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Inquisitors' personal ships.

Started by Jamas Orian, August 20, 2010, 04:22:36 AM

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Kaled

Rogue Trader has info on all sorts of
merchant ships, but none are exactly small. If you don't want many crew then I'd make it a non-warp capable ship that hitches a ride on a large warp capable transport to get itself to the right system, then makes it's own way to whichever planet or station is it's final destination.

How big do you see this ship being?
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Kaled

The problem with just two fifths being cargo and crew areas is who would build and operate a ship like that? It would be almost as expensive as a larger ship as it would have all the systems but not have the capacity to do anything useful. As I said before, the owner would have to be hugely rich and powerful - to say that a ship like that would be worth it's weight in gold would be an understatement. And I'm still doubtful you'd get the crew numbers down to the figures you're talking about. A frigate has 22000 crew, even if your ship is a quarter that size and was unarmed it'd still need 3000-4000 crew.
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Koval

Quote from: Kaled on August 22, 2010, 04:02:46 PM
The problem with just two fifths being cargo and crew areas is who would build and operate a ship like that? It would be almost as expensive as a larger ship as it would have all the systems but not have the capacity to do anything useful. As I said before, the owner would have to be hugely rich and powerful - to say that a ship like that would be worth it's weight in gold would be an understatement. And I'm still doubtful you'd get the crew numbers down to the figures you're talking about. A frigate has 22000 crew, even if your ship is a quarter that size and was unarmed it'd still need 3000-4000 crew.
He could just say most of them are servitors, to be fair. And who's to say the ship didn't live its former life as a pilgrim transport?

Kaled

Maybe it was a pilgrim transport, but if I was transporting a cargo like that I'd get a ship that had loads of cargo space compared to space taken up by essential systems. Not something sleek that looks like a small warship.

Yep, you could have a crew made up of mostly servitors with a smaller number of humans. You'd need a huge number of them as servitors are usually mono-task, and you'd need people with the technical skill to program and maintain them. Again it's not impossible, but is highly unusual and would mark the owner out as someone rich and powerful. A pressed crew is far cheaper and easier than a crew of servitors.

There are a few examples of small warp capable ships in the canon, one only needing a two man crew, but they were owned and operated by the Ordos - an organisation with the power and wealth to construct such impractical ships. For practically everyone else a small warp capable ship means one almost a kilometre long with a crew of many thousands.
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

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Koval

Quote from: Kaled on August 22, 2010, 04:51:54 PM
Maybe it was a pilgrim transport, but if I was transporting a cargo like that I'd get a ship that had loads of cargo space compared to space taken up by essential systems. Not something sleek that looks like a small warship.
OK, bad example, but it's not impossible that there are going to be slightly-smaller-than-standard transports of some description out there.

QuoteYep, you could have a crew made up of mostly servitors with a smaller number of humans. You'd need a huge number of them as servitors are usually mono-task, and you'd need people with the technical skill to program and maintain them. Again it's not impossible, but is highly unusual and would mark the owner out as someone rich and powerful. A pressed crew is far cheaper and easier than a crew of servitors.
Barring those that actually supply the servitors and technical staff (whether Adeptus Mechanicus or laity), who's going to know?

QuoteThere are a few examples of small warp capable ships in the canon, one only needing a two man crew, but they were owned and operated by the Ordos - an organisation with the power and wealth to construct such impractical ships. For practically everyone else a small warp capable ship means one almost a kilometre long with a crew of many thousands.
In that case, maybe it is a ship operated by the Ordos. In fact, it is by no means an impossibility that the ship in question is just a very small Inquisition Blackship -- if you want to remain low-key until absolutely necessary, then it's definitely one option.

DapperAnarchist

Something that hasn't been mentioned much here is the option of lift-hitching - not so much comandeering a vessel, but having your own sub-light craft (that may well be faster at sub-light than most Warpships) that simply hangs on, inside the Gellar Envelope, and is carried from system to system by whatever ships happen to be going that way.
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Kaled

Maybe it is a smaller than usual transport, maybe it is a ship belonging to the Ordos - I never said such things didn't exist - and if that's the sort of thing the OP wants then fair enough, I was just pointing out that such things are very unusual.

As for a ship crewed by servitors, again I never said it wasn't possible but again it's unusual and such a ship would have a very different supply chain to one with a crew. Again if the OP wants that sort of a ship then fair enough, but it's hardly a ship with a crew of just 100 - it has a much larger crew as well as needing very specialised support.
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

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Heroka Vendile

I personally prefer personal yachts, capable of interplanetary travel and surface-landing, while also being able to dock with or go completely inside far larger ships for system-to-system travel.
I can see the design in the OP being of a small enough size to fill this category, which would result in a far smaller crew compliment, with the caveat of being pretty much useless for space-combat due to it's relatively small size.

Note that this isn't to say that i disagree with everything else that has been covered in this topic, there is nothing wrong with Inquisitors having warships or always travelling incognito.
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Morcus

Alot of the Ships in Dan Abnetts Ravenor and Eisenhorn series seem to have quite small crews. The number of Crew shouldn't be determined by the size of the ship, more by its function. A warship will need alot more crew because the ship itself does more, they need Gunners, Loaders, engineers and such and all sorts of other militry type guys. Also they need more people to look  after the Crew than a smaller, no combatant ship would.

I also Prefer the having a sublight craft and tagging along with larger craft from system to System.

N01H3r3

Quote from: Jamas Orian on August 22, 2010, 03:43:38 PMAhh... that's an idea. If say, I had the back 3 fifths of the thing taken up entirely by engines and gellar field, and the front 2 fiths taken up by cargo hold, I could have a relatively small number of people manning the dorsal areas?
The issue there being that you need people (namely tech-priests and the accompanying servitors) to maintain the engines and other arcane and sophisticated devices, aside from the regular crew of the ship. A 'relatively small' number of people could still end up meaning several thousand men.
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Flinty

If you really want a 'small' crew - say under 50 or so, then fluff wise it would have to be a non-warp capable ship - ie standard intersystem space travel only.

Such a ship would then require transport on a larger vessel to move between systems - hardly a problem - but would still provide your Inquisitor with localised personal transport, storage and living space etc.

I do echo the view that in an age when only the Navy and a very small number of industrial congolomerates or traders have the resources to build new ships, the chances of any number of people having access to one of the (presumably dwindling) limited number of smaller ships without paying for it (whichever way that may be) must be tiny, tiny, slim.

Yep they are Inquisitors and it could be that they inherited the ship from a mentor, stole it or whatever. I think of the 2 and a half warbands I have in production, only one has access to a ship and thats because he's a pirate. The others will hitch lifts, pay for passage or hijack/commandeer as necessary.
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Macabre

I think the problem is that we have diametrically opposing examples within canon and mythos. On the one hand, you have Jaq Draco's ship, which was warp capable, but is only size of a gun cutter/aquilla lander, and on the other, you have older sources (Codex Imperialis springs to mind) stating that warp drives are the size of a small city. Inquisitor Richter Kartheim for example 'owns' a former medicae transport called 'Schadenfreud', its warp capable but is one of the smallest class of ship from BFG and has limited armaments.
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Jamas Orian

If the ship was small enough, I'm certain that it wouldn't need the arms to fend off capital ships and escorts. Simply because the primary weapons that ships that size mount would be extremely unwieldy against a target like that, and their turrets would be far too short-ranged.

I think for the size of what I'm after, hitching a lift with other ships is the way to go. Before this thread I did have absolutely no idea at all about the size and/or scalability of a warp drive. I'd certainly not wish to go parading about in an upfront inone's face manner with a ship the szie of a small city :P

How about if the thing was a 'generic' imperial intra system transporter, outwardly none too dissimilar to ones that would ferry people/goods/colonits/etc.?

Dexter

Quote from: Macabre on August 23, 2010, 11:53:58 PM
I think the problem is that we have diametrically opposing examples within canon and mythos. On the one hand, you have Jaq Draco's ship, which was warp capable, but is only size of a gun cutter/aquilla lander, and on the other, you have older sources (Codex Imperialis springs to mind) stating that warp drives are the size of a small city. Inquisitor Richter Kartheim for example 'owns' a former medicae transport called 'Schadenfreud', its warp capable but is one of the smallest class of ship from BFG and has limited armaments.

Is Draco really a reliable source to go by at this point though?  It seems like GW has retconned every plot device out of it.
I think the idea of having a non-warp-capable ship that hitches rides with warp-capable ships is your best way to go.  When I was designing my Inquisitor, I quickly came to the conclusion that him having a warp-capable ship to call his own would be way too much of a headache for him to have to be responsible for.
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Kaled

I don't think the small ships operated by the Ordos in things like Grey Knights and Draco are a problem. I don't think it's that you can't have a miniaturised warp drive (i.e. smaller than a city block) built into a custom made small ship, more that such a thing is expensive beyond words - far too costly for anyone who has to worry about money to be able to afford, and far too small to ever make any return or be of any use. Thus such things are probably restricted to a handful owned by the Inquisition who don't worry about such things. The small ship no doubt has other drawbacks too - range, maintenance, spares etc.
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

Inquisitor - Blood Bowl - Malifaux - Fairy Meat