I know some of the vitriol that the word Ascension brings to some in this community but am I the only one that feels the lack of "somewhere to go". What do you guys do when your players start to get big and wanting to branch out of their careers but, not many are viable?

Kill them?

The greater the soul the greater the sacrifice!

DW R8 caps out at a really high XP total.

And games, by their nature, end.

Or if you don't want to end, you can still keep accruing XP. A GM can let you keep taking Advanced Specs til everyone is a 1st Company Veteran. It works as long as everyone is having fun. Look at the new book (name forgets me) that creates Legacy or Legend stuff. But recognize that in the end, the game should end and your group should take away great moments and memories and move on to play something else.

Kill them?

I planned that for my group... then allow for their next characters to be a newly formed kill team that all knew the former ones....

Just for a laugh I created a Watch Commander character. He totaled out at just over 100,000 xps and still didn't have everything I could have given him (He admittedly probably wasn't completely optimised).

The point is allowing PCs to keep accruing points after level 8 take extra alternative careers and marks of distinction will keep them going for quite a while.

One of them is likely to be a Captain, perhaps with the PCs as his command squad while they command a number of additional kill teams. You can introduce rules for coordinating kill teams using Rogue Trader military action rules perhaps?

Have you thought of looking at other games that the group may enjoy for a change of pace. The new edition of shadowrun is looking good. iron kingdoms is fantastic. Get away try something new.

Remember though if your going to purposefully kill them... Make it heroic. Like they have to fight an endless horde at a choke point to save a planetary star port that has millions evacuating the planet. Them standing steadfast against the horde is the only thing that to be possible. But the ships that are leaving are their only way out. Have them fight to the last man.

Or do something completely unexpected. The emperor returns

Or their watches end and they go home. Let each player come up with a feasible epilogue for their character back in their home chapter, with the caveat that no Space Marine dies of old age.

I'm not one to kill my PCs. Although I'm more than willing to let them do that to themselves. My game is kind of unique in that I'm not running a "Deathwatch" game but one of a home brew Chapter. I took them from Aspirant to Rank 3 so far. They're all pretty new to the setting and it's been cool to see them grow with their characters.

I have had similar thoughts lately. My Rogue Trader game has reached Rank 7 and I have been looking at Ascention as a possible direction to emulate for my players. They are heavily involved with both developing their own subsector in the Expanse and supporting the Imperium/Inquisition. At this point they are really reaching the point where they eclipse the Winterscale dynasty and are starting to shape politics in both the Calaxis Sector and the Lathes. The more political aspect makes sense in my game, although it might not in other. As this is driven by the players, it has been well recieved and the power aspects are more appropriate for maxed Rogue Trader (or Deathwatch) characters than they are for Dark Heresy.

If you are running a more Chapter based game, have you looked at having the players move into running their Chapter's contribution to a major Crusade? There will be a lot more political jockeying, more involvement with other parts of the Imperium, different enemies and even the possibility to bring ship combat and mass combat events up more often. Depending on their play style, they may enjoy the expanded responsibilities while still drop poding in to support their beleagured allies and kick xenos around. It will involve less combat and more development/role playing. You could include aspects of exploration outside the edge of the Imperium as well. I would definitely broach the topic with your players. You could also look into their interest in other lines of the game now that the players are more comfortable with the setting.

Well, their Chapter was created as a fleet based Chapter that specialized in small squad sized autonomous units that are deployed in a war zone's hot spots. The Chapter is also in the possession of much of the Great Crusade's history and so have a small special branch outside of the command structure that uses that intel to search out artifacts. Through character choices they chose to join that branch. So, they have an almost unlimited access to adventure and intrigue.

For example they found a crashed Night Lord ship that, through investigation, contained Loyalist Night Lords that had jerryrigged Dreadnought coffins as makeshift stasis pods. So they had to decide what to do with them.

I have had similar thoughts lately. My Rogue Trader game has reached Rank 7 and I have been looking at Ascention as a possible direction to emulate for my players. They are heavily involved with both developing their own subsector in the Expanse and supporting the Imperium/Inquisition. At this point they are really reaching the point where they eclipse the Winterscale dynasty and are starting to shape politics in both the Calaxis Sector and the Lathes. The more political aspect makes sense in my game, although it might not in other. As this is driven by the players, it has been well recieved and the power aspects are more appropriate for maxed Rogue Trader (or Deathwatch) characters than they are for Dark Heresy.

Where do you see this going? Just me but it sounds like that kind of dominance is a good place to end the game, on a very high note (especially if they clawed their way up from low PF and a rickety ship). I don't think sustained play at that level can stay very interesting unless there's a sudden reversal of fortunes or the PCs get involved in something bigger like the Achilus Crusade.

Maybe they retire. Not retire as Astartes, of course, but end their tours in the Deathwatch and return to their chapters. There they may become elite veterans, company champions, perhaps even company captains or chapter masters. You can put together touching little epilogues for the characters, describing how they continue their careers beyond the scope of the game.

Alternatively, assemble the kill team and order them to go destroy the Tyranid hive-ships in the Reach. All of them. Then they get to go out in a blaze of glory!

They are working towards setting up the Koronos Sector as well as preparing for the death of the Emperor, as I have put prognostication hints that his rebirth/death is approaching. My players enjoy the imperium building and higher level threats. I have planned through to an end of the campaign, but it is still quite a ways off. Major projects they are working on or are coming up include:

1) Searching for the Dark Eldar strongholds to cleanse them, possibly by Exterminatus weaponry...

2) Building up a network of worlds that are not reliant on the Astronomicon for their trade/travel/survival (Elseway charts, Warp Beacons...). Each of their systems is self sufficient for food/basic manufacturing and includes education and health care systems.

3) They continue to research ways to improve human resistance to insanity/corruption as well as ways to reduce the Warp influence on their systems/people.

4) One of their enemies is presently bonding his cruiser to a space hulk with daemonic rituals to aim it at their main colony system. I plan on using the Deathwatch rules for thier raid on it to stop his attack.

5) The are working to produce weapons and troops to support the Imperium in both Crusades near the Calaxis sector. They also are trying to research better weapons/technology using Archeotech sources.

6) They discovered a Old One laboratory that lead to the rebirth of someone who may be a 'child of the Emperor' or seed of his rebirth or just a new Primarch...or a Xeno/Chaos plot to subvert the Imperium or assassinate the Emperor... This is going to be part of my end arc of the campaign, with a spinoff campaign possibly involving trying to survive the death of the Emperor.