I'm working on a shady pirate who is trying to build his infamy by stealing,capturing and trading ship parts from all races. But i still need a ship to do it.

Any thoughts on how to build a ship from the start.

You'll want to use the Orion for this.

• Empyrean Mantle, of course.
• Cargo Hold & Lighter Bay
• Trophy Room
• Luxury Quarters because why not
• Maybe a mimic drive or the configurable prow

If you have Hostile acquisitions and into the storm. You can go for the left path, picking up halo artifacts for a xeno tech item. Depending on ship points you can get the Meritech shrike raider or Cobra destroyer. You take the standard essentials with possibly the warpsbane hull. For an auger array, get the W-240 from hostile acquisitions, it has no bonus but you can use it without giving away your location. For Xeno tech, take the shadow field. It will give a -20 to detect you. It will also give a -20 to hit you, it does replace the void shield when active. If you have points to spare, get the reaver background pack from Into the Storm.

Yeah, you need a small ship. It really doesn't matter what it is since you don't want to get into ship combat anyway. People have already mentioned your best components. The Empyrean Mantle, Shadowfield, and W-240 are great starts. Get hold of a Cypra Drive and Graviton Flare early on if you can. Start your ship pared down so you have good PF. You'll need that for further acquisitions.

Maybe i should clarify. Ill be hunting and caping other ships and striping then to sell there parts for PF. I don't want to destroy then if im going to sell it.

So now you want a warship?

Frigate, preferably the Firestorm. Or any capital ship, but then you run the risk of getting ganked by faster more manueverable ships.

Merritech Shrike

Smugglers bridge, mimic plasma drive, miloslav warp drive, repulsor voidshield, clan-kin crewquarters + slave quarters for storing more "loot" (ask GM if you can pay for one of them and add Criminal Endeavor achievement points), that valium-life-support-I-forgot-the-name-of.

Grapple cannon, Best craftsmanship Sunsear (to compensate a little bit that you have only one fully functional broadside)

Barracks, Murder Servitors, shadow holds (I dont recall the name, but its for hiding loot from inspections), potatos, empyrean mantle,

Optional: IF you have SPs or space after all of this, get those Luxury quarters and trophy room. Perhaps those retro-rockets I also forgot the name for, that helps you with manouvering (vital for boarding)

You will NEVER get into combat with more than one vessel or you will be outgunned. At least until you have some prize-ships to assist.

Edit: I think the shrike is a good option due to the extra TR. My last group was very Imperium-aligned (not to say Inquisition & Battlefleet) and used to hunt this kind of pirates with their Starhawks.

For anything short of a light cruiser, you will need to jump the enemy really fast before they can hit you with a full broadside.

I've never quite understood this angle, and other people have asked this same question before. Consider how everything is barcoded in the 21st century. In the 41st century it's probably even more so (though haphazardly, and looking such things up is a nightmare). It's not like every ship is catalogued. Every piece in every ship has a registered owner. And you're going to so sell those parts? This sounds like another BC campaign. Look, don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the chosen game style. I'm merely pointing out what might have been overlooked.

Now you want a ship capable of capturing said ships, stripping them down, and carrying off the parts to sell. It would be easier to haul the whole ship in, and if you're going to be a wanted pirate anyway, why bother with the inadequate deception? And that's what it sounds like to me. You're looking to be a pirate without getting caught, since you're chop-shopping the ship.

You're going to need a ship that's capable of battle, capable of salvaging operations, and capable of carrying cargo. And you're looking to not get caught. You'll need a capital ship or a rookie GM, probably both.

That said, I'd go with a light cruiser at the very least. You're going to need 7-8 space to put your salvage system and cargo component in, and that's not going to carry very many "spare parts for sale." Since Dynasties purchase said "spare parts" with an acquisition roll, I'm not sure how many you'd have to haul in to score even a single PF, but that's for your GM to decide (and also why you want a rookie GM). Add more cargo components to make the whole project actually feasible. Pile on every ship component that adds to boarding actions and go with disruptor macrocannons. Forget the stealth and just charm/blather your way into range before blasting and boarding.

I've never quite understood this angle, and other people have asked this same question before. Consider how everything is barcoded in the 21st century. In the 41st century it's probably even more so (though haphazardly, and looking such things up is a nightmare). It's not like every ship is catalogued. Every piece in every ship has a registered owner. And you're going to so sell those parts? This sounds like another BC campaign. Look, don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the chosen game style. I'm merely pointing out what might have been overlooked.

Now you want a ship capable of capturing said ships, stripping them down, and carrying off the parts to sell. It would be easier to haul the whole ship in, and if you're going to be a wanted pirate anyway, why bother with the inadequate deception? And that's what it sounds like to me. You're looking to be a pirate without getting caught, since you're chop-shopping the ship.

You're going to need a ship that's capable of battle, capable of salvaging operations, and capable of carrying cargo. And you're looking to not get caught. You'll need a capital ship or a rookie GM, probably both.

That said, I'd go with a light cruiser at the very least. You're going to need 7-8 space to put your salvage system and cargo component in, and that's not going to carry very many "spare parts for sale." Since Dynasties purchase said "spare parts" with an acquisition roll, I'm not sure how many you'd have to haul in to score even a single PF, but that's for your GM to decide (and also why you want a rookie GM). Add more cargo components to make the whole project actually feasible. Pile on every ship component that adds to boarding actions and go with disruptor macrocannons. Forget the stealth and just charm/blather your way into range before blasting and boarding.

My unwanted thoughts on this:

On one hand:

RTs blast RTs all the time and no one gets nabbed by the Arbites or anything. I imagine that RT-> Free Captain would be even worst.

RTs excell at bureaucracy, so arguing that the new ship in their fleet originally belonging to someone else was "Indenizationis for Obstruction of The Warrant" or that it was "Confiscated for high purposes in the name of [insert Imperium group name here]." would be a solution to a great many problem. Also, the Breaking Yards would fetch a good price for any prize-ship.

It wouldn't take a poor or new GM to allow this, but a good RT to keep his back covered very well while he piles up Enemy(blablabla) in his sheet.

On the other hand:

Do you wanna play Black Crusade? Go find a Black Crusade GM. (I told some players this once after their 1312313rd heresy after 3 games - including selling humans to Dark Eldars, making deals with demons, boarding an allied ship because "they liked it")

I think that the GM is the main fella that should enjoy the games as he has the more work BY FAR and if he is not liking how the game is going he will most likely lose inspiration to prepare a decent campaign or next game. And I, personally, prefer RT crews that are building up their Dynasty the way they should (being the Imperium outside imperial borders) and not simply acting as Chaos Reavers.

On the third hand (read first mechandrite):

Privateers n Reavers are actual classes from the books and lore. But they uphold Imperial rule in their own way at least. They do such by choosing the prey carefully, not sacking every single free captain around Naduesh. Still, I hate that kind of group that in Lure of the Expanse, even before leaving Footfall's system, already have the Fel Hand as part of their fleet.

Some heresies are expected to happen in every game and can become part of the fun (cold-trading some xeno artifacts without potential to destroy a hive world, allying with Eldar, building a Blood Ax Ork Farm and trying to convert them to the Imperial Creed, etc.).

On the fourth hand (read second mechandrite):

Going back to the design I proposed - that ship is for capturing other ships relatively intact and looting the contents rather than scrapping it apart for components (you would need a much larger vessel for that, preferably a Mass Conveyor). Personally, I've used that for Kasballica Mission NPCs in the past.

We've had many threads that attempted to analyze whether certain high-handed actions by Rogue Trader Dynasties would result in official sanctions, severe or not, and I don't want to revisit that. I skirted that on purpose. And yes, Rogue Traders employ armies of attorneys and adepts expert at tying those actions up in legal knots for decades. Still, consequences for high-handed actions are something a campaign is weak without.

FFG has many tiers of customers and they include the juvenile, so just because something appears in one of their books doesn't mean an adult-themed game played by supposedly mature adults should avail themselves of those options simply because "hey, it's in the books." But yes, a certain level of heresy is expected in the best roleplaying groups, even encouraged. If the players in my current campaign aren't tempted by certain baits of "cheesy treasure" I will be very disappointed. After all, it will lead to some very interesting moral choices for them. I absolutely rely on their greed to drive forward certain plots.

All that said, I'd say the Universe is the ship for this job. It's the proverbial "wolf in sheep's clothing," and capable of doing the dozen jobs this ship needs to perform. If you fill it full of poor-craftsmanship components, you can get everything you need for the job, and you won't be suspected.

The Universe is great if you want to have an all-in-one support ship, because you can fit pretty much everything in it I think the Goliath and the Loki are also okay as lower-level substitute support ships - the Goliath in particular benefits from the extra power that can go to components such as the empyrian mantle that this sort of ship needs. I am AFB right now, but didn´t laud hailers also make it very hard for nearby ships to send both astropathic or STL communication, such as calls for aid?

can we get all these components into the RTSVU spreadsheet somehow ?