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In 40k background there are a bunch of things that can't be squared with what we know.

One is the insistence that plasmaguns/pistols are rare and dangerous, while gangleaders in industrial hives can get them.

In a similar vein, starships are often depicted as ancient relics that are hard to construct- the loss of each one is a great tragedy. However, the role they serve in the background is as gateways to adventure- all 40k battles depend on ships to bring troops to different worlds/hulks/etc.

In the classic tale BloodQuest, the Blood Angels excommunicated from their chapter are given a small ship called the Exile to carry out their quest. They weren't expected to return- that ship would have been considered lost to the Blood Angels and indeed was destroyed.

There are characters and heroes of the 41st millenium - Creed, Saints, Ecclesiarchs, Chapter Masters who are certainly considered more important than the ships they ride in. If the ship they are in is destroyed but they survive, the heroes narrative continues.

I'm trying to square this with the difficulty of producing ships. As far as I know it requires specialist ship yards, admech support and knowledge and specialist materials (i'd assume making the warp engines and gellar fields involve some psychoactive materials.

Building a basic ship hull is easy - the Lunar Class Cruiser can be built on a "Hive World with no shipbuilding expertise" or even a Feral world. It's the weapon systems, warp engine, Navigator, etc. that are difficult. Non-warp pilgrim ships can fly for hundreds of years without repair.

On the other end of the scale, an Ark Mechanicum takes the resources of an entire Forge World to produce (and at least one launch resulted with the destruction of the Forge World).

Yeah, it depends heavily on the type of ship. Clearly the Imperium is capable of producing vast numbers of warp-capable trade vessels for their merchant navy, and these must be relatively simple ships well within the abilities of most reasonably advanced Imperial shipyards to produce.

Some of the resources required will be rare, but the Imperium is a large empire that has shown it is very willing to secure mineral supplies. Additionally, the very nature of STC tech has substituting advanced materials for local alternatives as a core principle, as it was intended for colonists. As such, there is likely a huge amount of material redundancy in producing Imperial technology.

Naval escort ships are likely also easy to produce, and large numbers of these craft are used by the Imperial Navy. They do the bulk of the anti-piracy work needed for maintaining much of the Imperial trade network. Cruisers are more complicated, but we have at least one canonical example of a Lunar-class cruiser being built over a Feral world! So some cruiser classes are technologically relatively straightforward.

However, it is also clear that warp-capable ships, especially capital ships, are still considered incredibly valuable, and the Imperial Navy will go to great lengths to salvage hulls and tech from crippled craft and Space Hulks. Old ships are also immensely valuable for their superior tech- throughout the Gothic war, we have examples of the Imperial Navy salvaging superior old components from captured Chaos wrecks.

So we have a situation where voidships are immensely valuable, but the huge industrial capacity of the Imperium allows them to be produced in large numbers despite this.


It is also worth noting that warp travel is clearly not as dangerous, on a day-to-day basis, as much of the fluff suggests it is. The Imperium relies hugely on interstellar trade, and it would cease to exist if warp losses were so high. My personal hypothesis for squaring this disparity is that the Warp becomes more unstable around active warzones, due to the emotions and souls being released. This would make the Warp dangerous anywhere we care about as 40k players, but safe enough for the majority of necessary trade to survive in quiet regions.

We know that most Imperial ships operate for hundreds if not thousands of years, so voidfaring within the Imperium must generally be pretty reliable. I imagine that the routes between core systems, especially in Segmentum Solar, would be remarkably untroubled until such time as a major war breaks out for whatever reason- piracy in these areas will be heavily suppressed/non-existent.

One part of the issue is what happens when you take rare or uncommon events and then multiply them out across an entire planet. You run into bigger versions of the Birthday Paradox (rare events happening in large volumes and then assigned to groups do weird things...)

How many gang members find plasma weapons during a year? Not many, compared to the number of gang members in a population. But of the gang members who find plasma weapons, how many of those end up either becoming gang leaders (breaking off to form their own gangs; fighting their way to the top of their own gang using the weapon; etc.)?

On top of that, those types of gangs (where the leaders distinguished themselves), are more interesting and thus more likely to be talked about in the background material. What are all of the uninteresting gang members or uninteresting gang leaders doing? You don't know, because they're boring.

Small ships are easy to churn out as evidenced by the BFG entry on the Iconoclast destroyer:

Mainly used by pirates and other lawless bands, the Iconoclast is similar in design to a variety of small escort ships turned out by almost every shipyard.

BFG rulebook, p. 126

If pirates and lawless bands can get their hands on such warp capable ships readily it means either shipyard security is very lax or that they are so easy to build that they are ubiquitous. Also the very fact pirate bands can operate such ships for any length of time means they are easy to maintain.

For the 40K universe it seems to be at either end of the size spectrum that you start running into difficulties with manufacture or maintenance with the Imperial technology base. The smallest warp capable ships seem to be owned by the Inquisition. The very big battleships take a long time to manufacture, and also take a long time to start up from shutdown status (as per BFG supplement Warp Storm short story by Gordon Rennie). The bulk of starships are going to be around escort size, and that is also the size of ship used most for anti-piracy. The "standard" freighter described in BFG is an escort sized ship. Anything cruiser sized is already far beyond what most human pirate bands have or can handle.

There's probably a lot of in-system iconoclast-equivalents, patrolling solar systems and dealing with local pirates. Sublight travel across a system is still measured in days, and probably weeks to circumnavigate around the far reaches where it is safe to warp in.

The iconoclasts that appear in chaos fleets are either then local pirates, or the lucky few who have managed to get a warp capable one and some means of navigation.

So whilst the smaller ships are not likely rare, ships that can travel between star systems (rather than just leave star systems...) are few and far between.

The fluff isn't always inconsistent with how they depict the tech level. For example, the same source will talk about older patterns of armor, such as the malcador, being mothballed, while also bemoaning the loss of relic weapons like vanquishers and destroyers.

Essentially, there are levels of availability for almost all tech:
1) Things can be readily built by nearly any world: lasguns, heavy stubbers, frag grenades, etc.
2) things that require at least some dedicated arms industry: LRBT, chimera, lascannons,
3) Things that require advanced industrial abilities: valkyries and other fliers, power armor, space ships
4) Things that are only produced on forge worlds: terminator armor, high end ships, much Astartes gear, plasma

Now, one of the things that this doesn't change is if the equiptment is artisan made or mass produced. I think the aspect of plasma rarity is that few forgeworlds can mass produce high end plasma, so much of the stuff out there is artisan made. This makes it much more expensive, as hadn crafting is slower and requires more skilled labor.

In a way, this explains why plasma pistols (usually carried by high status indivduals) are everywhere, while squad plasma is considered uncommon, and plasma cannons and above are rare. A gang leader, IG officer, or inquistor might gladly pay a huge premium to go from a bolt pistol to a plasma pistol, but if you're raising a tank regiment, does it really make sense to pay a huge premium from battle cannons to executioner cannons?

Starships don't really have rare tech, they are just staggeringly expensive. The new US Coast Guard cutters are going to cost over $600 million each. The Indian Navy paid Russia about $240 million each for 10 frigates. even back when using only "settled" technology, the USS constitution cost $125k in 1794 money, and was seen as a massive expense.

I don't think plasma weaponry is only produced on Forge Worlds as some Hive Worlds appear to have a degree of endogenous production- Necromunda is the chief example, potentially producing at least 6 distinct pattern-lineages. However, large and important Hive worlds, like Necromunda, appear to have an industrial and tech capacity approaching lesser Forge worlds, so that isn't surprising.

Larger, rarer plasma weaponry is certainly constrained to Forge worlds in all but the most exceptional of circumstances (usually a surviving Dark-Age-of-Technology installation on a planet), but plasma pistols and guns at least are more widespread.

It is worth noting that the gangs on Necromunda are likely especially well armed, due to the unusual importance, size, and technological base of Necromunda. This is one of the top few planets for population in the entire Imperium, and is a world that was technologically advanced before Compliance in the Great Crusade. It is based in Segmentum Solar, and commands an important sector of Imperial space. It is also a world known for producing munitions and armaments in particular. As such, Necromunda is hugely overpopulated, very wealthy, and swimming in weaponry- a combination that is always going to make for incredibly well-armed gangs. Gangers on Hive world #2371 in the Whocares sector likely struggle to find gear superior to the local lasgun pattern.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tastyfish wrote:
There's probably a lot of in-system iconoclast-equivalents, patrolling solar systems and dealing with local pirates. Sublight travel across a system is still measured in days, and probably weeks to circumnavigate around the far reaches where it is safe to warp in.

The iconoclasts that appear in chaos fleets are either then local pirates, or the lucky few who have managed to get a warp capable one and some means of navigation.

So whilst the smaller ships are not likely rare, ships that can travel between star systems (rather than just leave star systems...) are few and far between.

Iconoclasts are specifically a Warp-capable design though, and there is no suggestion most of them are built without warp drives. Whilst there are vast numbers of intrastellar craft, the implication is that there are also large numbers of interstellar ships too. The kind of pirates mentioned in BFG frequently operated from poorly charted, messy systems away from Imperial settlements, like nebulas and systems with large asteroid fields- this allowed them to hide form Imperial retribution easier. This clearly requires the pirates to have warp-capable ships to be able to strike. Imperial systems do occasionally harbour intrastellar pirates (such as the notable example of Elysia- a system with a large number of moons and asteroids), but most systems are able to flush out their local pirates and force them to become interstellar raiders or die.

In BFG, "system ships" are the ships incapable of warp travel and are limited purely to the system they are in. Iconoclast class destroyers are not system ships and are warp capable. That is how there are pirate bands in the first place, to prey on interstellar shipping (and also to be able to go dispose of their looted booty). It is no good to raid a mining world's convoy if you are stuck in the same system as the mining world and have nowhere to go to sell the cargo for profit.

The difficulty of navigation in 40K is not about individual jumps but about long range warp travel which is necessary to sustain a large scale polity. That is where Navigators and the Astronomicon come in. The alternative, and what was used before Navigators, was calculated jumps, and is still what the Chartist trade captains use. Pirate bands would likely rely on the same. This limits them to short jumps to get their bearings, and staying within the territory where they have good navigational data.

In terms of Plasma Weapons?

It’s a matter of relative rarity, rather than absolute rarity.

A Forgeworld can and will churn out millions upon millions of Lasguns and Powerpacks. Millions of them.

Plasma? Well, not all Forgeworld’s can make them. And some are just better than others (Ryza). And they likely only make hundreds of thousands of them.

Gang Leaders and Gangs in general? They’re prestige weapons (same as Bolters), rather than inherently practical weapons. Something to show off one’s status, as much as melt enemy faces off. And that demand means there’s a market to be satisfied, so the hundreds of thousands being produced see an amount bunged down hive.

Ships? Much like Titans, it’s bloody hard to properly destroy one, short of a Warp Drive implosion. So the Imperial Fleet is as much a salvage specialist as it is a ship builder. And wrecks can be floating around for a long time before being bashed back into commission, including at least some freed from Space Hulks etc.

Side question since I don't play or know much about Necromunda as a game or the setting but do they explain how a bunch of street gangs seem to have equipment that rivals high level guard regiments or space marines?

Seeing street trash with plasma weapons, combi bolters, power weapons, etc is kinda contrary to the idea that such items are relatively rare even among the IOM's better equip forces.

"relatively". Plasma guns being rare only means that they only give them to one in ten Guardsman, rather than one each. Power weapons are as much symbols of rank as weapons, which is why they're normally only for officers.

Necromunda gangs have access to them because they're working in the factories where they're made. Much like Chinese knockoffs, they just make more than their quota and lose the excess. Also, you've misunderstood the background of Necromunda. These aren't "street gangs"; they're the Great Houses' militias. They've got a degree of independence, especially in the Underhive, but they're still getting supplied (and directed) by their Houses.

The main reason, of course, that all these exotic weapons appear in Necromunda is because they're iconic to the setting and we all expect them to be there. Could be worse - the Confrontation rules (from 1990-1, precursor to Necromunda) had conversion beamers, d-cannon and power armour available in the Hive.

There is also a thriving black market on Necromunda and likely most other hive worlds. Law and order is a subjective thing within the House territories and non-existent outside of it. Rare weapons like plasma guns and power weapons are status symbols for gang leaders but "realistically" they may be more trouble than they are worth. Consider how relatively difficult it is to supply the ammunition (in the form of the hydrogen cannisters) for the plasma gun vs. the ease of recharging a lasgun or the endless clips available for the readily available autoguns.

The gangs are militias and unofficial proxies for the Houses to compete against each other under plausible deniability. Outright open warfare is forbidden within the hive city proper since it would disrupt production and ability to meet Imperial tithes so the Houses have to compete via intrigue, politics, but can resort to more overt violence in the underhive.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Side question since I don't play or know much about Necromunda as a game or the setting but do they explain how a bunch of street gangs seem to have equipment that rivals high level guard regiments or space marines?

Seeing street trash with plasma weapons, combi bolters, power weapons, etc is kinda contrary to the idea that such items are relatively rare even among the IOM's better equip forces.

for the same reason the thompson submachine gun was uncommon in the US military, but the weapon of choice for mobsters in the 1930s: money and doctrine.

 Polonius wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Side question since I don't play or know much about Necromunda as a game or the setting but do they explain how a bunch of street gangs seem to have equipment that rivals high level guard regiments or space marines?

Seeing street trash with plasma weapons, combi bolters, power weapons, etc is kinda contrary to the idea that such items are relatively rare even among the IOM's better equip forces.

for the same reason the thompson submachine gun was uncommon in the US military, but the weapon of choice for mobsters in the 1930s: money and doctrine.

Doctrine is a good point - from Necromunda: Gangs of the Underhive:

Kray Vog, Dust Wall Veteran wrote:
‘In the Guard there’s all these rules and regs about using hardware like this – say your benedictions to the machine, make sure it’s secured on the tripod, always stay next to your loader… truth is, if you’ve got the muscle you don’t need any of that. I’ve seen a ganger hauling about a stripped down heavy bolter, with one hand on the trigger and the other wrapped in ammo belts. And as for prayers to the machine – heck, keep firing until it jams then hit them with the damn thing!’

 Haighus wrote:
Yeah, it depends heavily on the type of ship. Clearly the Imperium is capable of producing vast numbers of warp-capable trade vessels for their merchant navy, and these must be relatively simple ships well within the abilities of most reasonably advanced Imperial shipyards to produce.

Some of the resources required will be rare, but the Imperium is a large empire that has shown it is very willing to secure mineral supplies. Additionally, the very nature of STC tech has substituting advanced materials for local alternatives as a core principle, as it was intended for colonists. As such, there is likely a huge amount of material redundancy in producing Imperial technology.

Naval escort ships are likely also easy to produce, and large numbers of these craft are used by the Imperial Navy. They do the bulk of the anti-piracy work needed for maintaining much of the Imperial trade network. Cruisers are more complicated, but we have at least one canonical example of a Lunar-class cruiser being built over a Feral world! So some cruiser classes are technologically relatively straightforward.

However, it is also clear that warp-capable ships, especially capital ships, are still considered incredibly valuable, and the Imperial Navy will go to great lengths to salvage hulls and tech from crippled craft and Space Hulks. Old ships are also immensely valuable for their superior tech- throughout the Gothic war, we have examples of the Imperial Navy salvaging superior old components from captured Chaos wrecks.

So we have a situation where voidships are immensely valuable, but the huge industrial capacity of the Imperium allows them to be produced in large numbers despite this.

So larger heavily armed ships are harder to produce but warp capable escort ships are relatively common. We assume they are being produced all the time, at every world capable of doing so (necromunda and upwards) and sometimes closer to the source of supply (that feral world mining all the metals for a battlecruiser).

This would indicate that warp engines and gallar fields either

A: Use commonly available materials (Ie, generate the fields from mundane physical or biological components)

B: Use some psychic unobtanium that is relatively straightforward to procure (healthy supply network, generated onsite by psykers, etc)

So for a new chapter, or a renegade company of marines/guard, the issue is not 'where do I get escort ships' but 'how can I get cruisers and larger vessels'. New chapters may be issued ships by the AdMech as part of their founding or could seize pirate/ traitor vessels as needed- renegades can take civilian stuff until they can obtain military stuff.

It is also worth noting that warp travel is clearly not as dangerous, on a day-to-day basis, as much of the fluff suggests it is. The Imperium relies hugely on interstellar trade, and it would cease to exist if warp losses were so high. My personal hypothesis for squaring this disparity is that the Warp becomes more unstable around active warzones, due to the emotions and souls being released. This would make the Warp dangerous anywhere we care about as 40k players, but safe enough for the majority of necessary trade to survive in quiet regions.

We know that most Imperial ships operate for hundreds if not thousands of years, so voidfaring within the Imperium must generally be pretty reliable. I imagine that the routes between core systems, especially in Segmentum Solar, would be remarkably untroubled until such time as a major war breaks out for whatever reason- piracy in these areas will be heavily suppressed/non-existent.

My personal feeling on warp travel is that it has to be dangerous enough to make you sweat every time you give the order but it can't be as risky as advertised. I'd hesitate to say that it gets worse around warzones too- Marines drop into warzones as a matter of practice and at a frequency that other forces cant match. Any given marine company will be bouncing from conflict to conflict to resupply to conflict when not on guard duty. Its fine if ten regiments of the guard are sent on ten escort ships and one doesn't show up- its not ok if you lose the Ultramarines 4th company abroad the strike cruiser Irreplacable just because there happened to be a war where the marines were sent.

There has to be an element of scaling and risk aversion.

Merchant captains without navigators stick to tried and tested routes and short jumps - still losing ships on occasion but- and this is critical, not enough to make the enterprise unprofitable. If they were losing ships regularly, it would limit cargo to only the most profitable stuff (crystal toothpicks, Codex Astartes 1st editions, Ur-gold)
Foodstuff gets shipped, so the price of a warp capable escort and operating costs of that ship for J is less than the profits from shipping basic foodstuffs for J, where J is the average number of successful journeys it takes for a ship to get lost to the warp.

If J is less than 10, ships are incredibly cheap and considered disposable. If it is not, the success rate of warp journeys is above 90%.

Imperial navy ships have navigators and could travel as the merchants do with greater speed and almost-near perfect reliability. However, they push on through longer warp jumps and less tested routes- leading to losses, but not unacceptable losses. Again, these are not guard conscripts- these are valuable battleships and cruisers- there must be some sense of risk aversion by the admirals.

The better off rogue traders and the Marines, Inquisition, Ecclesiarchy and other elites of the Imperium get the best navigators and the best tech support as a rule- they can manage the risks of the warp better than the navy. They must then suffer fewer losses than the navy- but can also increase their risks by pushing the boundaries of warp travel.

Agreed, although I will clarify what I meant by warzone. I think the vast majority of warzones will be too minor to have a significant effect on warp travel, but the most apocalyptic, large scale conflicts likely do- the Armageddons and Viguluses of the Galaxy.

Also, Marines definitely use Adeptus Mechanicus grade gear- their equipment near universally requires above average technology. Many Chapters maintain organic production of much of their equipment though, this may extend to escorts in some cases, and perhaps even capital ships (for the Iron Hands and Salamanders and their successors, this is likely).

Also, Necromunda is a very advanced Hive world bordering on lesser Forge world levels of tech. They will definitely have the technological base required for producing capital ships. Most Hive worlds will, and many civilised worlds too. As noted, Lunar class cruisers in particular can even be produced at a Feral world with sufficient motivation!

 Haighus wrote:
Agreed, although I will clarify what I meant by warzone. I think the vast majority of warzones will be too minor to have a significant effect on warp travel, but the most apocalyptic, large scale conflicts likely do- the Armageddons and Viguluses of the Galaxy.

That's entirely reasonable- and adds another heroic element to even turning up there. How war affects the warp and its tides could be a very interesting discussion indeed.

Also, Marines definitely use Adeptus Mechanicus grade gear- their equipment near universally requires above average technology. Many Chapters maintain organic production of much of their equipment though, this may extend to escorts in some cases, and perhaps even capital ships (for the Iron Hands and Salamanders and their successors, this is likely).

As marines are supposed to be independent, I'd like to see marines building or paying 'The Iron Price' for their ships- seizing them from pirates and traitors. They could refit them at the monastery or leave them in to the admech for renovations. It beats going cap-in-hand to another organisation for new stuff. I know there are treaties and oaths that male it all a bit more dignified, but 'we need another battlebarge and can't fight xenos without one' seems a lot more reasonable when the Astartes have been keeping their end of the deal and handing over tech to the techpriests (looking at you, bloodangels and dangles)

 =Angel= wrote:
As marines are supposed to be independent, I'd like to see marines building or paying 'The Iron Price' for their ships- seizing them from pirates and traitors. They could refit them at the monastery or leave them in to the admech for renovations. It beats going cap-in-hand to another organisation for new stuff. I know there are treaties and oaths that male it all a bit more dignified, but 'we need another battlebarge and can't fight xenos without one' seems a lot more reasonable when the Astartes have been keeping their end of the deal and handing over tech to the techpriests (looking at you, bloodangels and dangles)

That's just reminded me of a bit in "Death of Integrity" -

The third tech-priest, Lord Cogitator-Lexmechanic Nuministon, rolled forward. His movement was too smooth to have been produced by legs, and Galt suspected a track unit hidden under his robes. It would not have been out of place, for Nuministon’s arms and most of his head had been replaced by metal prostheses and implants. Only fragments of the original man remained. He resembled a spindly, iron skeleton, scraps of grey skin embedded in it to no immediately apparent purpose.
‘In recognition of your services,’ Nuministon said – unlike Plosk’s natural voice, his was that of a machine – ‘the fleet yards at the forge world of Triplex Phall will undertake to construct and present the Chapters of the Blood Drinkers Adeptus Astartes of San Guisiga and the Novamarines Adeptus Astartes of Honourum one strike cruiser apiece in a period not exceeding thirty standard years after date of construction, of a class of your choosing. This we swear by the holy will of the Omnissiah, and will agree to be bound by contract to be astropathically verified by the offices of the Adeptus Terra, Adeptus Administratum, and the Lord Magi of Mars. Let our promise be lodged for all to see, for we shall honour it, this we swear before you.’
Clastin turned to look at the First Captain. ‘Brother-captain, this is an unprecedented offer…’

beast_gts wrote:

That's just reminded me of a bit in "Death of Integrity" -

And now i have a book to read. The best kind of dakka conversation!

the fleet yards at the forge world of Triplex Phall will undertake to construct and present the Chapters ... one strike cruiser apiece in a period not exceeding thirty standard years after date of construction, of a class of your choosing.

What does that mean? After date of construction start? or Construction completion?

 =Angel= wrote:
What does that mean? After date of construction start? or Construction completion?

I'm not sure - you can either read it as the ship will be built and delivered within 30 years, or once the hull is completed it will be equipped and battle ready within 30 years.

Also, the next bit is interesting -

'In any case, your ship Corvo’s Hammer will not survive another transit through the warp.’ Plosk sighed. ... ‘I will offer this also to the Novamarines: that my fleet shall undertake repairs on Corvo’s Hammer, beginning this very day, and make it warp-worthy at the least. Full repair is a possibility, dependent upon the extent of the damage. Excommentum Incursus is a Megiron-class forge vessel, lord captain. Such minor works are well within the bounds of its many capabilities. What say you?'

So the AdMech are capable of repairing Strike Cruisers in deep space without a dock, and with the supplies they normally carry with them.

Since cargo haulers (both warp-capable and system ships) are most likely the most numerous type of space vessels used by the Imperium, building a similar-sized ship (escorts to light cruisers) wouldn't be much of an issue for most worlds with sufficient industrial base and infrastructure. So I dare to assume that if you want to build a light cruiser, you'll need a semi-advanced industrial world. Warp Drive and/or Gellar Field generator will likely be shipped in from somewhere else/repurposed from a decomissioned/damaged beyond repair vessel.

With increasing size, the difficulty, cost, and requirements needed glow exponentially so it's easily justifiable that Grand-Cruiser and Battleship class cruisers are described as millennia-old relics because let's face it, construction can take from decades to centuries, and some of them really are centuries old. You don't want to lose such ship.

 Haighus wrote:
I don't think plasma weaponry is only produced on Forge Worlds as some Hive Worlds appear to have a degree of endogenous production- Necromunda is the chief example, potentially producing at least 6 distinct pattern-lineages. However, large and important Hive worlds, like Necromunda, appear to have an industrial and tech capacity approaching lesser Forge worlds, so that isn't surprising.

Larger, rarer plasma weaponry is certainly constrained to Forge worlds in all but the most exceptional of circumstances (usually a surviving Dark-Age-of-Technology installation on a planet), but plasma pistols and guns at least are more widespread.

It is worth noting that the gangs on Necromunda are likely especially well armed, due to the unusual importance, size, and technological base of Necromunda. This is one of the top few planets for population in the entire Imperium, and is a world that was technologically advanced before Compliance in the Great Crusade. It is based in Segmentum Solar, and commands an important sector of Imperial space. It is also a world known for producing munitions and armaments in particular. As such, Necromunda is hugely overpopulated, very wealthy, and swimming in weaponry- a combination that is always going to make for incredibly well-armed gangs. Gangers on Hive world #2371 in the Whocares sector likely struggle to find gear superior to the local lasgun pattern.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tastyfish wrote:
There's probably a lot of in-system iconoclast-equivalents, patrolling solar systems and dealing with local pirates. Sublight travel across a system is still measured in days, and probably weeks to circumnavigate around the far reaches where it is safe to warp in.

The iconoclasts that appear in chaos fleets are either then local pirates, or the lucky few who have managed to get a warp capable one and some means of navigation.

So whilst the smaller ships are not likely rare, ships that can travel between star systems (rather than just leave star systems...) are few and far between.

Iconoclasts are specifically a Warp-capable design though, and there is no suggestion most of them are built without warp drives. Whilst there are vast numbers of intrastellar craft, the implication is that there are also large numbers of interstellar ships too. The kind of pirates mentioned in BFG frequently operated from poorly charted, messy systems away from Imperial settlements, like nebulas and systems with large asteroid fields- this allowed them to hide form Imperial retribution easier. This clearly requires the pirates to have warp-capable ships to be able to strike. Imperial systems do occasionally harbour intrastellar pirates (such as the notable example of Elysia- a system with a large number of moons and asteroids), but most systems are able to flush out their local pirates and force them to become interstellar raiders or die.

STC designs are modular and designed to scale with local materials and capabilities. Iconclasts can be warp capable vessels, but that doesn't mean they all are or the majority are. Same with pirates - you might be in a messy out of the way system, but one that's also a hub for warp routes (or less of a hub, but where two warp currents come close in realspace), so you can hide in the nebula and asteroid fields and prey on the cargo ships that cross the system from one jump point to another looking to take a short cut. You just need one warp capable ship and the then take advantage of the STC system to build more yourself.

Plus with BFG, we're talking about pirate bands that are strong enough to threaten the Imperial Navy and have likely teamed up with Chaos capital ships. Background seems to imply that most pirates can be seen off by a handful of Cobras or a Sword, these are more a Wolfpack of the various local pirate kings banding together or being recruited by a Chaos admiral, rather than 'normal' pirates. Though like real world pirates, there's probably a few bands that are also the sailors in a reserve fleet from a previous war that have decided that the retirement options presented to them weren't good enough to give the ships back.

Systems ships are local traffic, yachts, interplanetary shuttles and smaller traders - and also no doubt the pirate's ship of choice. Solar systems are big places and will either be largely empty and difficult to patrol if you just have one smaller Imperial world in the system, or huge bustling places with multiple overlapping fiefdoms and jurisdictions - also offering plenty of places to hide. An Iconoclast built without a warp drive (or a decommissioned Navy one, turned over the PDF) is going to be a pretty serious ship in system and you're not reliant on friendly relations with the powers that have the more complicated knowledge required for warp drives, geller fields and Navigators. Something that is probably going to be of particular value if you think you need Destroyers in your PDF fleet.

There's definitely a role for these kinds of ships, dedicate pirate hunters in a system with a Hive world that demands control of it's space lanes for survival but also needs better speed than a defence monitor, worlds locked in a cold war with another Imperial world who fear attack from another planetary governor but don't want the Navy to claim their ships or judge them as having too offensive a defence force if the opponent is out-system, or just becomes putting warp drives in your destroyers makes them prohibitively expensive if your in an arms race with a local rival. Or particularly despotic Governors who rule from off-world (or the spires) and want something that can threaten local opponents with planetary bombardment.

 Hawky wrote:
With increasing size, the difficulty, cost, and requirements needed glow exponentially so it's easily justifiable that Grand-Cruiser and Battleship class cruisers are described as millennia-old relics because let's face it, construction can take from decades to centuries, and some of them really are centuries old. You don't want to lose such ship.

Yet once they're built they seem easy to keep running - the somewhat renegade Ashen Claws have kept their Infernus class battleship operational since the Great Crusade despite operating out of a castle.

Everything is relative. Just look at our own world. Cargo ships, huge oil carriers and passenger ships are produced all the time. But an aircraft carrier? Look at the cost and how long it takes to produce one. How many countries even have an aircraft carrier?

But destroyers are more common, and lots of countries do have them.

Just because spaceships are not easy to produce doesn't mean they are not produced at all. There could be entire forgeworlds dedicated to producing such craft. But because they are few in number compared to the huge number of planets the imperium has, even though they might be producing space ships 24/7, overall, such ships would still be rare,

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Everything is relative. Just look at our own world. Cargo ships, huge oil carriers and passenger ships are produced all the time. But an aircraft carrier? Look at the cost and how long it takes to produce one. How many countries even have an aircraft carrier?

13 apparently. US, Russia, China, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Thailand, Australia, South Korea, India, Japan