I'd probably want to follow Langton's brass ratline formatting as much as possible, so 12 ratlines for each ship, whether or not they're frigates or larger. Langton prices are pretty reasonable at under $5.00 a set.

As to how they'd all fit on the SoG ships I'll leave to others to discuss. I do know that of the five metal ships I've built I've had to trim back almost all of the brass ratlines to get them to fit properly, so they might work OK for the larger 1/1000 SoG ships (someone has mentioned we might have to swap down; so 3 decker ratlines would work on a frigate, etc.)?

It would be great if Ares or the Anchorage store would make a 'set' of ratlines for the starter sets, either in brass or conceivably in semi flexible plastic? Saying that makes me think of 3D printing or custom plastic casting?

It will be interesting to see what others have to say. I'm sure a lot of people aren't going to want to spend the time or money to do that for these ships.