I have been away from Rogue Trader for a few years and to be honest I have never been too much into the system (although I love the setting)... but now there is another game approaching and I have taken the mantle of a void master.

The PC crew is relatively small, consisting of a Rogue Trader, Astropath and my Void Master with the other two players being totally uninterested in our starting ship due to our low starting ship points (40SP/50PF) it is mostly left to me to configure the ship. It's not that they don't enjoy ship combat mind you... just the opposite, but they enjoy ship combat with whatever crap they are given.

Anyway... LONG STORY SHORT - I have to build our ship. And I have no experience with ship building since most of our previous RT games for some reason involved mostly ground action and we still have only the core book back then. Here is what I have planned:

What are you looking for? A stealthy ship? A fast ship? A gunship?

Carriers are broken, btw. Maybe you don't care since you'll be a player, but just so you know. Then again, nothing less than a cruiser should be made into a carrier. Hold Landing Bays are great for auxiliaries, but not void-capable craft. They will crash all too often, not to mention you've removed the only component from your ship that permits you to make a profit from trade endeavors. Your ship as is can't perform trade endeavors.

I am the DM of the group.

We played our first session and I messed up a lot of the rules, but overall it was quite fun and I think the guys enjoyed it.

They managed to ambush a raider pirate to completely botch their opening salvo scoring a single hit with the disrupter, which only unpowered the sensors. They even won initiative to fail again with utterly everything.Then the raider retaliated with deadly force scoring 5 hits. Only my bad luck on the damage roll prevented me from crippling their ship outright, but I did manage to bust their engine which they didn't get to fix until nearly the end of the combat. Their bombers scored a good run on the raider the first time, but then turret fire killed the momentum of the second run and the armor of the raider absorbed the hits. The raider was most surprised when he got torpedoed by murder servitors who managed to knock out one of its guns. The astropath PC set the other battery AND himself on fire on a desperate double Fate point 25% chance last ditch effort

The raider managed to fix his gun and put out the fire, but missed twice in point blank range due to horrendus roll on my part. They managed to hit it with a plasma torpedo and hit&run it because the raider had closed the distance. The Hit&RUn set the raider on fire again. Meanwhile their bombers collided spectacularly while landing to refill their load and the hangar was bricked for the fight.

Things looked bleak for them because they were now out of torpedoes, the raider was behind them and behind the firing arc of their battery and their bombers were all out of action, however they managed to sneak in another Hit&Run, this time with spectacular 7 successes, which were just enough to cripple the raider and set it on fire again.

The raider had one last chance to fire an ineffective salvo at them, just as they managed to get their engines up. The session ended with the severely depleted crew of the raider fighting a losing battle to put out the fire...

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How exactly are small craft broken? What's wrong with them?

Murder Servitors are stupidly strong. I think I will disallow them to set the enemy on fire, especially since putting out the fire is so **** hard.

Well, I can say we are looking for something specific. We have a transport ship with bonuses when in combat and penalties when not. Even if that was not the case - this is rogue trader so we will have to fight and with our paper armor we will be outguned while with only two weapons we will have a hard time significantly damaging even a half-decent raider.

I have notticed the crushing part in our first fight. My void master can land them safely most of the time, but if he is forced to leave that to the NPC crew - it goes south pretty fast.

The missing cargo hold is not much of a problem. We don't use achievement points (neither we have any idea how they are supposed to work) so as long as we have room in the Landing Bay - it pretty much serves as a cargo holde in the narrative.

We are looking for a ship that is not a total sloth that makes us arrive last at destination and can also deal with a pirate ship on our tail.

You've got a really interesting build. It might not be "optimal" but it looks like fun to play with a big crew, and honestly fun is the most important part of the equation.

Until you get up to cruiser weight, the most anybody can bring to bear in a single salvo is two guns. As long as you're a decent shot, that's plenty. You're not going to get 6 hits and a critical every single time, but there's plenty of bonuses from components or lock on that you can use to boost what's usually already a good ballistics skill for whichever PC is manning the guns.

Combining torpedoes with a landing bay means you're going to be having to make a lot of acquisition rolls to keep them supplied with craft, crew, and torpedoes. This makes it harder to make other acquisition tests, appropriately showing how much money you'll have to spread out.

Murder servitors are actually less powerful than a Barracks IMHO since Barrack's bonus can be used defensively, for boarding actions, and it also gives you military endeavor points, but Murder servitors are more focused on that one action and cost less space and power, so it evens out.

Yeah. If you don't use achievement points, then how do you gain PF? GM fiat? The clipper is definitely a glass cannon. I'd have gone the stealth route with it, but that's me. You have an interesting build, but your weapon selections doesn't exactly complement each other. The disruptors can barely make it through the shields while your torpedoes and bombers ignore them. That makes the disruptors really ineffective. As Spatula already pointed out, you're going to be spending lots of your acquisition rolls keeping your bombers and torpedoes in play. And since you're not using achievement points that might prove difficult.

As to the brokeness of bombers it doesn't become really noticeable until your party runs a fleet carrier. But, if a fleet carrier breaks your game the rules need changed even if your escort carrier isn't currently breaking the game.

The first question I'd ask is if you're running some sort of Mathhammer rules. That already changes everything. Since it changes literally everything, it changes bombers and carriers. I can give you specific examples of how bombers are broken, but without knowing which rules you're using I'd have to provide several examples to cover your exact situation.

In the meantime these threads are good reading for carriers...

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/96055-weapons-kit-out-for-a-star-galleon/?hl=+bombers%20+broken

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/105724-pilots-chambers/?hl=%20bombers%20%20carriers

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/123207-small-craft-repair-deck-per-squadron-or-for-everything/?hl=%2Bbombers+%2Bcarriers#entry1284551

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/122184-supercarrier-rules/page-2?hl=+bombers%20+carriers

I plan to introduce achievement points after the first adventure. The book is massive so I put off reading the Endeavor chapter until I have a solid grasp on the general rules.

The links you provided say that dedicated carriers are OP, but all they got is a transport. I saw the damage potential of their one launch bay and its impressive, but since they won't be getting their hands on any cruiser at least anytime soon I think we'll be OK for now.

As for Mathhammer I looked it up and considered it - but their transport is really fragile - AP 13 and only 30 hull rating, so it would be a direct nerf (and a pretty massive one) to their ship. With the current rules I have problems hurting them - i need at least 3 hits on their ship to do any damage with enemy crew at 30, but the alternative doesn't look any better - 3 hits and 2/3 of their hull will be gone.

Okay, but listen to what you just said. You make a passive admittance that dedicated carriers are OP, but since your group doesn't have one it's not a problem. Then you go on to say that you considered Mathhammer, but since your party is running a clipper it isn't needed.

What I'm hearing you say is that the system is a problem but since your party chose a weak starting vessel it doesn't matter. That won't last. It's a problem you will have to deal with sooner or later, just as all of us had to do.

Don't think that I'm criticizing here. I'm not. I'm just giving you advance warning of the problems you will run into if your game lasts a good length. Your players will get a decent ship given time. Most players don't mind house rules, but they like consistency. They might well expect their new ship to operate with the same rules their old ship did, or they won't be able to judge its performance until the action breaks out.

I would be eager to give Mathhammer a try (and possibly think balance bombers around it) if you could persuade me thatt their Orion clipper won't blow from the first salvo in their next battle.

Personally I wouldn't start tacking on house rules until I'm re-familiarized and comfortable with the normal rules.

Heh. I can't promise a thing about the Orion. Your people are attempting to make a warship of a merchantman. Merchantmen can fight, but their main business is cargo, and your people filled that component up with war stuff. So now they are flying an armed merchantman with no capability to make a merchant's profit.

The advantage of the Orion is speed. It is large enough to carry stealth components, and really excels in that double mode as a smuggler. Nothing, however, can turn it into a warship.

Statistically with Mathhammer, it would take 6 macrocannon hits (after shields) to cripple the vessel. Ships don't explode or even stop functioning at 0 hull points. As a standard raider uses normal (not broadside) macrocannons, they could get at most 3, one of which will be removed by the shield - so 3 round minimum survival. Of course, NPC vessels hit less than 50% of the time, and double-hit with even less frequency.

That being said, I reduced armor by 10 for vessels under cruiser, and added more HP to cruisers.