A Rogue Trader Dynasty, fresh from adventures in the Expanse, wants to buy a ship. Arriving at a suitable location they seek out a Vagabond-class Merchant Trader, and find one available for sale.

From the rulebook, p271 on Acquiring a Starship:

"A ship’s Hull Modifier is equal to the hull’s worth in Ship Points (see Chapter VIII: Startships for
details on hulls and their Ship Point value). Because starships are extremely rare and powerful, only one warp-capable vessel may be acquired at a time. In addition, no additional modifiers aside from those gained by a successful Commerce Test may assist with Acquisition Tests to acquire a starship—the fact that a Rogue Trader “is only buying one!” does not make things any easier."

Does this mean that buying a starship hull, for a vessel costing 20 SP, is only a -20 on the profit factor roll? On par with a Best craftsmanship heavy bolter? Somehow this seems wrong, but I'm not sure where else I should be looking.

Yes. But the ship also conatins the compartments too (there is no empty ship or its very rare). So the minimal ship must maybe 25-30 SP. And a single trader just one ship. My experiencies that raiders/transports are gunfodder ships in combat, the chance of the survival is very low.

In your original example, there's a +30 modifier to buying a Heavy Bolter because you're just buying one. There is, however, no bonus to buying just one transport. That makes a bit of a difference. (Where 'a bit' equals 30%.)

Even so… a low level group can buy a tramp freighter to tag along and haul stuff to/from a newly discovered world without too much trouble. However, with NPC skill levels, that transport is going to be very vulnerable to pirates and other misfortunes.

Cheers,

- V.

This is why it's a Best craftsmanship heavy bolter and not a normal one, but it still strikes me as an oddity.

On the up side, buying a fully functional ship does require a fair few requisitions to make it work, so that's something.

While some of this might just be in-game fluff, rather than something mechanical on a page, if you do find a ship, and its for sale, you may want to ask yourself WHY is it for sale? These are among the most valuable commodities in the galaxy; I started a thread here on Selling A Ship , and how much you'd acquire, and a few people were more of the quandary why would you want to sell a ship? Is this ship missing important bits? Has it been somewhere even the Event Horizon wouldn't go?

Looking past that, I suppose it might depend on your setup. Do you have a crew for it? Some ships are vast, flying cities of sorts, with "crews" of people whose families have lived in it for decades+, but others might be a derelict ghost ship. Refilling some ammo stores might cost something. These are just a couple of little things beyond the "mechanical" cost of purchase.

I'm sure you already know all of this, but sometimes it stands to be repeated. If you don't have "extras" to man it, or if they aren't great, it could be a big waste of cred. There has to be a couple reasons why every Rogue Trader doesn't have a veritable Battlegroup of ships in their employ.

venkelos said:

one word, taxes.

And to who do RT pay taxes?

No, the reason that not every RT does not fly around with a battlegroup is pure economics. Keeping those ships running, the maintenance, the food, the crew will cost a lot of money. If your upkeep is more then what you expect to earn you are quickly going down in bankrupcy.

Hmm,

So far in my games. the players have actually bought a few merchant vessels already and some frigates as well actually, either by buying them or actually investing alot of PF to create one, its been a long game so far

But my group hardly keep all the ships with themselves actually, most of the time they send out their Merchants and Frigates/Privateers (escort duties) to different systems in the koronus expanse and calixis sector even to generate PF with trade treaties and other things they come up with , but then again i did create a sort of trading rules where they can also gain PF from starting up trades and large bulk movements and of course i have a player group who are immensly into the micromanagement affairs of such trades

As to why groups or other RT's or the imperium factions would sell ships, in my opinion even with not having an excess amount of ships in the imperium, there will always be groups that sell them to either finance other projects or to generate immediate revenue for other purchases or other groups that might have wrested a ship from a hulk or fixed one that was planet-bound for a long time.

so i see no reason why not to sell ships.

But i do see a point of not every RT flying around with a battlegroup, that is just immensly costly without any returns on it, better they just send their warp-capable ships they buy on their own trading routes for the more dangerous or long transport runs.

Agreed on the cost thing, possibly also loyalty. If you're on the ship, and captain of the ship you have a certain amount of control. If you have more ships mutiny can become a real possibility.

If you have a secondary ship with its own running expenses you'll need to do even bigger things to make a profit. If it's two warships, granted you can attack larger targets, gain larger bounties or more loot etc. Two tradeships you can haul more cargo, but you also become a bigger target.

If you have two of each you run a very big risk of only one ship being useful and the other one just being a drain on your funds.