What type of loot do you typically hand out to your players? I know that Rogue Trader isn’t so much an equipment driven game, at least not as much as D&D, but the exotic and luxurious definitely plays its part. Do the GMs out there usually go for book based equipment as small rewards or do you leave that up to acquisition rolls and instead throw in contacts, exotic fluff gear (Clothing, food, etc.) and small businesses? Also, how quickly do you start handing out good and best quality gear to your players?

Mostly Profit Factor (which they use to buy stuff they'll actually use), but other than that, in 2 groups I have so far (IIRC) given out

• Daemon Sword (BC Hell Blade which tries to tempt it's bearer)
• Vortex Torpedo (which'll probably never be used )
• Light Cruiser (burried under ice) - as well as a pile of raiders.
• Digimelta
• a few worlds to be colonized - one of them with an odd Xenos structure which the RT want's rid off.
• Dark and Forbidden Library, full of Dark Lore
• a few nukes
• 2 space stations, one of which had a minor genestealer problem.
• a hiveminded "super-psycher" diviner
• Halo Device
• Archeo-tech Laspistols (aka "Party-favours")
• dual world with 10 billion humans who'd never heard of the God-Emperor
• various medals
• A hat originally ordered by-and-for the Cardinal of the Hazeroth Subsector
• Abandoned base, formerly used by a Thousand Sons sorceror
• holy relics in the form of spent bolter shells from Astartes Bolters
• Contacts and Connections

• Fully self-sentient heretical cogitator 20x faster than the ship's Main Cogitator that would get you an automatic "Auto-Stabilized Logis-Targeter" even without any other external components being installed on the ship.

In Stars of Inequity they have relic, xenos, archetech, and other items of interest to create specifically as rewards for PC's. I haven't had the opportunity to utilize the book yet but it looks very promising.

Some other rewards I have also bestowed, in line with Tenebrae and Sebastian Yokre are

• Virus Torpedoes
• Writ of claim for "insert name" world (had feral xenos on it too)
• A transport ship
• A Raider ship (and sometimes not by choice, dang boarding actions)
• A Navy Sword Class Frigate (with basic crew and even a few command officers)
• Trade goods to fill up the empty cargo holds
• Regiment of mercenaries wanting off a planet
• Various xenos beasts that "happened" to fall into the Seneschal's lap after a card game (awesome RPing entertainment)
• Good Quality Cybernetics for a limb replacement and more
• Run down space refinery orbiting a gas giant
• An "abandoned" asteroid mining facility
• Holy Relics (a Banner one time and a Book another time, called the Book of Eli [i love that movie what can I say])
• Peer and/or Good Reputation talents for a certain organization/group/small xenos Empire
• Extra +2 and later +5 Bonuses to Trophy Room due to the size abd uniqueness of the critters, and then later the pict-recordings of later escapades.

Edit: Bloody font going black.

I'm not seeing a lot of BQ equipment listed here, do the GMs out there typically withhold this quality of gear or do the players typically look to purchase it before you have a chance to give it to them? How quickly do you start handing out BQ gear and how limited is it within the universe? It appears locations are a popular choice for group loot and it's understandable as it's much more fun to see what your players might do with an abandoned minng colony or desolate space station that just another gun.

My read on it is that BQ gear is almost passe in the case of many Rogue traders. If they care enough about an Item they can afford the very best! Now if it's truly unique, (perhaps something like a true "lightsaber" or something like that) that would be different! In General, I feel that a Rogue trader's assets are great enough that individual gear often doesn't qualify as "Treasure".

My read on it is that BQ gear is almost passe in the case of many Rogue traders. If they care enough about an Item they can afford the very best! Now if it's truly unique, (perhaps something like a true "lightsaber" or something like that) that would be different! In General, I feel that a Rogue trader's assets are great enough that individual gear often doesn't qualify as "Treasure".

I agree, whole heartedly.

The Trophy Room:

• A Yu'Vath 'map', which works by embedding itself into a navigator and taking you there, = essentially a Psycharus Worm that's not broken
• A copy of one of the Winterscale journals which is probably a fake
• A master-crafted warp chronometer (which holds 'realspace time' accurately in the warp)
• A crystaline sculpture of a spider which seems to mess up the passage of time in its immediate vicinity
• A mining colony in the Paylos Belt
• An ecclesiarchal colony on a medieval world (liberated from a pirate group)
• The Icespire - a tower manse on Port Wander, complete with lighter dock, barracks and chapel (with arcoflagellant)
• A couple of other frigate-class ships captured during battles (one needing quite a lot of repairs)
• A salvage warrant for the Imperial Navy ship Imperialis Regnant (if only they could find the bloody thing)
• The co-ordinates for the derelict Inquisitorial Kill-ship Santionate (which is believed to still be armed)
• Contacts with a gun-runner based on footfall
• Contacts in the Sector command for the Imperial Guard (including evidence of covered-up war crimes)
• A squadron of Shark Assault Boats 'mislaid' by the Imperial Navy (the carrier was being refitted with aerospace bombers for an invasion, and the Sharks should have gone into deep storage)
• The Spectoris 7th infantry, complete with several squadrons of crocodile-pattern assault hovercraft
• The Deaths-Heads - a household guard grenadier company 'inherited' from their previous (late) employer
• A collection of rare pistols - including orkish and dark eldar examples.
• The obliterator virus (not that the Explorator has realised he's contracted it yet
• A marker for a favour from a 'Master Nonesuch' (those who recognise the name are aware this may end badly)

some dark elder ghost lances.

a battered astartes shoulder pad showing a shark with a rough star map on the back

a set of stealth power armor ( think raven guard like)

a bottle of "unification wine"

the revelation that there plasma drive was actually a modified drive...not sure what was actually there in the extra space as the ship blew up shortly after...

In no particular order (and stripping out any plot-relevant tricksiness my players haven't discovered yet):

• A transport ship (infested with genestealers, and carrying a 'stealer cult whose sufficiently human-looking members they sold into slavery)
• A "rusted"-looking glaive, of an unusual design, and apparently made of iridium
• A pair of onyx bracelets/arm rings, graved with (pre-Imperial, probably Xenos) hieroglyphics. They found some mention and description in an old kinebrach text, with some notes- one is supposed to grant "life undying", the other makes the bearer "overflow with the breath of life". (One was sold to buy in to Lure of the Expanse).
• A xenos concussion "rifle" (essentially an exotic, recharging grenade launcher that only fires those repulsion grenades)
• 2 common quality Atomics
• several tox and rad resistant sealed suits of carapace
• a few pieces from the Light of Terra
• several tons of wraithbone (they've been stealing//destroying the nexus waystones as they leave) and assorted eldar gems
• a grand cruiser (carrier-fitted Repulsive, found with no crew and no atmosphere, but a full war load in orbit around a gas giant in a dead system. The Navy wants it back)
• A light cruiser (they captured Baron Scourge on the way out of Footfall. Something to do with cunning maneuvers, pin-point bombing runs, and a point-blank bombardment cannon volley into the CL's engines)
• Baron Scourge
• a marker for a favour from Krawkin Feckward, as a result of the very low price they negotiated on a consignment of slaves (remember that 'stealer cult? Guess who they sold it to... Also of note- since most of them were 4th generation or later, a new purestrain could be born easily and become a patriarch, and the cult is big enough that they just need a focal point to start calling the hive fleets).
• a couple of assorted chests of goodies belonging to Karrad Vall. He knows they have them. The arch-militant left him a note.

As I'm a player in my group, I'll just put up what I know about:

• A Dictator-class Cruiser with an archeotech drive
• A Hazeroth-class Privateer
• An Infidel Raider(will be sold ASAP)
• A Khornate revolver
• Vapourius (?) water (which our captain makes coffee from)
• A Leman Russ Demolisher
• Lord-Admiral Bastille VII's two Sentinels. Also his banner, his powdered wig, and his trousers.
• Stuff from the Light of Terra
• Living crystal, currently being farmed and turned into high-grade ammunition.
• A whole Guard regiment's worth of weaponry
• An estate on Footfall previously held by a narcogang.
• About ten tons of drugs of all kinds.