Your assertion doesn't really counter anything I said. I'm kind of shocked honestly that a person who has an entire wiki chock-full of fan-created fluff doesn't want to think about every nook and cranny of the ship, but neither do I.

Me: The compartmentalized cargo bay is fairly worthless. And achievement points are not an issue in a game where a GM is liberal with profit factor.

You: I don't want to worry about every nook and cranny on the ship or trip my players up over something so trivial.

Me: Ok, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a worthless component and bonus achievement points are a non-issue in a campaign where the GM is liberal with profit factor.

Fortinbras said:

Just about every component is fairly worthless if the GM is not going to encourage its use. If your GM doesn't provide opportunities for starship combat, your weapons, shields, and numerous supplemental components built for combat (Armour Plating, Murder-Servitors, etc.) are fairly worthless. In a game where the GM is tight with Profit Factor, components that provide bonuses to Objectives can be crucially important. Considering how many GMs on these boards love to screw over their players, I'd imagine that more people would find that extra Achievement Points are a boon than not.

Got to agree with HappyDaze here - Profit Factor and the Endeavour/Objective mechanic are basic concepts for Rogue Trader. If you don't use them, of course things aren't going to work out the way they should.

The result of not having a Main Cargo Hold is simple: Due to thefts, perishable goods perishing, damage, low capacity and generally improper storage, the players will get 100 points less for any trade objective than if they had one installed.

if you don't use achievements pts just replace the bonus by positive roll modifiers for trade and sutch, they have lots of trade cargo from basic to advanced...

I personally love the achievement pts system, especially if you are tight with pts, that 100 + may be the decisive factor

happydaze said it more succinctly than i could have. +1!

Fortinbras said:

Is a GM who is "liberal with profit factor" a problem at your table? I don't understand why it would be a problem that somewhere out there is a table where the GM gives away profit to a bunch of people who enjoy flying around in a min/maxed kill cruiser. It's not your style, but I don't understand the concern.

In any case, I agree with the above that voiding the achievement points system irrevocably changes the game. Take the luxury crew quarters for example, they provide a bonus to several endeavor types, with a penalty to crew morale. In a game with no achievement points that becomes worthless.

The ships in game clearly feature components not listed, for example if the ship features neither a teleportarium or a lighter bay, are the explorers trapped in the void?

To sum up, is this hurting your game? If not, what's the issue in an abstract group out there who enjoys killing more than cargo bay management?

(edited for punctuation)

How could anyone possibly enjoy anything more than cargo bay management?

I suppose the answer here is to simply be sure you know what kind of game you're getting into. If you're in one in which combat is the focus, then get a kill-cruiser. If you're in one in which combat is simply something that may or may not happen, just as a warp storm may or may not happen, then plan accordingly.

Golgenna does bring up a good point though. Just because you don't have a particular component doesn't mean you don't have something comparable. And so I and others have said earlier: If you don't have the bay, you can likely still carry plenty of stuff, it just gets stolen, damaged, lost, misplaced, takes longer to move, and is overall not nearly as good as the proper cargo bay, but it isn't as though there simply isn't room aboard a city sized vessel.

Same goes for the special food vault thing. Just because you don't have that doesn't mean you don't have food, or even can't bring extra food, but that extra food is going to get stolen quickly, especially if you're rationing even slightly, not to mention food spoilage. So you might end up getting an extra month or two out of a 3 month supply of food, and people aren't really going to have their moral boosted by that extra food, because they aren't really supposed to be taking it or anything.

The problem is when the players make the ship without a cargo bay, that, as a GM limit your possibilities for mayhem when it's all about murder-servitors,tenebro-maze and munitorium.

Granted, they fault if all that +5 profit factor get dropped to a +3 when arriving to port and calculating everything, but kinda sucks when the option for profit is reduced to 'killing stuff and looting the body'.

Granted, the Pcs think about having quickly a fleet of 3-4 merchant vessels..but again, ships are not a dime a dozen

Indeed. Ships are so expensive and rare in fact, that the PCs are only allowed one warp capable vessel. A merchant vessel that has to go sub light speed is going to take so long to get from one planet to another, that the goods are unlikely to be needed or be nearly as valuable by the time they get there. And remember, no mater how powerful a player's ship is, there is always a more powerful ship out there, and there are always more skilled individuals to command/operate said ship. I mean, it isn't as if the PCs are the only one with access to starship components.

Another option is to force them into other areas. Sure, they can beat just about anything in a fight, but what happens when fighting isn't an option? They're going to look at their ship differently when suddenly they find themselves in a situation where combat doesn't come into the equation.

Perhaps that planet that they freed from the grip of pirates (and got a nice PF boost from doing so due to their loyalty) isn't being traded with because merchants are still afraid of pirates. So, the RTs will need to prove that it is a viable trade route by running it themselves. But due to their lack of a cargo bay.. oops, they'll need to make several trips. And while they're spending all this time ferrying around stuff, another crysis comes up (Also not combat related) and they won't be able to handle both at the same time. If only they had that cargo bay and didn't have to make so many trips, they could manage to do both, and instead of net a loss to PF, they'd have netted a gain.