Rogue traders are hardly all born equal. The same goes for their ships. The is no hard set rule regarding what a rogue trader's ship might or might not be capable of. It's quite possible for a prosperous rogue trader's ship to be comparable to a naval cruiser (which is technically a flag ship) in firepower. Then again, most probably aren't. I do however think it's rather unlikely that men and women who make their living by travelling into uncharted space wouldn't have as much firepower as possible.
What exactly is it that Rogue Traders carry?
Varnias Tybalt said:
According to the Ravenor Omnibus, Rogue Trader vessels have a pretty puny armament in comparison to the military vessels of the imperial Navy. Of course, "puny" in space nautical terms could imply pretty destructive devices, but as a rule of thumb, Rogue trader vessels would not be able to outgun a military vessel, and in a pitched battle they would probably be obliterated by military vessels.
The ships in Ravenor were small, fast traders with very few crew. Of course they weren't the equals of a Navy destroyer ( The rogue trader ship in Eye of Terror is even smaller). On the other hand, Execution Hour has megaton level explosions coming from the anti-ordinance turrets, weapons too weak to be a serious threat to starships. Even a small ship is going to be able to dish out heinous amounts of orbital death against undefended world. As to how well they'll stack up against a naval vessel, depends on the ship, captain, and crew. A Rogue Trader cruiser loaded to the gills with archeotech, a veteran crew, and a brillaint captain will be hell on wheels.
Varnias Tybalt said:
ECLIPSE1970 said:
But if you have read Rogue Star and Star of Damocles, the RT flag ship (a cruiser) could take down a captial ship and damage a space station (both Imperial and Tau.)
I find that highly unlikely, so that flagship cruiser must be one of the exceptions that confirms the rule (sort of like Ibram Gaunt being pretty much the only person to hold the rank of both Commissar and Colonel).
If you've played Battlefleet Gothic then you'll agree that lone cruiser class vessels taking out capital ships would be highly unlikely. The only way it could happen would be if the captain of the capital ship simply ignored a torpedo attack from the lone cruiser (torpedoes bypass voidshields without a hitch), by not sending out fighters to intercept them at all, and rolling extremely bad rolls for the capital ship turrents trying to shoot down the torpedoes before impact. Also the captain would have to ignore ordering the crew to brace for impact. And by then, the vessel might be crippled or adrift if the torpedo strike does maximum amounts of damage.
Taking out capital ships usually require support by either two or three other cruisers or several squadrons of escort class ships. Lone cruisers would have to face the most incompetent captains ever if they hope to take out capital ships.
You might wonder why I refer to rules of a game here ather than bringing up fluff sources, and the reason for this is to point out some sort of standard, the rules for BFG being based on how diferent ship-classes would interact with eachother in those regards. And the rule of thumb says that lone cruisers just doesn't have much of a chance of taking out capital ships. Even battlecruisers have a hard time doing it.
As for space stations, I really couldn't say (since I haven't seen them in action), but if they're even more resilient than most capital ships, I'd say that the cruiser you're refering to seem to suffer from way too much plot protection...
Actually, the only time 1 rogue trader cruiser (the
Oceanid
) goes up against tau capital ships by itself, it gets fairly mauled, both by the tau ships (the early ?Explorer class?, just prior to the launch of the Damocles Gulf Crusade- in fact, pretty much simultaneously with the causa belli), and by a (rogue) Imperial space station refitted with tau railcannon batteries, before luring the tau ships onto the station's guns. The other actions, it was always the
Oceanid
and at least one of the other ships in the flotilla (the
Rosetta
and the
Fairlight
. The
Fairlight
, iirc, is a CL, the
Rosetta
a CA, although it could be the other way around) acting in concert.
None of them used ordnance weapons, and there was, in fact, only one torpedo left in the entire flotilla (aboard the
Rosetta
, if my aforementioned recollections are correct).
And in BFG, I'd say the RT cruisers are fit to stand in the wall of battle, and I'd actually rate them as roughly as useful as a Dominator-class cruiser (thanks to the latest round of rewritings of the nova cannon rules; if the original rules were used, then probably somewhere between a Dominator and a lance-variant of the Dauntless. Maybe the Armageddon-class).