I am currently starting a campaing of Dark Heresy 2nd edition, all fun and games. Lets go to the details and objectives so i can ask questions

Focus

​Characters start as loose characters, not attached to an inquisitor, they will be in a backwards system on the other side of a huge anomaly, that anomaly surrounds a sub sector, that the characters locked away in the last campaing, it is full of archeotech and wonders inside of that anomaly... Soooo the empire decides to develop the area so eventually some rogue trader, eplorators or may be the imperial navy can fnd a way in. Thats the background, a solar system with 3 habitable planets one manufactorum moon that is in fact a huge Arch Mechanicum buried in polarized dust.

They will strugle for a long time until they become of notice. Since they are very experienced players and do not whant to start from scratch i gave each 2 choices

Choice 1. One amazing archeotech Iten
​Choice 2. 3 Regular rare or very rare book itens

One of the player was very specific and made a background for an astropath, very nice since i whant to evolve this into a rogue trader campaing.
Other player, smart fella, made an untouchable, choosing the unique iten he choose a cerebral implant that allows him to deactivate the untouchable effects.

Other players decided to get goodies and weapons nothing out of the ordinary, some combi weapons and so on...

But the group pilot decided to get the ONE BRIGHT ITEN OPTION, and decided it should be a ship for the group.

I decided that it should be a space capable ship able to take group gear, at least a chimera for the future and so on. Sad thing first thing that came to my mind was a thunderhawk.

​Now to my questions

1 I need options aside from thunderhawk that are cannon. I intend to deliver all sort of custon and made itens, but imperial standard should have superior stats.

2 I sense that since the pilot is also a Noble descendent from navigator that will develop the gene in the long run of game, navigator in last campaing did screw up BADLY with the rogue trader haren, i am faqced with the opportunity of giving this player an actual ship

Ship would be a raider, player would be attached to the local navy, ship would not have a navigator and probably not a warp drive either. Excess of space debrie from past battles created several ship graveyards that float loosely around the anomaly mentioned, so acquiring a ship or parts in the future is possible.

3 on side question, how the hell pirates get their hands on and maintain a ship ? Do they have navigators ? Astropaths ? I am very interested.

​Thanks there and shoot the suggestions as cannon as possible. This campaing is so long and altered the region so much i need GM calibration.

1) A Thunderhawk tends to be a Space Marine vessel. The Inquisitorial Standard is a Gun-Cutter, but that is weaker than a Thunderhawk, appropriately so. You might also want to consider giving them a Lathe-Pattern Assault Boat from Rogue Trader, which would be more thematically appropriate than something built for a Space Marine. I do have another idea if you want to deliver custom items though: Drop Pods.

You could give your Raider the Storm Drop Pod Bays, which allow your acolytes to make the most dramatic entrances possible, and you could give them the option of once per session (or however much you find appropriate) calling in a not-even-remotely-subtle air re-supply for something they need.

2) This wasn't really a question.

3) Pirates tend to be in-system problems that don't have Navigators, and tend to have bases set up in the most remote regions of a system from which they make their homes. Regarding maintenance, most voidsmen can do simple repairs, and they would either have Hereteks or possibly even captured Mechanicus personnel who would rather keep a ship working than die - after all, the Omnissiah will rescue them some day, and a destroyed ship would not look good on the old resume.

Caestus Assault Ram

Wouldn't it be more fun to start without a ship and have getting one a major character aim/achievement?

If you give them one straight from the off you are pretty much already playing at the Rogue Trader scale imho with all the extra rules and complications that entails.

I'm running a DH to RT game at the moment but I started the PC's without a ship (they travel on merchant traders as passengers when system travel is required) - next I intend to give them the opportunity to gain an in system shuttle of some sort which they can again only move between systems in the hold of a traders ship (pretty expensively) before eventually letting them stumble onto some wrecked raider or trader that they can painstakingly restore to action over a number of sessions / in game years.

3) Pirates often blind jump as well. A ship doesn't technically NEED a Navigator to traverse the Warp, but blind jumping is a hit-and-miss affair, and takes far longer to get from Point A to Point B. Of course, more prosperous pirate princes sometimes have heretical technology that helps them, and those more lenient of Chaos often have Warp Sorcerers who can do the same things as a Navigator, only through daemon pacts and/or precience shenanigans

1) RT: Into the Storm has a generic "Guncutter" profile. That's pretty much the standard "I have a private spacecraft that isn't actually a warp-capable ship" for Inquisitors. Guncutters are widely used by Rogue Traders as their go-to small craft for off-ship escapades. The Imperial Navy also uses a variety of small craft called a pinnace that I'm not entirely sure where it's supposed to fit in, but I think it's supposedly larger than a cutter, but still a small craft. I've only ever seen the term mentioned, mostly in passing, but never actually described anywhere.

Basically the equivalent of a Captain's Gig/Yacht ...

3) There are such things as "Calculated jumps" which are very short range per individual jump (you need to string a bunch of them together for longer travel), and fairly standard for low-level merchant ships. There exists both archeotech and heretek devices capable of improving the calculated jump range. Every official Imperial organization strongly disapprove of the heretek options with fire and executions, but the Navigator Houses equally strongly disapprove of the archeotech options - they see the archeotech options as threats to their monoploy and power base to be eliminated.

Warp-capable pirates that haven't embrace Chaos will usually use either Rogue Navigators or the heretek options. There's probably also ways for psykers to work better than a calculated jump but not as good as a Navigator without dealing with Chaos/Daemons.

As far as the warp-capable pirates are concerned ... you can, technically, do astrotelepathic communications without being an astropath ... but it's a whole lot more dangerous and so they usually use sorcery, rituals, and the binding of daemons.

Well, I have just found a guncutter with floorplan

http://breandan-ociarrai.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Nova-Gockstadt-Deckplans-243798544

can hold a small team with ground transport