Could you increase the size of the font - its so small I can't make it out.

_{On the point of long time periods to turn the ships, i have no problem but one of my co-players is an ******* about precisely how thecombat between 2 or more voidships works. He keepson saying that when we fire, it takes up to a half hour for rounds to ravel and hit the other ship due to distance but that seems incredibly stupid as i have never heard of spacebattles constantly being that far away. I makes sense with ships nowadays all the way back to the late 1800s, but these are supposed to be epic space battles for frick sake. yes a VU is quite a bit of distance but really? heck, as a result of this, the people currently left on the ships to look after them have to skip several turns to compensate for the turns of the ground team which are much faster.Back to the flip belt, yeah, that was blatant writing abuse and frankley it's kinda out the window at this point. As for the "mech" or whatever it is at this point, I need to clear it up tonight, the GM says that since it is a device i'm technically wearing and not piloting, it is linked to MY movements and therefore only needs tech use to activate/calibrate after putting on, which can be done by my groups tech prest. I will try to get the info on this abnormal thing on here as soon as possible. anyway,perhaps there are alternate ways to increase agility though my weeaknesses are willpower and perception ( 25 and 23 if i remember. don't have sheet with em now) so Those i think i need to fix PRONTO to become decent.Although now i have that and also, i'm gonna have to make a new thread on Tech Herest, what qualifies as that, and aquisitions of certain items (because a certain member loves to combine different things which i think is 1: bull and 2: Tech Heresy)}

Fixed!

sorry, i have no idea why the font was so tiny. i set it to larger but i guess it didn't take :/

thanks

_{Although now i have that and also, i'm gonna have to make a new thread on Tech Herest, what qualifies as that, and aquisitions of certain items (because a certain member loves to combine different things which i think is 1: bull and 2: Tech Heresy)}

There have been debates on the forums about this, and I am of the camp that it is completely Tech-Heresy to experiment with ANYTHING in the 41st Millennium. You are meant to go and discover STCs, and then celebrate the rediscovery of lost archeotech (which admittedly tends to be better than anything we have now). The thought of taking what we already have and tinkering with it to combine it should be anathema to tech-priests, because the tiny magical spirits that live inside of the technology were never meant to be combined like that, and you're sinning against the Omnissiah by attempting it.

Naturally there will be many who think otherwise, and presumably very senior Ad-Mech members can do whatever they want, but they wouldn't even teach the idea that technology can be combined. Starting to think that way would be a huge leap forwards... or technically backwards.

IMO long time periods don't make fights epic, they make fights unrealistically long-winded and boring. Sometimes people need to step back from the rules and say "is this believable and also fun?" If not, why keep the 30-min duration of a VU turn (which actually has no in-game significance unless the GM wants to enforce a particular timer, and even then that timer needs to keep the stupid long turn time in mind).

_{Although now i have that and also, i'm gonna have to make a new thread on Tech Herest, what qualifies as that, and aquisitions of certain items (because a certain member loves to combine different things which i think is 1: bull and 2: Tech Heresy)}

There have been debates on the forums about this, and I am of the camp that it is completely Tech-Heresy to experiment with ANYTHING in the 41st Millennium. You are meant to go and discover STCs, and then celebrate the rediscovery of lost archeotech (which admittedly tends to be better than anything we have now). The thought of taking what we already have and tinkering with it to combine it should be anathema to tech-priests, because the tiny magical spirits that live inside of the technology were never meant to be combined like that, and you're sinning against the Omnissiah by attempting it.

Naturally there will be many who think otherwise, and presumably very senior Ad-Mech members can do whatever they want, but they wouldn't even teach the idea that technology can be combined. Starting to think that way would be a huge leap forwards... or technically backwards.

That's a shame. It means that I'm gonna most likely give up my awesome pistol (if it is heretech since this combining dude concocted it....if he didn't, hooray for me but still) although i think i will enjoy blowing a heretek out the airlock. Hell, i might even lose my "mech" on this...maybe.... also, my tech preist player should be calling this stuff, but i'm not sure if the player actually knows it's tech heresy. Anyway, how about aquisitions of a rare type (such as those thought to be only obtainable by SM or such?) Because i'm looking at ignatus pattern power armor but it's only available to the inquisition (at least it appears to be from the 40k wikia)