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How should the new material from Battlefleet Koronus be incorporated?
Poll ended at Thu Mar 10, 2011 10:07 pm
Allow all groups to retroactively change ship building decisions to allow for the new rules additions. 27%  27%  [ 4 ]
Keep all ships as they are and allow new components / hulls to be acquired through play as normal. Newly built ships to be limited to the same original options other groups had. 47%  47%  [ 7 ]
Keep all ships as they are and allow new components / hulls to be acquired through play as normal. Newly built ships have all options open to them. 27%  27%  [ 4 ]
Total votes : 15
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 Post subject: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 10:07 pm 
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Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:00 pm
Posts: 23
Hey all,

As some of you may be aware, the next Rogue Trader book due out later this month is Battlefleet Koronus, which massively expands the amount of options available when it comes to starship construction and improvement. It doesn't just add more hulls (though it certainly does that in good number) but it adds a number of new options including torpedoes, fighters, nova cannons, etc.

That being said, the groups all currently playing have their ships locked in. With the new book coming out there are a lot of options that groups may have been interested in if they had been available during creation. For that reason, we'd like to pose the question to the players about how we handle this release. Do we introduce the new rules and just allow the new options to be acquired during play like the existing ones, or do we allow all of the groups to rework their ships using the new material retroactively?


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 Post subject: Re: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 6:20 pm 

Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:12 pm
Posts: 1
It seems like people (and I'm extrapolating from how my crew operates and what I've heard about the freeforms) have already developed quite a bit of an identity for their ships, so it seems like a hassle and a shame to potentially upset that.
Also, people may already have expended effort on finding out details about one another's ships...

Seems best to keep the new stuff as new things that may or may not now be found to be on the market.

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 Post subject: Re: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 7:14 am 

Joined: Thu Jan 27, 2011 2:24 pm
Posts: 10
Yeah, I think Aurelion's got it just about right. I know my crew and I are pretty set with our ship, and I'd actually hate to change it now. At the same time, I'd hate our data on other vessels to become muddied by changes.

But the new stuff should certainly be available for those that want it.

One way to justify is, since it's all very military tech, it's only now becoming available because we do actually have access to a Fleet's resources, and all that entails.

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 Post subject: Re: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 12:57 pm 

Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 12:02 pm
Posts: 13
Honestly, I think we should probably wait to see what's in Battlefleet Koronus to decide.

Maybe the GMs could offer one change (or two? some decided number), so long as it was in theme? Might be easier to discuss this briefly before the next LARP since the book will be out by then.

ie: switching from a transport hull to a different transport hull might be OK, but a transport hull to a cruiser hull not as much. There are apparently 21 new hulls.

My only worry is that people might have set their ship up so that they don't have the space or power to put new items in. Which is, I suppose, reason to try and get a new ship - or swap out a component, and have something to trade with people. People get new computers then curse the fact that a new component was released all the time, I guess.

We'll see how it all goes

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 Post subject: Re: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:37 am 

Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2011 2:12 pm
Posts: 14
my views are as follows

1. rebuilding requires to much ret-con in game and is annoying for the GM's

2. Having new ships start without the new rules would mean there would never be anything bigger than a cruiser in game and is again more work for GM's

3. Having new ships start with access to all kind of makes up for the fact that we will all be a rank ahead then they will.

I could discuss further but am in a simple mood today.

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 Post subject: Re: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 12:38 pm 

Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:12 pm
Posts: 31
I'm torn on this: not having to retrofit and agonise over what to buy vs the lure of shiney new toys and hulls!

Leaving as is (With new crews having the same options) and allowing new stuff to be purchased in game seems the easiest option, but I'm happy to abide by whatever the GM's decide.

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 Post subject: Re: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 2:11 am 

Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 12:02 pm
Posts: 13
tldr: giving players battlecruisers and grandcruisers after character creation will significantly deform the playing field (in an economic sense).

I don't know if this is helpful, so much as a series of unhelpful musings at 3am.

The balance in Rogue Trader is between mercantile and military. Each crew has made a decision, in what type of ship they want, as to what they're prioritising. The big problem with people getting access to battle cruisers and grand cruisers post character creation is the deforming effect that it'll have on the meta-economy of the game.

Rogue trader is a game based about a single ship. It does work reasonably well with multiple ships, but there are a couple of things that change if balance is to be a concern (which, I don't know, it may not be).

The basic maths of it is that profit factor and ship points total to 90*. The maximum you can have in one is 70 - so you have a range of between 20 and 70 in either stat, with less impressive in one meaning correspondingly more impressive in another. The other resource type that is linked to this is acqusition rolls.

Let us assume that we have two ships, one built at 25 ship points (lightly armed transport) to 60 (lightly armed light cruiser) Each crew therefore, has either 65 profit factor* or 30 profit factor.* If the crew with a cruiser gets access to a grand cruiser (which I'm going to assume for the sake of argument is ~65 ship points, with about 10 points of addons (guns, improvements, etc.) - 75 ship points in total). In this situation, the person with the light cruiser has an additional ship which is a bit better to fight with** while the person with a transport has a transport and a light cruiser, that doesn't (in my opinion) make up for the difference in acquisition probability.

Acquisitons are a kind of weird thing (and for ship components listed in four seperate sections of the book which is frustrating, but whatever). They're the balance to the system. For instance, getting a new macrobattery is a -30 to your acquisition roll and getting a new lance is a -40 (although a lot of things are a lot easier to get than this). This means that there's a balance in that Mr. Light cruiser is not going to be able to get all the good toys, since he's got a profit factor of 30 (-30 or 40) - so he's unlikely to be able to make significant changes to the grand cruiser. Mr. Transport, however, will have the military might of a grand cruiser and the purchasing power of somebody with a transport, so he will be able to have his awesome military might and trick it out to make it even more awesome - which is where the system breaks.

But, a rogue trader with a transport getting a Grand Cruiser is a ridiculous idea. It's much more likely that, as I've said, a person with a light cruiser gets a grand cruiser. You then have to deal with the combat effectiveness of a light cruiser and a grand cruiser together** and any new crew is totally boned.****

*This is changed by lifepath choices - some subtract, some add to either profit factor or ship points. Notably, somebody with a crew of 8 each of whom chose the Scion of Dynasty Lifepath choice could have 94 Ship points - but scion of dynasty has some pretty significant disadvantages, and it's an absolutely terrible choice for some careers.

** I would say that you can't can combine two ships working together*** to a combat effectiveness equal to double their individual effectiveness, but it would obviously be more than the highest individual combat effectiveness (due to the nature of PCs, any ship crewed by PCs has a significant advantage (higher skills, more actions) over a ship crewed by minions (but not necessarily NPCs) - PCs can sort of effectively crew 2 ships (sort of), but not really any more than that) - but this is a discussion on economy, not starship combat, and if people want me to discuss starship combat, I'll start a new topic.

***From the same rogue trader crew. If two different rogue trader crews worked together, I feel it would be monstrous.

****since they have to deal with being terribly small fish in a horribly un-fun way not only in the roleplaying sense (XP wise -we had a player turn up having missed two games - he was at a significant disadvantage during the game since effectiveness climbs so sharply with so little XP (at least initially, I'm unsure about later increases to rate of awesomeness). That being said I think it would be OK if a crew had a similar XP situation - the main problem would be if a crew had a member who joined later. Playwise - other people have already had a chance to do a lot of cool stuff), but also in an economic/military sense (how can someone with a light cruiser and no XP possibly compete with mr Light cruiser + grand cruiser which are probably at least slightly tricked out?) - and they'll have had significantly less aquisition rolls, so their characters (and ship) will be considerably worse off. That being said, I'm sure this is something the designers have already thought about.

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 Post subject: Re: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 9:17 am 

Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2011 2:12 pm
Posts: 14
after discussions on the rules the following is made clear and pointed out above by Mattley - with the new options only available for aquisition and Hulls not being a changeale item on a ship if no new groups get access to the new stuff straight up or people don't remake there ship there can be no hulls other than in the first book.

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 Post subject: Re: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 9:41 am 

Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 12:02 pm
Posts: 13
That is laid out so much more clearly than anything at all I said.
I think you deserve all the credit for actually having a point (one I'm not sure I made, rereading what I wrote, although I intended it to be in there), and one that makes sense.

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 Post subject: Re: New Starship Options
PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:37 pm 

Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2011 12:10 am
Posts: 19
My preference in this matter would be allow existing crew to change their ships to incorporate material from Battlefleet Koronus _only_ if something in the new book better represents something they've had all along, but has been poorly represented by the rules, or is a _really obvious_ complement to the theme or background they've already established for their ship.

For example, if someone's crew had really wanted an Endeavour Class Light Cruiser at creation, but because it had not been available had arranged to instead take a Dauntless Class Light Cruiser that _counts as_ an Endeavour class, then the Endeavour Class appeared in Battlefleet Koronus, I think it would be fair enough to allow them to switch over.

I know that the ship my crew has was built prior to the rediscovery of the STC design on which it is based. While being of pre-STC manufacture is a perfectly valid ship background, I'd feel that if several of the crews in the game were in a similar situation that would be pushing the boundaries of suspension of disbelief, and I'd like crews to have the option of swapping their hulls to an equivalent type which has a more synchronous alignment between when their ship was supposed to have been built and when the pattern of hull was actually being produced in the timeline. If everyone else's ship design and date of manufacture line up pretty well, disregard this last part. I know a few of the crews in the game have fairly old ships and the designs published to date have leant towards the more contemporary templates though.

Other than that, for this and any future supplements to be released, my preference would be to allow new material to be acquired during play, but not _generally_ made available to new players at creation (or to existing players as secondary characters) until the conclusion of the first storyline. Then, at the beginning of each new storyline, when the minimum level cap is increased, any new material published since the last chapter end is made available at creation from that point onward. This way, we'll see new character types and overarching technologies joining the game at the beginning of each chapter, which I think works with the model of storytelling being used.


Damon.

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