The one rule I want clarity on is the one in bold on pg. 221 in Into the Storm that reads, "Once a Player makes an Acquisition Test in a session (successfully or not), every subsequent Acquisition Test by that player has a cumulative modifier of -10" .

What is happening is that rules as written the Players are simply taking turns in making Acquisition tests to avoid the penalty and I'm questioning whether this was the authors intention with the rule. I had always thought that Profit Factor was shared between the Rogue Trader and his retinue of Explorers and the penalty was applicable to all subsiquent tests regardless of Player. If it doesn't it seems kind of meta-gamey to simply have them go around the table avoiding the penalty equal to the number of people in chairs.

GilboD said:

Maybe different players have different needs. What an arch-militant wants a missionary doesn't want and it will not demand for an acquisition. So each player will most likely demand different items.

Consider this most items have steep negative modifiers. If you add the -10 for each acquisition indifferent of player after the first the acquisition will most likely fail for the rest of the players. So your players will mostly have a shoestring budget and mostly the same weapons and items for many long sessions.

So they will mostly be fighting who goes first for the first acquisition roll.

Also the acquisitions modifiers are almost always be mostly negative and players pf is always going to be low (you are a type of GM that will restrict the easy acquisition by the players of PF) so they probably will not have equipment needed for most of the encounters. So they will mostly end dead.

Why do you desire to make life for the players more difficult that already is from the rules? The acquisition tests for items have already in my opinion insane negative modifiers so why make it harder?

GilboD said:

The way our group interprets the rule is like this: Everyone gets one Acquisiton Test without extra penalties when the players are in a suitable place. Usually this is spent on getting common stuff, equipment for the crew, something everyone (or two or three) players need.

After this everyone has the option of trying to get even more things (usually for themselves, or something the group desperately needs) by doing the cumulative -10 dance, which comes with its own penalties; using the Bad Things rule from IttS I believe.

For example my Explorator has the Flesh Is Weak mental disorder, which means he MUST use one Acquisiton roll in every port to upgrade himself in some way. Usually this means risking the -10 roll, since the main roll is reserved for actually important things.

Well, it work both ways - each player should be acquire personal kit at least once per port of call without taking the subsequent acquisition hit. I'd rule the -10 applies if the group tries to get the same item regardless of who makes the roll to prevent abuses of "lets all roll and see who gets to buy it" situations.

Not actually knowing the raw on this one offhand our group handles acquisitions as follow.

There are group acquisitions made with the full force of the RT dynasty these are required to acquire anything scarce or less in availability or better than common quality. These mostly follow the rules as written with diminishing returns; the more acquisitions the less likely you are to succeed, but they are limited to 7 acquisitions per week of in game time. These are done in a wishlist type manner with the group needs typically being a deciding factor. The RT character our leader hashes out the final list of acquisitions. Then, our highest commerce skill retinue member makes the rolls and the GM or the RT lets us know exactly what was acquired.

There are also personal acquisitions for items of average availability or greater and common or lesser quality. These are made by the individual players with a +30 bonus to PF for personal acquisitions. While average availability keeps you from getting anything like a bolter it still lets you acquire some useful gear without bogging down group acquisitions. These are made without any diminishing returns or unwanted attention but are still limited to 7.

So far its worked well for us we are still pretty low level and are working on getting everyone kitted out. A few implants here new ship systems there it's not going to happen overnight but once we start building our profit factor up some more things will get easier.

Besides trade skills let you build what you need/want too and as long as you have the resources and the designs no reason you can't make all you want given the time.

I tend to just throw out whatever I consider to be appropriate penalties when I deem that the group is making too many checks in quick succession in the one area.

At a large trading hub (eg, Footfall), every player could certainly make a reasonable, personal acquisition, and one check could be made for the group, before any penalties are likely to be levied.

In the depths of the Expanse, where your ability (and willingness) to pay your debts is less easy to prove, penalties may start to apply after a couple of checks, irrespective of whether they are personal or group-based.