I'm a GM and my players want to buy a new starship. After reading the rules, we have a few questions:

1) Once you buy a Hull, does it come with all Essential Components or you need to buy each Essential Component as individual Adquisitions?

2) How do you calculate the final Adquisition Modifier to buy a Starship? We have some problems with this since the book seems to suggest you only use the SP cost of the Hull, which means buying a Rider and buying 1.000 Power Swords have almost the same Adquisition Modifier.

Another Question:

3- According to the example on page 274 of the Core, you can upgrade the Craftsmanship of existing Components, but Battlefleet Koronus doesn't say a word about this rule nor is mentioned anywhere. Does upgrading ceaftsmanship for Components work or the example is wrong?

Honestly, buying a starship is a bit of an odd duck as far as acquisitions are concerned. Since the vast majority of vessels are centuries old, it would be rather uncommon for a Rogue Trader to be able to walk into a shipyard with a wishlist and decide what he wants. It's far more common to refit captured vessels for your purposes, which is what the acquisition rules reflect. However, I'd lean towards:

1) Yes, Essential Components are presumed to come with the ship, you only have to account for them if they're components that cost additional SP.

2) Acquisition Modifier is the SP cost of the vessel, with no other bonuses permissible, aside from Commerce. It's worth pointing out that this is just a basic, borderline-empty vessel with no Supplemental Components. They will quickly add to your costs, particularly if you limit the person acquiring the starship components to the Rogue Trader or the group as a whole (Impacting their ability to acquire other things quite badly).

3) I would treat it as being exactly the same as buying a new upgraded component, with a +10 for being able to reuse some of the resources. Reducing to poor quality should be left as a mishap of a failed upkeep test, in my opinion.

Buying starships is a rare feat, but there are rules for it in the core book:

-- You can only buy 1 at a time

-- There is no bonus for scale

-- Your modifier equals the vessel's Ship Points. A 30 point ship would inflict a -30 penalty, for example, and so on and so forth.

Typically, these ships are purchased and refitted from the Imperial Navy (who builds the new ones, usually), or salvaged, as mentioned above.

Thanks you both!

Don't you think that buying a Raider for a -30 penalty makes buying ships a little easy?

Maese Mateo said:

A raider with 0 weapons, 0 extra armour, 0 extra manouverability, 0 cargo space, 0 anything else. No, I don't think it makes it too easy.

Larkin said:

Exactly. By the strict RAW, an ST could interpret that this only allows for the purchase of the Hull itself, with no components. However, even if you include the most basic critical components, you're still far short of a working ship.

Getting a new ship up to snuff is something that takes a huge PF, multiple sessions of acquisition tests, or both.

I see. Then it's fine, I guess. A Hull with only Essential Components isn't very useful.

Thank you very much! =)