Hello. I'm a long time Rogue Trader player (with a long break from the game in between), but ship combat has never been my forte. Since all the other players in our upcomming game are also not too well versed in this area, I hope I can get some assistance with the construction of our new ship.

We have received 44 ship points for our proud vessel by the GM, and the Meritech Shrike-class Raider is very fitting for the origin of our rogue trader family. I know raider is probably least suited for a starting ship, but we went with transport last time and frigates seem to be just a tiny bit more expensive ship point wise. From what I have heard it is not a bad ship for a raider, but raiders do have a bit of a specialised purpose, so I am not sure if we are fitting it right. We have rolled Martial Hubris and Wrested from a Space Hulk for its machine spirit and complications. (Please do have in mind that we don't use MathHammer adjustments, since our GM is not very keen on hosue rules).

It's probably personal taste, in my mind they are set firmly against plasma, which have few drawbacks when compared directly, another issue is silent running is alittle hit or miss, the rules are not cast iron, some areas say -% to be detected but full augur sweep automatically detects it requires 'fudging'

But this depends on your and your GM's play style, the Pyros is not a bad choice it's relatively easy to fit and does solid damage if you can land your hits, not using mathhammer will give it a soft nurf, it does indeed set fires (if your GM bothers to simulate npc fire, I wouldn't bar 'they're on fire, sucks to be them') where the plasma quality is simple for a GM to complete and very effective.

It's a decent gun, but there are better that do more, the only reason I would take one is if I wanted a quick knife fighting ship with little power, like.. a destroyer.

And hey, it isn't the Sunsear so good one

If you don't play with Mathhammer for Armour and lances (which I highly recommend) strength is what you want.

Here's an example:

With the Pyros, you get a maximum of six hits. One of those hits will be cancelled by void shields, while 1 1/2 hits will be needed to bypass armour (1d10+4 = 9,5), leaving you with 3 1/2 hits (= 33,25 damage) on the target.

While this is enough to oneshot a small raider, it won't even be enough for a frigate or, may the big E have mercy on you, a light Cruiser or cruiser!

With the Sunsears, you pay 2 SP less (!), but need more Power and Space. For that, you get two additional hits for a maximum of eight.

Of those eight hits, one is cancelled by void shields and two (1d10+2 = 7,5) are needed to bypass armour, leaving you with five hits instead of 3,5.

Those five hits have a n approx. damage of 37,5, which is more than your pyros and with good rolling enough to oneshot a frigate!

As important as damage, the sunsears have more than double the range of the pyros, which is what you want to utilise the superior speed or your raider.

The trick is to be faster than anything that outguns you and to outgun everything faster than you, so you can just run and fire from a distance while the enemy is desperately trying to keep up while your macrocannons strike!

Isn't that assuming that you score those maximum 8 hits? I was with the impression that this is hardly a granted thing. If you score 6 hits, then the Pyros will outperform the Sunsear and with 4 and 2 hits the damage still keeps highter.

Regarding the range... I was thinking more in the range of "Drop a salvo and close the distance for hit and run", rather than "Shoot and run out of range"... bit it might be the more optimal solution. If we are staying out of range of more well armed ships and less well armed ships are doing their best to stay out of our hit and run range... then there really is little use for the murder servitors, so removing them to free space for one sunsear and using the extra two ship points to up its craftmanship and reduce space requirements in order to fit a second one is maybe better idea. It does makes PCs with good command skills kind of useless though, so my missionary will be forever relocated to the resident party Put your backs into it! intimidator, but that is a sacrafice I'm willing to make for the good of the team.

If you want hit&run I recommend getting torpedo tubes as soon as your PF is high enough and a teleportarium for teleporting murder servitors.

In addition, you should consider the Stormtrooper Detachement Upgrade which doesn't need any power or space but is really hard to get.

Last but not least get the Clan-kin quarters if you can because if you close with an enemy he will most likely also try to hit&run you.

In my opinion, you should convince your GM to use Mathhammer rules for armour (it's not that hard!) and the warrant path from ItS instead of rolling.

From the warrant path you should get an Archaeotech or Xenotech component, while the first could be the teleportarium for OP hit&run.

If you use mathhammer consider prow topedo tubes and dorsal las-burners, as the latter grant an additional bonus to hit&run and are competitive with lances if used with mathhammer.

Your tactic would be:
1. Fire virus and then boarding torpedoes

1.1 Score hit&run crit, choose to destroy void shields

2. Close with enemy

3. Fire Las-Burners against unprotected enemy

4. Teleport your murder servitors and/or storm troopers on the enemy ship to kill everyone

5. Board enemy ship and shoot the captain in the face
6. Take over ship

7. ???

8. PROFIT FACTOR!

We are using the warrant path from ItS, but the GM randomed our warrant origin for us instead of letting us pick, resulting to 44 SP and 40 PF and no funny-tech components. I believe it will be quite a while (if ever) before we manage to get our hands on Teleportarium.
Where is the Las-Burner from? I don't remember stumbling upon it before.

Can a hit&run crit destroy the void shields?

Other than that it does seem like very fun idea, but it will require putting some profit factor and game time into achieving it.

Sad thing that you weren't allowed to create your warrant for yourselves, the teleportarium is just too great to not get it.

The Las-burners are from Battlefleet Koronus page 35 and are a scaled down version of a lance battery (yes, that means it can score multiple hits!) for Raiders and Frigates.

Keep in mind that you can exchange PF for a bonus on a single acquisition test and remember to use your seneschal when bargaining!

A hit & run crit is able to destroy void shields. Murder Servitors let you pick a result between 1 and 6 instead of rolling. On the PC ship crit table (RT 222) a 2 damages a single component and damaged components cannot be used and do not provide any bonusses until repaired. If you use the NPC ship crit table (BFK 115) a 6 damages the target's void shields, making them unusable until repaired.

Oooooh. There is an NPC ship crit table... I had no idea it existed, but then again I don't own BFK so I have only skimmed through its pages a few times.

Thanks for the feedback.

Teleportarium, Murder Servitors, and Barracks gives you like +60 to H&R, but that's pushing the cheese envelope a bit. You can really push that envelope with Clan-Kin Quarters, extra Flak, a good turret rating, and any Command skill bonuses you can fit in. Stick it all in a raider and you can close before your enemy can even shoot.