FFG Ross Watson said:

Thats good to hear. I assume it is part of the Halo Stars and the referenc to Expanse is probably some sort of push into the Halo Stars to broaden the borders of the Calixis Sector.

Course, my group will be going out in serch of more clues on the Tyrant Star.

FFG Ross Watson said:

OK, I'm going to put on my magic predicting fez again, and take a wild stab in the dark and suggest that the Koronus Expanse is a region within the Halo Stars that for some reason has recently become open to Rogue Trader exploration from the Calixis sector, perhaps because a new warp-route has been located, or perhaps because a formerly huge warp storm has abated. 

This region has the potential to be immensely productive for the Imperium, maybe containing frontier worlds, alien empires etc. This has prompted a "gold rush" of Rogue Traders, of whom the players are part, to storm in and seize as  much as possible before other RTs gobble up all the resources. 

Perhaps the whole Haarlock legacy trilogy links in to all this...maybe the climax of the Haarlock legacy trilogy is that the players discover some McGuffin (a space map, dark age of technology navicomputer etc etc) that allows them to lead this goldrush into the Koronus expanse.

Building upon this creaky tower of unsubstantiated speculation, I would imagine that the setting or RT would be 30-50 years AFTER the setting of Dark Heresy , as opposed to contemporaneous, to give players in-game time to complete the Haarlock trilogy. The entry power level for players in RT would be the same as characters who have completed the Haarlock legacy trilogy. 

Anyway, just a thought!       

Its a good guess Lightbringer and I was rihgt with you until you said 30-50 years after DH. I still believe it will be the same time line. But I agree its probably a new warp route or a warp storm vanishing, probably in realtion to the Tyrant Star (which I beleive is to be the major McGuffin of BI/FFG 40KRPG). It may involve the Haarlock trilogy, and probably does, but I dont think it is set up to wait for characters of a certain power level.

It is going to be a gold rush and that is why you will have a bunch of 750XP-1000XP characters getting new charter contracts to raid into the Koronus Expanse inthe name of the Lord Sector Calixis Hax.

So more or less a bunch of poor contractors will have access to crappy ships and permission to find gold for a rich man. And I have a god aweful feeling that upgrades for you ships will cost XP and be available as Talents at certain ranks, which will be very annoying.

God I hope Im wrong.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Hmmm...I can see why you'd have reservations about such a system. It would tend to create either highly skilled characters flying a "bucket of bolts" OR less skilled characters cruising around in an indestructible "Death Star."

What springs to mind is the chantry design system that White Wolf used to have in Mage:the Ascension, though I recognise it's not too far away from what you're talking about, Peacekeeper_b. Under that system, each player character was able to buy a certain number of "chantry design" points during character creation that could be pooled with other characters to spend on creating a flashier chantry with more resources, magical sources etc. I guess where you and that system would part ways is that character design points could be spent on the chantry, so you'd end up with weak characters in a strong chantry.

A "middle way" strategy might be to automatically give each player 5 "ship design points" which can be pooled and spent on the ship....BUT NO MORE THAN THAT, ie they couldn't buy more than 5 points and as such degrade their character to boost the power of their ship. So a team of 2 player characters has a 10 point ship, a team of 5 has a 25 point ship, and so on. This would make a certain amount of sense, as it would follow that a team of 7 major characters (as we are told RT PCs are likely to be) would have a better ship than a team with 2 major characters. 

This approach makes more sense than a team with 7 characters so unskilled that they can barely tie their shoelaces piloting an Emperor class Batttleship simply because they've spent all their XP on the ship!    

Hmmm, Kronous Expanse.  I've heard of a planet named Kronous but never an entire region of space.  You have my interest.

Things are looking up for Rogue Trader. Wh40K's world is getting the treatment it deserved as a RPG IMO.

Maybe it has something to do with Komus, the Tyrant Star.

Perhaps Komus is a warp gate or worm hole or something. After all its rune symbol (as mentioned on page 317 of the DH Core book) is a birds foot and as such could imply that Komus "carries away those in its grasp"? Perhaps to the Koronus Expanse!?

OR I could just be spouting mindless bollocks. Nothing new there then...

FFG Ross Watson said:

Thanks Ross!  I figured as much, but I had to admit I was a bit worried.

Lightbringer,

I think you may be right, could be interesting to explore strange new worlds, seek out new alien civilizations... and blow them all to the Emperor and back.

Still, with the ability to create our own ships, as well as obviously buy new ones (aka the cruiser listed in the diary) I have to admit that I'm not so worried about paying XP to upgrade our ships.  While XP usage for such a thing would suck, I could figure out new and interesting ways to get around that little caveat and simply upgrade or buy new ships as needed.

The trick is money... and piracy... not exactly in that order.