If you could make a Chaos ship legal, which one(s) would it be?

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

If by flattening a single forgeworld they destroyed the Imperium's ability to produce these, then this would indicate that only this forgeworld produced Slaughters.  Using the dates given and the rate of production of the Murder class hull as a yardstick, you have a maximum of 20 of them or so having been built, assuming that that Forgeworld did nothing but produce Slaughters the entire time. 

Yeah. For the Imperium. So after the folks took the Scartix Coil design and the Dutiful blew up the planet, Chaos can now take that design, go into the Eye and start building them.

As far as using the warp as an excuse: why not simply build 1,000 ships for every one that the Imperium has and just win?  It would be about as easy, since the warp is an ocean of infinite power. 

Because it would be boring for the fluff. Why not just move on from its current fluff? Why not let Chaos win? Or any one of the other races like Nids?  Or why not let the Emperor wake up all of a sudden and whip everyone else's butt?

As far as building ships is concerned, since as you pointed out only centuries have passed in they Eye, they couldn't build that many ships anyway. One also has to figure in the raw materials available.

[flybywire-E2C]

Um, does all this about Slaughters and Scartix coils and "how come I can't have Chaos CL's?" mean the Chaos list is good to go?

Don't gt me wrong, I much prefer this debate to the "how much of an idiot IS Nate anyway?" going on in the Bakka thread. I'm just asking so we can stick a fork in it and move on. 

[Plaxor]

Lol. At least you have a sense of humor, but then again everyone who believes in chaos cls do to!

[BaronIveagh]

Yeah. For the Imperium. So after the folks took the Scartix Coil design and the Dutiful blew up the planet, Chaos can now take that design, go into the Eye and start building them.

Doesn't say they took the design.  Just says that the commander went rogue and trashed the planet.  And, how would an IN commander get his hands on the data anyway?

BaronI, I've actually been playing through a game of RT as a bunch of explorators, and we have been getting deep into the fluff about how the Admech stores information.

Basically every forgeworld has an altar that contains all the technological information that they produce there, and potentially more. Generally these aren't copied, instead Transmat (basically a servitor astropath) requisition the information from another forgeworlds altar if they need it there.

It isn't unreasonable to destroy a wealth of knowledge just by obliterating one altar. Ryza is the only planet that still knows how to make plasma weaponry, this doesn't mean that any other forge world couldn't get the info to. It's just that they wouldn't normally. Pretty easy to forget records over thousands of years, especially if you aren't using them.

What, they retconned the thing with the giant crystal data stacks the size of hab blocks that they had to keep in orbit?  Last I had checked fluff they used (for all intents and purposes) a solid state holographic storage media system that didn't really lend itself to transmission, which, following this incident and the buisness with the Vanquisher, is why Mars receives a hard copy of all diagrams.  (And, a transmat?  I hope Phil Foglio is calling his lawyers as we speak, he used that one back in... 1983, IIRC.  And, also how would an astropath transmit diagrams?  I was given to understand it was basic text only, though encryptions are possible.)

[Plaxor]

WD 178 has the fluff on Transmats. All have a direct connection to the stone thing. They aren't astropaths anymore, presumably they talk in binary. Which would work fine.

Mechanicus also talks about them and the Altar.

[BaronIveagh]

WD 178 has the fluff on Transmats. All have a direct connection to the stone thing. They aren't astropaths anymore, presumably they talk in binary. Which would work fine.

Mechanicus also talks about them and the Altar.

IIRC WD 178 was partially retconned (that damn Emperor walking around, talking to people...) though I may be mistaken.  I haven't read Mechanicum yet.  I keep meaning to and keep forgetting. 

The thing about the crystal data stacks I remember being in a novel about an inquisitor, though which one escapes me.  The Inquisitor and his retinue break into a Admech data facility where a forgeworld keeps it's archives. 

[Sigoroth]

CLs are functionally useless for Chaos. Chaos captains are often lone wolves and also megalomaniacs. It behoves them to have a shp of greater tonnage than the what the IN could use to catch you. It also suits the psychology of a power hungry rogue or Chaos captain to take larger ships.

Light cruisers would not appeal to a captain, would provide little utility to a warfleet and is too much on even terms with the enemy as a raider. If you had the choice between a Dauntless or a Slaughter to captain which would you choose? If you said 'Dauntless' you wouldn't be captaining it for long. 

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Doesn't say they took the design.  Just says that the commander went rogue and trashed the planet.  And, how would an IN commander get his hands on the data anyway?

Yep, doesn't say but it's not far fetched either. And another explanation might be that the AM in the Eye reverse designed the engines. Hey if they can build Acherons, I'm sure they can build Slaughters.

[BaronIveagh]

Yep, doesn't say but it's not far fetched either. And another explanation might be that the AM in the Eye reverse designed the engines. Hey if they can build Acherons, I'm sure they can build Slaughters.

That's always possible, but frankly I suspect that most of thier engineering was given over to the Planet Killer. 

CLs are functionally useless for Chaos. Chaos captains are often lone wolves and also megalomaniacs. It behoves them to have a shp of greater tonnage than the what the IN could use to catch you. It also suits the psychology of a power hungry rogue or Chaos captain to take larger ships.

Light cruisers would not appeal to a captain, would provide little utility to a warfleet and is too much on even terms with the enemy as a raider. If you had the choice between a Dauntless or a Slaughter to captain which would you choose? If you said 'Dauntless' you wouldn't be captaining it for long. 

The problem with that is: A) There is no possible way there are enough slaughters for every would be chaos raider.  And it's entirely possible that some would be warmasters would happily punish underlings by giving them command of a light cruiser and putting it on patrol around their holdings.  Also, remember that not every hoard of chaos space marines is allied with Abaddon's warfleet.  Many of the legions did break up, with whatever would be warlord grabbing whatever he could when he left.  Someone will have gotten the short straw.

B) In the case of at least two legions, Alpha Legion and Night Lords, the Dauntless would actually be preferred for infiltration purposes.  In fluff Night Lords have access to (your favorite) several lance carrying strike cruisers.  (To really twist your noggin, one of them is still used by a former member of Night Haunter's inner circle).  I think that you forget that while, most of chaos are crazy megalomaniacs, you also have groups like Night Lords where going insane and embracing the ruinous powers is seen as a weakness, not something you willingly embrace.  When it happens to one night lord in fluff, his terminator bodyguards start talking about who they should select to replace him, and this seems to be a normal state of affairs!

Further: if all chaos captains were megalomaniacs, fleet operations would be impossible.  It would be like herding cats.  Particularly since they could just leave.  It's happened before to Abaddon's fleets and in the past there has been nothing he could do about it.

[lastspartacus]

Sure some chaos captains are like that, Sig.  But by your logic, escorts would not exist in the chaos fleet.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

That's always possible, but frankly I suspect that most of thier engineering was given over to the Planet Killer. 

There's only 1 PK and its finished. I see no problems with them building other ships. Like the Acherons and Slaughters.

[BaronIveagh]

That's always possible, but frankly I suspect that most of thier engineering was given over to the Planet Killer. 

There's only 1 PK and its finished. I see no problems with them building other ships. Like the Acherons and Slaughters.

Yeah, but given the time compression, it's completion would have been less the two years ago.  I'm sure they're hot on new ship projects now, but there would no have been enough time to have completed anything.  In fluff the number one complaint among the saner chaos forces is that they're loosing men and material faster then they can replace it. Many chaos forces have taken to looting dead loyalists for equipment out of need.  If the Dark Mechanicus is having a difficult time meeting the need for power armor components and weapons, how much more so ships which take millions of times more resources?

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Yeah, but given the time compression, it's completion would have been less the two years ago.  I'm sure they're hot on new ship projects now, but there would no have been enough time to have completed anything.  In fluff the number one complaint among the saner chaos forces is that they're loosing men and material faster then they can replace it. Many chaos forces have taken to looting dead loyalists for equipment out of need.  If the Dark Mechanicus is having a difficult time meeting the need for power armor components and weapons, how much more so ships which take millions of times more resources?

Huh? Why would it be only 2 years ago? Again you underestimate the aid of Chaos and the time compression. It would take more time than a typical battleship but it can be done. While we do not know the construction that went into the PK, even doubling the time it takes for a battleship to be built on a continuous basis they would have finished it in a century at most two esp since I don't think Abaddon would be happy if he feels the engineers are slowing down the important project. Certainly more than 2 centuries would have passed from the time of the Heresy by now. Regardless though, the point is, they can build the Slaughters and the other classes which is the point of contention.

[BaronIveagh]

Yeah, but given the time compression, it's completion would have been less the two years ago.  I'm sure they're hot on new ship projects now, but there would no have been enough time to have completed anything.  In fluff the number one complaint among the saner chaos forces is that they're loosing men and material faster then they can replace it. Many chaos forces have taken to looting dead loyalists for equipment out of need.  If the Dark Mechanicus is having a difficult time meeting the need for power armor components and weapons, how much more so ships which take millions of times more resources?

Huh? Why would it be only 2 years ago? Again you underestimate the aid of Chaos and the time compression. It would take more time than a typical battleship but it can be done. While we do not know the construction that went into the PK, even doubling the time it takes for a battleship to be built on a continuous basis they would have finished it in a century at most two esp since I don't think Abaddon would be happy if he feels the engineers are slowing down the important project. Certainly more than 2 centuries would have passed from the time of the Heresy by now. Regardless though, the point is, they can build the Slaughters and the other classes which is the point of contention.

Because fluff says about two centuries have elapsed in the Eye, approx, while ten thousand years have rolled by in the materium.  Which means that the Planet Killer was actually built much more swiftly then most battleships.

[Plaxor]

Well, we all know the Warp is a special land of magic and fairies... where ships simply come into being.

On a more serious note, who really cares if there is a chaos cl. It would be crap compared to the slaughter, and people who want them so desperately can quit whining.