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Post by Minister on Apr 5, 2004 15:43:09 GMT -5
The Arbitrators maintain a number of "Strike Cruisers", equipped with warp drive, for the dealing with of naughtiness around the Imperium, so I would dissagree with that.
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Post by Kage2020 on Apr 5, 2004 18:26:01 GMT -5
Another point of indication of the semi-indepedence (although obvious interaction and specialisation) of the various organisations of the adeptus terra. Plus the 'strike cruiser' thing ties in with the whole original vision of the adeptus arbites and should therefore be welcome with open arms. I'm a sentamentalist! Kage
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Post by Minister on Apr 6, 2004 15:54:36 GMT -5
By the way, the specific reference is Execution Hour, although they're also mentioned in broader terms (the existence of an Arbitrator fleet) in the old Codex Imperialis. They're designed for boarding actions and agressive planetary landing more than ship-to-ship actions, and are broadly simmilar to those employed by the Space Marines.
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Rich
Scribe
Posts: 13
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Post by Rich on May 19, 2004 5:59:24 GMT -5
On size:
It's worth remembering that for any given BFG ship, about a third of the ship's length is given over to the plasma/warp engines. This means that for a 900m vessel, you've got about 600m of extra space, which also has to include crew quaters, the bridge, gunnery, shuttle bays etc.
On arnament:
RFA ships tend to have no arnament other than small arms, as they are escorted by warships. They may have goalkeeper or phalanx systems to protect against missile strikes, but no offensive weaponry. I would say that as a rule, most merchant ships would be unarmed save for turret systems. This would be different in the fortress sub sector, where I would expect a greater percentage of 'armed merchantmen'.
On types:
There are three main types of traders. Official administratum vessels, chartered (guild of merchant) vessels and rogue traders. Rogue traders I'm going to ignore for the moment because they do what they want when they want, more or less. Official traders are probably large and well protected, and used mostly for gathering tithes and on major trade routes (those with astropathic way stations and astronomican relay stations). Chartered traders would do the majority of trade, but would tend to trade whatever it is profitable to do so. I would expect an eceltic mix of vessels of differing ages and capability, mostly in a bad state of repair. They would vary in size but would mostly be 'sprint traders' and the like.
On escorts:
The size, and type, of an escort depends on the convoy in question. Convoys are a military formation, and I would expect them to be used only for official Imperial business and in war zones. Free traders (for want of a better term) would probably travel unescorted and hope to avoid trouble. They would tend to follow little used shipping lanes, hoping to ride a fortunate warp tide to get them to their destination quickly. For a large convoy, capital ships might be requisitioned; otherwise I would expect escorts to do the job. There is probably a set number of escorts available for convoy duty at any given time, and this could be reduced/increased depending on the situation.
On merchant routes:
There is mention in the BFG book of both warp tunnels (stable passages that are still somewhat slow) and specially marked trading routes, which feature realy stations for the astronomican which boost its signal in that area. These routes are large and well travelled, and probably reasonably safe, but are probably not very fast, which is why many independant traders might choose a more direct but also more dangerous route.
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Post by CELS on Dec 21, 2004 20:06:10 GMT -5
Since there's much insecurity about the number of 'free trading' ships and Imperial merchant ships travelling the Anargo sector, I thought I'd post an interesting quote from BFG.. (p.114)
"Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of transport ships participated in the Gothic War. The vast majority were chartered merchantmen pressed into service to move war materials to system under blockade, while many others were Imperial Navy support vessels used to to resupply the fleet and form temporary repair bases in isolated systems."
Not a whole lot of useful information, except for the number of transport ships. Perhaps thousands? That should at least give us the freedom to guess that there are normally one or several hundred non-military ships in your average sector. Of course, it is reasonable to assume that transport ships from nearby sectors came to help in the Gothic war. Obviously though, the nearby sectors couldn't possibly send all their transports, since that would lead to their collapse. Thus, I think we can say with great security that your average sector would have a hundred non-military ships, at the very least.
Agree / disagree?
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Post by Kage2020 on Dec 22, 2004 18:24:56 GMT -5
Well, the original 'fluff' from WD139/140 stated that... Oh, hang on. You're going to want the exact quote. <sigh>
So given that the 'average' number of Imperial ships in a subsector is generally thought of as around 80, i.e. based on the Gothic example once again, this means that if the same is true of Anargo there should be somewhere in the realm of 720+ ships of the Merchant Fleet.
In fact, if you include all ships of the Imperium as a percentage, then 90%>720 ships for the Anargo sector since Military Fleet % < 10% since it must include the Civil Fleet.
But these numbers were bandied around on another thread, I believe...?
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