Okay, our first gaming session got me thinking.

I threw two pirate raiders at my group and a friendly NPC ship and the managed to defeat them like I expected. The thing that occured to me mid-game was: They've just flown into the Maw, haven't been in the Expanse yet and the already hulked another ship to take as a prize. What to do?

Okay, then they blew up the other raider with enough force that his plasma drive explosion killed off the hulk, but fate could also have given them ANOTHER raider to take.

So how do you handle that? Will your players get dozens of starships right from the beginning? Do you limit them somehow?

It is normal, this is the game. Let them to hold that ship. They can use with the original NPC crew rating (30?40?) so this will be a very uneffective ship, except one or more PC controll it. They can use Background Endeavour (see Into the strom) Maybe they can sold it for profit factor or ach. points.

But this is a chaos pirate ship so this will be a litle bit tricky if they are faithull servants of the Emperor.

If they hulked it, they have to repair it before they can fly it around. Did they bring enough tech priests with the specialized knowledge to repair the vessel? Do they have enough crew to crew it and their own ship? If either of these are no, they have to leave and come back with the correct resources, and in the meantime any little thing could happen to the wreck.

Depending on their profit factor, they're unlikely to be able to afford to refit, repair, rearm and recrew a hulked vessel. The best thing your group can do until they have the weight to be able to do this is to sell the hulk/coordinates of the hulk to the local Naval forces, scraplords or friendlier priates. If you want the pirates to be part of a more powerful, overarching group, your players may even consider ransoming the ship back to the pirates and from there its the pirates own concern.

If nothing else, getting some teams on board to strip out grav-plates, rare engine components, and other pricey essentials may give their ship some more parts for repairs later on down the track. My group ended up doing more ship stripping, once I told them that they'd otherwise need to pay for their own repairs

One little thing to remember, as well, is that, not everyone needs to be suicidal, in their efforts to raid bigger ships. I know that they are Chaos, and cowardice is frowned upon, but dying is worse (maybe?) When the ship is reduced to 5 or so Hull Integrity, maybe 10, due to their size, have them break off; they lost. This is the prevalent BFK strategy for ships, especially Eldar craft. I don't know what the weapon kit-out for your party's ship is, but unless they are one or two-shotting enemy craft, those foes should have the time to run like *******, and dedicating fleeing should make them a bit harder to hit. The crew feel accomplished, having repelled the jerks, and the players don't need to figure out what to do with ships, especially hard to sell ones, like tainted Chaos hulls, Ork wrecks no one else could really use, or Eldar craft no one else should get to be having. The rules in the book made it seem, at least to me, that totally wrecking/destroying a ship is actually very hard, so if they don't run, you should almost always have something to sell. Better it be, then, that they DO run, and either lead into additional, maybe larger pirate raids on your crew, or go home, and develop a hated animosity toward your dynasty.

So yeah, my best thought is have them more hit-and-run, like pirates do. If they get too beat up, ditch out, and go home; maybe get reamed by their betters, and collect reinforcements, or just pass on information ("yeah, that cruiser, the Wyld Kaard, has rare-quality plasma macrobatteries, and torpedoes"), so that next time, and there will be a next time, as vengeance must be had, they might come in with a kit-out better prepped to defend against missiles, and the like, or carry bomber wings that can skirt around their plasmas, if the ship's Turret rating is not as good, or just a bigger ship. Don't make every fight an annihilation-scenario, where the party can't flee, and the pirates aren't willing to. They aren't PCs, so their overall value to the game might seem less than someone who has to write up a new character, but that doesn't mean they have to act like it.

Those are my thoughts, anyway. If they do constantly pinch ships, look to my thread regarding selling ships, and you can see what others have thought and said. Selling is a beast, though, as usually only other Rogue Traders seem to have that kind of money free, and it makes Profit Factor shaky; do you get a bunch, and have no need to do missions, or so little you might as well let the wreck sit? Is it boned, or in good shape (nova cannon vs. boarding action)? If it's boned, you might need to fix it up, first. Are there any interested buyers? It wouldn't be so bad if your PF fell for spending, but if you aren't burning it to improve a roll, as in Into the Storm, it sits pretty, even if you buy 3 ships from the Navy, who you happen to have Peer/Good Rep with. So, buying for nothing?, but selling for several PF seems a bit unfair to many. Better to either have the ships run more often, to reappear as villains later, or be so hulked as to have no value. My opinion.

It was two raiders against the PCs frigate and two chartist traders. One trader was unarmed, the other was a Q-ship, which did surprise the players as well as the pirates. The first one was hulked in a single round with both the Q-ship and the PCs suddenly rolling like gods (after several rounds of rampant incompetence on all sides), while the second tried to get away but was destroyed nevertheless. Don't worry, I don't play pirates like dumbasses.

My players also accumulated a fleet by capturing other vessels, most heavily damaged in combat. They had a small space station where they repaired their vessels but it took literally years of in game time to bring some of the ships up to scratch. They got their crews by recruiting on hive worlds but had to enter into an arrangement with the Imperial Navy (with whom they are closely allied) to help train their officer cadre. They get their tech priests from the Cult of Sollex with whom they share extremely good relations after selling them an STC schematic.

So, think about these things.

1) how do they get a hulked or damaged ship to a shipyard

2) where do they get the resources to repair the ship from, my guys had to buy MANY new components to replace destroyed ones

3) where do they get the crew from and how do they get them from where they are to where the ship is?

4) where do they get experienced shipsmen and officers from?

5) How do they support these cities in space? Every time my players got a new ship I chopped 5 points off their PF to simulate the cost of keeping another starship running.

((Off Subject: @Venkelos: Isn't the Wyld Kaard the ship belonging to Talon Kaard from Star Wars?))

And thanks for this info guys n gals, I was wondering this same thing myself.