Sword Class Frigates are small

[O'Connell]

Being a rogue trader I am going to need an upgrade for a flag ship. At least a Lunar cruiser like the legendary Lord Admiral Spire. Taking a lone sword class frigate through the void should terrify everyone.

[Daliena]

Originally posted by Kadaeux:

Originally posted by rorek55:

Cruiser class would likely be upper tier of Rogue traders, but doable. MAYBE a battle cruiser. But that's the 1% of the 1% TBH

Von Valancius has one of the Emperors own writs of trade. That’s the 1% of the 1% of the 1%

And as mentioned elsewhere, Calligos Winterscale literally has a Grand Cruiser (which is to say, a step ABOVE a battlecruiser I believe?) as his flagship.

Don't get me wrong, by any reasonable standards a Sword is a hell of a ship, but by 40k standards, it's an escort vessel, not a flagship. And we've got a rubber ducky in a bathtub compared to Calligos even if this thing has been modded so heavily that I'm fairly sure it competes with (or even outdoes) stock Dauntless-class light cruisers in terms of weaponry.

(Top macro turrets, 3x broadside batteries, and a choice of torpedoes OR a lance for them per BFG:A at least, if I remember right, while the Von Valancius sword has the same number of macro cannons as well as both prow weapon choices.)

[Quintus_Fontane]

The largest ships I've fought against so far have been cruisers, and even though our rugged flagship is HEAVILY modified, I did have to suspend my disbelief a little when I solo'd a chaos cruiser and its five escorts with just a sword frigate. I mean I get that this is 40k and we're on a big power trip here, but this IS just a frigate, and three minutes ago I was just a commissar in the Imperial Guard, not an admiral.

The tooltip for one of the ship abilities mentions it working against "Cruisers and larger" ships, so... we're going to be facing off against even bigger things later on. Admittedly, looking at the Imperial Navy vendor, some of the equipment you can unlock later on is literal archeotech (Which should be and is a huge power boost), but that's a bit more suspension of disbelief needed on my part, because if you're in a position of such wealth and power where you can buy/acquire archeotech ship weapons, shield generators and auger arrays, then you can absolutely get your hands on a cruiser at the very least, and there's no way in hell you'd risk putting that stuff on a rinky-dink frigate - they're literally irreplaceable. It'd be like in BattleTech if you found a bunch of LosTech gauss rifles and double heatsinks, and you just shoved them on your Urbie (Read: AWESOME, but stupid). Plus, the escort ship you can get to follow you around from a planet upgrade on your capital is another sword class, so your dynasty's fleet (Which is mentioned several times) clearly has ships and facilities, especially after you build that one (Which is a Navy repair yard or somesuch).

I personally love the idea of starting out in a frigate and being able to work your way up as your dynasty gains power, but that's not the case right now. It makes me wonder though, considering the ship equipment options and the sizes of fleets you go up against if that wasn't the original plan but it got cut at some point. I really hope we get an expansion that adds it in, because aside from the straight up cool factor of cruising around in a larger, more impressive ship, it'd be another great progression device and reward, something to aim for.

[Nyx]

Originally posted by rorek55:

Originally posted by Snorri Nosebiter:

Bit much, even for a Rogue Trader. As much freedom as they have, the Imperium probably don't want them having the power to level entire Imperial systems if they get cranky.

Cruiser class would likely be upper tier of Rogue traders, but doable. MAYBE a battle cruiser. But that's the 1% of the 1% TBH

Not at all, Grand Cruisers are said to be pretty common and one of the other Rogue traders we see in game has one as their flagship. They are common mainly because they were explicitly used as lone operating raiders (which fits the needs of a Rogue trader) and more importantly for how common they are the Imperial Navy phased them out for battle cruisers which fill a similar role but do it better. Hence the older ships found their way to Rogue traders.

[Steel]

I think its because the ship they give you is special. I won't delve into details but there's a whole quest about it

[Kadaeux]

Originally posted by Nyx:

Originally posted by rorek55:

Cruiser class would likely be upper tier of Rogue traders, but doable. MAYBE a battle cruiser. But that's the 1% of the 1% TBH

Not at all, Grand Cruisers are said to be pretty common and one of the other Rogue traders we see in game has one as their flagship. They are common mainly because they were explicitly used as lone operating raiders (which fits the needs of a Rogue trader) and more importantly for how common they are the Imperial Navy phased them out for battle cruisers which fill a similar role but do it better. Hence the older ships found their way to Rogue traders.

In fact IIRC it’s directly stated a few times in the lore that most of the Imperiums Grand Cruisers ended up being in Rogue Trader dynasties because they no longer fit with accepted naval doctrines.

[Kumitz]

As a note:
The Sword class frigate int the TTRPG costs 40 Ship Points (roughly equals to 40PF) (with 26k crew).
The most expensive ship in the core rulebook is the Lunar-class cruiser at 60SP (95k crew 5km by 0.8km)
In the Battlefleet Koronus book the most expensive is the Mars-class Battlecruiser at 71SP (107k crew, 5.4km by 0.85km).
You begin the game a ship between 30 and 70SP (90-your ship is your starting PF).

The prices above are for bare ships, you still need to buy the weapons, special equipments...

[Daliena]

Originally posted by Kumitz:

As a note:
The Sword class frigate int the TTRPG costs 40 Ship Points (roughly equals to 40PF) (with 26k crew).
The most expensive ship in the core rulebook is the Lunar-class cruiser at 60SP (95k crew 5km by 0.8km)
In the Battlefleet Koronus book the most expensive is the Mars-class Battlecruiser at 71SP (107k crew, 5.4km by 0.85km).
You begin the game a ship between 30 and 70SP (90-your ship is your starting PF).

The prices above are for bare ships, you still need to buy the weapons, special equipments...

What I'm hearing is that I can start with a Mars-class Battlecruiser. I'd prefer an Overlord but I can work with this. I'll have a dang ol' cool ship.

Yes, the ship has no weapons larger than a lasgun that was taped onto the prow, and it's void shields consist of a sizable "Please don't shoot us :(" sign, and my Rogue Trader is going into battle in his boxers, armed with a broken chair leg..

But cool ship!

[XartaX]

Originally posted by Daliena:

Not for nothing, but Calligos Winterscale's flagship is the Emperor's Vow, a Grand Cruiser.

So in categories of size, firepower etc, we have a frigate.

Above that would be light cruisers, then heavy cruisers, then battlecruisers, and finally grand cruisers.

That's how ridiculously badly we are outclassed by Winterscale's flagship.

Edit: The Von Valancius flagship has been modified quite a bit (stock Swords do not come with torpedo tubes OR a prow lance AFAIK.)

And in the intro sequence Theodora says that winterscale is one of two rogue traders that can rival herself in power and influence. Rival, not eclipse. So being stuck with a frigate really doesn't make that much sense.

[XartaX]

Also, to comment on how ridiculously powerful original rogue traders can get. There's a bit in Horus Heresy where a Rogue Trader fleet emerges from the warp where Perturabo's (yes, the primarch) fleet is fighting a loyalist fleet. They have no idea what's going on, just seeing civil war between space marines. What do they do? They start basically taking on both space marine chapters (and these are OG chapters, not the modern broken down ones). The opening salvo being "a deluge of nova shells".

[O'Connell]

Originally posted by Quintus_Fontane:

The largest ships I've fought against so far have been cruisers, and even though our rugged flagship is HEAVILY modified, I did have to suspend my disbelief a little when I solo'd a chaos cruiser and its five escorts with just a sword frigate. I mean I get that this is 40k and we're on a big power trip here, but this IS just a frigate, and three minutes ago I was just a commissar in the Imperial Guard, not an admiral.

The tooltip for one of the ship abilities mentions it working against "Cruisers and larger" ships, so... we're going to be facing off against even bigger things later on. Admittedly, looking at the Imperial Navy vendor, some of the equipment you can unlock later on is literal archeotech (Which should be and is a huge power boost), but that's a bit more suspension of disbelief needed on my part, because if you're in a position of such wealth and power where you can buy/acquire archeotech ship weapons, shield generators and auger arrays, then you can absolutely get your hands on a cruiser at the very least, and there's no way in hell you'd risk putting that stuff on a rinky-dink frigate - they're literally irreplaceable. It'd be like in BattleTech if you found a bunch of LosTech gauss rifles and double heatsinks, and you just shoved them on your Urbie (Read: AWESOME, but stupid). Plus, the escort ship you can get to follow you around from a planet upgrade on your capital is another sword class, so your dynasty's fleet (Which is mentioned several times) clearly has ships and facilities, especially after you build that one (Which is a Navy repair yard or somesuch).

I personally love the idea of starting out in a frigate and being able to work your way up as your dynasty gains power, but that's not the case right now. It makes me wonder though, considering the ship equipment options and the sizes of fleets you go up against if that wasn't the original plan but it got cut at some point. I really hope we get an expansion that adds it in, because aside from the straight up cool factor of cruising around in a larger, more impressive ship, it'd be another great progression device and reward, something to aim for.

You sir make me laugh out loud.
Hot cocoa out the nose is a little uncomfortable

[Kalenath]

Originally posted by Snorri Nosebiter:

Bit much, even for a Rogue Trader. As much freedom as they have, the Imperium probably don't want them having the power to level entire Imperial systems if they get cranky.

Um... Er... Uh... No spoiler... But you sort of CAN do a mini-Exterminatus at one point...

Also, the Imperium has a history of Rogue Traders making some VERY bad decisions dealing with Chaos and xenos, so having them in a smaller ship MIGHT not be such a bad idea, especially as tricked out as it can get. When a single light cruiser can destroy 5 chaos or xenos heavy cruisers without breaking a sweat? I don't know about you, but as an Imperial fleet captain 'I' would be a bit nervous when they show up.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Nyx:

That doesn't mean they can't be tried by the inquisition they can but it generally requires one of two things the inquisitor in question having more actual direct power in fleets and armies at their disposal or such blatant and apparent heresy/treason that they can call a conclave or get a lord inquisitor to call a high conclave and then present said conclave with evidence so as to gather the strength needed to meet point one.

That's actually mean Inquisition have official power over Rogue Traders :) Just you're also a very high-ranked member of Imperium so they need a hard proofs to go against you.

Same with planetary Governors - Inquisitor can revoke his title, but Rogue Trader can not (aside from planets he own).

That mean Inquisitor still above Rogue Trader in official hierarchy, just not extremely and RT still have partial legal immunity that recognized even by Inquisition.

P.S. Having actual force to do something isn't part of official hierarchy. Officially senior police officer have authority over mafia boss, but in reality it could be hard to use. Still it don't make them "equal" in official ranking.

[corisai]

Originally posted by XartaX:

And in the intro sequence Theodora says that winterscale is one of two rogue traders that can rival herself in power and influence. Rival, not eclipse. So being stuck with a frigate really doesn't make that much sense.

Also it's constantly stated that Winterscale is combat-crazy one. While Frigate is more suited for shadowy business.

[Cerberus]

I am fine starting out with a small ship just wish we could get something bigger i would trade one of my colonies for one or even just buy it am not bothered i will make my wealth back by using it.

[O'Connell]

Originally posted by Offensive Bias:

I am fine starting out with a small ship just wish we could get something bigger i would trade one of my colonies for one or even just buy it am not bothered i will make my wealth back by using it.

We will see how this Sword class Frigate pans out. Maybe it's personality will turn out to be brighter than it's field capabilities.