Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

[Galdred]

also, if you want to discuss making sense, the rogue trader putting themselves in this much danger makes way less sense
at least you could make some kind of excuse for the seneschal going on adventures

Kind of, but in the whole setting, leadership seems to be tied to taking personal risks. After all, the books and games routinely send chapter masters or equivalent to take the lead of drop pod assaults, and the Emperor himself got on his throne because he engaged in personal combat, so Rogue Trader going close and personal is completely justified.
But there are also plenty of examples through history (Alexander leading his cavalry, medieval lords. In the 3 kingdoms romance, Chinese general also do an awful lot of fighting...).

On top of that, traveling the warp is probably one of the most unsafe thing you can do in the first place, so going down to a planet is not that much riskier.

[A Chinese opium den]

What are we going to call Chinese RPGs...

JRPG

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

the game gets a major minus for me for doing pillarsisms

► Show Spoiler

Stop telling me what people are doing or look like in dialogue, and SHOW me it. It's a video game, not a text adventure.

It's indeed way worse in this game when compared to Kingmaker and WotR. More often than not this way of describing stuff feels "fanficy" and unnecessarily overdetailed, a simple [This man is hunched over and has a mechanical arm] would've sufficed.

I prefer it since the alternative makes it blander. Preferably I would like it to be shown through gameplay but Owcat lacks the funds and technical restraints to pull it off.

[Finarfin]

also, if you want to discuss making sense, the rogue trader putting themselves in this much danger makes way less sense
at least you could make some kind of excuse for the seneschal going on adventures

Kind of, but in the whole setting, leadership seems to be tied to taking personal risks. After all, the books and games routinely send chapter masters or equivalent to take the lead of drop pod assaults, and the Emperor himself got on his throne because he engaged in personal combat, so Rogue Trader going close and personal is completely justified.
But there are also plenty of examples through history (Alexander leading his cavalry, medieval lords. In the 3 kingdoms romance, Chinese general also do an awful lot of fighting...).

On top of that, traveling the warp is probably one of the most unsafe thing you can do in the first place, so going down to a planet is not that much riskier.

Miscalculations are for commoners. I don't make mistakes, I make profitable learning experiences.

[rusty_shackleford]

also, if you want to discuss making sense, the rogue trader putting themselves in this much danger makes way less sense
at least you could make some kind of excuse for the seneschal going on adventures

Kind of, but in the whole setting, leadership seems to be tied to taking personal risks. After all, the books and games routinely send chapter masters or equivalent to take the lead of drop pod assaults, and the Emperor himself got on his throne because he engaged in personal combat, so Rogue Trader going close and personal is completely justified.
But there are also plenty of examples through history (Alexander leading his cavalry, medieval lords. In the 3 kingdoms romance, Chinese general also do an awful lot of fighting...).

On top of that, traveling the warp is probably one of the most unsafe thing you can do in the first place, so going down to a planet is not that much riskier.

Yeah but unlike chapter masters or the emperor, a rogue trader isn't a genetically engineered supersoldier.
Their superpower is their vast amounts of wealth.

[Boontaker]

also, if you want to discuss making sense, the rogue trader putting themselves in this much danger makes way less sense
at least you could make some kind of excuse for the seneschal going on adventures

Kind of, but in the whole setting, leadership seems to be tied to taking personal risks. After all, the books and games routinely send chapter masters or equivalent to take the lead of drop pod assaults, and the Emperor himself got on his throne because he engaged in personal combat, so Rogue Trader going close and personal is completely justified.
But there are also plenty of examples through history (Alexander leading his cavalry, medieval lords. In the 3 kingdoms romance, Chinese general also do an awful lot of fighting...).

On top of that, traveling the warp is probably one of the most unsafe thing you can do in the first place, so going down to a planet is not that much riskier.

Yeah but unlike chapter masters or the emperor, a rogue trader isn't a genetically engineered supersoldier.
Their superpower is their vast amounts of wealth.

"Speak for yourself peasant! I come from a long lineage of the most prestigious and fit nobility!"

[rusty_shackleford]

I like that finally got full competant AI voice conversion tech and Rusty is having Microsoft Sam read him the game dialogue

[Galdred]

Yeah but unlike chapter masters or the emperor, a rogue trader isn't a genetically engineered supersoldier.
Their superpower is their vast amounts of wealth.

Right, but even other factions routinely send higher ups on the frontline (Commissars are not engineered super soldiers either, but are expected to lead from the front, even though they might get shot from both sides. The in-game reason for that is mostly that it is cool to have larger than life characters in these battles, but they have to make the lore reflect that).

In Space Crusade, a proto-version of 40K, the captain(or sergeant?) had 4-6 HP, and each marine had a single one. He was also the only one you needed to keep alive (and he was the only who could get perks as you did), and among most other factions, leaders still tend to have a lot more HP than soldiers.

I'd expect it to be difficult to command respect without going close and personal in this universe.
One reason knights had to lead from the front was that other knights would not easily follow a knight of lesser lineage into battle(that was actually one of the issues at Agincourt).
That might also not be too different from what some ancient and modern armies would do to make sure popular generals don't live too long to risk becoming a political threat.

[rusty_shackleford]

(Commissars are not engineered super soldiers either, but are expected to lead from the front, even though they might get shot from both sides. The in-game reason for that is mostly that it is cool to have larger than life characters in these battles, but they have to make the lore reflect that).

Commissars aren't even close to the same level as a rogue trader tho.

They've (metaphorically) sat before the throne and have been blessed by the emperor. They're the peers of inquisitors and chapter masters. Rogue traders are far above the equivalent of a king, they're the pope, they're the equivalent of descendants of the apostles of Jesus — and they're the head of that apostolic dynasty.

I'd expect it to be difficult to command respect without going close and personal in this universe.

They command respect because the emperor says so. Imagine if someone came to you and showed you a piece of paper signed by God saying their family is blessed with certain privileges. Arguing with that is arguing with God.

[Orvas Dren]

also, if you want to discuss making sense, the rogue trader putting themselves in this much danger makes way less sense
at least you could make some kind of excuse for the seneschal going on adventures

Kind of, but in the whole setting, leadership seems to be tied to taking personal risks. After all, the books and games routinely send chapter masters or equivalent to take the lead of drop pod assaults, and the Emperor himself got on his throne because he engaged in personal combat, so Rogue Trader going close and personal is completely justified.
But there are also plenty of examples through history (Alexander leading his cavalry, medieval lords. In the 3 kingdoms romance, Chinese general also do an awful lot of fighting...).

On top of that, traveling the warp is probably one of the most unsafe thing you can do in the first place, so going down to a planet is not that much riskier.

Yeah but unlike chapter masters or the emperor, a rogue trader isn't a genetically engineered supersoldier.
Their superpower is their vast amounts of wealth.

Vice-Admiral Nelson died from a musket round at a mere 50 feet away. Sir Francis Drake personally led many of the raids and explorations during his time along the Spanish coast. Considering that 40k space combat is mainly modeled after the age of sail warfare, its not hard to see why, especially when a Lord Captain has a cult of personality amongst his crew and his retinue are the best armed squad on a ship. His wealth also means he can pack the fire power of a whole imperial guard special weapons squad on his person.

[Orvas Dren]

(Commissars are not engineered super soldiers either, but are expected to lead from the front, even though they might get shot from both sides. The in-game reason for that is mostly that it is cool to have larger than life characters in these battles, but they have to make the lore reflect that).

Commissars aren't even close to the same level as a rogue trader tho.

They've (metaphorically) sat before the throne and have been blessed by the emperor. They're the peers of inquisitors and chapter masters. Rogue traders are far above the equivalent of a king, they're the pope, they're the equivalent of descendants of the apostles of Jesus — and they're the head of that apostolic dynasty.

I'd expect it to be difficult to command respect without going close and personal in this universe.

They command respect because the emperor says so. Imagine if someone came to you and showed you a piece of paper signed by God saying their family is blessed with certain privileges. Arguing with that is arguing with God.

This just isn't true, rogue traders are on level with imperial governors with the added perk of being tied to no world or tithe. They are the descendants of privateers and trade barons of lore. Its frequently stated that most people of power don't actually care about the writ of a rogue trader but by the fact that they can freely use and command voidships. It's why the Navis Nobilitae can just say **** you no and why the mechanicus can just say **** off, same with many other factions of the imperium.

[Galdred]

Also, in the first Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader rulebook(aka Warhammer 40K first edition):

You are not supposed to be a wimp leading from behind (though this was just a campaign play option, which I suppose was not that popular to begin with as it was removed from later editions)!
And it is the same in the Rogue Trader RPG: as its core, it is some kind of a power fantasy too. You are supposed to play someone who both command immense power, and gets his hands dirty most of the time.
That said, they are supposed to make planetfall with a complement of 100 soldiers, not 4...

Also, replacing a rogue trader is not that big of a deal in the first place. Your power is your ship and warrant, but they don't die with you after all.
Btw, Inquisitors too end up doing a lot of groundwork by themselves in the lore.

It may not make that much sense indeed, but that is the way the 40K lore works: every human being is just a tool/weapon. No one is too valuable to replace.

[rusty_shackleford]

This just isn't true, rogue traders are on level with imperial governors with the added perk of being tied to no world or tithe.

from the TTRPG book

Dark Heresy(1E, The Radical's Handbook)

Dark Heresy(2E, core rulebook)


And they do pay an imperial tithe.

Its frequently stated that most people of power don't actually care about the writ of a rogue trader but by the fact that they can freely use and command voidships. It's why the Navis Nobilitae can just say **** you no and why the mechanicus can just say **** off, same with many other factions of the imperium.

prooooooooooooooooooooffff???
I think you're confusing merchant charters with the warrants of trade, they're not the same thing.

And since this is specifically about the CRPG,
Your writ of trade is signed personally by the Emperor. In his own blood.


and before you ask, no, I had these books already on hand. I have 13,560 RPG pdfs in my personal library as of checking right now.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

This just isn't true, rogue traders are on level with imperial governors with the added perk of being tied to no world or tithe.

from the TTRPG book

Dark Heresy(1E, The Radical's Handbook)

Dark Heresy(2E, core rulebook)


And they do pay an imperial tithe.

Its frequently stated that most people of power don't actually care about the writ of a rogue trader but by the fact that they can freely use and command voidships. It's why the Navis Nobilitae can just say **** you no and why the mechanicus can just say **** off, same with many other factions of the imperium.

prooooooooooooooooooooffff???
I think you're confusing merchant charters with the warrants of trade, they're not the same thing.

And since this is specifically about the CRPG,
Your writ of trade is signed personally by the Emperor. In his own blood.


and before you ask, no, I had these books already on hand. I have 13,560 RPG pdfs in my personal library as of checking right now.

I believe that Grand inquisitors are the few government officials that outrank a Rogue Trader.

[W1llus]

I've been debating for a while what gear loadout I want to run a pure santic psyker. I have a rough outline for it such as staff/sniper rifle, body suit, some the usual suspects for psykers but its the nitty gritty that has me stumped.

[Tweed]

What are we going to call Chinese RPGs...

RPCHINGS

[ArcaneLurker]

I'd like if the game just had more NPCs who live in the world you can talk to

Not too happy with the ones outside the door then

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd like if the game just had more NPCs who live in the world you can talk to

Not too happy with the ones outside the door then

They don't like when I start asking them of how to overthrow the local government

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm near the end so I guess I'll give a recap. Entire game is about 120 hours long if you do all the content. There's no spoilers here. For reference:

• Unfair difficulty(hardest difficulty) for all of the game except one fight where team NPC AI kept suiciding itself and I wanted to keep it alive.
• I try to avoid reloading in CRPGs as much as possible unless forced to or I consider it 'justified'(bad game design).
• I picked the Officer archetype because it felt fitting. Navy origin, came up maybe 2-3 times thruout the entire game. I can't see any reason to not pick a psyker origin, at least if you're going officer.

Liked:

• The DLC content is very good. Honestly, the DLC itself probably gives the game a couple extra watermelons just because it has a lot more life in it, good encounters, etc., I actually ended up liking the companion who I thought I'd hate, all the stories in the DLC are much better than the base game. Adding anything else would be spoilers, but I enjoyed it so much I don't want to do that.
• After the horror story that was WotR, it was a surprising comeback.
• A bunch of good companions. Abelard, Heinrix, and Pasqal are all my type of companion in an RPG.
• The various planet exploration content was decent enough. Some cool areas with their own self-contained stories. They should have done more of this and expanded it.
• The ship combat is good. It's mostly copied from the tabletop RPG. Eat your heart out, Sawyer.
• Teetering on the edge here, but the injury system until I got a trivial way to remove traumas halfway thru. Should have been a lot more types of trauma, traumas that require recuperation, etc., Like a lot of systems in the game it feels very surface level. BUT… playing on Unfair, I did frequently find myself thinking(in the early game): "Do I want to keep on pushing ahead, or should I go back to my ship to recover?" The main issue is, the punishment for recovering is just the player's real life time, nothing else. If you're fine with wasting your time, then the injury system effectively does not exist.
• Most things in the game are not affected by a choice right before it happens, but a culmination of choices you make over dozens of hours of playing that you can't just undo. That is, less true/false story flags and instead using story counters that move up/down.
• Surprisingly, not that many bugs. Got a bit buggier towards the end, some issues with DLC content but that just released.
• Carried hard by the setting. Which actively hurts the game anytime it veers into the stupid areas of WH40k. Space elves are dumb, space drow are really dumb.
• Most of the art looks pretty good. The characters feel less cartoony than I remember in the original promo material, but the environments are obviously what you're meant to keep your eye on.
• Combat was serviceable. Nothing standout.

Disliked:

• Act 3. It's not that bad I guess, but it's going to be the first thing that pops in my mind when I consider doing a replay.
• Story feels too 'epic' for me. I wanted to be a hood trader doing hood trader ****. Too much stuff that should be part of a Rogue Trader game is cast aside to make way for the EPIC plot. You don't manage a flotilla, the colony management is extremely barebones, there's no actual trading that happens, no construction of supply lines, etc., Very disappointing! I know this isn't all a rogue trader does, but it's what I wanted to do **** it.
• Not enough time spent on the ship itself. First DLC alleviates this somewhat.
• Way too wordy. It's OK to have some characters that are overly verbose, but nearly every character is. And there's tons of pillarsisms where the text is used to describe minute details about the person.
• The difficulty is just too low. I breezed through the game on Unfair, using archetypes supposedly deemed as 'bad'. The only time I looked up advice was when I was checking how mechanics worked and just made my own decisions otherwise. Some of the DLC fights were actually tough tho.
• The system of the game itself sucks. They took a mangled version of the tabletop system used by the Fantasy Flight Games 40k tabletop RPGs — Rogue Trader, Dark Heresy 1E/2E, Deathwatch, Black Crusade, Only War. But it's inspired. I saw someone compare it to the Sword Coast Legends game, and it's not the same. SCL is their own system with the trappings of D&D mechanics. This is heavily inspired by a blend of the actual tabletop games such that it could easily be translated to tabletop and labeled Rogue Trader 2E(I'm referring to the RPG line only for the pedantic.) But it's not as in-depth as any of the systems, which is strange because they previously did the pathfinder games, albeit not a full implementation but the pathfinder rules are ridiculous to begin with. If you're going to make a CRPG, then use a system that plays to the strength of having a computer rather than a bastardized, simplified version of something designed for play at a tabletop.
• Leveling sucks. Especially at the start, you'll be getting a new level every fight and you have to level up your entire team, if you're new to the game that means pausing for 10-30 minutes after every fight. Holy **** this was a pants-on-head ******** decision.
• Leveling sucks. Towards the end of the game, you'll have everything. Despite feeling overwhelmed with choice at the beginning, you'll have no choice towards the end and just pick whatever's available because it doesn't matter.
• All the skill check ******** is stupid and designed for idiots. I never once felt like I couldn't pass a skill-check despite, again, playing on Unfair which gives a huge malus to your roll modifier. What's the point? All it does is make it difficult to swap team members because you need everyone to fill a specific skill niche or two or three. There's nothing that ever requires player skill or thought, you just click the awesome button and get reward. If Fallout 1 & 2 were designed by Obsidian/Owlcat, it would look like this:
  
  It's the same exact design used by their prior games:
  
  No, this isn't fun or interesting! In BG3, you'd be expected to notice you can climb the ledge yourself then use the jump ability, or teleport, or … to get up there. Jump is affected by your athletics & strength, so the skill check is still part of it! In Gothic games, you'd be expected to explore and climb your way up there on your own, perhaps requiring the longer jump from acrobatics(albeit Gothic games have very weak RPG mechanics.) This is a general critique of Owlcat's(and Obsidian's) design philosophy, it sucks. I suspect this is to cater to buildfags who just want the game to play itself.
• The loading times are dreadful. It's your third game, Owlcat, **** off. Even worse is you're constantly loading new areas, going from star system view to bridge is a loading screen, going from star system view to sector view is a loading screen, going to a planet is a loading screen, getting interrupted while traveling on either star system or sector view to do stuff on bridge — which forces you to the bridge without any way to say no — is a mandatory loading screen, etc.,
• Way too much gear that frankly just isn't interesting or good. It exists solely to be stored as cargo and traded for reputation. They should have added more gear slots if they wanted to put this much gear in, but first, design better gear.
• The lack of any real currency. You don't 'spend' anything. I know how profit factor works and what it represents, fine, but you should have spent reputation rather than it merely being profit factor 2. It could have represented diverse forms of what is effectively separate currencies, and used for a lot more than just items. Maybe use reputation to call in backup for a difficult ship fight?
• Goes hand in hand with my bit about injuries in the 'Liked', but you heal to full after combat and there's no real form of attrition at all, especially when you get medkits that can heal trauma.
• The base game companion quests in chapter 4 were all near identical in how they work and felt extremely rushed/rote. What a sour note to something that was actually going well.
• I frequently had to reload(I know, yuck) because I picked a dialogue option that advanced a conversation when I still wanted to ask more questions. This was often presented as no different than the dialogue choices that didn't advance the conversation. I consider these justified reloads because nearly all the time there's no good reason I can't just ask that question beyond the game saying 'no'.
• The psyker & navigator origins are entire archetypes unto themselves but are origins?? Your player character can't even BE a navigator, it's reserved for your navigator companion. And that's despite it being even more detailed than Psyker and probably any of the actual archetypes! Obviously a designer's pet companion, very ridiculous.
• Has only a handful of xeno races from the setting, mostly the worst ones: Aeldari/Drukhari are prominent, but they suck.
• Inventory sucks. Could be worse. But it's not great. Pro-tip: the search function also searches item descriptions. An easy way to improve it would be character-specific inventories along with a shared inventory like Pillars of Eternity. Or as a more general way to fix it, having access to separate 'bags'(for lack of a better term) that I can name & categorize and are easily accessible.
• Was never impressed by any of the level design. Started out very weak and linear, improved a bit but never rose above acceptable. There is zero exploration, just mostly linear hallways.

And other things:

• There should have been a lot more stuff that happens when warp traveling. Stuff that actually mattered or changed things, story events, etc.,

I give @Roguey Trader 13 watermelons out of 20(3.25/5)

[Boontaker]

I'm near the end so I guess I'll give a recap. Entire game is about 120 hours long if you do all the content. There's no spoilers here. For reference:

• Unfair difficulty(hardest difficulty) for all of the game except one fight where team NPC AI kept suiciding itself and I wanted to keep it alive.
• I try to avoid reloading in CRPGs as much as possible unless forced to or I consider it 'justified'(bad game design).
• I picked the Officer archetype because it felt fitting. Navy origin, came up maybe 2-3 times thruout the entire game. I can't see any reason to not pick a psyker origin, at least if you're going officer.

Liked:

• The DLC content is very good. Honestly, the DLC itself probably gives the game a couple extra watermelons just because it has a lot more life in it, good encounters, etc., I actually ended up liking the companion who I thought I'd hate, all the stories in the DLC are much better than the base game. Adding anything else would be spoilers, but I enjoyed it so much I don't want to do that.
• After the horror story that was WotR, it was a surprising comeback.
• A bunch of good companions. Abelard, Heinrix, and Pasqal are all my type of companion in an RPG.
• The various planet exploration content was decent enough. Some cool areas with their own self-contained stories. They should have done more of this and expanded it.
• The ship combat is good. It's mostly copied from the tabletop RPG. Eat your heart out, Sawyer.
• Teetering on the edge here, but the injury system until I got a trivial way to remove traumas halfway thru. Should have been a lot more types of trauma, traumas that require recuperation, etc., Like a lot of systems in the game it feels very surface level. BUT… playing on Unfair, I did frequently find myself thinking(in the early game): "Do I want to keep on pushing ahead, or should I go back to my ship to recover?" The main issue is, the punishment for recovering is just the player's real life time, nothing else. If you're fine with wasting your time, then the injury system effectively does not exist.
• Most things in the game are not affected by a choice right before it happens, but a culmination of choices you make over dozens of hours of playing that you can't just undo. That is, less true/false story flags and instead using story counters that move up/down.
• Surprisingly, not that many bugs. Got a bit buggier towards the end, some issues with DLC content but that just released.
• Carried hard by the setting. Which actively hurts the game anytime it veers into the stupid areas of WH40k. Space elves are dumb, space drow are really dumb.
• Most of the art looks pretty good. The characters feel less cartoony than I remember in the original promo material, but the environments are obviously what you're meant to keep your eye on.
• Combat was serviceable. Nothing standout.

Disliked:

• Act 3. It's not that bad I guess, but it's going to be the first thing that pops in my mind when I consider doing a replay.
• Story feels too 'epic' for me. I wanted to be a hood trader doing hood trader ****. Too much stuff that should be part of a Rogue Trader game is cast aside to make way for the EPIC plot. You don't manage a flotilla, the colony management is extremely barebones, there's no actual trading that happens, no construction of supply lines, etc., Very disappointing! I know this isn't all a rogue trader does, but it's what I wanted to do **** it.
• Not enough time spent on the ship itself. First DLC alleviates this somewhat.
• Way too wordy. It's OK to have some characters that are overly verbose, but nearly every character is. And there's tons of pillarsisms where the text is used to describe minute details about the person.
• The difficulty is just too low. I breezed through the game on Unfair, using archetypes supposedly deemed as 'bad'. The only time I looked up advice was when I was checking how mechanics worked and just made my own decisions otherwise. Some of the DLC fights were actually tough tho.
• The system of the game itself sucks. They took a mangled version of the tabletop system used by the Fantasy Flight Games 40k tabletop RPGs — Rogue Trader, Dark Heresy 1E/2E, Deathwatch, Black Crusade, Only War. But it's inspired. I saw someone compare it to the Sword Coast Legends game, and it's not the same. SCL is their own system with the trappings of D&D mechanics. This is heavily inspired by a blend of the actual tabletop games such that it could easily be translated to tabletop and labeled Rogue Trader 2E(I'm referring to the RPG line only for the pedantic.) But it's not as in-depth as any of the systems, which is strange because they previously did the pathfinder games, albeit not a full implementation but the pathfinder rules are ridiculous to begin with. If you're going to make a CRPG, then use a system that plays to the strength of having a computer rather than a bastardized, simplified version of something designed for play at a tabletop.
• Leveling sucks. Especially at the start, you'll be getting a new level every fight and you have to level up your entire team, if you're new to the game that means pausing for 10-30 minutes after every fight. Holy **** this was a pants-on-head ******** decision.
• Leveling sucks. Towards the end of the game, you'll have everything. Despite feeling overwhelmed with choice at the beginning, you'll have no choice towards the end and just pick whatever's available because it doesn't matter.
• All the skill check ******** is stupid and designed for idiots. I never once felt like I couldn't pass a skill-check despite, again, playing on Unfair which gives a huge malus to your roll modifier. What's the point? All it does is make it difficult to swap team members because you need everyone to fill a specific skill niche or two or three. There's nothing that ever requires player skill or thought, you just click the awesome button and get reward. If Fallout 1 & 2 were designed by Obsidian/Owlcat, it would look like this:
  
  It's the same exact design used by their prior games:
  
  No, this isn't fun or interesting! In BG3, you'd be expected to notice you can climb the ledge yourself then use the jump ability, or teleport, or … to get up there. Jump is affected by your athletics & strength, so the skill check is still part of it! In Gothic games, you'd be expected to explore and climb your way up there on your own, perhaps requiring the longer jump from acrobatics(albeit Gothic games have very weak RPG mechanics.) This is a general critique of Owlcat's(and Obsidian's) design philosophy, it sucks. I suspect this is to cater to buildfags who just want the game to play itself.
• The loading times are dreadful. It's your third game, Owlcat, **** off. Even worse is you're constantly loading new areas, going from star system view to bridge is a loading screen, going from star system view to sector view is a loading screen, going to a planet is a loading screen, getting interrupted while traveling on either star system or sector view to do stuff on bridge — which forces you to the bridge without any way to say no — is a mandatory loading screen, etc.,
• Way too much gear that frankly just isn't interesting or good. It exists solely to be stored as cargo and traded for reputation. They should have added more gear slots if they wanted to put this much gear in, but first, design better gear.
• The lack of any real currency. You don't 'spend' anything. I know how profit factor works and what it represents, fine, but you should have spent reputation rather than it merely being profit factor 2. It could have represented diverse forms of what is effectively separate currencies, and used for a lot more than just items. Maybe use reputation to call in backup for a difficult ship fight?
• Goes hand in hand with my bit about injuries in the 'Liked', but you heal to full after combat and there's no real form of attrition at all, especially when you get medkits that can heal trauma.
• The base game companion quests in chapter 4 were all near identical in how they work and felt extremely rushed/rote. What a sour note to something that was actually going well.
• I frequently had to reload(I know, yuck) because I picked a dialogue option that advanced a conversation when I still wanted to ask more questions. This was often presented as no different than the dialogue choices that didn't advance the conversation. I consider these justified reloads because nearly all the time there's no good reason I can't just ask that question beyond the game saying 'no'.
• The psyker & navigator origins are entire archetypes unto themselves but are origins?? Your player character can't even BE a navigator, it's reserved for your navigator companion. And that's despite it being even more detailed than Psyker and probably any of the actual archetypes! Obviously a designer's pet companion, very ridiculous.
• Has only a handful of xeno races from the setting, mostly the worst ones: Aeldari/Drukhari are prominent, but they suck.
• Inventory sucks. Could be worse. But it's not great. Pro-tip: the search function also searches item descriptions. An easy way to improve it would be character-specific inventories along with a shared inventory like Pillars of Eternity. Or as a more general way to fix it, having access to separate 'bags'(for lack of a better term) that I can name & categorize and are easily accessible.
• Was never impressed by any of the level design. Started out very weak and linear, improved a bit but never rose above acceptable. There is zero exploration, just mostly linear hallways.

And other things:

• There should have been a lot more stuff that happens when warp traveling. Stuff that actually mattered or changed things, story events, etc.,

I give @Roguey Trader 13 watermelons out of 20(3.25/5)

If it wasn't for loading screens I would never give a **** about if my warp path was "unsafe". Loading onto those little ship fights was more annoying than the fight itself.

[Orvas Dren]

This just isn't true, rogue traders are on level with imperial governors with the added perk of being tied to no world or tithe.

from the TTRPG book

Dark Heresy(1E, The Radical's Handbook)

Dark Heresy(2E, core rulebook)


And they do pay an imperial tithe.

Its frequently stated that most people of power don't actually care about the writ of a rogue trader but by the fact that they can freely use and command voidships. It's why the Navis Nobilitae can just say **** you no and why the mechanicus can just say **** off, same with many other factions of the imperium.

prooooooooooooooooooooffff???
I think you're confusing merchant charters with the warrants of trade, they're not the same thing.

And since this is specifically about the CRPG,
Your writ of trade is signed personally by the Emperor. In his own blood.


and before you ask, no, I had these books already on hand. I have 13,560 RPG pdfs in my personal library as of checking right now.

none of this contradicts what I said, and your own source specifically mentions the point I made. A rogue trader's power is directly tied to his fleet, not his warrant.

In the game as well as one of the books (dont remember its name) one of the recurring themes of being a rogue trader is politicking with the navigator houses and explorators, because you can't actually force them to do anything, and they only have to provide you with the bare necessities. In the TTRPG it states that most RTs seldom own anything bigger than a light cruiser, and that frigates and freighters are the norm. This is nothing in comparison to Space marine chapters, Imperial and Navy Commanders, etc. RTs only pay tithes if they control worlds to tithe from afaik, which many do not. And no, I am not thinking of the Charterists whatsoever, the key difference between the Charterists is that RTs can go wherever they want so much as they have the means, Charterists cannot and are bound to defined contracts and routes.

[rusty_shackleford]

none of this contradicts what I said, and your own source specifically mentions the point I made. A rogue trader's power is directly tied to his fleet, not his warrant.

In the game as well as one of the books (dont remember its name) one of the recurring themes of being a rogue trader is politicking with the navigator houses and explorators, because you can't actually force them to do anything, and they only have to provide you with the bare necessities. In the TTRPG it states that most RTs seldom own anything bigger than a light cruiser, and that frigates and freighters are the norm. This is nothing in comparison to Space marine chapters, Imperial and Navy Commanders, etc. RTs only pay tithes if they control worlds to tithe from afaik, which many do not. And no, I am not thinking of the Charterists whatsoever, the key difference between the Charterists is that RTs can go wherever they want so much as they have the means, Charterists cannot and are bound to defined contracts and routes.

A "lesser rogue trader" has as much power as a "weak imperial governor". The weakest, bottom-rung rogue trader is as powerful as an impoverished noble.


What is a "lesser rogue trader"? The book gives an example of a rogue trader with 40 profit factor: "The Rogue Trader dynasty is a fresh, new player on the galactic stage"

TTRPG it states that most RTs seldom own anything bigger than a light cruiser, and that frigates and freighters are the norm

You have a 9/10 chance of having at least a frigate, and a 1/10 chance of starting with a grand cruiser. The hypothetical "lesser rogue trader" would be a couple ship points short of a light cruiser. Table 1-5 core rulebook, and Battlefleet Koronus book.


And in the CRPG, you're politicking with house Winterscale, one of the most powerful rogue trader dynasties that exists — they're featured prominently in the TTRPG. Von Valancius is also immensely powerful and wealthy, but this is not conveyed well at all thru gameplay mechanics, imo. There's a reason that the only person who gets close to barking an order at you is the lord inquisitor, and he still doesn't even directly give you an order but a hint he might make things worse for you if you don't comply. Because you're his peer.

---

The argument can be reduced to: "Are rogue traders peers of chapter masters and inquisitors?" The answer is obviously, yes, the books flat out say this:

This is a feudal society. Trying to rank peers against one another is foolish, as that depends on the individual. And that's when in imperial space, the rogue trader can tell them to go jump out an airlock when outside of it.
But hey, if people want to go around sticking their thumb in the eye of random rogue traders until they find a Lord Captain with a fleet rivaling a spess murine chapter capable of ordering an orbital strike on their planet just for fun, go ahead. **** around and find out, I suppose.

[Reichspepe]

The ship combat is good. It's mostly copied from the tabletop RPG. Eat your heart out, Sawyer.

Deadfire will never recover from this

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

The ship combat is good. It's mostly copied from the tabletop RPG. Eat your heart out, Sawyer.

Deadfire will never recover from this

It can’t be any worse then the Crusade or Kingdom mini games from Owlcat.

[rusty_shackleford]

The ship combat is good. It's mostly copied from the tabletop RPG. Eat your heart out, Sawyer.

Deadfire will never recover from this

It can’t be any worse then the Crusade or Kingdom mini games from Owlcat.

deadfire ship combat was implemented as a text adventure, widely hated, one of the most downloaded mods just lets you skip it and go to boarding combat
the boarding combat is very basic btw, it's just combat on the decks

it's a shame rogue trader has no boarding combat tho, another strike against it

[rusty_shackleford]

got tired of reading so I started hacking on the voice mod that uses the windows builtin TTS (booo!!!!) to use a much better TTS(yay!!!!)

notably, this supports custom voice models. The one I used is only a medium quality demo model.

It takes a couple seconds to generate the text tho, so I could probably have it cache the files and the cache could be distributed with the model. Probably wouldn't be too hard to just pull all the dialogue files and generate them.

First attempt at training a custom model, just a prototype and obviously not done yet but I had to learn how to do the training.

Doing a full training now

Going to redo the transcription of the audio clips and redo the training, but it's starting to sound decent actually.

Final:

[rusty_shackleford]

finished it, I misunderstood what the nomos option meant, I thought it meant resealing the shard not controlling it???? It definitely implied he'd be imprisoning the shard again.

[rusty_shackleford]

hated the main story btw

[Boontaker]

hated the main story btw

Just like wotr, and kingmaker. Chapter 2 is better than the rest of the game.

[rusty_shackleford]

hated the main story btw

Just like wotr, and kingmaker. Chapter 2 is better than the rest of the game.

japanese-tier storytelling where they're on the right track but just can't help themselves by ruining everything