Suggestive title aside, my question is thus:

Say I am a privateering RT. I happen upon a particularly hated rival's trade ships, like 3 or so. My fleet of quick raiders descends on the hapless space gypsies, and eats them up in Boarding Actions, to the point where I have their cargo (xeno-beasts and their pelts and meat) and the transports in question. So I go to sell it all.

How much could I reasonably be expected to receive for the xeno-beast materials, and how much could I get for selling three captured transports, calculated into PF?

Note: this is not as part of an endeavor, this is me just f**king about in space because shenanigans are fun.

(Wild Speculation: What if you sold a whole planet, rich in minerals, to the Admech?)

Wouldn't selling a ship (or three) instantly become an endeavour as you would need to find someone who wants the ships, can afford the ships and isn't afraid of retrebution from the former owner of the ships?

Plus even with boarding actions you probably need to at least clean up the bodies of the former crew and remove the personal effects. Selling the ships as is where is would probably reduce their value considerably.

Former owners? Id' say that's the least of your problems since they've been dispossessed of the vessels in question, unless you've picked a fight with one of the Powers That Be, in which case you're really screwed. Read on.

Wouldn't selling privately owned vessels of Imperial citizens, all with serial numbers if not transponders (and the old chop shop technique wouldn't work since all those warp drives and macrocannons all have their own serial numbers as well), get you on a list of proscribed entities? Wouldn't you be marked as a pirate and open game to every Imperial Navy vessel, not to mention every Rogue Trader in the Expanse because now they can take your vessels as legal spoils since you're now a pirate?

So now you're reduced to selling said vessels and cargos at Iniquity or the Breaking Yards at 10% of their Blue Book values. And that's now your new base. Forget Port Wander. Your face is all over the wanted posters on every wall of every corridor there. Forget Footfall, well...without large bribes upon landing and again when taking off, not to mention your crews are easy pickings (when they get shore leave) for some other rogue to impress and employ on their own ships. What are you going to do about it? Tell the Arbites?

Really, don't worry about endeavors from that point on. You'll have one endeavor...survival.

But that could be a very fun campaign. It's not so much Rogue Trader as it is Black Crusade, but you could carry on a RT game in that vein. I'd consider hiring a Chaos Sorcerer and/or Champion just the same. Just be careful they don't take your ship from you.

You're a Rogue Trader, this is the Expanse. What laws are you talking about? Who reported you in the first place? Does anyone actively give a ****?

Your Warrant or Letter of Marque will excuse a whole host of sins, though you may still gain the reputation of a pirate. All Rogue Traders should have the ability to capture prizes as well. And I doubt any Imperial agency moves swiftly enough to suddenly ban a Rogue Trader across the Maw and make him out to be some dread pirate. That takes years of hard work after all.

The Great Imperial Bureaucracy doesn't move that swiftly. Nor would any Imperial Navy patrol really get on your case unless they had something to gain from it, they're quite busy with those pirates without fancy letters who sometimes eat their crew and graffiti with their blood.

I'd say selling a ship should be relatively easy. A lesser endeavour at best. Who doesn't want lightly used ships? The problem is they probably won't give you full price for them. Or half price. Maybe a quarter of what it's worth, which should still be 1-3 PF per vessel. The cargo should just be +Achievement Points, or +2 Profit Factor at most, if they truly are rare. But then again, black or grey market won't really grant you the best prices.

That said, Footfall doesn't care one whit where the cargo comes from. Offload it and be prepared to make your fortunes as a swashbuckler. Just because the Imperium can't erect a wall of paperwork around you doesn't mean your rivals aren't going to talk.

Or try to kill you.

Marwynn is right. Who'd report you in the first place? It's not like Rogue Traders have representatives of the Dynasty in every port, or even agents in every shipyard of every Expanse they're active in. They'd never notice you're selling a mile-long item that once belonged to them. And they wouldn't care even if they did notice. Warp capable ships are a dime a dozen. Even the big ones only take centuries to build. No problem replacing that.

And, the AdMech doesn't number every megaton piece of machinery and electronics that's made on their forge worlds. There's no CarFox in the 40th millenium. For all you know, your warp drive was made 15 years ago and only driven to church on Sundays by some little old blue-haired lady.

All Rogue Traders have a license to plunder the Imperium at will. I know I saw that on some page. Inquisitors are rather minor entities by comparison. They can declare Exterminatus, but can they carry it out? That power is left for Rogue Traders alone. Of course, you might be able to hide behind that Letter of Marque, assuming that you have one, it permits you to take heretics, and you have an army of lawyers who can at least make the argument that your rival was, in fact, a heretic. If not, they can still add decades to your legitimacy while making the argument.

And even if you were, as you implied, bored and being opportunistic, it could still take the Imperium years to move against you. I'm sure this rival's Dynasty won't be pressing too hard for justice, and if they are, well screw 'em.

And anyone buys hot ships. It's not a big deal to buy a ship, run it for a couple decades, then have some Admin court take it away from you because it belongs to someone else. People don't think about that when spending a king's ransom.

I suspect that Errant's last point is sarcastic. I do agree with both him and Marwynn though: Inside of Footfall people will buy anything, although they probably don't have the cash to just "buy" a ship from you. Profit Factor is meant to represent long-term favours, and buying a ship that was once owned by a powerful dynasty is a great way to have that money unexpectedly dry up on you.

My players deal with this problem by blowing up void ships, or taking ones that appear to have been salvaged and retrofitting them at their colonies very, very carefully. Getting a reputation as a pirate is a great way of ensuring that some Ministorum-worshipping Rogue Trader will see you as having fallen from the Emperor's Light and will kill you for the glory of the Imperium. Or someone else will just do it for a bounty.

I never said there weren't any repercussions, but I will continue to say that your rival's response will neither be swift, nor coordinated, due to the sheer scale of the Imperium and that no, your face won't be plastered all over Port Wander for destroying a rival's ships and taking them. As if that hive of scum and villainy doesn't have worse people walking about.

The Imperium is dysfunctional, which is why Rogue Traders exist in the first place. Those agents in every port? Well, you have agents at every port too, unless you're very, very poor. The records on the forge worlds? I'm sure if you fill out a datastack of paperwork a servitor will see to your request in eleventy years. Provided the records aren't lost in one of the datapurges, or the use of a new filing system, as many books point out. Forge Worlds are not prone to sharing secrets or efficiently storing information.

At the end of any inquiries, you've proven that yes, the unique ship is in fact one of your dynasty's vessels, something everyone involved in the proceedings knew from the start, the various bureaucracies would have to be incentivized to care. And they don't. Not unless the attack was against an Imperial property, and even then, the bumbling Imperial bureaucracy can be slow to react and may even come to the wrong conclusions.

This isn't the Imperium, this was in the Expanse most likely. There's no legal recourse for the rival dynasty, only what they themselves can muster in response.

Those xeno-beasts? They weren't there for decoration. Someone wanted those and they'll probably pay bounty hunters to get them back. The ships are the dynasty's, but they have crews that you probably killed or servitor'd. Your voidsmen won't be safe at most ports once word gets out. Not even your press gangs or recruitment drives will be safe; you could be infiltrated and face a mutiny.

My contention is that this isn't as if you're trying to sell a stolen luxury car in the here and now. They're vastly more expensive, and rarer, but there is no centralized database, no coordinated response. Arbites squadrons are not being dispatched as the astropaths deliver a warning. And if they do arrive, you tell them the God-Emperor himself wrote this piece of paper. That's enough for some in the Imperium to fall over and give you anything you want. Others, in positions of power, are polite but aren't so easily impressed, even if your piece of paper says they have to comply. That's feudalism for you.

The consequences are far less clean.

As an aside, we've engaged in wanton acts of piracy in-game. Oh, I say we're more pirate than explorer at this point. The trouble is slow in coming, but it is coming. The Profit Factor is shrinking. No one wants to do business with us. Oh, and they started killing our ships.

You're right again, Marwynn. The reponse probably won't be swift. It will still be as I described, though. People rationalize all the imprudent things they do in-game during moments of boredom all the time, and how it will won't play out badly because...and because...

I think you confused Footfall with Port Wander, though. Footfall is the Port Royal of the Expanse, its Providence, its Tortuga, or what have you. Port Wander is a naval base. It's the edge of civilization. It's where the hangin' judge resides and the U.S. Marshals get a fresh horse before heading into the Bad Lands to get their man.

And yes, someone is going to care. Someone else also has an army of servitors with nothing better to do than fill out a stack of dataslates. And that piece of information is only a bored menial away. Burying that same piece of information is a greedy menial away, a greedy menial that might decide to tell you it's been destroyed when it hasn't, even though you paid handsomely for it. And the AdMech doesn't make single receipts. Everything's done in triplicate.

And yes, someone does care. Even the Imperium has ambitious ship commanders and captains with an agenda to carve their names into the stars. Some might be content to sit on their commisions, but some want that person's job, and your demise is a mere stepping stone to their further glory. The Imperium is dysfunctional. If a Navy Captain exercises a bit too much leeway hunting down an accused pirate before they've been convicted, who cares? Everyone knew they were going to be found guilty eventually. You said so yourself.

And let's not forget the Big "I." Your ship left port on its maiden voyage with some of its agents on board. Some of them have lived on that ship longer than you have. No one gets to roam around in a ship armed with continent-ravaging weapons carte blanche, here's a Holocaust Cloak, have fun storming the castle. Every ship you've pirated has been reported to someone that reported it to someone that reported it to someone.

It might take time, but your days in the Imperium are numbered. Your port-of-call is Iniquity. You may have a very long and successful career there, but that's your new home. Or, you can have what's behind Door #3.

Suggestive title aside, my question is thus:

Say I am a privateering RT. I happen upon a particularly hated rival's trade ships, like 3 or so. My fleet of quick raiders descends on the hapless space gypsies, and eats them up in Boarding Actions, to the point where I have their cargo (xeno-beasts and their pelts and meat) and the transports in question. So I go to sell it all.

How much could I reasonably be expected to receive for the xeno-beast materials, and how much could I get for selling three captured transports, calculated into PF?

Note: this is not as part of an endeavor, this is me just f**king about in space because shenanigans are fun.

(Wild Speculation: What if you sold a whole planet, rich in minerals, to the Admech?)

As you can tell from the various posts above, their is no RAW on how acquiring a ship is written. I happen to agree with Errant Knight though, that capturing a ship from a rival dynasty, claiming it as yours, and then selling it, with brand you pirate faster than you can gain profit out of it. I mean, each ship has a crew of AdMech, Clergy, Navigators, and other important people in their chosen field, that you can not do squat to without good cause, unless you really want the "I" branding you heretic and killing all your family in the Calaxis Sector. So those people can report your actions however they see fit.

If EVERYONE in the Expanse started capturing rival dynasty ships, and then selling them, then there would not be much left in the Expanse, IMO. I always believed that RT's and their ships are like Lords and their Castes. Taking another Lord's Castle back in the feudalism days was usually an act of war. While killing his troops, stealing his supplies, conducting espionage actions and raids, was acceptable negations.

Anyhoot, your not asking about that, you asking about selling the cargo and the ships. Selling the xeno-beast material depends on quality, quantity, rarity, and demand of the material in question. I mean, do you have three cargo holds full of it, or eight? Is the material from mostly mocking birds, parrots, deer, elk, catfish, and other similar (yet xeno) non-dangerous critters that were obtained close to Footfall or another port of trade, or is the material mostly Land Sharks, Claw Fiends, Razor wings, and other predatory and dangerous critters obtained from far distant places that are hard to get to?

Remembering the rules, a cargo hold is +100 endeavor points to trade. Once again, IMO, this is common trade items. Having stuff a little more unique, like xeno material, could be +25-50% more, depending on where you sell it (Foortfall vs Port Wander), to whom you sell it (Blackmarket vs AdMech for examination), and who sells it (lowly scribe vs a PC Seneschal).

As for selling the ships, well, obtaining one requires you to roll your PF minus the SP of the ship. Say the transport is 35 SP with all components and everything, and your PF is 40. In game to acquire it you would need to roll a 5 or less. Other than this little tidbit, there are no other hard set rules. Some GM's (like me) say acquiring one permanently burns a PF in the tens digit of the ship acquired (or 10%), while others say it's 20%. So selling one can net you, in my books, a permanent bonus to PF of 50% on what you could buy it for. Example, transport of 35 SP would burn 3-4 PF from the RT if purchased. Selling it would net him 1-2 PF, with successful negations and bartering netting the an additional +1-2 PF bonus.

What I am ultimately saying, is that it's really up to your GM. Having a friendly conversation with your GM buying him/her dinner and a few alcoholic beverages always goes better on negotiations (unless your both underage, then going with caffeinated refreshments is more conservative).

Yeah, some of these points do come up often; some/many Rogue Traders are terrible people, and they continue to get away with being terrible people, and the various systems of the Imperium, or the Expanse, don't get into a hot and a bother about it. You took the time, along with Lady Sun Lee, to cripple Lord-Admiral Bastille's Colossus , though Bastille escaped aboard one of his escorts (always have an escape plan), and part of the arrangement with her was that you got to keep the aged Lunar-class cruiser; she mostly just wanted the clout of rubbing his face in it, as they were at war. Many of the people you deal with know of your scale, and pull, and I don't think they'd care too hard if you were a "pirate"; that's the kind of person they need to work with to get the stuff they want. You won the Colossus in battle, and it's yours. Certainly, it's Bastille's, too, and he's going to want to come back for it, once he's met back up with others of his dynasty. You've made an enemy who will attack you, attack your interests, and pressure his business partners to not do business with you, on pain of retaliation from space, but I only see the repercussions being those Bastille can make happen. If you take the Colossus to the Breaking Yards, and sell it, I think they'd take it, maybe for less, as you want it off your hands, and if Bastille shows up later, and recognizes it as the remains of his flagship, they'll SELL it back to him; it's his fault he couldn't keep it, and they can shoot his ass if he Bastille's at them. Outside the Imperium, it's him against all, and even inside, many agencies try to avoid Rogue Traders, who do what they want, and blessedly remain outside most of the time, where their power is real. Consequences will happen, as Bastille has interests, and allies, and all of these CAN influence your Endeavors, in various ways. but the Imperium, on the whole, will sit there, and watch the show. Otherwise, Rogue Traders like Krawkin Feckward, Djanko Scourge, and a few others, wouldn't be able to survive. You have to do some truly monstrous ****, usually involving Chaos, to become a fully proscribed heretic Rogue Trader. The name in the book, maybe Haarlock, Havelock, or Blackheel, I can't remember, or the crazy Navigator who took her master's ship, got away with lots before the Inquisition finally said "STOP THAT!!!", and moved; the Inquisition can't do a lot against the RTs, some days of the week, with their limited ship access, and so the best control on their power, and ridiculous ambition, is each other. Plenty of other Imperial agencies are survival of the fittest, anyway, so thems the breaks.

Now, selling ships. Yes, this is a question I remember asking a few years ago, and it always seemed messy. The book only makes it a "simple", if likely difficult Acquisition test to acquire it, and even a decrease in PF isn't necessary, if you are well to do enough. ItS introduced the burning system as an advantage you could use, to make it more possible to succeed that check, or other big ones (Cost is No Object, ItS p.223), but nothing about MANDATORY decreases for big, rare objects, like ships, though that can be a good idea, allowing the Winterscales of the Expanse to stay ahead of you, so you have opposition; otherwise, your PF can spike like mad, if you prioritize right, and then you CAN buy anything, taking away some of the appeal, and challenge, the game is meant to have. Many answers were not as helpful as the above, giving more Peer/GR (agency) then permanent money increases, since PF is so varied, vague, and more than your McDuck Money Bin of Thrones (heopefully, one of the Ruinous Powers can give you the power to swim in it, without breaking EVERYTHING in you ) Considering the sheer effort making a ship can eat up, and such, like that you must make a check an Imperial Governor, with all the resources of his planet under him could easily fail, to get a ship, you might say "take the tens digit of it's points, divide it by two, rounded up, and call it good." In that case, the Colossus should fall into the 65 category, I would guess, with a Lunar hull + some goodies worth SP, and if you could find someone willing to buy it, you MIGHT be able to net 3 PF. If you took some parts off, like his Teleportarium, or what have you, the SP might be lower, which can figure in. It might get messy if you are trying to pawn it off to someone else who also wants to sell it, like the Breaking Yard, or if you kept the best pieces they might've wanted, but this seems like it COULD be a bit of a system to use, or one of the others above.

As for the crew, the books do a rather good job of discussing that many people aboard a voidship barely know who their Captain is, or where he's taking them, and they don't need to, nor care. Captain after Captain has led the ship, and they just keep working. Coming under new management won't affect most crews, in my opinion, unless the Captain starts doing bad things to them (their quality of like decreases), like letting his triad of Dark Eldar "courtesans" mingle where they want, or changing quarters/food quality out to spare wealth, in which case they might mutiny, but mostly, they'll just drone on, regardless of the new "family" in command, in my opinion. If you are a nicer master, they might even be appreciative.

@venkelos

They hunted down Ember Nostromo (rogue navigator/burner of worlds)? Is that in an adventure book somewhere?

You're right again, Marwynn. The reponse probably won't be swift. It will still be as I described, though. People rationalize all the imprudent things they do in-game during moments of boredom all the time, and how it will won't play out badly because...and because...

I think you confused Footfall with Port Wander, though. Footfall is the Port Royal of the Expanse, its Providence, its Tortuga, or what have you. Port Wander is a naval base. It's the edge of civilization. It's where the hangin' judge resides and the U.S. Marshals get a fresh horse before heading into the Bad Lands to get their man.

And yes, someone is going to care. Someone else also has an army of servitors with nothing better to do than fill out a stack of dataslates. And that piece of information is only a bored menial away. Burying that same piece of information is a greedy menial away, a greedy menial that might decide to tell you it's been destroyed when it hasn't, even though you paid handsomely for it. And the AdMech doesn't make single receipts. Everything's done in triplicate.

And yes, someone does care. Even the Imperium has ambitious ship commanders and captains with an agenda to carve their names into the stars. Some might be content to sit on their commisions, but some want that person's job, and your demise is a mere stepping stone to their further glory. The Imperium is dysfunctional. If a Navy Captain exercises a bit too much leeway hunting down an accused pirate before they've been convicted, who cares? Everyone knew they were going to be found guilty eventually. You said so yourself.

And let's not forget the Big "I." Your ship left port on its maiden voyage with some of its agents on board. Some of them have lived on that ship longer than you have. No one gets to roam around in a ship armed with continent-ravaging weapons carte blanche, here's a Holocaust Cloak, have fun storming the castle. Every ship you've pirated has been reported to someone that reported it to someone that reported it to someone.

It might take time, but your days in the Imperium are numbered. Your port-of-call is Iniquity. You may have a very long and successful career there, but that's your new home. Or, you can have what's behind Door #3.

I don't discount that there will be some activity, someone who will care, but for ever action taken by a rival there will be an opposite reaction by your dynasty.

And no, I didn't confuse Port Wander with Footfall, there are horrible people who are welcomed by both the Navy and the imperium as a whole there. It's just a better class of criminal.

I still contest the structured response against any acts of piracy. No menial will have access to the sacred data logs of holy serial numbers. I'm not saying a rival won't gain access to it, somehow. They're dynasties after all, they'll have people who owe them favours. But the setting will get in the way, and it should.

My underlying point is that the Imperium is overweight and elderly that has more important things to do like not being eaten alive. Those charged with keeping the peace like the Arbites will worry about planet-scale insurrections. Judges are busy flying about to settle recidivist scum. The Navy is fighting cultist uprisings and Traitors, not to mention the Xenos.

A Rogue Trader, a peer of the Imperium, who has connections far and wide, who has business dealings with xenos and scum to noblemen and heroes, is a pretty big fish. Someone out there will want to make a name for themselves, but they probably don't want to make such powerful enemies too. There are easier ways to make your name than chasing a person who is the social equivalent of a Chapter Master (depending on dynastic strength).

Think of it this way: that commander got promoted to captain because he chased and destroyed some piratical rogue trader. Would you, as another rogue trader, want anything to do with this guy? Don't you think he deserves to be taught his place? How many would work behind the scenes to promote that guy to a desk? If not "early retirement"?

Rogue Traders aren't nice. They're megalomaniacs with gambling problems.

My overblown, verbose point is that while Rogue Traders and other voidfarers would move quickly and probably spread your reputation, they themselves are not trustworthy and those rumours will be taken with several loads of salt. Consistent preying on "innocent" ships, not those of your rivals that you are battling with, will gain you the reputation of a pirate. The Imperium, vast, bloated, crumbling, and senile is not at all interested in your petty concerns unless it affects its servants directly. Even then, the consequences will be slow in coming, if they ever come.

Bribing the station commander to chase you away is something a rival can do. An aggrieved party will probably raise all kinds of hell.

@venkelos

They hunted down Ember Nostromo (rogue navigator/burner of worlds)? Is that in an adventure book somewhere?

Not that i know of, but I needed someone truly debased, and detestable. You can do a lot of bad things, and still stay under the Imperium's, even the Inquisition's radar; they've just got too much else to do. I couldn't even say her name, so I don't know of a published adventure where she appears; a fun way to pass time, though, were a group hellbent on doing something big.

And there's the answers to your question, filliman. Some people play RT in a controlled Orwellian universe. Some people play RT in a permissive juvenile fantasy. Most games fall somewhere in between. Did that clear everything up?

Yes it did. Its both more iffy and easy then previously thought (Imperium will watch the two of us have a go of it, while eating popcorn and a large soda, but with no laws it could turn into a pretty big s**t-storm between me and said rival)

I might point out that some warrants allow a Rogue Trader to seize and sell (or keep) vessels legally, as long as he can come up with a good reason to the Navy.

I might point out that some warrants allow a Rogue Trader to seize and sell (or keep) vessels legally, as long as he can come up with a good reason to the Navy.

^This.

Also, usually, the older the Warrant (or the more important the person responsible for issuing the Warrant), the more sweeping and unrestricted its powers are.

For example, a Warrant issued by the Emperor almost certainly lets you do pretty much whatever you want. Ditto for any issued by Horus that were confirmed by the Emperor. Presumably the same would apply to Warrants issued by any of the other Primarchs or Malcador.

Yeah, I have a hard time believing the carte blanche argument. "What's that, your Emperor, sir? You want that battle barge back? I'm sorry, but your piece of paper allows me to keep it."

Silly.

The "keep anything" clause would exist in almost any Warrant to some extent, would still be carefully worded, and would not include taking the vessels of the Imperium "unless caught in the act of rebellion." That last quoted bit is the legally sticky point that Marwynn's and my arguments would have been over...that and the disemmination of said information and the speed of justice.

I think Venkelos brings up a very valid point: If its a ship taken by an arch-enemy as part of an ongoing feud...its not really piracy. Its doing something to harm a foe, with the full expectation that they would do the same to you given the chance.

Randomly ganking void ships would get you unpopular very quickly though, assuming you leave witnesses...

...(pesky astropaths).

Ok, so all my Rogue Trader needs to take your rogue Trader's ship is invent some ancient feud, have my army of lawyers come up with some plausible documentation, and have to.

Really.

In my view this comes down to the distinction between what's legal and what people will put up with. Legally , if you travel inside of the Koronus Expanse, or outside of Imperial space in general and start a war you are well within your rights to do so, because your rights don't exist there. However Errant hit the point on the head for me which is that the Adeptus Mechanicus, rigid and uptight as they are, would be horrified that you're destroying void ships for basically any reason. Astropaths and Navigators are both represented on the High Council of Terra, and are fiercely protective of each of their members because they are a diminishing supply.

If the people you're murdering are also a Rogue Trader, then they are at least theoretically on the exact same mission as you, and privateers were allowed to attack and plunder enemies of the State, but there is only one state - at least on paper - inside of the Imperium, so you are murdering people with the exact same justifications that you are. If they're working with the Cold Trade, an already illegal organisation, then major political bodies can't rise up in protest because those ships aren't supposed to exist on paper.

Really this comes down to a matter of perception. If you murder everyone on a ship, take it for your own and try to sell it as your own then everyone might know you murdered an enemy and took it, but the question can become proving it. Note that because void ships are incredibly time consuming to build, if you show up to sell a ship for any reason people are probably going to ask where it came from and why you're selling it. Especially if you claim it's a ship of your Dynasty but there's no record of it before this point.

And then even if all of this evidence is proven against you, since there's no legal recourse the options are either call an Inquisitor on you (which in my game is equivalent to a child giving up and whining to Mommy and Daddy. It's perfectly legal, but all the other Rogue Traders will look down on them for it), or taking the war to your players. If your players don't have any colonies or centralized base of operations, then this becomes incredibly difficult. They may be able to track down the locations of your Profit Factor and attack that, but turning it into a pirate hunt is going to prove difficult.

However there are Navigators that specialise in Void Tracking, which has caused me to create a Rogue Trader who does nothing but hunt down sufficiently high bounties that other Rogue Traders place on the person who can "avenge" wrongs against them, without specifically naming names.

Yeah, I have a hard time believing the carte blanche argument. "What's that, your Emperor, sir? You want that battle barge back? I'm sorry, but your piece of paper allows me to keep it."

Silly.

The "keep anything" clause would exist in almost any Warrant to some extent, would still be carefully worded, and would not include taking the vessels of the Imperium "unless caught in the act of rebellion." That last quoted bit is the legally sticky point that Marwynn's and my arguments would have been over...that and the disemmination of said information and the speed of justice.

There are, of course limits , especially inside the bounds of the Imperium proper, but beyond it, you can get away with almost whatever you want to do right up until you cross the wrong person/faction, and they track you down to kick your ass and put you back into your place.

In your example of attempting to keep a battlebarge, well, that's partly a matter of how you got your hands on it. Presumably you found it derelict/drifting/abandoned somewhere and are attempting to salvage/recover it. If I'm the RT behind this effort, I'm also trying to get in contact with the Astartes who were the previous owners. I'm not going to be keeping it, but the appreciation/gratitude of a Chapter of Astartes, possibly more than one, depending on who and how close they are with their successor/family chapters and the renown/history of the battlebarge. I'm not selling it, but I'm almost certainly getting a reward/finders fee sort of thing for it.

Why? Because keeping an Adeptus Astartes battlebarge is not going to be one of the things your Warrant is going to allow, and even thinking about trying to keep it is probably considered some sort of Heresy. Look at how things are with their small arms - then scale that up to a capital-grade warship. Your crew will likely mutiny. Hell, the Dark Angels don't get along with the Inquisition, but they'll work with the Inquisition to make an example out of you. The Space Wolves and Dark Angels and the Inquisition will all play relatively nice with one another to put your head on a stick. Admittedly, the Inquisition agents who poke around/learn too much are probably going to get dead in the process of capturing you, but they will own your ass. Your House will be broken .

Even if your Warrant for technically allows you to keep a salvaged Astartes Battlebarge, doing so is a much bigger deal than fighting with a rival Rogue Trader. The Astartes are bigger than your House. You will loose. They will stop at nothing to bring you down.

Ok, so all my Rogue Trader needs to take your rogue Trader's ship is invent some ancient feud, have my army of lawyers come up with some plausible documentation, and have to.

Really.

I would say no. It depends on your Warrant and associated documents and what they allow or grant you. For example, if you've a Letter of Marque(from the Calixian Privateer alt rank) or similar permissions, you may be able to freely engage certain types of targets and take their ships.

Also depends on circumstances - ie, if you were attacked, you have more rights. Or if you can fake the logs to make it look like they shot first.

Also, I'd say that there are probably conventions that Rogue Traders usually adhere to when dealing with one another and when in conflict with one another. These may not carry legal weight within the Imperium, but when dealing with Rogue Traders and/or gatherings of Rogue Traders, they matter. There would of course be some loopholes/exceptions, probably mostly linked to specific and probably rarer types of Warrant authorizations. Those without the right authorizations to let them take advantage of the loopholes/exceptions in the conventions or those who violate them in other ways are then considered untouchables, pariahs amongst the Rogue Trader community, and will not get alliances, trade agreements, information, assistance, etc.

No offense Knight Errant, but you're arguing yourself into a corner. By your strict interpretations, no amount of inter-RT conflict resulting in the destruction or capture of void ships could ever take place...because the winner (not even necessarily the instigator) would become an instant pariah.

That's just not the case, as we know from any number of the published adventures where RT conflicts happen all the time.

What happens in Koronus, stays in Koronus, to a certain extent. Failing to protect your assets is often the same thing as giving them to an enemy. RTs are also as a group arrogant and powerful individuals, regularly declaring that anyone that gets in their way are fair game. And sometimes they get away with it.

Also, the AdMech does not care who actually owns the ships. The second you bring in a captured prize (or a salvaged wreck...), you have your Explorator or Seneschal file the proper paper work. The AdMech updates their files, checks their agreements with you or your dynasty, and react accordingly. Again, common sense rules here...so if you knocked off some Explorator fleet and stole a Monitor, you might have to be a bit careful and make sure there's no one with enough rank to gainsay you.

And by the way, the comment about feuds is clearly something that only a GM would approve or disapprove. Its not like the PCs can spontaneously "declare a feud" to justify piracy. If someone actually had the creativity to push that through, I would say hats off to them. But each GM is able to decide what does and does not fly at their table.

Common sense.

Really.

With my group, I follow the rule that if you are buying a ship, your PF perminantly goes down by a fraction of the HUll cost (just the base hull cost mind) somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2.
So presumably you could do it in reverse. Sell a ship for 1/4 of its Hulls base price.

As for the components, Id deal with them desperately and only the ones that cost additional PF should offer additional funds. Maybe on a 1:1 or 2:1 basis?

Yeah, I have a hard time believing the carte blanche argument. "What's that, your Emperor, sir? You want that battle barge back? I'm sorry, but your piece of paper allows me to keep it."

Silly.

The "keep anything" clause would exist in almost any Warrant to some extent, would still be carefully worded, and would not include taking the vessels of the Imperium "unless caught in the act of rebellion." That last quoted bit is the legally sticky point that Marwynn's and my arguments would have been over...that and the disemmination of said information and the speed of justice.

You overlook the obvious.

1) The Warrant grants the Trader to act as the Emperor's voice beyond the Imperium and make War in his name. The Imperium, when two peers of the Imperium feud, unless it significantly impacts the Imperium in some way, generally stands back and waits for the dust to clear and proclaims whoever wins to be in the right.

2) Rogue Traders effectively have the equivalent powers of an Inquisitor, outside the Imperium. In fact, they have some powers beyond even that, depending on the exact terms of their warrant. A warrant bearing one or more Letters of Marque, for example, specifically allows the Rogue Trader to seize ships, either to keep, or to sell as prizes. These warrants are backed by another powerful person or organization, usually with the permission of the Imperial Navy and/or the Inquisition and/or the Adeptus Terra (usually in the form of a Sector Governor, but possibly including the HIgh Lords, or even the Emperor himself, depending on the age of the Warrant).

3) Similar disagreements between Inquisitors can leave whole plants in smoking ruin, and this is OK according to the Imperium. The loss of a void ship by one party or another is probably not even going to register.

4) This does not mean that doing so does not make the Rogue trader enemies. This does mean, however, that yes, he can seize a ship belonging to a rival, legally, and sell it. The fact that so many Rogue traders deal in prohibited material however, does give him or her a legitimate claim to doing so: 'I was suspicious they were engaging in the Cold trade, and look, we found proscribed xenotech on board and seized the ship'. Which is also a good way to smear a rival AND get to keep their ship. Remember that it's not just "caught in the act of rebellion." that can cost you or warrant, let alone the loss of a ship.

It's important to remember that even though your Warrant may allow you to seize ships from your rivals completely legally, that doesn't mean they will ignore your actions. It does, however, mean that they can't get you designated a pirate/traitor/heretic for seizing their ships . They can (and most likely will) think of you and your dynasty as enemies, and will treat you and respond accordingly. They will attempt to dig up any dirt on you/your dynasty that they can use - and let's be realistic here, there will be something. If their Warrant lets them seize ships, they'll be actively looking for the opportunity to take one or more of yours. This is most likely the start of a feud between your dynasty and theirs, and it could very well escalate into a war between the dynasties.