Boarding Actions: Do those really happen?
- Thread starter Shadowfax
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far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I'm don't think either is required of you, yet. And I hope neither will be in this thread.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
Any discussion using modern day, or past, or future examples should also consider this:
A group of bank robbers holed up in the bank surrounded by authorities is nothing like a situation in Traveller where a ship can just jump and disappear. In one case you can wait them out and try negotiating, in the other you need to act quick or just wave goodbye.
Because of this, I can see how a fire first mentality is possible in some TU's. I personally can't see how any government could maintain control over a vast territory without an 'iron fist'.
This does not always mean 'violence', but it does usually require some means of 'force'.
I'll let you figure that one out for yourself while I decide if I should withhold your allowance or spank you for being argumentative children.
:devil:
A group of bank robbers holed up in the bank surrounded by authorities is nothing like a situation in Traveller where a ship can just jump and disappear. In one case you can wait them out and try negotiating, in the other you need to act quick or just wave goodbye.
Because of this, I can see how a fire first mentality is possible in some TU's. I personally can't see how any government could maintain control over a vast territory without an 'iron fist'.
This does not always mean 'violence', but it does usually require some means of 'force'.
I'll let you figure that one out for yourself while I decide if I should withhold your allowance or spank you for being argumentative children.
:devil:
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PathfinderAP
SOC-12
No, not at all, I did not mind a repy,
However, I did not like that the reply implied that I could not reply due to being wrong.
He was playing on the fact I said I would not reply...
Not only is that not true, I don't even understand what part of my post it is that would score any points (whatever kind of points you're imagining) by your failure to reply.
Care to elucidate?
Hans
PathfinderAP
SOC-12
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
Please, could off topic personal communique between two people be taken to PM?
Since Pathfinder evidently don't have a case to present, I'm done anyway, but on general principles I don't consider public allegations of wrongdoing a subject for private messages, nor off-topic for the thread wherein they were made.
Hans
Hello Folks,
Having read through a large portion of the thread - coming lately to the thread as I am, I sort of skipped through the last perhaps third of the thread...
That having been said, a few thoughts occur to me having read the material as far as I did.
People who play wargames in the "now" moment, tend to lose sight of the fact that life is never (or shouldn't be!) only a "Now moment". There are things that led up to the now moment, and there will be things that come AFTER the now moment further down the road. Take for an example, the prospect of being able to board a ship and capture her. If the ship is captured relatively intact, it becomes a prize, and probably sold to the government as a prize - with prize money going to the crew that captured her. Regardless of the state of the captured ship, her worth to the government will be something - if only as a chance to compare notes on how this ship is versus what is expected. Any technological innovations being used in this prize will be made note of and passed onto naval office of intelligence.
A lot of variables are involved in juggling how an "encounter" will proceed. A naval officer who refuses to engage in wholesale slaughter of a suspected pirate ship might engage in what in retrospect, will end up in a career ending debacle. On the other hand, perhaps one of the passengers aboard a pirate captured tramp freighter is so important that the navy or police force can not risk destroying the craft for fear of killing that VIP.
And if that isn't enough to consider, imagine having to be a commanding officer at a court marshal investigating whether or not the loss of your ship was circumstances beyond your control, or whether or not you are guilty of extreme negligence and dereliction of duty.
Successful pirates are the ones who do their bit, and run like hell so as not to get caught. They should make every effort to avoid plying their trade in places where they will get caught. They should also make every attempt to facilitate their act of piracy in such a fashion so as not to engender "heroics" by their victims. One can only wonder what the general response will be, to a Starship captain, who, rather than accept being attacked by pirates and/or being boarded, initiates a jump within 100 planetary diameters of a stellar body (planet or star)? Might his llicense be revoked? Might insurance companies raise his insurance premiums? Might they stop coverage altogether?
These are issues that each GM will have to decide upon for their own campaign. But wait, there is more <g>. But that I'll save for the next post.
Having read through a large portion of the thread - coming lately to the thread as I am, I sort of skipped through the last perhaps third of the thread...
That having been said, a few thoughts occur to me having read the material as far as I did.
People who play wargames in the "now" moment, tend to lose sight of the fact that life is never (or shouldn't be!) only a "Now moment". There are things that led up to the now moment, and there will be things that come AFTER the now moment further down the road. Take for an example, the prospect of being able to board a ship and capture her. If the ship is captured relatively intact, it becomes a prize, and probably sold to the government as a prize - with prize money going to the crew that captured her. Regardless of the state of the captured ship, her worth to the government will be something - if only as a chance to compare notes on how this ship is versus what is expected. Any technological innovations being used in this prize will be made note of and passed onto naval office of intelligence.
A lot of variables are involved in juggling how an "encounter" will proceed. A naval officer who refuses to engage in wholesale slaughter of a suspected pirate ship might engage in what in retrospect, will end up in a career ending debacle. On the other hand, perhaps one of the passengers aboard a pirate captured tramp freighter is so important that the navy or police force can not risk destroying the craft for fear of killing that VIP.
And if that isn't enough to consider, imagine having to be a commanding officer at a court marshal investigating whether or not the loss of your ship was circumstances beyond your control, or whether or not you are guilty of extreme negligence and dereliction of duty.
Successful pirates are the ones who do their bit, and run like hell so as not to get caught. They should make every effort to avoid plying their trade in places where they will get caught. They should also make every attempt to facilitate their act of piracy in such a fashion so as not to engender "heroics" by their victims. One can only wonder what the general response will be, to a Starship captain, who, rather than accept being attacked by pirates and/or being boarded, initiates a jump within 100 planetary diameters of a stellar body (planet or star)? Might his llicense be revoked? Might insurance companies raise his insurance premiums? Might they stop coverage altogether?
These are issues that each GM will have to decide upon for their own campaign. But wait, there is more <g>. But that I'll save for the next post.
I wonder what the tensile strength of a cable made of collapsium would be like? I also wonder what might happen if a ship with a higher agility and higher speed than the target ship - were to deploy a collision net in front of the evading ship? Put another way? It is one thing to engage in behaivor out of desperation to avoid a given outcome. It is entirely different for a craft to engage in behavior that will inflict damage to itself if it can be avoided. Constantly dropping little chunks of debris in front of the fleeing craft will require that the craft devote the bulk of its manuever capability to avoiding the obstacles no?
Then we have the other question...
What would happen if you had say four ships with operational repulsor bays? Could say, four such vessels assume a relative position to the craft trying to dodge, and use their pressor beams to force the craft to behave in a specific and predictable manner? Can three do it? What about two? Just a thought.
Then we have the other question...
What would happen if you had say four ships with operational repulsor bays? Could say, four such vessels assume a relative position to the craft trying to dodge, and use their pressor beams to force the craft to behave in a specific and predictable manner? Can three do it? What about two? Just a thought.
Oh yes, and how I love it when the players forget this sort of thing. It can cause all sorts of interesting events to start turning on a single misstep.
For example: last Saturday night's session involved the players in thier on-going tradewar as privateers. The world they were getting tanked up on had the two opposing megacorps staring daggers at eachother across the starport fields and since both sides were balanced in escort ships there was a sort of truce going on till the odds changed. And the corporate factor on the players' side didn't want to stir the pot even though the players' arrival had changed the odds in his favor.
To make along story short the players wanted to capture an ore carrier making a run for the jump point while the other side was outnumbered, the corporate factor refused to allow his security ships to help them, the players got thier ship shot up, one PC killed, 4 NPC's killed - but they managed to capture the ore carrier and the escort.
One problem: they forgot to declare themselves ("run up the flag") when they boarded the freighter. They had declared themselves to be working for the freighter's side when they started maneuvering out and asked the captain if he could take on a cargo for them that was bound for where the freighter was headed. So when the airlock opened and the players charged in with guns a-blazing they forgot they needed to declare who they were prior to actually docking.
When they landed there were all sorts of problems: the factor arrested them as pirates and for disobeying his order to not attack, the other company filed complaints of piracy, and on and on...
In the end their patron (the one who got them the letter of marque) had to come and help save their necks, but fines were levied, they lost the prizes, and they harmed the cause of their side.
Yet the players were outraged at me for all this! I had to spend a lot of time explaining the whys and wherefores, right down to printing out (again, they are always losing this sort of thing) their letter of marque and pointing out the clear rules within it. They eventually calmed down, and once they found they weren't going to be hanged after all settled back into the spirit of the game and started joking about it, but sheesh...try to inject just a little realistic cause and effect for purposes of game reality and dramatic fun and look what can happen.
One of my favorite story nuggets in Traveller concerns a situation just like this: the final action of the AHL Bard Endeavour in the closing days of the Solomani Rim War, as described in Azhanti High Lightning. The Bard Endeavour was the core of a commerce raiding task force that was finally run to ground by a superior Solomani force. Mortally wounded and in a decaying orbit about a small planet, with most of the crew having abandoned ship, the Solomani tried to board her with a volunteer force with the intent of micro-jumping her away to safety (possibly the first mention of sub-parsec jumps in canon). Why? In part because the AHL cruisers had a state-of-the art particle accelerator spinal mount, and the Sollies wanted that technology.
The Sollies had three objectives - disable the fighter tubes (accomplished), take the auxiliary brdige (check) and secure the engineering spaces. However, the few remaining crew and Marines managed to prevent the capture of the engineering spaces, so the Sollies extracted codes and intel data from the aux bridge and departed.
"Three hours lataer the Imperial Fleet Intruder Bard Endeavour, with 43 of her defenders still aboard, suffered catastrophic reentry into the atmosphere of Kagukhasaggan 2." - Azhanti High Lighting, page 27
I've long thought that the last fight of the Bard Endeavour would make an awesome movie.
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IMTU they do happen. I look forward to reading all 12+ pages of the thread a bit later but here are a few of the ideas I use or postulate to make them happen.
1. Grappling a ship with functioning M drive can be done, but it's near suicide if you haven't burned off the "sensors" or can jam them. Burn off, computer 0, jamming make a roll comp diff modifer to appropriate skill. Even in the best situation you need higher agility (diff mods the roll) and you use a grappnel at very, very, very short range (Gunnery roll ti hit) and reel yourself in. IMTU such grappnels guns take 1 ton. Since these are not stellar combat range weapons they don't count against hard points.
2. Even then, you got to burn through a hole, IMTU a special 1 ton point blank range plasma cutter is used. Defenders may have time to deploy and on any merchant worth their salt you'll face a crew served weapon set-up. So burning through requires speed to work best, another skill roll. However, on military grade installations the plasma cutter is part of an integrated breach creating unit and can be used to shoot into the ship as well. Since these are not stellar combat range weapons they don't count against hard points. Of course if your caught with one of these you'll be tried as a pirate.
3. Most opposed boarding attempts will use two boarding craft, to better disperse the defenders.
4. Interior fights are often not limited in weapon choices, big guns and explosives are used. No one's worried about holes after the ship-to-ship fight. IMTU only in a few areas will hits by heavy personal weapons cripple the ship or worse. So boarders typically burn through internal hull to the command center and engineering. The primary goal on military boarding is to disable self destruct capability, by (1) frying/hacking the comp and any other remote means, (2) physically securing and disabling manual means, (3) securing the engine room to prevent drive oveload.
5. IMTU life is cheap to most polities and the warrior culture high so taking military boarders hostage after you surrender, really not much good is to come of it. Marines are prepared to die in boarding fights and for the cause. If the cause means your own blow the ship up so it can't escape, so be it.
6. With respect to pirate boarding, IMTU there are certain understandings and codes of conduct about it, especially since much piracy is privateering. You can agree to cease ship fire and agree to be boarded but can still fight back. If things are going badly you can still surrender and expect to not be slaughtered, IF you turn over the ship codes. Likewise, if a pirate surrenders you are expected to accept it, but you can fairly ransom him back to his comrades. The only enforcement is reputation and if word gets out you didn't follow the code then prizes will fight to the death and you may find your letter of marque revoked.
1. Grappling a ship with functioning M drive can be done, but it's near suicide if you haven't burned off the "sensors" or can jam them. Burn off, computer 0, jamming make a roll comp diff modifer to appropriate skill. Even in the best situation you need higher agility (diff mods the roll) and you use a grappnel at very, very, very short range (Gunnery roll ti hit) and reel yourself in. IMTU such grappnels guns take 1 ton. Since these are not stellar combat range weapons they don't count against hard points.
2. Even then, you got to burn through a hole, IMTU a special 1 ton point blank range plasma cutter is used. Defenders may have time to deploy and on any merchant worth their salt you'll face a crew served weapon set-up. So burning through requires speed to work best, another skill roll. However, on military grade installations the plasma cutter is part of an integrated breach creating unit and can be used to shoot into the ship as well. Since these are not stellar combat range weapons they don't count against hard points. Of course if your caught with one of these you'll be tried as a pirate.
3. Most opposed boarding attempts will use two boarding craft, to better disperse the defenders.
4. Interior fights are often not limited in weapon choices, big guns and explosives are used. No one's worried about holes after the ship-to-ship fight. IMTU only in a few areas will hits by heavy personal weapons cripple the ship or worse. So boarders typically burn through internal hull to the command center and engineering. The primary goal on military boarding is to disable self destruct capability, by (1) frying/hacking the comp and any other remote means, (2) physically securing and disabling manual means, (3) securing the engine room to prevent drive oveload.
5. IMTU life is cheap to most polities and the warrior culture high so taking military boarders hostage after you surrender, really not much good is to come of it. Marines are prepared to die in boarding fights and for the cause. If the cause means your own blow the ship up so it can't escape, so be it.
6. With respect to pirate boarding, IMTU there are certain understandings and codes of conduct about it, especially since much piracy is privateering. You can agree to cease ship fire and agree to be boarded but can still fight back. If things are going badly you can still surrender and expect to not be slaughtered, IF you turn over the ship codes. Likewise, if a pirate surrenders you are expected to accept it, but you can fairly ransom him back to his comrades. The only enforcement is reputation and if word gets out you didn't follow the code then prizes will fight to the death and you may find your letter of marque revoked.
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I know. That's why it is an IMTU thing but it's good clarify. IMTU boarding proceeds the same way when M drive is zero, it's just very, easy to grappel the target. And all this detail is just for PC level ship combat not fleet level.
Same here, I can't imagine having a couple of 200kt battlecruisers trying to board each other under power like a pair of old ship of the line, but I also can't imagine not having it happen with player-crewed ships farther down on the "adventure scale" . Its too much fun.
-----------------Ok, good explanation - fair enough. = )
----------------------Eh, space is big. They can't watch everything everywhere. I think Piracy would be pretty common and would be a big problem. I remember playing 5th Frontier War and how hard it was to meet the enemy fleet. Even if they were one system away and you thought you knew where they were heading it was often very difficult to intercept. I think pirate hunting warships from the Imperium would have similar problems tracking down Vargr pirates.
-----------------------Fair enough.
------------------Yeah, IMTU we put "bounty hunters" in they track people, but they also work as repo-men for banks and insurance companies tracking down "lost" ships and people who have skipped.
----------------I don't necessarily agree here, but its YTU in this case. IMHO or better said IMTU all this will depend on how desperate the crew and boarders are, how delicate the cargo (if present) is, and I certainly think that pirates are going to try to minimize damage to the ship - if possible. They want that ship. Its worth a lot. Sure, you can patch a hull pretty quick. I am sure that they have something for that, but the bridge is going to have a lot of sensitive instruments and such that you won't want to destroy - once again IF POSSIBLE. If Pirates are boarding a merchant I think that they will:
a) Try to have as much beforehand knowledge about the ship, its cargo, its armaments etc. before attempting to take it.
b) Most probably will have some people of their own on board if possible (this also facilitates 'a' above).
c)Will try not to use weapons that damage the ship too much.
d) Will try to negotiate a surrender with the crew if possible.
e) Will try to drag the ship away and besiege it before attempting a costly boarding action if they are unable to negotiate a deal or take the ship by deceit.
-------------With the feudal system being in place there is an agrument to be made for pirates taking experienced crews and demanding ransoms. IMTU Life is not quite as cheap as in yours. Sure, if the marines board a pirate they are probably going to kill a lot of them, but they will try to take a few prisoners to learn more about the pirate clan's operations. I agree with you though that the Imperial Navy and Marines are probably pretty hard on pirates.
----------------------Yeah, I agree with you here. I could even see that there might be some formalized boarding "rules". Maybe even some duels to resolve certain situations. Of course, I wouldn't expect the pirates to keep their word. Still, there might be some "honorable" pirates or privateers out there.
-----------------I don't know about ransoming pirates back to their comrades. I suppose it would depend on the gang. Some of them might be like the mafia and try to kill captured comrades so that they have no chance of squealing. I could see the Imperial Navy arranging hostage and prisoner exchanges. "We'll give you your captain 'black-jack' back if you release the crew of the Artemis." Yet, in most cases I bet the Imperium has a hard policy toward pirates and those marines boarding a pirate ship are not going to hold back when it comes to the weapons that they use . . . unless of course the pirates are holding hostages.
--------------------In short, I guess IMTU it all depends on the situation.
-----------------------------Here-here! I agree whole-heartedly. There are not enough movies like that out there. Maybe we can get Peter Jackson to do it next! = )
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