Help me outfit my Bolt Raptor

[extinctinthewild]

I'm a mid to late game merchant and I'd like to spend my mostly legitimately-gotten gains on a fast, sleek warship. I've outfitted a Bolt Raptor (currently with a Traveler engine) but need help determining the weapons loadout.

I definitely have four slots to dedicate to weapons. I can be flexible with one or two more if I am careful about mass. If I really need to, I could try to free up a medium slot as well.

I have exactly one crew combat team, so I don't want to focus too much on boarding as my main strategy. What are some good options for weapons outfitting?

[spooky]

Is that a 24 Speed/24 Agility engine or other stats? A high speed ship excels at long range ship combat (range 4-5 & uses Speed as Strong Dice) so one option is to go for a setup like 2xMissile + 1xTorpedo, or 4xTorpedo to use all 8 Reactor Points (RP) a turn . Missiles will do more hull damage while Torps will apply more debuffs in general. I tested 2xMissile + 1xTorp on my Spy Captain's Corsair Interceptor (29 Speed/24 Agility engine) and did well on missions involving ship combat, but I did avoid all Xeno Ship fights via Skip off the Void.

[contributor]

4 torps is pretty effective, but the torp/missile mix gives you a bit more flexibility, especially is someone manages to start closing range on you. You could try the torp/missile mix and see how you like it and if you have any accuracy issues at range 5. One other thing to think about, if you're hoping to loot, 4 torps might be better as you have a better chance of leaving their ship intact.

[extinctinthewild]

Thanks to some advice from the discord channel, I actually ended up trying two railguns, only, and switching to a chaser engine. The rest of my small slots went to boost my dodge (pilot assist) and durability. My strategy is to focus on overlapping accuracy debuffs from the railgun cripple chance + bombardment talent, and then either slowly whittle them down or engage in crew combat. The weaknesses are 1) it takes forever to actually get their hull down because damage is low, and 2) the cost of the excellent accuracy debuff ability is that railguns have fairly poor internal damage, so I can't wear down crew hp very easily. If I sacrificed one more slot I could add a plasma cannon or something, but the chaser engines + high dodge means I can close for boarding easily, so I've decided to keep my current setup and build up my boarding team.

I successfully took down my first Xeno crusier via boarding with an exo-scout officer and three crew members yesterday. The Xeno cruiser was able to hit me with torpedoes as I closed but once I started applying the accuracy debuffs I got the situation under control.