I've more or less decided on trying out Hotshot Chiraneau:

Chiraneua w/ VI, Hotshot Copilot, Gunner, Kylo Ren, Engine Upgrade.

This leaves me with 37 points. I'm thinking of complementing him with Vader, for the synergy of ATC with Kylo Ren on whoever Chiraneua strips tokens from. So Vader with ATC and Engine upgrade brings me up to 97 points. What should I give Vader for his EPT? Is having an initiative bid worth it? If I have initiative I can give an enemy PS9 Blinded Pilot with Kylo Ren and Vader's attack, keeping them from attacking back, and if I don't have initiative I can arc dodge against enemy PS9s, so maybe it's a wash and I should just take Predator. Alternatively, what suggestions do you have for what I can run other than Vader? A specced out Defender? Triple academies?

I'd go with Lone Wolf over Predator. Easy to keep Vader away from RAC so it can proc and the defensive blank reroll is nice.

Another option would be to take Adaptability up to PS10 and then spend your remaining 3pts to put prockets on Vader. Another EPT consideration for Vader would be Determination to thwart Kylo's twin from trying the same ISYTDS shenanigans.

Juke is also reasonable since HotCop RAC should be stripping Focus before Vader shoots.

Outmaneuver might also be a good choice for an ept

You actually have only 35 points because you NEED Dauntless title to make that Kylo RAC work properly.

RAC then has two options as you engage the enemy: 1) arc-dodge. 2) bump one ship, use Dauntless to put IYSYTDS on another (blinded). That leaves 2 enemies unable to shoot RAC that turn.

So, at that point, you could run VI on Vader, but its a waste since any ship moving after Vader can be fixed with damaged cockpit from Kylo. So with that in mind, the best option imho would be to drop VI off RAC and replace it with Adaptability. Then you can put Lone Wolf on Vader (the best EPT for him).

Now having said all that, I have run Decimator + Vader quite a lot (and successfully----I just finished 3rd at a tourney yesterday for example). And ultimately this build, no matter how you kit it out, will have a weakness against high agility token stackers that are able to kill RAC before you can bring the fight down to a 1v1. Vader would be able to handle it if you could achieve that (thanks to damaged cockpit), but it can be a very uphill battle getting to that point against a strong player that knows what RAC wants to do.

My only loss yesterday was against triple defenders (the bane of this list).

I gotta say juke on vader in this build is super sweet. It makes his offense super beast and the one point bid is nice. I have to warn you though, without dauntless title bumping can ruin your shenanigans

I Ran a very similar build this weekend at a regional I had

Rac: vi eu title gunner hotshot kylo

Ryad: juke twin ion x7

My evaluation was that bumping plus kylo can be an amazing tool against quad tlt and things that are tough to beat even with Kylo

Also I found vi gave me no real advantages that qualified it over predator. I seriously rolled 3 hits against a ship I needed to Kylo, and things like that happened all tournament. I went 3 and 3 (one being thug life with mux...not fun but I did kill half his list before dying)

I think for all matches over all, jax is the wingman you want and just dump 66 points into rac

Predator, title, eu gunner vader kylo

Jax: ptl hull autothrusters

If your doing kylo you really shout do this, I love hot shot but it's really better on like Vader rac, with kylo, you need predator and your gonna want vader crew to help bleed any anti kylo cards out...because I ran into chewie crew on one match I lost and we'll yeah it would have been nice to bleed that out first.

Just my two cents