Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[NecroLord]

Or why the Emperor has no descendants, other than his test subjects.
You mean a shape shifting psyker who lived for thousands of years didn't fuck his way through human history? Really? Is he even a man?

This discussion might spiral into heretical slaaneshi territory...
Anyway, the Emperor was so far above humanity(in ability, intellect and philosophy) that it made him completely beyond any human comprehension(as Malcador told Jaghatai, the Emperor has so many problems to solve and battles to fight that he simply cannot invest so much time in human interaction). He did like his Custodes(I guess you can think of them as his children). The Primarchs were obviously his sons. Whether he truly loved them or not is a different story.
The Emperor is beyond puny human means of procreation. What womb could carry his progeny? Let's be serious.

 

[Serus]

But the issue is: what are the "many problems to solve". He doesn't care about empire's wars during Horus times. Same with day-to-day administration of empire. Earlier he was leading the great crusade, before that - the conquest of Earth. Also doing the soviet thing with religion. In the meantime, playing to create mini-emperors. And the throne fiasco. All that is done or gone, Horus is on the rampage and what the emperor does? Looks like nothing, certainly nothing sensible. But then, let's not apply logic to this setting, right?
"Intellect above humanity" - if that's what required then my ass has intellect above humanity.


Question to the our resident WH40k sages. Why other races didn't produce their own "emperors" once the chaos became a problem? And i mean a being as powerful not some puny "gods" or whatever. They can't into some dirty primitives doing "magic" stuff? Because that was the requirement on Earth.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

The Emperor is beyond puny human means of procreation. What womb could carry his progeny? Let's be serious.

Sisters of Battle and Black Templars on suicide watch.

 

[NecroLord]

The Emperor is beyond puny human means of procreation. What womb could carry his progeny? Let's be serious.

Sisters of Battle and Black Templars on suicide watch.

 

[Storyfag]

All that is done or gone, Horus is on the rampage and what the emperor does? Looks like nothing, certainly nothing sensible.

Google "war within the webway".

 

[Tomas]

Alright niggaz, I finaly finished the Kiava Gamma plotline.

Just before I set off, I was informed by a random Dark Eldar dude that a Succubus wants to take me over to her place and have rough sex with me.

View attachment 32292

Spirits were high as I exited the warp, obviously. I went to Kiava last of the three main planets of your empire, when I showed up I was welcome with a cool CYOA event of chaos tech-priests launching cybernetic attack at my ship - it turned out that the planet was already under chaos control. I wonder if you can get different beggining if you go there sooner (did someone try that?).

Anyway, unlike Janus (which had some social/investigative parts), Kiava turned out to be a large multilevel dungeon - the big boss welcomed me right at the start.

View attachment 32293

After exchanging some harsh language I proceeded to crawl through the industrial landscape, meeting and killing all kinds of interesting people and other forms of life.

For example there were Ruststalkers (known for example from Adeptus Mechanicus game) - fairly dangerous enemies, though I find the combat servitors to be somewhat more anoying with their AoE attacks.
View attachment 32294


There was also a Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers - turns out that he is the one who turned the planet to Chaos worship in the first place - he wasnt all that tough though, despite his heavy bolter. Pasqal smacked his shit up pretty hard once he closed in.

View attachment 32295

Speaking of Pasqal, you may recall an earlier post in which I uncovered his sexual harassment of another techpriest. You will surely understand that in light of that previous experience, I was a bit anxious when my party came over a mostly naked techpriest.

This time Pasqal kept his mechanendrites to himself though, and simply took his head to be turned into servo skull. Good boy.

View attachment 32296


Turns out Pasqal is indeed a highly problematic dude though - there was a chaos worshipping techpriest who claimed to be his relative... wtf man?
View attachment 32299
The aleged brother or w/e took a melta blast to the face - Pasqal still insisted on taking his cyber brain for "further study" - the whole thing is sus AF tbh fam.


The boss fight seemed tough as fuck on turn 1. I talked some mad shit to the big boss, who responded by calling in a demon engine, plus there were some random dudes with small arms too.
View attachment 32297

Unfortunately for the enemy, I already met a demon engine in a wrecked ship quite some time ago and I know how to deal with one lol - tough shit Fabricator XDDDD

View attachment 32298

But it turns out this wasnt all and the most interesting stuff was yet to come.
View attachment 32300

Turns out that the chaos techpriests built a demon cogitator to calculate some highly heretical shit. Imagine my surprise when Heinrix - the guy who constantly talks shit about how everything is heresy and how he doesnt set your ass on fire only coz you are a Rogue Trader - jumps all over it and starts pulling levers and pushing buttons. You have several options what to do (some of which include killing Heinrix and yes, you can go full chaos in the game - it is obvious now) and the choices actually seem meaningful (of course it remains to be seen later on).

I chose to break the thing to pieces and Heinrix now doesnt like me lol. OK, Mr. Interrogator.

In other news, I tweaked around with Jae and managed to make her useful now - I run her with bolter and bolt pistol + hand flamer. I would say that Yrliet is still better, but the build I have now with Jae makes her somewhat respectable. I find it strange that she cannot learn to use xenos weapons though, since she is a cold trader and having an ability to use xenos weapons (of which you find plenty) would give her a clear niche. Oh well.

Pasqal's bro was the toughest fight on Kiava for me.

 

[Tomas]

Alright niggaz, I finaly finished the Kiava Gamma plotline.

Just before I set off, I was informed by a random Dark Eldar dude that a Succubus wants to take me over to her place and have rough sex with me.

View attachment 32292

Spirits were high as I exited the warp, obviously. I went to Kiava last of the three main planets of your empire, when I showed up I was welcome with a cool CYOA event of chaos tech-priests launching cybernetic attack at my ship - it turned out that the planet was already under chaos control. I wonder if you can get different beggining if you go there sooner (did someone try that?).

Anyway, unlike Janus (which had some social/investigative parts), Kiava turned out to be a large multilevel dungeon - the big boss welcomed me right at the start.

View attachment 32293

After exchanging some harsh language I proceeded to crawl through the industrial landscape, meeting and killing all kinds of interesting people and other forms of life.

For example there were Ruststalkers (known for example from Adeptus Mechanicus game) - fairly dangerous enemies, though I find the combat servitors to be somewhat more anoying with their AoE attacks.
View attachment 32294


There was also a Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers - turns out that he is the one who turned the planet to Chaos worship in the first place - he wasnt all that tough though, despite his heavy bolter. Pasqal smacked his shit up pretty hard once he closed in.

View attachment 32295

Speaking of Pasqal, you may recall an earlier post in which I uncovered his sexual harassment of another techpriest. You will surely understand that in light of that previous experience, I was a bit anxious when my party came over a mostly naked techpriest.

This time Pasqal kept his mechanendrites to himself though, and simply took his head to be turned into servo skull. Good boy.

View attachment 32296


Turns out Pasqal is indeed a highly problematic dude though - there was a chaos worshipping techpriest who claimed to be his relative... wtf man?
View attachment 32299
The aleged brother or w/e took a melta blast to the face - Pasqal still insisted on taking his cyber brain for "further study" - the whole thing is sus AF tbh fam.


The boss fight seemed tough as fuck on turn 1. I talked some mad shit to the big boss, who responded by calling in a demon engine, plus there were some random dudes with small arms too.
View attachment 32297

Unfortunately for the enemy, I already met a demon engine in a wrecked ship quite some time ago and I know how to deal with one lol - tough shit Fabricator XDDDD

View attachment 32298

But it turns out this wasnt all and the most interesting stuff was yet to come.
View attachment 32300

Turns out that the chaos techpriests built a demon cogitator to calculate some highly heretical shit. Imagine my surprise when Heinrix - the guy who constantly talks shit about how everything is heresy and how he doesnt set your ass on fire only coz you are a Rogue Trader - jumps all over it and starts pulling levers and pushing buttons. You have several options what to do (some of which include killing Heinrix and yes, you can go full chaos in the game - it is obvious now) and the choices actually seem meaningful (of course it remains to be seen later on).

I chose to break the thing to pieces and Heinrix now doesnt like me lol. OK, Mr. Interrogator.

In other news, I tweaked around with Jae and managed to make her useful now - I run her with bolter and bolt pistol + hand flamer. I would say that Yrliet is still better, but the build I have now with Jae makes her somewhat respectable. I find it strange that she cannot learn to use xenos weapons though, since she is a cold trader and having an ability to use xenos weapons (of which you find plenty) would give her a clear niche. Oh well.

How long is the Alpha so far?

I played for 37,5 hours so far and I am not at the end yet.

Took me 60 hours to finish the Alpha. Save scummed reloading every failed check.

 

[Roguey]

Took me 60 hours to finish the Alpha. Save scummed reloading every failed check.

So much for "being turn based means it won't be flooded with encounters."

 

[hivemind]

90% of this website will never finish this game
it will be a 300 hour(for one of the non secret endings) juggernaut filled to the brim with like a dozen 50 elite encounters per map in the lategame

they'll also add non deterministic puzzles as a courtesy of tzeentch

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Alright, visited all the available systems, did all the space fights and all the quests. Took me 44,4 hours in total. Pretty good playtime considering that the Alpha probably contains less than 50% of the full game (the whole initial part where you meet Cassia, Pasqal and the rest of the team is not included in the Alpha and it is obvious that there is a whole lot of stuff yet to come after you official ceremony of becoming a Rogue Trader - you basicaly just stabilise your empire after gaining the title without touching the main plot much).

In any case, the Dark Eldar eventually raid Dargonus, which leads to a massive fight in your palace.

You end up killing the Succubus that bothered you before, but it is clear that the Dark Eldar will be back as they apparently play some role in the main plot. This final fight was p. hard, took me a while to find the right approach to it.

Once you clean house, you can proceed to plan your ceremony in which you will be officialy recognised as a Rogue Trader (though its obviously a formality, since you act as a Rogue Trader for a long time at that point).

You get to make a few decisions in the process of planing, though the most intersting part is the reception afterwards. You can chat with various nobles and other dignitaries that show up for your party (there are even other Rogue Traders and an Inquisitor) and gain various advantages/rewards for handling the conversations in various ways.

Of course the Inquisitor (Henrix´s master) in the end takes it upon himself to spoil the mood and make some demands. The conversation also foreshadows parts of the main plot, though I wont spoil them here. In any case, there is trouble a-brewing in the Koronus Expanse and the Inquisitor wants your help in dealing with it...

And thats it for now.

In any case this is a great game. Its been a while since I had this much fun with an RPG and I cant wait for more content. The Alpha didnt crash a single time on me and in fact there arent any significant technical problems with the game at this stage (my only complaint is that pathfinding sometimes gets wonky when you need to move up or down the stairs during combat, but its not that bad), which in itself is quite impressive considering contemporary standards of game development.

Writting is p. gud, implementation of lore is excellent. Ground combat is OK and space combat is enjoyable. The character progression is probably the weakest part, though even so there is some freedom in coming up with various builds for the characters, so w/e I guess. Characters themselves are in general good as well, there is no one insufferable or anything like that.

Shit was so cash tbh fam. I am glad that the first ever 40K RPG is turning out this good.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

And thats it for now.

At what level did you end up? We start at 15 right? Could be indicator of how long the game before Alpha content is.

 

[Tyranicon]

 

[BrotherFrank]

Question to the our resident WH40k sages. Why other races didn't produce their own "emperors" once the chaos became a problem? And i mean a being as powerful not some puny "gods" or whatever. They can't into some dirty primitives doing "magic" stuff? Because that was the requirement on Earth.

Assuming the shaman stuff hasn't been touched too much then there is no proper official explanation for why humanity pulled it off and not any other of the myriad of xenos races that were around, the shamans were pretty much the original gary/mary sues in how wise and selfless they were, understanding the dangers of chaos and forming a long term plan whilst not giving in to megalomania and all agreeing to a collective suicide in the name of the species, not bad for a bunch of magical cavemen.

Although in the case of eldar, the answer is they lack imagination and are too dogmatic in general. This is an eldar failing, they never had to invent anything or truly innovate in the entire history of their species since the old ones gave them everything including their tech. Even yvraine who seems to be their Emprah equivalent was a happy accident rather then a deliberate act, the original eldar plan was to rely on soulstones forever since it's all they knew what to do.
I suppose you could argue the dark eldar are less rigid and more creative but their imagination is 100% invested on how to torture and kill people in new ways and being degenerates in general.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Question to the our resident WH40k sages. Why other races didn't produce their own "emperors" once the chaos became a problem? And i mean a being as powerful not some puny "gods" or whatever. They can't into some dirty primitives doing "magic" stuff? Because that was the requirement on Earth.

Assuming the shaman stuff hasn't been touched too much then there is no proper official explanation for why humanity pulled it off and not any other of the myriad of xenos races that were around, the shamans were pretty much the original gary/mary sues in how wise and selfless they were, understanding the dangers of chaos and forming a long term plan whilst not giving in to megalomania and all agreeing to a collective suicide in the name of the species, not bad for a bunch of magical cavemen.

Although in the case of eldar, the answer is they lack imagination and are too dogmatic in general. This is an eldar failing, they never had to invent anything or truly innovate in the entire history of their species since the old ones gave them everything including their tech. Even yvraine who seems to be their Emprah equivalent was a happy accident rather then a deliberate act, the original eldar plan was to rely on soulstones forever since it's all they knew what to do.
I suppose you could argue the dark eldar are less rigid and more creative but their imagination is 100% invested on how to torture and kill people in new ways and being degenerates in general.

One thing to consider is that both Eldar and Orks did something like that at one point. Eldar actually managed to (inadvertently) create a god, which nearly destroyed them. Orks had a kind of "Prime Ork" at one point (the War of the Beast plotline) who nearly destroyed Imperium some time after the Horus Heresy. So its not that it wasnt done by others, just that the human attempt at creating a "living god" was relatively the most successful one.

And thats it for now.

At what level did you end up? We start at 15 right? Could be indicator of how long the game before Alpha content is.

Ended up on level 31, so it might seem there is a plenty of content before the point when the Alpha starts. Plus there should be a whole lot of stuff after it too.

 

[Humbaba]

View attachment 32306

implementation of lore is excellent.

Guardsmen don't salute like that. 4/10, barely playable.

 

[Peachcurl]

View attachment 32306

implementation of lore is excellent.

Guardsmen don't salute like that. 4/10, barely playable.

Some do. Salutes vary a lot.

 

[Humbaba]

They should do the albanian eagle sign of the Aquila for better brand recognition. Doing the eyvallah seems a bit informal.

 

[Peachcurl]

They should do the albanian eagle sign of the Aquila for better brand recognition. Doing the eyvallah seems a bit informal.

Agree, for a ceremony like that. But since the SoA is two-handed, I don't think it's well suited for a standard mil salute.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Ended up on level 31, so it might seem there is a plenty of content before the point when the Alpha starts. Plus there should be a whole lot of stuff after it too.

This is kinda baffling. Is the progression on class even be able to reach much more than this? We started at 15 and basically at the base class full. So I would assume at level 30 the advanced class is also already full. So after that no progression? Considering we have 4 base and 4 advanced class?

 

[Parsimonious cook]

They should do the albanian eagle sign of the Aquila for better brand recognition. Doing the eyvallah seems a bit informal.

Not sure if there is any universal military salute though (other than the "sign of Aquila" which is a religious thing done by civilians as well). I wouldn’t be surprised if there were regiments that did the old Roman salute too, among other things.

Also technically the soldiers you see in that screen are not Imperial Guard, but members of your personal army. Koronus Expanse is officially not part of the Imperium (though many Imperial institutions are active there), instead there are more or less independent empires owned by top level Rogue Trader dynasties and many independent colonies. There is no Lord Sector or any other centralized Imperial government structure (your own empire has a contract with Administratum though, which takes care of the bureaucracy for you, but they recognize you as a supreme authority). The Imperial authority largely ends at the few Battlefleet space stations on the margins of the Expanse.

The eventual goal is to absorb the Koronus Expanse as a new sector of the Imperium, though that is so far in the future that it isnt even on the horizon. BTW Calixis sector (nearest "proper" Imperial teritory, also the setting for Dark Heresy PnP system and partly for Only War too) went through the same process at one point - first it was a frontier territory partly owned by Rogue Traders, at one point Imperium managed to organize the Angevin Crusade which in the end incorporated what was originally known as Calix Expanse into the Imperium as the Calixis sector. The Rogue Traders either became local rulers in the new structure or moved on to the nearest frontier area, which was the Koronus Expanse.

Ended up on level 31, so it might seem there is a plenty of content before the point when the Alpha starts. Plus there should be a whole lot of stuff after it too.

This is kinda baffling. Is the progression on class even be able to reach much more than this? We started at 15 and basically at the base class full. So I would assume at level 30 the advanced class is also already full. So after that no progression? Considering we have 4 base and 4 advanced class?

The advanced class was at about 75% filled at level 31. What happens once it is filled is an open question at this point - I am not sure if you can select another class afterwards or not.

 

[Camel]

I played for 37,5 hours so far and I am not at the end yet.

Took me 60 hours to finish the Alpha.

Another bloated monster from the usual suspects.

 

[Aarwolf]

I went to Kiava last of the three main planets of your empire, when I showed up I was welcome with a cool CYOA event of chaos tech-priests launching cybernetic attack at my ship - it turned out that the planet was already under chaos control. I wonder if you can get different beggining if you go there sooner (did someone try that?).

I did Kiava Gamma as a second planet of the three (first was Janus) and got the same welcome. I think it does not matter at this point which planet you do first and which the last (aside from the fact that on Dargonus you can tell people that you solved problems on Janus and Kiava Gamma), but maybe they will change it in the full version.

 

[Serus]

I played for 37,5 hours so far and I am not at the end yet.

Took me 60 hours to finish the Alpha.

Another bloated monster from the usual suspects.

60h for a full blown crpg seems ok to me if that was the whole game - if that was the whole game. But i'm possibly in the minority here, i for once think that Fallout 1 length was too short and was its weakness.

 

[Camel]

60h for a full blown crpg seems ok to me if that was the whole game but that was the alpha.

That's exactly my point. I stopped reading walls and walls of text in Pathfinder WOTR too. Quantity sometimes doesn't have a quality all its own.

 

[ArchAngel]

I played for 37,5 hours so far and I am not at the end yet.

Took me 60 hours to finish the Alpha.

Another bloated monster from the usual suspects.

Only if you are not having fun. Otherwise it can be 500 hours and nobody will care.