First time going rogue, any tips?

[Khuzdul]

Started a hobbit rogue with the intent of going somewhere this time (hopefully). Just found Nimthanc on dlvl 1 so its looking alright, just curious as to what I should be aiming to do as a rogue, what my advantages are and what I should avoid. Any tips would be lovely.
Cheers x

[Mondkalb]

That dagger allows fast diving.
Everything with stealth is good to dive even further.
Problem is that you will usually have very low HPs for your depth, so you need to be stealthy and careful.
Once you have the detect objects spell you can go for the good stuff.

[Khuzdul]

Once you have the detect objects spell you can go for the good stuff.

I'm starting to grasp the idea of sneaking around to get the good stuff (detect objects is actually kind of amazing tbh), but I'm sort of lost in terms of my mid-end game. I've taken a mage-like approach to picking my fights, and taking out what I can, but without the spells of a mage, this is kinda hard (I'm almost doing a paladin-warrior like fighting style). Should I rely maining on getting good ranged attacks, or just wait for the serious finds to start showing?
Thanks again

[Mondkalb]

With any -thanc dagger you can kill pretty much everything on shallow levels to level up.
Later on, it depends. You can pick opponents with high rewards if you are sure that they are manageable.
Rods/wands of Light are always useful to get rid of a whole bunch of orcs and trolls which are vulnarable to light.

With high stealth it is also possible to take out groups one by one without the others awakening. You can retreat to heal up.

Wands and rods of teleport other are extremely useful to get rid of very dangerous monsters or shriekers and breathers.

Fighting style depends on what you are getting, a good launcher and ammo can do a lot, also wands and rods. When I have a good melee weapon I ready up for fights with potions of heroism and berserk strength. The orc uniques often require additional phase door and shooting.

When the opponents start to get too dangerous I almost simply dive, detect and grab, just to get better equipment and better stats.

[Pete Mack]

Yup. Pick your fights carefully. Your comparison to mage is a good one. And dive hard. Nimthanc and a good bow will take you to DL 40 without much trouble.