Customs

[Blue Ghost]

Okay.

This has been bugging me for over 20 years now.

When jumping into a system, in YTU, do you use custom's inspections? And if so is the ship in question (presumably the players' ship) given the once over before reaching orbit, in orbit, or after planetfall?

Do you, or have you ever, used customs? What did the authorities do with all the military and paramility hardware stashed behind the girlie mags in the ship's locker?

 

[Laryssa]

Only on civilized planets.

What if the planet's populations falls within these ranges

Population
0 = 0 to 9
1 = 10 to 99
2 = 100 to 999
3 = 1000 to 9999
4 = 10,000 to 99,999
5 = 100,000 to 999,999
6 = 1,000,000 to 9,999,999
7 = 10,000,000 to 99,999,999
8 = 100,000,000 to 999,999,999
9 = 1,000,000,000 to 9,999,999,999
A = 10,000,000,000 to 99,999,999,999

Lets say you land on a planet with a population of 0, I imagine that with a population of 9, those nine people would have better things to do than inspect starships. Also what's to prevent that pesky starship from landing on the other side of the planet?

Also, at what population level does Customs begin to matter, or even government for that matter.

Suppose you landed on a planet with 100 people, and the government type was a dictatorship with a Law Level of C, so you land on the otherside of the planet from the settlement and Star port with 100 people, and you begin testing nuclear warheads that you brought along on your spaceship and nobody bothered to inspect. Bomb after bomb goes off, meanwhile the dictator rules his little settlement with an iron fist completely oblivious of what's going on.

Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, the crew of the Starship starts drawing unflattering pictures of the planet's dictator, and the captian of the ship then proclaims himself ruler of the whole planet and announces that the planet's dictator is a dumbass, and starts using his picture for target practice. The planet's dictator is completely unaware of what's happening on the far side of this planet. A planet is a big place, meanwhile the ship hasn't paid import taxes on the cargo its unloading.

Does the term planetary government have any meaning for a planet whose population is 100?

How about 1,000, could a planet with 1,000 people have a planetary government?

How about 10,000? or 100,000?

At what point do the player characters who land their ship on the planet's surface have to start paying attention to the planet's laws, government and customs?

Now if the PC don't like to pay starport fees, what if they just land their ship on some other part of the planet for free?

 

[far-trader]

It depends

All answers are IMTU of course...

Used to be if I rolled a Naval ship encounter then it was usually the IN boys to haul you to for an inspection for Imperial reasons. So that would be right out around the 100d mark. Inbound or out.

If not then a law level check upon clearance for landing or lifting meant a visit from the locals to insure you weren't breaking any local laws vis-a-vis import/export restrictions. Which more often than not was just an excuse to extort a kickback if you were leaving. If you were arriving the contraband would be held in a secure warehouse until you left, for a fee of course.

Never did hassles in orbit unless the ship strayed from its assigned vector.

For the most part as long as any contraband stays on the ship during your stay, and the ship stays within the Starport or its cleared vector between the port and 100d then the locals won't hassle you much barring the law level check.

For the IN, about all they care about is if you have really heavy stuff without cause, things like BattleDress and associated heavy energy weapons will spell trouble if you can't show the right license. A few ACRs and some light body armor? No big deal. Grenades? They might confiscate them as a hazard if it's a passenger ship and warn you that explosives are for the professionals. Nukes will get you slapped in a prison transport lowberth so fast you'll swear you saw them marching you into the chill brig from inside the casket.

I think we were usually more worried about them finding the girlie mags hidden behind all the guns

 

[Golan2072]

The Solar Triumvirate (IMTU, which ISN'T the OTU) doesn't have import or export tariffs between worlds (as those would hurt the megacorps, which are a very powerful political force in the Triumvirate), but does inspect ship from time to time for illegal cargoes (drugs, slaves, weapons, fissable material, bioweapons). Of those, any weapons are only illegal if they are in a large quantity - the Triumvirate realizes that ship crews have to defend themselves from piracy from time to time and thus allows two longarms, two handguns/SMGs and four melee weapons per commercial ship crewmember - and a Mercenary License or an Arms Dealer License could be aquired if you pass the right background checks.

 

[mike wightman]

I liked the wording in first edition CT for patrol ship encounters:

Patrols may be simple border pickets, or may be a form of pirate, extracting tolls or penalties.

So if you encounter a patrol ship it amy leave you alone after checking your transponder, it may board you to carry out a customs check, or it may do the latter but find deliberate faults that require on the spot fines...

 

[Pickles]

I would also add that customs harassment and extortion is likely to be proportional to the influence of the visting ship's owners. Even an underpaid backwater dictatorship's customs officer is going to think twice about pressing too hard for a bribe fom a megacorp captain. A rag-tag bunch of adventurers in their 50-year old type A, now they're a different proposition ...

 

[Icosahedron]

I tend to base customs on Starport rating rather than population - Port E or X, no hassle.
I use a patrol boat and harbour pilot principle: most ships will be expected, thanks to a filed flight plan; unexpected visitors are required by law (stiff penalties) to declare themselves and await the patrol beyond combat range of the planet. A suitably sized party of officers then performs a cursory (or not-so-cursory) search of the ship, puts any illegal weapons in the turrets/weapon bays and then seals off the weapons (stiff penalties for breaking seals). The harbour pilot then lands the ship, and a guard detail keeps an eye on the ship 'as a courtesy measure'.
If your 100 people are employees of a megacorp mining outpost with a D port they may well have a customs patrol, if they are barbarians on a Port X world your megalomania can revel.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Every so often I'll throw in an inspection, just to keep the party paranoid

Sometimes it's just an SDB making a visual flypast, occasionally they'll come aboard and check IDs etc.

 

[mike wightman]

I use a lot of smallcraft in the customs inspection role, cutters and pinnaces being the usual since they are large enough to hold a decent sized boarding party, and enough weaponry to make a merchant ship think twice.

Borrowing from TNE and adding a weapons module to a modular cutter (fusion gun or particle accelerator being my favourite options) makes for quite an effective stop-and-search encounter.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Never used anything bigger than a 400dton SDB, IMTU, but Like Sigg, the mainstay was the smaller fry 95-10dt spacecraft..usually with their big sister lurking nearby..

 

[Pickles]

Agreed on the use of small vessels for customs inspecion. I believe the intimidation should come from the state behind the customs inspectors, not necessarily the customs vessel itself.

By 'intimidation' I don't just mean the threat of violence, but the fact that if ships want to deal with the world, they will want to comply with local 'space law'.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

I use the reaction table - seven or above can be a cursory manifest check to a simple "Welcome to _______" message from the SDB, fighter, or small craft, while 6 or less can be a rigorous inspection to "special tariff collection" to an outright attack.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Some great thoughts and perspectives. Thanks guys

 

[kafka47]

Customs packets are rarely deployed save on high protectionist worlds IMTU. Otherwise, most of what customs job is to examine the Cargo Data form from Merchant Prince. This is then verified with a scan of RFID frequencies placed on the Cargo containers. Tampering with either is considered a crime by the Imperium.

On the approach to the planetside, the SPA scans the ship again to check out compliance. Carrying 50ktns of Cargo yet our scans show 55. Might be time for an inspection.

Contraband is strictly forbidden. Meaning the risk to the players are great if they carry it. Does not stop and I usually try to referee the situation. If they are especially clever, they get rewarded. If they are stupid, like just false bottoms and easy stuff like that, they get caught.

It is the ultimate threat that something innocent could also be contraband, your example of girlie magazines fits that bill. Once I ran an adventure, when that was the case. The whole cargo was subjected to a torch a la Faherheit 451 by the torch patrol (akin to the firemen). Only later in the adventure, did they learn that the shipment was destined to high ranking officials in the Religious Dictatorship.

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
I liked the wording in first edition CT for patrol ship encounters:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Patrols may be simple border pickets, or may be a form of pirate, extracting tolls or penalties.

So if you encounter a patrol ship it amy leave you alone after checking your transponder, it may board you to carry out a customs check, or it may do the latter but find deliberate faults that require on the spot fines... </font>[/QUOTE]Transponders (and livery) can be spoofed; as a player, I always insist on confirmation of the patrol's ident from the downport or nearest local naval facility via secure comm. If that's not forthcoming, the "patrol" is assumed to be corsair and hostile. If a trustworthy base is out of range, then the "patrol" is out of its jurisdiction and will be informed of that fact and warned off. But hey, even I get boarded sometimes...

Note that politely heaving to and patiently waiting for the patrol to be properly vetted by ground authorities is not a "hostile" act; forcing one's way onto a non-hostile vessel in order to "inspect" it without first establishing due authorization is. Extrality, and all that...

Also, note that inspection parties are prone to get twitchy if the hosts display more than a snub pistol upon welcoming them aboard. Fortunately, snub pistols also come in autopistol models and can fire HEAP rounds, so that's a useful equalizer...

IMTU, customs only occur on vessels that make planetfall, or wish to transfer cargo on-orbit, or otherwise make use of starport facilities. (Exceptions occur for vessels that wish to visit military installations; they are inspected quite thoroughly before they're even allowed to approach.) Typically IMTU, navies are really only concerned about ships toting nukes inside the ten-diameter limit (as there are no IRoW IMTU); anything else (short of a major safety infraction that makes the vessel a hazard to others) is a matter for the starport staff to address once the vessel is parked. Items which are not intended to leave the ship (typically ship's locker goodies and precious cargo destined for somewhere else) are not subject to local import restrictions so long as they remain onboard. Again, extrality is the crux here...

 

[Lochlaber]

1. If you enter an Imperial syste, the only people who can intercept you outside planetary orbit is the Imperial Navy. Don't forget that 'officially' no planetary government has any legal authority past orbit.

2. Nor can the planet require information on your cargo, if you land at an Imperial Starport since it too has is beyond local interference. However it is a good idea to let people know because you can't sell what they don't know about.

Of course this all changes if you enter a non-Imperial system. They can meet you at the 100d line and request/require a complete download of your entire ship's contents, passenger lists and of course ship's papers, etc. and you better provide them.

Now you don't always meet a real customs patrol. Twice I've had a 'customs patrol' intercept my players when they came in and demanded a download of the cargo. The players did not realize that the 6g cutter got back to the planet way before them and the local merchants divied up their cargo and set the prices they would pay, i.e. giant minuses to their sell rolls. The merchant who usually got profits of 200-400%, actually got below 100% quite a few times. He would have lost money if he hdn't bought at 30%.

In My Shared TU, most planets outside the Imperium but close neighbors, tend to put satellites outside the 100d limit, which would provide a listing of forbidden items, etc., long before the ship made orbit.

Now if you are running a real customs patrol, you don't want anything too big. Historically, most
merchant captains don't exactly like seeing a ship with 30+ armed men wanting to board for a customs inspections, it is more likely these are pirates. On my ship, any attempt for a non-navy inspection crew in those numbers will be met at the airlock by a remote robot telling them that they are welcome, if they leave their weapons and armor behind. If they insist upon coming in, a few dozen rounds of 30mm cannon fire AP-8 erupts from behind the masking bulkhead, tends to make them more agreable (paste).

As far as my crew standing down from their weapons, it isn't going to happen. I have security crew just to escort any such visitors around my ship. I will admit however that 30 triple turrets and a particle weapon bay on my ship, tend to ensure that I have few problems with 'fake' customs patrols.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I guess what I'm really curious about is this;

In a war zone mercenaries, to my mind, are expected to have certain kinds and amounts of equipment. Even in a non-warzone; say a frontier area that's being settled, I think that heavily armed merchants and other private interests would not be uncommon (not unlike historical precedence during the age of sail).

But what happens when that mercenary group decides that it's time to head back home, and say the majority of them are from Terra, and want to high tail it back across the Imperium from the Spinward Marches, as was the case many years ago with a group whose adventures I ran.

Imagine a heavily armed mercenary cruiser packing a heavily armed merc company trying to jump from class A starport to class A starport across the Imperium.

Somehow I just can't picture them being given a free pass; i.e. "Ohhhh," said the inspector, "you're a mercenary group, which is why you have high energy personal weapons, gauss-rifles with M-203s slung underneath, high-tech derivatives of BD and CA. That's okay, then... as long as you're not pirates. I mean, you're not pirates... are you?"

Even with things like licenses and seals over weapons' cabinets, lockers and other military and/or weaponry paraphanalia, to my mind, it would seem that a government like the Imperium simply wouldn't allow it in most of the empire.

What do you all think?

 

[Icosahedron]

Originally posted by Blue Ghost:
I guess what I'm really curious about is this;

In a war zone mercenaries, to my mind, are expected to have certain kinds and amounts of equipment. Even in a non-warzone; say a frontier area that's being settled, I think that heavily armed merchants and other private interests would not be uncommon (not unlike historical precedence during the age of sail).

But what happens when that mercenary group decides that it's time to head back home, and say the majority of them are from Terra, and want to high tail it back across the Imperium from the Spinward Marches, as was the case many years ago with a group whose adventures I ran.

Imagine a heavily armed mercenary cruiser packing a heavily armed merc company trying to jump from class A starport to class A starport across the Imperium.

Somehow I just can't picture them being given a free pass; i.e. "Ohhhh," said the inspector, "you're a mercenary group, which is why you have high energy personal weapons, gauss-rifles with M-203s slung underneath, high-tech derivatives of BD and CA. That's okay, then... as long as you're not pirates. I mean, you're not pirates... are you?"

Even with things like licenses and seals over weapons' cabinets, lockers and other military and/or weaponry paraphanalia, to my mind, it would seem that a government like the Imperium simply wouldn't allow it in most of the empire.

What do you all think?

This was exactly my thinking in my post on the previous page. There is always the threat of terrorism. Even a small ship with a few 250MW turret lasers can do a lot of damage to a starport. Remember Pearl Harbour? I don't think ships would be allowed to approach even a small and outlying starport with functioning weapons, let alone a major shipyard and population centre, and by the time the ship is in range of a customs patrol, it is also in communication with the starport space traffic control who can quickly confirm or deny the ID of a suspicious customs boat. And the customs men don't even need to be armed. No-one in their right mind is going to attack a customs boarding party. You don't want to bring that sort of trouble down on your head.
BTW I don't use the OTU setting at all, so maybe that explains a few differences IMTU.

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by Blue Ghost:
Even with things like licenses and seals over weapons' cabinets, lockers and other military and/or weaponry paraphanalia, to my mind, it would seem that a government like the Imperium simply wouldn't allow it in most of the empire.

What do you all think?

The 3I has a very trade-friendly policy, and bear in mind that mercenaries and other paramilitary units (cf. Al Morai's "route protectors", Tukera's Vemene, and the whole respected institution of Tradewar) are a central part of 3I's interstellar culture.

There is no Law Level in interstellar space, only the Imperial Rules of War apply, and they only explicitly prohibit nuclear weapons (although bay weapons may be frowned upon, cf. Oberlindes' Emissary vs. any of the other decommissioned Lightnings in commercial service).

Other than thunderballs, there is no "contraband" as such in space. Something's only contraband when one tries to take it across the XT line in violation of local laws.

The only other thing an IN patrol might be looking for is a hijacked/skipped ship; they'll sweep the hold for radioactive telltales, but they're probably more interested in the ship's logs & title.

And as mentioned previously, if a ship has a "malfunctioning" transponder or equipment which might render it unsafe and/or a hazard to other vessels, that would present a problem worthy of IN involvement.

But the 600 suits of battledress and the 4 mass-driver howitzers in the hold? Like it says right here in the documentation, that's just freight and personal effects, lieutenant...

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by Icosahedron:
This was exactly my thinking in my post on the previous page. There is always the threat of terrorism. Even a small ship with a few 250MW turret lasers can do a lot of damage to a starport. Remember Pearl Harbour? I don't think ships would be allowed to approach even a small and outlying starport with functioning weapons, let alone a major shipyard and population centre, and by the time the ship is in range of a customs patrol, it is also in communication with the starport space traffic control who can quickly confirm or deny the ID of a suspicious customs boat. And the customs men don't even need to be armed. No-one in their right mind is going to attack a customs boarding party. You don't want to bring that sort of trouble down on your head.
BTW I don't use the OTU setting at all, so maybe that explains a few differences IMTU.

This is a concern IMTU as well.

I see it as a primary role for planetary defenses: making sure vessels stay in their assigned and restricted flightlanes, maintain constant commo link with traffic control, and keep fire control systems offline. This is enforced by starport defenses and/or the High Guard. Vessels which misbehave are promptly shot down; black boxes and any miraculously-surviving personnel are interrogated after the fact to possibly determine what happened.

I've been doing it that way for over a decade now...

Ditto the unarmed boarding party well within range of the starport; a little body armor might be prudent (or a vacc suit at least), but firearms aren't appropriate to what should be a purely administrative process. Snub pistols (with gas or tranq) maybe, for the truly paranoid... but that's the limit.