I'm having a hard time decidingwhat the size of winterscale and chordas empires are in my game.  How many planets do they each own?  How many ships and allies do they have?  For that matter how many rogue traders do you think are opperating in the expanse?

I mnea I can't imagine Winterscale haz more than a hundred ships and at least half of those would be transports.

I go for smaller numbers myself and place Winterscale at about 60 ships, with roughly half of those being transports. Chorda is about 2/3 of that and pretty much a solid #2. Most RT dynasties have 6-12 ships. Rarely will most dynasties collect more than 2-3 ships in one place at a time - their holdings are simply to vast to effectively manage without spreading out their assets. Winterscale is a bit of an exception, and his flagship is routinely escorted by roughly a half-dozen other vessels at all times.

I would not spread myself out if I were a RT.  Concentration of force is a very important military tactic.  If an RT is spreading their forces out they can be pinched off much easier than if they kept all their ships in one piece and entrenched their colonies, allowing them to jump around between each one to protect it when it needs protecting.  But Igeuss then you also couldn't grow your empire as fast.

ieatdeadpeople2 said:

If you concentrate your forces, you can't defend your holdings. Sadly, Warp travel doesn't really allow for fast reactions. By the time the cavalry gets there the defenders have been under attack for a week or so, so the attacker really has a good chance of hitting hard and fading unless everything is defended exceptionally well - and no one has the resources to do that. Of course, both sides could play at this and keep stripping away everything outside their opponent's core holdings, and thus, among RTs it's usually understood that such conflicts are bad for business (unless one side has an overwhelming advantage and can force their opponent to submit quickly). Beyond that, most RTs don't exactly act as military forces. They certainly have combat-capable assets, but the key is that they are assets of a profit-driven organization. Profit says that certain things are done in ways that may not make the most sense to a military mindset.

A powerful Rogue Trader dynasty might not need to defend his assets directly, but leave that to local governors and planetary rulers.  For example a Rogue Trader may have set up a mining operation on a world which is controlled by its own governor (Imperial or not).  The Rogue Trader gives a percentage of the opre to the governor and exports the rest of it.  The world has adequate defences but no navy.  The Rogue Trader can even supply a company or too of mercs for the governor.

Now if the world is attacked by xenos pirates (etc) then the governor can defend the world himself.  If the governor decides to annex the mining operation then he won't have the navy to export the ore.

In short directly defending assets is potentially a problem only for those Rogue Traders who insist on complete control over a territory.

This isn't to say that a Rogue Trader won't defend his assets but simply that for most dynasties the fleet is the most important asset and as such I would imagine most dynasties would concentrate most of their vessels together, while having a few more wide ranging trading ventures.

Since Aspyce Chorda has a noted preference for smaller faster ships. If you give her that much less ships then Winterscale's fleet will massively outmass her in tonnage. 

I don't think Chorda has that much transport capacity either. A lot of her money comes from the Cold trade which doesn't require huge transports. 

guest469 said:

This isn't BFG. An escort (raider or frigate) is proportionally much stronger compared to cruisers in RT. A small squadron of escorts (2-3 ships) is very capable of engaging a cruiser and taking it out. What they can't outfight, they can outrun since their speed is typically 150-200% that of a cruiser.