So I understand that with character creation you get a profit factor for the crew, and ship points for the vessel, the higher one is, the lower the other.

But my question is, how does one gain more ship points? Is it based on increases in Profit factor or something?

I'll admit I still have not gone through the entire book, but the only entries about ship points don't really explain how to acquire them.

Later in the book you'll read how you can aquire new ship components. Yes, gained profit factor has to do with it.

Thanks, that should get my explorers off my back. I am the only one out of us who has the book, and they bombard with questions all the time. And I've only had the book 2 days.

Basically it's either by looting them, as reawrds or really difficult aquisition rolls. In my game I'm toying with charging the PC actual profit points if hey want to buy things.

Dalnor Surloc said:

I think that's the best way to do it since it wouldn't just take a vessel full of Thrones - it would take myriad political favours, debts, and other pulled strings to make it happen and would most certainly lead to a reduction in Profit Factor.

While its not unreasonable to charge Profit for purchasing things, its tricky and should be done sparingly. Small scale purchases are, of course, too small to have that kind of impact and large scale purchases have intrinsict value. Charging Profit for trade goods, for example, is silly and just leads to more book keeping. Vast planetary estates are income generating properties and can be rented out or used as collateral for loans, etcetera. Starships can be leveraged and used as collateral as well, etcetera. And Profit also represents influence as well as wealth so the whole thing gets even more nebulous.

In short, don't go nuts with charging Profit for purchases is fine, but should be done sparingly. Going too detailed with the abstract money system will bog the game down with dull financial details instead of having adventures.

I agree with Cynical Cat, charging Profit for acquiring ship components seems quite harsh. If the players start abusing a lot of high quality or high rarity gear the Upkeep mechanic is an elegant sollution, and it even has a built in option for reducing effective profit if they can't make their upkeep roll.

As for ship components, unless you're handing out Archeotech/xenos mods like candy, a ship is only going to get so good, and from my experience playing with ship builds the ship's going to already be at it's peak if the players have even a moderate amount of Ship Points to start with and spend them smartly.

If you really want to attack the party's profit factor, the Misfortune system is probably a better way of doing it then charging profit for gear. I mean when a Rogue Trader can wield the wealth to buy planets, what's the point in making it overly hard to buy a macrobattery for his ship?

Agreeing with the two prevous posts. However, when I charge for ship upgrades (and I do) I use this rule=

I take the SP cost of the item. This is the number of chances the team has to get the item. I let them roll that many times. Each time they roll, I deduct 1 from the Profit Factor. If they fail to get it during the first efforts, I let them come back after another adventure and try again, but make the efforts easier, perhaps even turn it into an adventure in itself. If you want to be nice, you can let them return and the item then be automatic, with no cost, representing the efforts of Factors and Agents to get the item, and the lost Prift Points represent that string pulling and Throne outlay. All of this has worked for me in the three campaigns I run.

Don't forget that every Acquisition test can have (or be forced) an Opposed Commerce Test. For every degree of success that the PCs have they gain 2 PF, and for every degree of success their opponent has they lose 2 PF.

It should be noted that I'm was only talking in terms of things that cost ship points. Not things like boltguns. Now maybe high quality power armor, insanely rare xenos artifacts, or the like.

Don't forget that every Acquisition test can have (or be forced) an Opposed Commerce Test. For every degree of success that the PCs have they gain 2 PF, and for every degree of success their opponent has they lose 2 PF.

...temporarily, for that very acquisition.

Hmm, I'll have to reread. I didn't see anything (from memory) that said it was temporary.

dvang said:

It is. I've just read it.

it's not even an increase in PF, it's an increase in *effective* PF for that acquisition check.

As for PF and components, for me it's all a matter of context. You want to install Luxury Quarters on your Frigate? Yeah fine, make a tough roll and spend an Acquisition check for each SP of the component. You make the check, you get the component. Wheee. You fail? Well just try again next Session/Endevour/System/Whatever. Regardless, you better have the 2-3 weeks free that are required for all the refit work.

Oh wait, I'm sorry... you wanted an Archeotech Logis-Targetter? Hmm... ok. Spend 3 of your Acquisitions for this block (session, Endevour, whatever), and make this roll a -(a lot). If you fail you spend a lot of time running around and getting laughed at for asking for something so rare. Whoa, you made it? Impressive. Alright, you spend a lot of time, influence, and money, and you manage to get a lead on a ship that had just such a device that vanished en-route to the Damaris system. No, no one's sure what's there... probably something bad, why else would they have vanished?

If the party is willing to sacrifice PF for stuff though, I allow things to get a lot easier, as that's A LOT of money. Spend the Acquisitions, make the roll, if you make it, you make the swap (1 for 1 for non-Archeotech, non-Xeno, a lot more for either of those).

Ahh. I had read it differently. I had read that passage to reinforce that only a single increase or decrease is possible per Acquisition Test. I can see how it can be interpreted as meaning temporary/only for that test, and that does seem to fit better with the way its worded.

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 imo need to be some cost (or chance of cost at least) for big stuff - 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 (I also have changed the Profit and Power table somewhat as I felt it was wrong before);

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 however 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.

You don't get more ship points. You buy new components using the mechanics of profit rating rolls.

I don't see how folks can't fill up their ship with even the most miniscule amount of SP. My frigate is out of space and power supply and I had 10 SP left over to slide over to PF. I probably won't be doing too much upgrading, unless I can find smaller more power efficient Archeo-tech to replace the current stuff. In fact, You'd probably be better off trying to find a whole other ship and create a fleet instead of putting all your eggs into a single basket, given the way the ship combat rules work...