Okay, to my mild annoyance I feel I needed to work out the following additions/personal corrections to the Profit Factor rules. Basically, though I agree in principle that Profit Points should not be expended to buy (even lots of) cheap stuff (such as lasguns, or medpacks, or clothes, etc etc), however there does need to be some cost (or chance of cost) for big stuff imo - otherwise what's to stop pc's trying several times for frigates full of troops, until they're successful.

I like that pcs can acquire 'big stuff', but I do want them to have to weigh up the cost of said 'big stuff' too.

So then, here's what I've roughed up;

Profit & Power Table

PF Examples

1 The largest and strongest of major world hive gangs, Outcast Sects etc
1-5 Labour Guild, Struggling Merchant House
1-10 Manufactory Combine, Weak Hive Guild
5-15 Minor Ministorum Sect, Hab Collective
10-20 Hive Guild, Minor Merchant House, Planetary Level Noble House, Disgraced/fallen Subsector Noble House
15-25 Powerful Hive Guild, Rich Planetary Level Noble House, Impoverished Subsector spanning Noble House, Poor Rogue Trader
25-35 Lesser Rogue Trader, Weak Imperial Governor
35-50 Greater Planetary Noble of a wealthy world, Lesser Inquisitor, Cartel of Free Traders, Typical Imperial Governor
70-80 Mid-ranking moderately successful Rogue Trader, Average Inquisitor, Average Subsector spanning Noble House, Impoverished Major House (Sector Spanning)
160 Wealthy & Successful Rogue Trader, Wealthy Subsector spanning Noble House, Average Major House (Sector Spanning), Impoverished Navigator House
200-300 Legendary Rogue Trader, Average Navigator House, Wealthy Major House (Sector Spanning), Lord Inquisitor
400-600 Noted Major Houses (Krin, Machenko, etc), Wealthy Navigator House, Lord-Sector Hax, Impoverished Great House (Segmentum Spanning)
800-1000 Average Great House, Impoverished Imperial House (Imperium Spanning), Illustrious Navigator House
1000+ (?) Imperial Level Noble Houses, High Lords of Terra, Segmentum Rulers etc

Acquisition Cost Rules

Whenever a pc wishes to acquire something there are 4 adjusting factors to consider -

Availability, Cost, Scale, & Quality

Each factor is divided as follows;

Availability

As table on Page 272 - This is more tuned to how rare an item is on a given world, rather than inherantly. ie A tank may not be rare on a Forge Worlds strictly speaking - it will however be expensive - see Cost.

Scale

As table on Page 272

Quality

As table Page 272

Cost

Cheap +20 (Most items, weapons, etc)

Moderate -10 (Lesser armoured vehicles, Power Armour)

Expensive -20 (Larger armoured vehicles, small spacecraft, aircraft, etc)

BIG stuff is done as a single mod, in the same way as ships in the rules.

The Roll and Cost -

The roll is made as a percentile skill roll against the adjusted Profit Factor - however the item(s) cost a deduction of any negative adjustment to the roll divided by 10 (or in the case of BIG stuff such as ships - the full adjustment points) adjusted down by the degree of success of the acquisition roll.

For example;

Rogue Trader Cornelius Rune has a PF of 30, he wants to buy 8 stormblade tanks for 'tight spots', luckily Rune is visiting the Lathes where tanks are rolling off production lines - GM rules 'Average' availability (+10), stormblades are however inherantly 'expensive' (-20), 8 of them count as 'Standard' Scale (+0), and he takes 'common' quality models (+0) - giving a total Adjustment Modifier of -10 - This means Cornelius needs to roll 20 or less on d%, (rolling once a week at +5 per try if he fails) - he rolls 10 (a 1 degree of success) - and as the mod is -10 there is a potential cost of 1 Profit Point - however he made a degree of success negating that. If he made the roll, without achieving that clear degree of success he'd have got the tanks but at the cost of a PP.

If Cornelius were much richer, let's say PF 100 and chose to try to buy a tank regiment on that Lathe world it would work as follows; Average Availability (+10), Expensive Cost (-20), Major Scale (-10), Common Quality (+0) = Mod- -20 (so a potential Profit Point cost of 2) - however as he's richer he's better able to cover the cost without it impacting on him in a significant way - thus his chances of dodging the PP Cost become greater - ie he has an 80% chance of making his roll, with any roll under 60% meaning he takes no PP loss. If he tried to buy that regiment when he only has PF 20 - chances are - even if he makes his roll his PF will take a hit.

With 'BIG stuff', such as ships, (to prevent pcs trying to acquire new ships every time they put into port), their SP cost equates to an equal potential PP cost, though adjusted down by 10 PPs per degree of success of the roll. So House Krin could buy a ship and think nothing of it, whereas a 100 PF Rogue Trader would really have to think about it and budget for it.