Aerospace Craft
| Rogue Trader: Drake Dynasty | |
|---|---|
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| GM | |
| Adam | |
| Dynastic Power | |
| Character Level: 31,250 XP / Rank 8 | |
| Profit Factor: 43𝖕 | |
| Command Crew | |
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Lord-Captain Drake Navigator Primus Mordecai Arch-Millitant Winter Astropath Solarus | |
| House Drake Fleet | |
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Aurea Albion Hound of Albion • Abhorrent Fortuitous Purpose • Penance of Iocanthos | |
| Drake Trade Empire | |
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Damaris • Scintilla • Kulth Svard • Dross • Aurum Sepheris Secundus • Tennenberg Killian's Rest | |
| Drake Expeditions | |
| Open Missions | |
| Grand Endevours | |
| Personnel | |
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Magistrates • Retainers Militants Svard 1st • Stormtroopers House Drake Expeditionary Army | |
| Assets | |
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Materiel Aerospace Craft • Ground Vehicles | |
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Armoury Wargear • Relics and Artifacts | |
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Other Estate Secrets and Contacts • Awards and Honors | |
| The Galaxy | |
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Locations Calixis Sector Koronus Expanse • Periphery Subsector Personalities Peers of the Imperium Rival Rogue Traders | |
| Utilities | |
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Rogue Trader Timeline House Rules Guide and Lore |
Arvus Lighter
The Arvus Lighter is a light cargo hauler used by the Imperial Navy to transport between the surface of a planet and space. The Arvus is a small, solid, reliable workhorse utility cargo shuttle, used by the ships of the Imperial Navy for transferring cargos of supplies or small units of personnel from ship-to-ship or ship-to-planet. Squat and durable, the Arvus has two powerful engines for carrying heavy loads. It has no armaments and is not expected to engage the enemy. It is commonly seen on the decks of large Imperial Navy ships or making repeat runs from surface to ship transporting supplies and men.
It is the Imperial Navy's equivalent of the Imperial Guard's Trojan and fulfills many of the same roles. Like its ground-based relative, it also has affectionate nicknames among its crews such as "the Hog," "the Little Pig" and "the Onager." The reasons for this title are unknown but superstition among the Imperial Navy believes the machine-spirit of the Arvus lighter to be truculent and stubborn.
The ship's interior is very basic and does not include many advanced systems beyond standard navigational and sensor equipment and proximity alarms. The single pilot has a small cramped cockpit. The cockpit's screen swings up to allow the pilot access from the front. There is also a small hatchway to allow the pilot access to the cargo compartment should he need it.
Aquila Lander
The Aquila Lander is a light shuttle typically used by the Imperial Navy. It is used to carry officers or other important persons from orbit to ground level and is named because of its wing arrangement. The wings end in a feather-like design and taper back as if in imitation of the sign of the Aquila. It is not designed as a combat vehicle, being only lightly armed with a Heavy Bolter (other variants replace the Heavy Bolter with a Multi-laser or Autocannon) for self defence, but it is well enough armoured to survive atmospheric insertion that it can protect its passengers from several hits before going down.
The Aquila has one crewman, a pilot, in an armoured cockpit at the front of the vehicle. Twin jet engines are beside the cockpit and built within the fuselage, which allows the vehicle to hover over its landing point. Above them is an observation dome. Sometimes Aquilas are decorated with purity seals. The shuttle is fully capable of both atmospheric flight and travel through the void of space. The craft is used mostly to take Imperial VIPs and their retinues to other Imperial starships or to and from a planet's surface. The Aquila Lander does not possess Warp capability and thus is not suited for interstellar travel. The Aquila Lander is highly maneuverable in both space and in atmosphere, and this is its best defence against any attackers. In case of assault by an enemy, the shuttle is heavily armoured and can withstand several direct hits from the weapons of most strike aircraft. During landing the entire crew compartment lowers to the ground for easier access.
The Aquila Lander is named after the iconic crest of the Imperium of Man, the Aquila, due to the unique shape of its wings. The multiple independent engine vents that run up along the wings come together to form a distinctive "feathered" appearance, which is similar to the wings of the Imperial Aquila symbol. The shuttle is capable of carrying up to seven passengers, usually a high-ranking Imperial commander or noble and his or her aides and elite guards.
Cargo Lighter
The Devourer is a class of dropship used by the Imperial Navy to transport Imperial Guard forces from orbiting ships to planetary surfaces. Carried in larger transport ships such as the Cetaceus Class Transport, Devourer dropships are considerably larger than Space Marine Thunderhawk Gunships. Each Devourer is a two-decked vessel, with the upper deck housing the infantry units and the lower deck holding the heavier equipment such as tanks and artillery. The Devourer is designed for planetary landings and deployment, with the armoured front section of the vessel opening up into four sections, deploying a ramp so that the onboard vehicles and infantry can quickly depart. The Devourer itself is not designed for combat, but is equipped with two heavy lascannon turrets and missile launchers so that they can devastate armoured emplacements in support of ground units.
The Drake Househould has acquired a handful of unarmed versions of these, mostly to move cargo from one place to another that doesn't require a warp-drive. Since it was designed to load and unload quickly, this has proved a boon for moving cargo from ship to ground or ship to ship. The versions on the Albion were pressed into service ferrying troops during the Drake Crusade as well as providing much needed supplies.
Chiropteran Scout
Although a Rogue Trader’s ship can orbit above a planet and take in its entirety with a single augur-scan, often this is insufficient to discover a world’s secrets. To take a closer look, Rogue Traders in the Koronus Expanse employ vehicles like the Chiropteran Scout, produced on Scintilla. Small, poorly armored and unarmed, the Chiropteran is fast, maneuverable, and bristling with long-range augur arrays. When expecting trouble, which is most of the time, a Chiropteran is typically escorted by a Gun-cutter or fighter craft.
The Drake household has acquired a single ship and is currently stored upon the Albion. It is only rarely brought out, and Winter has been wondering how to give it at least a single weapon that "doesn't involve the pilot rolling down the windows and pulling a fly-by".
Gun Cutter
The term “Gun-cutter” refers to a variety of armed and armoured spacecraft that can be used for orbit-to-ground transport, hostile landings, or even dogfighting. They can also be modified to add crew quarters for as many as six and are prized by organisations such as the Inquisition and Rogue Traders (for whom a multi-purpose spacecraft is a great asset).
Thunderhawk Transporter
The Thunderhawk gunship is a multi-use aircraft in wide use by Space Marine chapters.
The Thunderhawk Transporter is a logistical variation of the normal Thunderhawk gunship. It has many of the same basic design features as the original but is armed with only four twin-linked Heavy Bolters, though it can carry as many as six Hellstrike missiles on its wing hardpoints, and is propelled by four RX-92-00 combination rocket/afterburning turbofans. The most noticeable difference is that it is missing the normal transport holds found on the Thunderhawk gunship, equipped instead with four massive magnetic clamping arms mounted on runners underneath the fuselage. These allow the Transporter to carry two Rhino or one Land Raider-sized vehicles, or an under-slung pod for carrying ammunition, fuel and other supplies. These items can be loaded and unloaded in quick order, minimizing the amount of time the Transporter is vulnerable while one the ground.
The Thunderhawk was first deployed during the Great Crusade as a cheaper to produce replacement to the Warhawk VI. Armed to the teeth with a Thunderhawk cannon and various other weapons, its use become more and more widespread. Each Chapter of the Space Marines maintains its own fleet of Thunderhawks. Normally reserved for large-scale battles, time and time again its use in the various fields of war has been proven. With such might like this, only a great threat to the Imperium could demand use of these mighty craft.
The pilot, co-pilot, navigator and gunner are all located in the gunship's flight deck above the forward hold and in front of the upper hold. The navigator and co-pilot also control the primary narrow-band, long-range communications transmitter located on top of the fuselage, along with the sensor array and electronic counter-measures. The navigational equipment also transmits information to Space Marine command units, while an emergency location beacon will automatically begin broadcasting should the Thunderhawk be shot down.
Despite their complexity the Thunderhawk's systems are rugged and reliable, and are all controlled by an M33 'Cygnus' class Machine Spirit. Utilizing aetheric and phlogiston feed coils, alembic shielding and pseudo-synaptic relays, the Cygnus has a cognition speed of 40,000 co/sec with a maximum contemplation capacity of 10,000 kilobrains, making it comparable to that found in a Reaver Battle Titan.
Armouring for the Thunderhawk is constructed in a similar manner to that of a Land Raider, giving it an unprecedented level of protection. An adamantium inner hull is layered on top by titanium rolled plates, followed by a thermoplas fibre mesh, and then two layers of ceramite, the second of which is ablative. The ceramite and thermplas fibre layers are increased in depth to provided the craft additional protection in order to perform repeated atmospheric entries, making them thicker than those on a Land Raider, at the expensive of thinning the titanium and adamantium layers. These armour layers makes the Thunderhawk very well-protected and particularly resistant to Melta Weapons.
In addition to its armouring, Thunderhawks also come equipped with a Decoy Flare Launcher located in the lower rear fuselage, along with additional electronic counter-measures used to jam enemy sensors and tracking equipment.