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A few questions about Ork tech:

Do their ships have communication systems?

How would they make their ships?

What weapon sytems would they have?

I can't answer this too well, but some ships are just taking an asteroid, slamming guns all over it, and calling it a rok.

All ork tech is unique to te Mek who creates it so there is no truly Standardized tech,
Ork ships are usually looted ships from other species, Tau ships are among the most valuable to orks. But orks will make do with any thing, a space hulk also makes a fine vessel, however ork meks are also capable of making ships it's just easier to jack one.
Again their weapons would just be looted weapons from other species, however a mek may outfit a ship with Zzap Gunz or Traktor beems, aside from that just expect every piece a Dakka a mek can get his hands on.
Communicators are an interesting question as while it would seem orks do possess the technology they rely more on their WAAAGH! sense to organize themselves as orks are drawn to fighting, so as soon as a fight breaks out it draws more orks.

Ok. Thanks for answering my questions, chazz

For a race that seems to be able to loot and use pretty much anything the other races have, I'm sure communication tech isn't really all that difficult for them to figure out. There's also some wh40k games which Ork vox transmissions are eavesdropped on by the player or heard over loud speakers as the warboss shouts at his troops. Most of these Waaaagh's are system wide in size. I suspect there is more then just Waaaagh energy at play there. But then again I wanted to point out Ghazzy's high level of organization over billions of Orks but he has a form of comms that is much faster and better then even astropath's. Thanks to Gork and Mork he seems to be able to communicate across the galaxy to his officers in other systems.....in real time...that's an extreme advantage compared to other races needing to wait weeks inbetween messages.

As far as I know the fluff doesn't directly deal with un-sexy tek like communications other than to suggest they have it. Most likely it's a bewildering combo of signal flags, speaking tubes, flashing semaphore lights, telegraph, radio maser/laser commlinks and possibly even psyker based communications, with the exact composition varying from vessel to vessel. It would be heavily influenced by both the Mek who assembled it and the whim of the user(s).

As I understand it Orks are not simply looters, though they're certainly experts in the art.

An Ork Mek has an innate understanding of basic physics, mechanics, electronics, etc. Basically he just grabs his tools, peruses the bitz he has to work with and starts hammering/cutting/welding until he has something that more or less works. The Mek himself can't really tell you how he built something; he'd probably say something like "Jus felt right, hurr hurr."

On top of that the Ork tendency to Kustomize even after a bit o' tek goes into service means their equipment tends to evolve over it's service life. It doesn't necessarily get improved by Kustomizin', it just evolves to suit the fancy of the user.

Are Orks master looters? Absolutely. Do they prefer to loot over building from scratch? Sure. They're lazy, so they'll go in for shortcuts whenever lootable stuff is available - but unless your Mek resides on a Forgeworld that's rarely possible for an extended time. Even on a War World the amount of salvageable tek isn't enough to feed the insatiable demands of teeming Greenskins.

Orks build a sizable proportion of their gear from scratch out of whatever bitz and gubbinz are available. That's not quite the same as repurposing and kustomizin a wrecked vehicle - aka Lootin'.

I'm curious where you heard that Orks prefer to loot Tau tek. I've never read anything that suggested they are anything but opportunists who will rebuild anything they can get their grubby klaws on.

Personally I'd expect that, given the choice, Orks opt to loot something shiny, fast, smelly and loud over something sleek and efficient. If I'm right that would tend to make them opt for Human tek over Tau, Necron or Eldar stuff if given the choice.

Of course, your mileage will vary based on the whims of a particular Mek. I'm quite sure some Meks prefer to loot sleek, elegant designs if only to slap a steam boiler, a set of trakks, some whirly bitz and too many overlarge guns on it.

My two cents.

Warboss Gorhack wrote:
As far as I know the fluff doesn't directly deal with un-sexy tek like communications other than to suggest they have it. Most likely it's a bewildering combo of signal flags, speaking tubes, flashing semaphore lights, telegraph, radio maser/laser commlinks and possibly even psyker based communications, with the exact composition varying from vessel to vessel. It would be heavily influenced by both the Mek who assembled it and the whim of the user(s).

As I understand it Orks are not simply looters, though they're certainly experts in the art.

An Ork Mek has an innate understanding of basic physics, mechanics, electronics, etc. Basically he just grabs his tools, peruses the bitz he has to work with and starts hammering/cutting/welding until he has something that more or less works. The Mek himself can't really tell you how he built something; he'd probably say something like "Jus felt right, hurr hurr."

On top of that the Ork tendency to Kustomize even after a bit o' tek goes into service means their equipment tends to evolve over it's service life. It doesn't necessarily get improved by Kustomizin', it just evolves to suit the fancy of the user.

Are Orks master looters? Absolutely. Do they prefer to loot over building from scratch? Sure. They're lazy, so they'll go in for shortcuts whenever lootable stuff is available - but unless your Mek resides on a Forgeworld that's rarely possible for an extended time. Even on a War World the amount of salvageable tek isn't enough to feed the insatiable demands of teeming Greenskins.

Orks build a sizable proportion of their gear from scratch out of whatever bitz and gubbinz are available. That's not quite the same as repurposing and kustomizin a wrecked vehicle - aka Lootin'.

I'm curious where you heard that Orks prefer to loot Tau tek. I've never read anything that suggested they are anything but opportunists who will rebuild anything they can get their grubby klaws on.

Personally I'd expect that, given the choice, Orks opt to loot something shiny, fast, smelly and loud over something sleek and efficient. If I'm right that would tend to make them opt for Human tek over Tau, Necron or Eldar stuff if given the choice.

Of course, your mileage will vary based on the whims of a particular Mek. I'm quite sure some Meks prefer to loot sleek, elegant designs if only to slap a steam boiler, a set of trakks, some whirly bitz and too many overlarge guns on it.

My two cents.

From my understanding this is all correct. People always forget that Orks don't just loot things, they actually possess the genetically programmed ability to build from scratch tech that even the Adeptus Mechanicus can't top (teleporter and tractor beam technology in particular). So their communication between ships could be anything from the incredibly basic to the incredibly advanced, purely on the whim of the meks who built the ships and whether or not they bothered to sort something out until the last minute. Whatever the case, you can be sure their solution is crude but brutally effective.

Pretty sure Orks use, like, a 1930s-style phone... the kind with the mouthpiece you hold in one hand and the speaker you press against your ear with the other.. to communicate between ships.

Vox-range is increased simply by shouting more loudly at it.

Edit:

Something like this:



.... but bigger, and green and/or black, with, like, a set of brass knuckles on the post to put your fingers through when you pick it up and need to hit a git.

Well I did manage to find one example in the fluff. Ghazzy's supplement. In the space hulk just before his first invasion of Armageddon he was shouting out orders heard over speakers througout the mass of flotsom and jetsom that is a space hulk. Now being that a space hulk is a collection of shipwrecks, asteroids and debris it's safe to assume that yeah they looted the stuff to make a comms system but from there they would've had to build the rest themselves in order to network the entire space hulk. The desciption of that particular space hulk also reaffirms that it was a huge collection of junk from all kinds of races and included even the Dominion, a ship from the golden age of tech. Despite being rather crude and pretty much like an old age telephone/switchboard I wouldn't say their comms are glorious enough for more then a tiny mention but it does show that they do understand the need for comms and will kit bash whatever they can to suit their needs.

I'm curious where you heard that Orks prefer to loot Tau tek. I've never read anything that suggested they are anything but opportunists who will rebuild anything they can get their grubby klaws on.

Personally I'd expect that, given the choice, Orks opt to loot something shiny, fast, smelly and loud over something sleek and efficient. If I'm right that would tend to make them opt for Human tek over Tau, Necron or Eldar stuff if given the choice.

Of course, your mileage will vary based on the whims of a particular Mek. I'm quite sure some Meks prefer to loot sleek, elegant designs if only to slap a steam boiler, a set of trakks, some whirly bitz and too many overlarge guns on it.

My two cents.

Part of the problem of Orks building things outright is that such things are, by necessity, a team effort: One ork alone cannot build a Kill Kroozer, especially since not every Mek has every blueprint.

Take, for example, Gorkamorka. When survivors of the hulk that crashed on Angelis got together to plan their exit from the planet, they got all their Meks together and told them to solve the problem.

The end result is that some of them started building a tellyporta, some of them started building a space ship, some of them started building an effigy, and the end result is probably a Great Gargant.

Chazz, you're claiming that Orks prefer Tau tek because it's more efficient, but you haven't yet provided any sources to support your claim. Your argument is well structured if you assume that Orks are primarily logical, efficiency-oriented engineers.

That's a good description of the Tau, but it's simply not the way Orks think. They build what appeals to them, either because it looks good or because it's loud - both of which equate to 'Killy' in the Orky mind. They hang plenty of non-functional bitz on their gear simply because it looks good to them not because it is more 'advanced' or 'effective'.

Orks have a clearly defined aesthetic in GWs fluff. It's what we'd broadly equate with Mad Max... lots of spikes and chrome, copious quantities of rivets, guns, chains and war trophies, gaudy paint schemes (or not if it's a Goff), and roaring engines enhanced by super chargers and fiberglass filled antimufflers. It's pretty clearly established by every codex since I started playing in second edition.

Again, there's no reason why your personal warband can't opt to be more efficiency-focused than the general run of Orks. It's a big Galaxy after all. Done well it could be an interesting and dangerous warband indeed. But it remains just that - your personal approach to Orks.

Sadly, your assertions about universal Ork behavior don't mesh with GW fluff very well. Indeed, your approach flies in the face of the comic/savage vibe GW plainly and repeatedly portrays with Greenskins.

Let's not forget that the Tau have a flyspeck of an empire in the galactic scheme of things. Very, very few Orks ever have contact with the Tau compared with the number that have IOM contact, just as you've suggested. It's possible that the relative rarity of Tau goodies might increase their desirability among Ork Meks.

I maintain (my opinion only) that the florid gaudiness of Imperial aesthetics provides more fertile ground for the Ork imagination than sleeker Tau, Eldar or Necron designs. Being opinion you can certainly challenge me on this; it' just my headcanon. (Not headcannon, though I'm sure Mad Dok Grotsnik would be inspired by the notion.)

Don't stop thinking outside the box though.

My two cents.

No Tau tech isn't some specific race onlt tech they go loot. It's silly to think that. They loot everything, plain and simple. NOTHING from ANY RACE is orky enough for the Orks and will be made more shooty and orky. ALL oddboyz know the same blueprints. Their skills and knowledge on tech and building is entirely encoded within their DNA long before the lifeforms that would evolve into humans crawled out of the oceans on Terra for the first time. The entire race is a walking breathing expanding genetic program. Anything looted or built by meks in any of the clans will all follow the same base templates and none of them can ever explain why or how they did it. All of them from different parts of the galaxy can get together and do a show and tell of their Stompa and all of them will have built something based on the same template every single one of them has ingrained in their DNA. Only differences might be whether one has bolt on rockit launchas or big shootas or what their paintjob will be. While considered simple and barbaric the Orks have some surprisingly elegant solutions that permeate the entire race. But yeah the idea that they only go for Tau or prefer Tau is nonsense. Tau being one of the youngest upstart races to appear in Milky Way galaxy. Orks are one of the 3 most ancient races along with Eldar and then the older Necrons. I highly doubt the Orks waited millenia upon millenia for the Tau to civilize so they can start looting them. I also highly doubt that once the flegling infant Tau empire came into existance the Orks collectively decided that the little speck on the galaxy map is the one place to go loot. Orks loot EVERYTHING and make it all into something no other race can loot back (because once taken back it's realized there's absolutely no reason why it should even be working anymore but it does in the hands of Orks thanks to Waaaaaagh energy.) If someone wanted to ignore Ork mentality and decide that whatever got looted the most means what the Orks prefer to loot then the conclusion would inevitably be that Orks prefer to loot from the Imperium of Man. The sheer amount of resources the Imperium has dumped and lost against Orks far outstrips the population of Tau. But even this is incorrect as Orks have been looting long before Terra evolved any life. They loot everything, plain and simple.

I am not saying that Orks can not or never build communication systems, but I seriously doubt that it is high on their list of priorities.

Orks are fungus not vegetables. Their society may operate based solely on along the lines of 'might makes right' but they still understand the concept of working together toward common* goals even if there's a big hill or 50,000km of hard vacuum between them..

* as in everyone wanting da bosses plan to work so they don't get bashed.

My source is a codex entry in the last edition of the ork codex it is referred To as The War of Dakka, the orks there wanted the Tau tech as the mek boyz claim it is better than imperial tech, and once the orks were finally able to loot their technological they became significantly more dangerous. A mek will turn anything he can find into ork technology and I'm by no means saying orks will only loot Tau as that is simply not true or remotely possible. A mek boy has a unshakable desire for bitz he can use to make things the higher quality bitz he can find the better quality gear he can create. Most of what orks find is looted from the imperial guard (proof look at lootas their deff guns are las cannos taped to a las gun). But specifically Tau tech is the envy of every ork.

Proof orks like Tau weaponry

That's one example of some orks looting tau weaponry, which has been done on more than one occasion. Yes, the may like it, but not every ork will prefer tau tech, nor will most of the population of orks in the galaxy experience it in their lifetime, like it's been said before, the tau are a smaller empire, and orks are everywhere. Many orks will prefer some other type of gear, and just because a group of orks looted some gear and got better doesn't mean they like it more, since looting pretty much anything can be a bonus for an ork.

That was my original claim if you look at my previous comments some meks prefer Tau over others but tau are a minority and are hard to come by the sheer rarity of tau tech makes it valuable, mix that with it being the most high tech in the galaxy. The same can probably said with a few other factions like mechanicus. But if a mek boy had a choice to pillage a Tau ship or a human ship he will almost always pick the Tau loot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ProwlerPC wrote:
No Tau tech isn't some specific race onlt tech they go loot. It's silly to think that. They loot everything, plain and simple. NOTHING from ANY RACE is orky enough for the Orks and will be made more shooty and orky. ALL oddboyz know the same blueprints. Their skills and knowledge on tech and building is entirely encoded within their DNA long before the lifeforms that would evolve into humans crawled out of the oceans on Terra for the first time. The entire race is a walking breathing expanding genetic program. Anything looted or built by meks in any of the clans will all follow the same base templates and none of them can ever explain why or how they did it. All of them from different parts of the galaxy can get together and do a show and tell of their Stompa and all of them will have built something based on the same template every single one of them has ingrained in their DNA. Only differences might be whether one has bolt on rockit launchas or big shootas or what their paintjob will be. While considered simple and barbaric the Orks have some surprisingly elegant solutions that permeate the entire race. But yeah the idea that they only go for Tau or prefer Tau is nonsense. Tau being one of the youngest upstart races to appear in Milky Way galaxy. Orks are one of the 3 most ancient races along with Eldar and then the older Necrons. I highly doubt the Orks waited millenia upon millenia for the Tau to civilize so they can start looting them. I also highly doubt that once the flegling infant Tau empire came into existance the Orks collectively decided that the little speck on the galaxy map is the one place to go loot. Orks loot EVERYTHING and make it all into something no other race can loot back (because once taken back it's realized there's absolutely no reason why it should even be working anymore but it does in the hands of Orks thanks to Waaaaaagh energy.) If someone wanted to ignore Ork mentality and decide that whatever got looted the most means what the Orks prefer to loot then the conclusion would inevitably be that Orks prefer to loot from the Imperium of Man. The sheer amount of resources the Imperium has dumped and lost against Orks far outstrips the population of Tau. But even this is incorrect as Orks have been looting long before Terra evolved any life. They loot everything, plain and simple.

I never said they only loot Tau that is absurd as orks outnumber Tau like a billion to one. That would mean every Tau would have to produce a ridiculous number of weapons to satisfy the need of the orks if they were the only source of loot. My claim is meks would love to get their hands on Tau tech as a skilled Mek Boy can create superior weaponry with the use of Tau tech.

I like the story of how the Orks dealt with a certain regional Tau flagship. It couldn't be dealt with headon . The Orks looted another Tau ship and I guess somehow figured the right transmission codes or maybe a lack of foresight on the part of the Tau but they were able to use that ship to dock with the space port that resupplied the flagship. In poured the Kommandos to take away Tau's ability to resupply. I don't doubt their meks had all kinds of fun looting that. It would still be more honest and precise to say that they will go for whatever is louder and shootier then what they already have. If one had the opportunity to pick up an Eldar's cigarette lighter with str D it would happily toss the Tau gun to the side and gladly grab the more powerful weapon.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
I don't doubt their meks had all kinds of fun looting that. It would still be more honest and precise to say that they will go for whatever is louder and shootier then what they already have. If one had the opportunity to pick up an Eldar's cigarette lighter with str D it would happily toss the Tau gun to the side and gladly grab the more powerful weapon.

That is essential what I am saying meks want the more powerful bitz, bitz the Tau have and the IOM don't, they don't want Tau tech becaus It's tau orks ain't label snobs, they just want more Dakka and tau provide this better than most. Granted if something more powerful became available the mek would instantly drop all his bitz to get his fingers on them the Tau are just part of a meks internal understanding of more technological advanced enemy equals bigger and better loot, a mek simply wants the most absolute best materials.

 Geemoney wrote:
I am not saying that Orks can not or never build communication systems, but I seriously doubt that it is high on their list of priorities.

This. Commos are nice, but first you need propulsion, armor and guns. Huge guns. Orks don't even care about making a hulk airtight if it's too much bother, they'll just set up some power fields to keep air in. Something as basic as communications is so far down the list that only the really sneaky gits would think about it before the HUGE GUNS! Who needs to talk anyway? Can't the boyz see this HUGE SHIP WITH HUGE GUNS? Follow it!

I find it very hard to believe that any Ork would choose a Pulse Carbine over a proper Shoota without first taking it to a Mek to make it better.

Better, in this case, being adding some gubbinz so that it actually makes a noise, because Pulse weapons are very quiet. There's no boom, no dakka, when you haul on the trigger.

In the old days (2nd ed and earlier) there was a set way orks would typically invade a world. The orks were supposed to have excellent "traktor" beam technology, and would use it to grab and pull space hulks in a system to a world where a Waaagh was building. Air would be provided through Bubble-chucka type technology. The orks would then retrofit the hulk as they saw fit, build war machines out of pieces of the hulk, and eventually they would either jury-rig the engines to navigate to a world to invade, or the warp would simply pull them someplace, implying Chaos was directing their movements. The plot to Gorkamorka involved such a space hulk crashing into Angelis as the origin of the orks being on the world.

This changed right around when Battlefleet Gothic came out, when we first began to see orks with full blown space craft. These look less like space hulks and more like purpose-built ships of various classes and sizes. At the same time, we were introduced to "Roks", which were asteroids that had been hollowed out and fitted with engines and weapons, to create cheap and effective fortresses in space. This was expanded upon in the Third War for Armageddon fluff, where Roks were depicted as landing on the planetary surface and deploying super heavy units like gargants, as well as being used as a weapon of mass destruction by ramming the surface with them.

As far as I know, this fluff is still current - orks can build space craft, still make use of space hulks when they can, and can colonize and convert asteroids into Roks.

Regarding radio transmissions - I agree that they would use all manner of humorous signals and systems to communicate among the ork fleets. But, I believe they also have a reliable radio type communication system. I get that from an old piece of fluff that says human deep space probes, which have traveled further through the galaxy than any human ever has, have all returned "ork transmissions" in every part of the galaxy. The implication is that orks are everywhere, an ever-present menace, but it also implies that orks make transmissions, and have some sort of broadcasting communication system.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I find it very hard to believe that any Ork would choose a Pulse Carbine over a proper Shoota without first taking it to a Mek to make it better.

Better, in this case, being adding some gubbinz so that it actually makes a noise, because Pulse weapons are very quiet. There's no boom, no dakka, when you haul on the trigger.

An ork will almost never use an alien weapon with out having it kustomized by a big mek, look at Kaptin badrukk's Snazz Gun it was originally just a rippa gun. So of course an ork would make their weapons more orky. Tau got dakka and there are plenty of mek boyz who want to get their hands on it.

No, Tau don't have dakka, that's my point. They have shooty deff guns, sure but dakka? Nu-uh. Even their rokkits are little bleepy things, not even a proper whooosh.

Orks like Necron weapons too. 95% of Orks don't even know what Tau are, so yeah the ones in that area would probably like to get their hands of Tau stuff since it is generally more effective, but the Necron codex had the meks aware of them very much interested in their weapons and tech too.

And Orks have radio communication at the very least.

I can see Orks loving Tesla weaponry, but Gauss doesn't really seem to be their kind of thing. Invisible rays that disintegrate things layer by layer? How can you even tell the gun did it?!

For sure, but the general destruction would be attractive. The 5th edition Necron book and the 7th edition Ork book both give information about an ork waaagh that obtained deathray cannons from the Necrons to use. The big mek's curiosity got the better of him though, so he cracked the coolant core and caused the weapons to detonate.

Following the revelations of the text in the image posted above...

... how many Sept-Worlds does the Tau Empire contain? They seem to have lost at least 3 to one Waaaghboss, and he shows no signs of stopping. The Imperium might not even need to worry about the Tau if things continue as they have been.