Editing Rogue Trader (Video Game)

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{{topquote|What will your fate be? One of Service? Of Glory? Of Heresy?<br>One can only hope it will be better than mine.|Your predecessor, before she died.}}

'''Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader''' is an upcoming [[CRPG|video game]] based on the [[Fantasy Flight Games|Fantasy Flight]] [[RPG]] of the [[Rogue Trader (RPG)|same name]]. It's being developed by Owlcat Games, who you might know as the guys behind the [[Pathfinder]] CRPGs [[Kingmaker]] and [[Wrath of the Righteous]].

You play as the Rogue Trader, and it is your task to rebuild and expand your dynasty's trade empire, '''become obscenely rich''', and save the Koronus Expanse from <s>the Warpstorm Trilogy</s> the growing dangers which threaten to undo all the Imperium has built within it. Just make sure you keep the various factions and power brokers of Footfall off your back while you do so, or they'll take more than just a cut of the profits; ''they'll take your life!''

==Setting==
Set sometime during the [[Time of Ending]], long after the era of the original RPG, Rogue Trader takes place in the backwater frontier sector known as the '''Koronus Expanse'''. One of a myriad of prospective heirs in the '''von Valancia''' dynasty, you are thrust into the position of rogue trader after the death of your predecessor during a collision of Chaos and Dark Eldar plots that sees an entire star system vanish and your dynasty's fortunes undermined. While not exactly penniless, you start off with most of your productive assets lost somewhere in the unrest sweeping the Koronus Expanse and you're forced to start working your way back into the upper echelons of the Koronid economy. 

Little mention is made of the [[Dark Heresy|Calixis Sector]] aside from the report that almost no ship has traversed The Maw in several years, and those that did reported time dilations of at least a few decades. Aspyce Chorda's daughter and heir will be at least one of your main competitors, and old Calligos Winterscale has seemingly secured the position of his dynasty within the Expanse. Together, the Chorda, von Valancia, and Winterscale dynasties are the most prominent and powerful of the Rogue Traders operating in the Expanse and balancing your interests with theirs will be one of the main conflicts in the game. Before you can do that, though, you'll need for '''find''' your interests: warp storms have swept much of the Koronus Expanse, and all your Navigator charts have been rendered useless as existing warp channels have closed or been hidden. It's up to you to plot new routes through the storm's and reopen trade between Footfall, the de facto hub location since all the major faction merchants are there, and your dynasty's agri- and forgeworlds to keep things from going completely belly-up (at least in Act 2).

===Worlds===
*'''Dargonus''': Throneworld of the von Valancia dynasty.
*'''Footfall''': [[Star Wars|A wretched hive of scum and villainy]], Footfall squats at the entrance to The Maw, the sole gateway (aside from the [[Deathwatch (RPG)|Fifth Station of Passage]]) to the wider Imperium. Nominally ruled by Rogue Traders and administered by the Liege of Footfall in their name, in practice it is a constantly shifting nest of viperous gangs, criminal syndicates, Ecclesiarchal crusaders, and merchant combines who jockey for power and scarce resources amongst its asteroid stations. Since all the major game faction merchants are based on Footfall, it seems to be the in-game hub world even if it's actually located in the corner of the map and only has a few warp routes leading from it to other systems. It' a good idea to create ''stable'' Warp routs between Footfall and your colonies (at least the three primary ones). 
*'''Janus''': An agriworld founded in the Koronus Expanse by the von Valancia dynasty, Janus is a major supplier of foodstuffs to other settlements in the Expanse. Unfortunately, its system defences have been badly neglected and the world is currently interdicted by xenos raiders. 
*'''Kiava Gamma''': The core industrial world of the von Valancia dynasty, it is currently cut off from the rest of the Expanse. The Rogue Trader will need to find it before they can rebuild their dynasty's economic fortunes.

===NPC Factions===
*'''Cult of Saint Drusus''': Also known as Drusians. Established a mission in Footfall with the goal of spreading the faith in the Koronus Expanse.
*'''Explorator Fleet''': Not explicitly named as the Thuleans, but a generic Explorator faction with a merchant on Footfall.
*'''Kasballica Mission''': Criminal syndicate that controls the Cold Trade through The Maw, despite the lack of traffic through it for several years.
*'''Fellowship of the Void''': Pirates of Koronus.

===Enemy Factions===
*'''Chaos''': Some Chaos faction targeted the Rogue Trader's predecessor and co-opted the dynasty's spymaster to that end. They were responsible for killing her and elevating the player to the rank of warrant holder.
*'''Cult of the Final Dawn''': Some secret cult that brainwashes people and turns them into living servitors who use a blue and yellow sun as their symbol. They have a strong presence in Footfall's underworld. Suspected of Chaos taint, and the primary target of Interrogator Heinrix.
*'''Dark Eldar''': Some Dark Eldar kabal stole a sun and doomed a star system while you were in it, contributing to the death of your predecessor.
*'''Word Bearers''': Possibly involved with the two Chaos factions above.

==<span title="All information based on the Dec 2022 alpha and subject to change"><u>Gameplay</u></span>==
[[Bioware|Like]] [[Baldur's Gate (Games)|most]] [[Icewind Dale|isometric]] [[Neverwinter Nights|RPGs]] [[Planescape: Torment|you]] [[Pillars of Eternity|may]] [[Kingmaker|be]] [[Wrath of the Righteous|familiar]] [[Solasta: Crown of the Magister|with]] (of the Bioware school), you and a party of quirky characters walk around massive, highly-detailed 3D environments holding down the Tab key looking for highlighted boxes to steal shit from and opening dialogue trees with named NPCs until you get interrupted by a random enemy encounter and/or walk over a trap that kills 3 of your party members. There's nothing too innovative here aside from a horrible, HORRIBLE inventory UI and a really clunky implementation of the Profit Factor mechanic from the original RPG this is based on. You '''will''' pick up hundreds of generic autopistols, flak vests, and axes that you must manually pack into cargo crates for later resale to various merchants, or else carry them in your character inventory if you hope to use them at some point. The game will refer to all items, including plot-important key items, pointless lore notes, literal garbage you looted from the homeless encampment in the sewers, etc. as "Trophies" and remind you to pick up anything you might have thrown away whenever you leave an area.

===Classes===

===Skills===
Skill tests are resolved exactly like in the original RPG: Roll a d100 under a number based on your character's skill level in their relevant attribute and with the appropriate DC modifiers applied. You can equip gear to increase your character's skill points and raise your chance of success, but right now there don't seem to be skill mastery levels, which makes it a lot harder to reliably succeed even basic tasks; for example, there are many opportunities for small Lore (subject) tests in various areas, but you will probably fail more than half of them at any given time since the player character's ability scores start around 35-40 and additional equipment is typically a +5 bonus to a single skill. In the original Rogue Trader RPG, you could spend XP at each rank up to gain Skill Mastery in specific skills, giving up to a +20 bonus to that skill and demonstrating your character's focused development, but so far in the alpha it seems that all ranking up does is give you additional abilities to use in combat.

Skills are used in various ways: disabling traps, persuading/coercing NPCs, opening hidden pathways through the use of small explosives, etc. Failure usually means the character using the skill takes damage or some aspect of the dialogue path is locked away. Occasionally, missing out on that dialogue will put the player at a severe disadvantage in a future combat encounter. Thankfully, the game will automatically pick the character with the highest relevant skill among your selected party members if you click on something that requires a skill check: so if you've got Pasqal in your party and a you click on an object require a Tech-Use test, the game will send Pasqal over to deal with it. Unfortunately, the game isn't really good at predicting the odds for you and will display very generic "chances" when you hover over a test indicating who will take the taste and some percentage number that absolutely does not indicate chance of success. Unlike older games, failure also prevents other members of your party from retrying the skill test; if you roll 100 on a tech-use test, you won't ever be able to unlock the hidden path leading to the +5 Persuasion monocle. 

===Combat===
The combat is turn-based, based on the d100 system used in the FFG tabletop RPG, but it takes place on an explicit grid like [[X-Com]], complete with cover, elevation, and line-of-sight modifiers to how likely you are to hit your target. 

The combat UI is pretty standard, but can be counter-intuitive. Characters can switch between two sets of weapons at a time, and each weapon has a selection of between 1 and 3 "abilities" that determine where and how it hits. On the right-hand side of the UI is a massive list of ability icons arranged in order you get them, from left to right. Nearly all of them should be used BEFORE attacking with a character's  weapon to gain various bonuses to hit/dodge/etc. Unfortunately, there are also abilities that only have benefits after your character has moved, or your character has used another ability, which wouldn't be a problem if the game made them inactive if you'd get no benefits (and sometimes it does, go figure). The UI ''does'' show you the range and LoS of most abilities when previewing your character's movement to a new position on the battle grid (you need to choose the tile you'd like to move on and choose the skill you're about to use there before actually confirming the order to move), but no one explains that to a new player in the alpha, which results in a lot of misplacement of your party outside of support range. 

There are '''way''' too many abilities, since Owlcat decided that levelling means adding more combat abilities and only combat abilities, leading to UI bloat and leaving most characters feeling very generic since they are locked into pre-determined, linear class skill routes. The only real skill differentiation is whether or not a character has psyker abilities. Otherwise, it's all class-based, and the only customization available is when the game permits you to select from a limited choice of combat abilities based on which rank you've received, but they will all be variations on a theme rather than resembling anything like the freeform XP spending in the original RPG. Presumably, this is intended to give players a sense of "progress" by giving them more things to do in battle, but it neglects the social and economic aspects of the RPG. 

Combat is based around gaining and spending three types of currency: Movement Points (MP), Action Points (AP), and Momentum (M). MP and AP are individually gained by each character at the start of every turn, while M is gained for the party overall. This holds true for enemy encounters as well. Characters can only spend MP before they attack; they can still use certain support abilities, but if they damage an enemy all their MP is cancelled and they are stuck where they began the turn. AP points are spent on all abilities, which weapon attacks are considered. Rather than using the Action system it's more like the system proposed during the Dark Heresy 2e beta and is theoretically more freeform than the RPG system. However, you can't attack more than once per turn, despite having enough AP, without utilizing special abilities, and rate of fire is nerfed badly compared to the RPG where arguably it was overpowered. Friendly fire, however, means that rapid-firing your bolter or autopistol has more negatives than positives since the game is willing to have allies target allies when they miss their intended target, and everything could get pumped into the back of your party vanguard. Finally, M manages certain special abilities accessible to the party at either very low or very high levels. You gain M by succeeding in actions and lose M by failing or dying.

The use of abilities is almost universally determined by Line-of-Sight. If your psyker cannot "see" a target, they cannot buff/debuff/kill them. Unfortunately, it's not always clear what is and isn't in line of sight, particularly when the enemy can attack you but you can't attack them, especially where full-body cover and height differences are involved. Don't get us started on staircases, it's almost impossible to pull up a charge there.

Finally, round order is determined by initiative rolls at the start of the battle, but it's clear how that is determined. It does mean that in the encounters where the game throws more than two or three times your party size at you, despite most enemies being much, much weaker than the Rogue Trader's retinue, the enemy AI will get far more moves than you do. This may or may not be a problem later in the game, depending on how wearying this becomes, but the alternative model where sides always take equal turns has its own problems.

===Exploring Koronus===
Because all warp navigation maps of the Koronus Expanse that your dynasty has access to have been rendered useless, a key part of reclaiming your territories is by mapping the warp. That means going to your navigation interface and "scanning" the warp to uncover what warp routes are currently open, the level of risk in traversing them, and gaining and spending Navigator Insight to secure certain routes. With each use of the warp scan, you will uncover more routes from certain star systems, enabling you to travel there or plan for future travel once it becomes safer. Once you've decided where to go, make the warp jump and hope your Gellar Field doesn't get popped because that random event is absolute fucking bullshit. You can reduce the probability of bad events happening by spending said Navigator Insight; again, no one in the alpha tells you that. 

When you enter a star system, similar to '''Mass Effect: Andromeda''', you are able to click around a flat, 3D-image system map showing you all the planets and sites of interest in the system. Click on each location, or even in open space, and your ship will travel there. You can scan planets, which may reveal random events, resources to be exploited, or even give you the opportunity to resolve a mini CYOA quest and found a new, productive colony for your dynasty. You will also see fleets of potential enemies on the system map, which can trigger battles if you go to a site of interest that's too close to them.

Space combat is like a grid-based version of the [[Battlefleet Gothic]] wargame: All ships can only move forward a certain number of grids before they're able to turn a limited number of degrees. Like, in the RPG, your party members have individual abilities they can use in battle to supplement the basic "fire the broadside" commands. Unlike in the ground battles, ships are able to shoot and move afterwards. It's functional, if ugly, but there was never a chance you'd get [[Battlefleet Gothic: Armada]]-tier gameplay. Additionally, while you can acquire a squadron of ships to support the flagship, you can only control the flagship and the rest of the squadron will be [[Fail|AI-controlled.]]

===Ship Customization===
It will exist but no details are yet available. However, given that the current ship is hardcoded into the game, don't expect it to be as customizable as you'd like it to be.

==Companions==
===Abelard Werserian===
''Sometimes, you consult the proper treaties on Tactica Imperialis, and weigh every step. Sometimes, though, you fire your biggest cannons and save the day.''

The elderly seneschal inherited from your predecessor, Abelard is also your party tank. You wouldn't think it, but he's the stronger of the two characters who has the Endurance ability that applies the character's toughness bonus to resisting enemy damage. He's supposed to be more concerned with the Rogue Trader's economic decisions and making sure the dynasty returns to glory. The game does hint at family issues that remain unresolved, and he feels at least partially guilty that he didn't foresee the betrayal of the dynasty's spymaster coming.

===Argenta===
''I woke up with a feeling of wonder, as if a field of flowers was blossoming nearby; a child was saved from death; a thousand heretics were burning alive, begging and sobbing and howling.''

A [[Sisters of Battle|Sister of Battle]] from the [[Order of Our Martyred Lady]], Argenta has high potential damage output and is the only companion trained to use flamers AND bolters by default. Since she has one of the few free movement abilities that lets her race around the battlefield while everyone else lumbers around on the grid, this means new players will put her on the front lines where she can be chewed up by enemies before she can deal her worth in damage, because [[Derp|she didn't get the signature]] [[Power_Armour#Sisters_of_Battle_Armour|Power Armor]]. With a little finesse and buffs, however, it's easy to turn her into an absolute death machine that attacks with her Bolter 10 times in a single turn (and no, this is not an exaggeration). She's also hiding some kind of secret shame, but apparently not related to her virginity because she's confirmed [[Fail|not]] [[Rage|romanceable]].

===Cassia Orsellio===
''They fear to look at me because of my appearance. I fear to look at them because of their rotten-coloured souls.''

Your pet [[Navigator]] and an obvious [[Monstergirl|mutant.]] Despite her cloistered upbringing and youth, she's considered one of the primary contenders in the competition to become House Orsellio's Novator due to her Navis Nobilite powers and relationship to a previous one. She joins your crew after you foil a rival's attempt to take her life. Her personal ritual to navigate the Warp involves seeing it as a massive painting, and she uses colors and painting references to guide your ship as well as read the emotions of ordinary people (Read: NPCs). In battle, she is a Leader with a bunch of party support abilities letting her grant extra movement and shooting phases to characters, but since her Fellowship is understandably sub-par, your Rogue Trader is likely to do the job better. Cassia, being a Navigator, also has a supremely useful Third Eye Blast that damages and on failing a check stuns everyone in a large area (don't count on the stuns happening too often though), which is balanced by being very fragile. The Aerie/Tali'Zorah/Meryl/Sirin of the game.

===Heinrix van Calox===
''I've seen lots of innocent people. I've yet to see someone remain so after an interrogation.''

Supposedly the [[Alpharius|Interrogator]] of the local [[Inquisition|Inquisitor Lord]] of Footfall, Heinrix first hitches a ride with the Rogue Trader's predecessor to try and stop a Chaos plot involving the Cult of the False Dawn. When the Dark Eldar swoop in and steal a sun, he decides he has to report this to his master, and eventually the Rogue Trader is ordered to keep him around and help Heinrix foil whatever Chaos or Xenos plots you come across. While he does have tank abilities, his primary use is as a support psyker able to buff and debuff allies and foes, as well as being the de facto cleric. Also, despite being equipped with an Inferno Pistol, he is not allowed to use the Melta gun or the Flamer/Flamer Pistol by the game. Like any good Inquisitor he keeps his past a secret and tells you nothing about what he suspects.

===Idira Tlass===
''Did I mention that my whispers tell me jokes? Jokes that once said aloud make your eyes bleed and blood curdle. Talk about black comedy. *chuckles*''

An Unsanctioned [[Psyker]] from a frontier world, Idira has reached middle age (you wouldn't know it from her portrait) by using her abilities to sense the currents of the future and take appropriate action to protect herself and her patrons. If you bring her along while walking around the map, she can comment on upcoming scripted encounters, giving you forewarning to arm yourself or preparing your party by taking superior positions. In battle, she has access to powerful Warp Lightning abilities which cost a great deal of AP per turn to use, and is not a glass cannon. The game implies she's getting crazier as she gets older and that it won't be long before her powers overwhelm her.

===Jae Heydari===
''Some choose wealth. Others prefer power. And me? Well, I'm not that picky. I'll take both.''

You will either love her for being a quirky, black, adorable rogue who speaks like a Haitian, or hate her. Jae is/was the Kasballican Mission's chief negotiator on Footfall before she got on the bad side of its latest Liege, and she joins up with your crew because she sees the opportunity to profit from the association. In exchange, she'll give you access to her expertise on xenos matters and the criminal underworld. Whether her persona is real or a facade, she's sure to drag you into trouble whenever she sees an opportunity for profit. Recruiting her is entirely optional, but it doesn't hurt to get access to more abilities, since she's the other companion besides Argenta to come with "run and gun" ability. Making her into a blender is more difficult due to her lacking initial equipment.

===Pasqal Haneumann===
''Watching the lazy handling sacred technology breaks my heart - figuratively speaking. My cardiovascular augmentation can stand much more than high blood pressure.''

A senior [[Magos]] Explorator of the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]], Pasqal was assigned to Altar-Templum-Calixis-Ext-17 (the same one from the Warpstorm Trilogy) for 200 years before receiving a mysterious transmission from his missing mentor. Now he's left his post and hooked up with the von Valancia dynasty to search for him, preferably by following his trail across the stars of the Koronus Expanse. Pasqal is a jack-of-all trades: he carries powerful melee and plasma weapons, he can heal other party members, he's got high health, and he can buff and debuff characters in large areas. Like Argentia above, Pasqal is the only companion trained to use plasma weapons by default.

===Yrliet Lanaevyss===
''The songs of my ancestors speak of stars long forgotten and worlds long gone. What a shame that you lack the capacity to understand even a single note.''

A proud Eldar ranger who walks the Path of the Outcast without doubt or fear. Unfortunately, she's not super useful in combat, which makes up most of the game, and as a xenos her presence is a liability on Imperial worlds. Her sniping abilities can be replicated to a good extent by the Rogue Trader (depending on their starting class), Idira, and Cassia as long as you have access to Sniper Rifles. However, she has the highest Agility and Ballistic skills by the default, which can be useful if refined, especially during space exploration. Can't use Dark Eldar weaponry for some reason. [[Story:Love Can Bloom|Romanceable?]]

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