Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader — Best Voidship Upgrades

When venturing into the unknown reaches of space, it’s always important to be ready. Indeed, you’ll want the best defenses, weapons, and mods for your ship. Here’s our guide on the best Voidship upgrades and skills in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader.

What are the Best Voidship Upgrades in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader?

The best Voidship upgrades or skills in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader are Reinforce Shields, Swing Run, Arc Augury, Expeditious Reload, and Shallow Jump. I suggest grabbing these when you can since these vastly improve the maneuverability and defensive capabilities of your vessel. Moreover, there are also ultimate abilities that can be unlocked down the line.

How to Select Voidship Upgrades and Ultimates

You can select the best Voidship upgrades in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader by pressing the “K” key (or platform equivalent) to bring up the Voidship panel. You can then click on the Upgrade tab to see the available options.

Bear in mind that each Voidship level/rank lets you choose two abilities. Then, at Level 4, you’ll be able to pick your first ultimate. I should also tell you not to worry about missing anything since, by the time I reached the late-game, I had most of the skills that I wanted. The game is fairly generous in that regard.

Best Maneuverability and Warp Upgrades

The three options I suggest here are all about gaining the upper hand when it comes to positioning:

• Swing Run: Used in the acceleration phase; advance in a straight line and make a quick U-turn. The reason why I love this ability is because of instances when you have to turn at a wide arc, which means your torpedo and dorsal weapons might not be able to target an enemy ship. The U-turn maneuver from Swing Run lets you turn around swiftly to face your foes.
• Shallow Jump: Jump in a forward direction up to five cells. This is another option that lets you get into the thick of the fray when a target is out of range.
• Optional: Torpedo Control: The extra movement range might not seem much, but it can spell the difference between hitting a target immediately or wasting your torpedo.

Best Defensive and Offensive Upgrades

When it comes to offense and defense, these are my picks for the best Voidship skills in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader:

• Reinforce Shields: Select a sector of your shields (i.e. hull, starboard, port, or aft) and reinforce it until it takes damage. This is, without a doubt, the single most useful upgrade for your vessel. It allows you to pick a side of your ship, partially nullifying the damage that it would take. This has been an absolute lifesaver for me whenever I experienced space battles. There were times when I would move my ship around and then reinforce that side, knowing that the hostiles would likely shoot lasers and cannons from that direction.
• Arc Augury: Your next shot gains +2 extra range. Again, if you’re going to maneuver in space, you’re going to need more range if you want to land shots. Your port and starboard armaments usually have limited range, too.
• Expeditious Reload: Reloads all macro-cannons that were fired during the acceleration phase. There may be instances when you’d begin another round with enemies already near you. Since you’ll shoot them, you may as well reuse that action. This affects macro-cannon weapons regardless of the slot where they’re equipped.

Best Voidship Ultimate Abilities

You can select several Voidship ultimate abilities in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. Some of these do have basic skills that are also prerequisites, so keep those in mind. Likewise, ultimate abilities have a longer charge time, and they might not be immediately available on the next battle if you just recently used them:

• Silent Running I and II: Allows you to start your turn before most other warships. This is essentially the only way you can act before your opponents outside of the first turn of the encounter.
• Boarding Party: Send out a small ship with boarders, dealing damage to a target vessel and crippling it for one round. This has a 20-cell range, making it the best killer of heavily damaged ships since you don’t need to chase them down anymore.
• All Hands on Deck: Loads three torpedoes in one action. This just lets you plop out three torpedoes instead of one. While torpedoes are very iffy, having three flying around definitely evens the odds. Also, they make for a decent distraction, so hostiles won’t shoot you directly.
• Empyrean Storm: This is an AoE ability that uses Warp magic to damage enemies within a wide radius. Seven attacks are made against random opponents within the radius.
• Steady Hand I and II – Ship post abilities take anywhere from one to three turns before you’re able to use them again. These talents entail a chance of shortening the cooldown.

These are the best voidship upgrades in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader. Now that you know which abilities are ideal for your vessel, you might want to learn about which companions are suitable for each post. For other tips and tactics, you can check out our WH40K: RT guides hub.