I can't find much on definitive fleet compositions, which I'm sure is ffg's way of letting the players reside the scale, but I'm wondering what other DMS use for enemy and NPC fleets as well as what players have amassed.

In my current game, we have 3 capital ships and 2 escorts

The cruiser is a carrier

One light cruiser is a broadside brute

The other light cruiser is a troop transporter with lance for support

The two escorts are a new edition that I'm not too familiar with right now.

It's fairly rare for a single fleet to be comprised of more than a dozen or so ships. The biggest battles are combats between multiple fleets that are called together specifically to fight a single foe, like an ork WAAAAGH!

My current Rogue Trader has a fleet consisting of 1 cruiser, 1 transport & 5 escorts (at this moment. three of them are 'borrowed'), but they've never all been in one place. I tend to run the other Rogue Trader fleets similarly. Usually one to two light cruisers or cruisers and two to a dozen escort craft, but never more than 2-3 at a single location at any given time. Even Winterscale tends to deploy in the 2-3 ships at a location method - bringing more just isn't profitable.

Battlefleet Koronus puts out the force of the same name on p.59, and that adds up to maybe two dozen ships, while the forces of BF Calixis are probably substantially bigger, but then they serve an entire official sector, and both are supported by Lord Sector Hax, I presume, and the distant Adeptus Terra. For the typical Rogue Trader, it is probably considerably less. Accepting the numbers from Lure of the Expanse as anything but fabricated for fun, one can argue that the best off RT there can afford a decent ship, and a few escorts for it, while the second sports a bigger ship, and a bigger, single escort. Otherwise, in their own locations, they seem to limit themselves to their ship, and whatever little vehicles it carries, such as lighters, fighters, and other craft. Certainly, they may have resources/assets elsewhere, doing Background endeavors, or scrounging for leads, but even the best RT probably can't afford to do so much better than a Battlefleet, especially when the gov't sanctioned military force can, and often is, as cutthroat as the Rogues, in this situation.

Part of the problem, and one several folks here have attempted to address, is that the book tends to do a poor job addressing "expenses". A void ship is one of the most expensive things a Rogue Trader will ever buy; the fact that you get to start with one presented to you, either by your Dynasty, or by your benefactor who arranged for your new Warrant, is the only reason many starting RT's ever even have ONE, but the game doesn't MAKE you decrease PF for purchasing another one, once you are well off, or lose a little less maintaining her power, armaments, supplies, etc. You can imagine a loaded Rogue Trader, say Winterscale, or Saul, who have reasons to own numerous ships having a veritable fleet of them, and nothing in the mechanics written really stops them, but there would be upkeep costs, and ones the book doesn't necessarily do well at.

I presented an idea on this subject awhile back. Venkelos, I believe you might have been part of that conversation!

Anyway: My idea was, A RT has one primary vessel (His Flagship) which is his base profit factor is assumed to maintain and thus does not cost any any additional PF. Transports dedicated to trade runs also do not cost PF as they are maintaining themselves off the profit of the run. Escorts within RT's flotilla however, can be costly. An Escort costs the RT it's tens digit in SP as a PF reduction. A Standard Sword class frigate, fitted out essentially as a naval warship, Is approx 50 SP. Thus it would reduce the RT's PF by 5 to bring it along with his cruiser. If he wants to bring a squadron of two or three it will start to get expensive!

I've always told my players that if they want to buy a new ship, they have to pay for not only the ship, but the CREW itself, and all the stuff in it. I think it's something like a -110 to their acquisition roll all totalled up for say, a light cruiser.

Unless they want to BURN PF for it at a rate of 1 PF for 3 SP. That's for the BASE line ship, all the stuff it starts with. It covers crews, supplies, the weapons it starts with. They can get one with almost nothing on it and it'll still cost them a massive chunk of the PF and then take a while to become operational once they upgrade it using acquisition rolls.

Thus, for them, it's easier to capture other ships, then purge the crew and take time making them operational over an extended period of time.

That said, I like your system Radwraith... it could potentially be much better.

I'm a lot meaner than Radwraith, I charge the ships base SP in profit decrease to 'free it up' for the Rogue Traders use. (As oppose to having it taking background endeavors to keep it's maintenance). It's basically an extension of the chart used for character creation, where each starting SP included an identical decrease in PF.

I'm a lot meaner than Radwraith, I charge the ships base SP in profit decrease to 'free it up' for the Rogue Traders use. (As oppose to having it taking background endeavors to keep it's maintenance). It's basically an extension of the chart used for character creation, where each starting SP included an identical decrease in PF.

How mean that is would partly depend on how hard it is to earn SP in your games. I'm guessing captured ships would sell for quite a bit then?

Late game RT's can sport fairly large fleets, but they are generally comprised of voidships that are not primarily warships. The last long campaign I GM'ed saw the RT with about a dozen vessels, 7 of them were transport-type ships. The remaining 5 was comprised of 1 Battlecruiser, 1 Cruiser (Carrier), 1 Meritech-Shrike and 2 Cobras. The BC and CR were almost never in the same place at the same time, the escorts were often attached to the capital ships, though they were occasionally split off of escort duty to wolfpack-patrol the dynasty's colony and surrounding system or harass a rival dynasty's shipping under a pirate flag.

The largest fleet I've ever had as an RT was about 8 vessels. 4 transports engaged in trade/shipping activities and 4 warships (1 Lunar, 1 Defiant/Carrier, 1 Endeavor and 1 Sword), operating together about half the time. There was a second Lunar, but we lost it to Orks whilst participating in a crusade to retake the 'Undred-'Undred Teef.

Something I always like to think is that voidships without warp capability are FAR less expensive. They don't depend on a piece of near archeotech, same for gellerfields. So I let my rogue traders get colonial defense fleets on the cheep compared to the warp capable sorts.

FYI: in fluff a sector fleet is typically composed of about 70-100 warships, of various classes, and additional support vessels.

In these forums I remember people saying Chorda alone must have at least 110 ships - I still giggle about that. Perhaps they don't charge permanent PF as upkeep for new ships neither roll misfortunes for their players?

Well it would explain how chorda who has been gallivanting about for over a century has "only" 100 or so PF: she's got how many ships to maintain?

That's been my justification for Chorda and Winterscale. Once they're at 100-150 PF, they go out and buy another ship. For a Rogue Trader, a ship is almost always going to be a better investment than raw PF, particularly at that level. I believe it said in BFK that the Rogue Traders have more than twice the tunnage in vessels in the Expanse then the entirety of BFK, if they were ever in one place.

I've charged 20% of a ship's SP in PF. And if they aren't going to cost even more PF in maintenance then they have to be working vessels.

I've been part of these discussions in the past where we've tried to reason out the numbers of vessels in the Expanse. I've since changed my mind. I remember (off the top of my head) us coming up with something like 2000 vessels. I've since cut that number in half. I justify this with liberal use of the Misfortunes table (and that chart somewhere that shows the number of ships lost in the last year alone to Anamoly 616 Theta). It mentions in Navis Primer that the largest private fleet in the Imperium is a Navis House fleet with 47 vessels. That made me rethink things where Winterscale, Chorda, and Saul are concerned.

I usually went with the below criteria for ships and their fleets.

Squadron - A small number of vessels, usually of the same or similar types.

Flotilla - A small number of vessels. Hardly ever a capital ship (Cruiser +) leading it.

(Name) Group - 2+ flotilla's. Usually with 1-2 capital ships.

Fleet (Name) - 2+ groups. 3-6 capital ships.

Battle Fleet - 2+ fleets. 7+ capital ships.

I my mind, the way I worked it was thus.

Battle Fleet Koronus was in charge of the entirety of the Koronus Expanse.

It was broken into 3 fleets. 1 fleet guarded the entrance, while the other two were separated Spinward and Trailing areas of operations (respectively).

It was hence broken into 8-9 total Groups which (on paper) covered each sector. Not that they really ever did though, when some groups only had 5-6 ships.

However, there is no evidence to support it as so, and is simply how I envisioned it. Not that it ever really mattered so far.

That's been my justification for Chorda and Winterscale. Once they're at 100-150 PF, they go out and buy another ship. For a Rogue Trader, a ship is almost always going to be a better investment than raw PF, particularly at that level. I believe it said in BFK that the Rogue Traders have more than twice the tunnage in vessels in the Expanse then the entirety of BFK, if they were ever in one place.

The burning off of PF to buy new ships makes sense. And remember, large numbers of their ships aren't being used in their actual exploration fleets, they're being used to hold down interests in their parts of the expanse. Do you imagine EITHER of them not leaving a small battle guard over their frozen ball of treasure?

I also think that players shouldn't have to pay for trade groups and such. Those should be handled by the very action of setting up the trade route, it's part of the endevor, and counts as part of the costs, it's already taken out of the earned profit factor, since PF is everything they're earning AFTER setting up operations and such.

The way I imagine it is that a rogue trade tells a chartist captain of one sort or another "Hey. I will PUT you under the aegis of my own writ. You will be considered as a vassal of my house and I will be responsible for your actions in the expanse, but you get to go out there. In return? You get a freaking massive trade boost by plying the trade routes from X to Y for me and keep my organization a float"

a single transport or two can probably make such a run regularly. More ships for deeper into the expanse, because they need more protection from pirates.