Into a long running campaign characters can and will acquire equipment, whether masses of gear or a handful of well chosen items.

What I did previously was the standard gear plus three starting acquisitions instead of one, my old campaign group having picked up plenty of gear and the new characters coming in at relatively high ranks (5+). I also allowed personal gear of rare or lower rarity after some serious treasure finds.

A few alternatives come to mind:

1. Keep strictly to the book - one starting acquisition. The increased Profit Factor that is likely with a higher ranking group should make that one item something special. It can seem strange that an experienced character hasn't more items, at least mundane gear, but perhaps they just had a run of poor fortune.

2. Allow multiple starting acquisitions, related to rank and group wealth.

3. Allow an explorer to take a number of items below a certain rarity value in addition to starting acquisition(s).

4. Allow an explorer to take whatever gear they like below a certain rarity value.

So how do you all handle the gear of new characters?

I'd grant them 5% of their starting Profit Factor per rank above 1 (so if they start with 50 profit factor and a 30 points ship, in rank 3, they would have 5 extra points). That extra profit factor has to be burnt buying stuff with 100% of success (if you want the players to be better equipped, 10% per rank above one shouldn't be too much overpowered). And they can make as many acquisitions as they have extra points to spend. I could even be good and allow them to acquire a component for the ship...

I allowed the higher-rank starting characters to make a choice based on the following houserule:

1. For every level beyond the first, you get one -10 further down the Acquisition chart (so a level 1 character can get one 'scarce' item, a level 2 character can get one 'rare' item, etc.)
2. Instead of just getting one big item, you can choose multiple items, so long as their total Aquisition penalty doesn't exceed your total allowed by the above (so a level 4 character can get one 'rare' and one 'extremely rare', or two 'very rares', etc.)

Didn't get a lot of abuse, but then again my group is small.