Player Characters & WarShips

[Kamose]

Have any of you ever actually given your players control of 1 (or more) WarShips in a campaign?  And by campaign, I mean long-term, large-scale - where possession of such assets would allow them to decide the flow and/or direction of the campaign?  I am sure most of us have done it for short-term or one-offs, such as recreating "historical" battles, but I am curious as to the effects(consequences?) of letting the players have that much power.  I'm thinking of giving them a squadron to go with their ComStar division at the beginning of the Jihad and letting the chips fall where they may.  Thoughts?

Thanks,
Kamose

[Bergie]

If you're talking about RPG campaigns, I personally dislike ships in general.  Most groups do not consist of enough people to fight ships properly, so I tend to focus on their actions around such ships.  As for Command, that is possible, but the mechanics and in-universe doesn't seem to work unless you are doing a regiment-regiment invasion story imho , where the players need the ship to fight there way in.

[Jayof9s]

I had a friend GMing a campaign where the player with a wing(?) of fighters supporting an allied Warship + some assault dropships squared off against a pair of Warships and some lucky hits later and the mercenaries went home with an Impavido. Which they enjoyed the use of for several years until the Jade Falcons wrecked it for them.

It certainly made their planetary landings a lot safer but I don't think it helped them much beyond that since the crew they scraped together wasn't good enough to do orbital bombardment or anything. Still, I know I'm not a kind enough GM to allow that - I'd have had their Liaison Officer telling them about the clause in their contract that excludes Warships, especially when offering a token force in a larger battle.  ;)

Then again I could see a Warship(s) being useful in certain Clan campaigns or Word of Blake, etc. But overall I'd disallow it for mercs and even most House units and any campaign that DID get to control one or more Warships would definitely be running into enough Assault droppers and enemy Warships to make sure they're fighting to keep theirs.

[Kamose]

Thanks for the thoughts... what I am envisioning is larger-scale battles (regiment/division sized) taking place during one of the "prongs" of the Stone Coalition into the WoB Protectorate.  I'm deliberately being fuzzy about whether or not the players will face WoB WarShips, b/c one of them has the list from Jihad: Final Reckoning, and I don't want them just thinking they can steamroll in - and we all enjoy a decent space game, so I like the idea of them having "strategic control" over some such assets, if they are needed (ie - do they call up their WarShips for support for naval bombardment, or hold them in reserve, or worry about a functional SDS, etc.).  On the same token, I don't just want to hand them a squadron and say "Have fun".  Just wanting to see what some people have done in the past.  Thanks for the suggestions so far.
Kamose

[Stormlion1]

I did once, gave my players access to a Fox Corvette during the FedCom Civil War. Useful in the beginning and we did have one warship duel the players loved with plenty of fighters and dropships doing damage. Even better as we were still feeling around with the rules too, so lots of discussion too. Didn't take long before Orbital Bombardment became a problem though and I had to "take steps" to get it out of play.

What?

I scared the Fox off with a Avalon Cruiser and left them stranded on a planet with no way out.

[truetanker]

I say let them, until those OB becomes problematic. Best excuse to use? Too many to close " Close SUpport " calls. Like right on them. They'l learn real quick.

TT

[Nav_Alpha]

This doesn't exactly fit but I once played in a game of Warhammer's Battlefleet Gothic where we RP'd everything. Ie; each character was assigned either a ship or a Squadron or a fleet, etc and then we tried to RP as much as we could. The roleplaying side was pretty much only straight out talking, no dice roles, etc but what we could do and say and how NPCs reacted to us was determined on the battles.
and the battles were just played out as a campaign.

So, for example I was a very young, very junior third Lieutenant on his first cruise aboard an Imperial Navy vessel who ended up in command after a disastrous battle that saw the 30 odd more senior officers killed.
Another player was a rogue trader type - on the map board we'd simply play as sort of allies against a fleet of Chaos ships, etc to fight over some ore rich asteroids everyone wanted.
When it came to roleplay, we'd either just talk it out - or in one case the GM made us go into separate rooms and text each other to try and simulate long range and shoddy communications between ships.

Another character who just was totally uninterested in RP'ing played Chaos - he would just howl at you when he wasn't directing his fleet....

It was a fun series of games but not particularly roleplay heavy, I guess.

[idea weenie]

If you give them a ship, then you have to challenge the ship.  The other option is letting them effectively have a walkover of whatever is on the ground.  This will be fun for a bit, then get boring.  Also, put up an enemy who thinks smart, and figures out a way to disable the warship without fighting it.  Dumb enemies would normally have been weeded out in BT's constant war, so have the players feel like they just got dropped into a shark pool.  Smart enemies deal with large threats.  The players just became one of those large threats due to the warship.  Have enemy spy teams change targeting coordinates that are transmitted, so the Warship does orbital fire on the players, rather than in front.  Have missiles get launched around the planet the long way, and arrive at the Warship's coordinates at terminal velocity.  If the missile miss the warship, they slam into the atmosphere headed towards the PC force.

Also, while the players are busy in one location with the warship, have the enemy do objective raids behind the line, screwing up the PCs' supply shipments, so their Warship (which is mainly NAC/NGauss/Missile armed) has to make each shot count.  Supply shipments will get raided, fighter probes keep the Warship at general quarters (degrading the effective rating due to lack of sleep), even having an enemy warship stop by are all sorts of fun that can occur.

Now what you could do is have a Naval Captain who will give them preference in fire support, but that also means they will be heading into areas that need fire support of that magnitude.  Also, if the warship has to divert to support someone else, there are going to be a lot of very angry enemy units free to open fire.

The players should also be using their contacts to keep the critical supplies open.  Hydrogen fuel is easy to get, but repair components for a Warship transit drive will be much harder to come by.  Replacement parts for a PPC are everywhere, ERPPC not so much, but HNPPC components almost have to be custom made.  Ditto for Naval grade missiles, NAC ammo, NGauss coils, compact core components (let alone annual maintenance requirements).

They might have the ship, but some noble (getting jealous) decides to bump their Compact core annual refit down a few notches (accidentally keying a 5 instead of a 2 thanks to the number pad), so their Warship has to sit in orbit for several months, waiting.  Getting the priority bumped back up will be a fun exercise to find the right people who can change the paperwork, or wind up owing several people favors.  An enemy can also wait until it is in refit, and launch a bearings-only missile from a Dropship in-system, timed to hit the Warship when it has the core exposed.  Presto, instant monitor.

[Foxx Ital]

In a campaign i'm in we have 5 warships, a newgrange and 2 faslanes. Had to whooooop some WoB booty to get it! but it hasn't really changed anything, other than our budget  #P

[Isanova]

If you want to reboot things, give them a warship... then have them mis-jump into the sun :-D

Alternatively, I can't see it being reasonable in the modern universe to do so, even a nation's warship or clans are going to give it to the most senior, reputable, and skilled in naval thinking person they have (amidst millions). Unless your character has been roleplaying a jumpship navigator in the FedCom the last few dozen games, it just doesn't seem realistic. Even mercs who found one likely couldn't get it supplied even with hydrogen fuel without risking a DEST team or something.

What would be interesting is the secret pirate wars of the Star League era, where nations "gave" pirate bands warships to run around with. That I could see as being practical!

[fltadm]

In a game I have been involved with sinse High School, our Merchs. had a Potemkin an a Sovetskii Soyuz. We ended up renting the Sov Soy  to ComStar to pay for the Corn Cob

[Isanova]

Am curious... did you all use the Mercenaries Handbook rules to roll for trying to find a warship, or GM fiat?

[fltadm]

For us I am sure it was GM, as they where to orgionly have come people trying to go WoB

[Foxx Ital]

Its a campaign thats been going on for bout a decade. At this point we decided to go with "Anime level of fun" So it was fiat mixed with hard fought battles.