Fleet Standard Close Escort?

[mbrinkhues]

Then there is a fourth group.

These players read some canon stuff like Reb Sourcebook and take the 640 fleets (320 Imperial and Reserve fleets each) with an average of 9 Squadrons(1) per fleet and simply assume that the IN assigns those ships mostly in groups. Assuming the typical 1/3 spread (Training-Transfer-Active) and quite a few heavy squadrons hanging around waiting for "The Enemy" that leaves few jump-capabel squads to mess around.

They can also interpret that book as including all J-Capabel warships in Imperial/Sector service and have most system squadrons be non-jump SDB's only covering their own system. And the Impies having to cover all the non starflight (TL systems around in the OTU

Simply using those canon numbers and the above interpretations reduces the fleet to a manageable level and leaves the various empty systems uncovered except for an occasional sweep by a roving patrol. And that is where the pirats wait for the Typ A and R freighters. With all the time in the universe.




(1) The book says 2-10 so 9 is actually high. As is assuming the Reserve fleet being fully active

 

[Whipsnade]

Then there is a fourth group. (snip of situation analysis)

Mike,

That's actually part of the middle ground I was talking about.

Among the usual Middle Ground assumptions are:

- A 'stretched' or 'distracted' or 'uncaring' Imperial Navy.
- Planetary navies limited in some fashion.
- The "larger" post-LBB:6 systems.
- The looser LBB:1 piracy description which allows for more historically accurate pirate activities than the far stricter S:3 description.

It all boils down to pirates doing many different things in many different places than just attacking/boarding/looting ships at the 100D jump limit of busy worlds.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[mbrinkhues]

Bill:

As said in an earlier post: If you do piracy at the 100D limit of an occupied TL9+ system, at least bribe Commodore I.N. Capabel.

Piracy never happened right in front of the coastal fortress unless the pirats happened to own that fortress (Barbary coast) nor near the main fleet bases and industrial centers. Piracy is for the remote border regions near the rebellious colonie (that buys the stolen goods) or another main power (that prevents the navy from chasing you)

What it needs in addition to ypur points is a slightly more complex setup than "single ship" since a save haven is needed for sales and repair. That in turn needs the "Shadow" of another large empire to protect the pirat state while providing a "deniable asset"

 

[Whipsnade]

As said in an earlier post: If you do piracy at the 100D limit of an occupied TL9+ system, at least bribe Commodore I.N. Capabel.

Mike,

If you have enough money and the political connections to bribe IN officers and local officials, looting the odd merchant ship is chump change for you. It's as if you're spending $100 in order to steal $1.

You're going to suborn officials when you've got something much bigger in the works, something so big that "piracy" is merely one part of it, and that something big is usually a corporate trade war.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[rancke]

Unless I'm misinterpreting your post, jump shadowing and jump masking both constrain where a ship can leave Jump due to the influence of gravity, correct?

Yes. Jump shadowing means that a world is inside the jump limit of a star or a gas giant. Jump masking is when a world is not shadowed, but there is a jump shadow between the ship and the world.

And as to piracy, I recently read an article in National Gepgraphic about piracy in an around Indonesia. More often than it was an inside job and not a 'run them down and board' scenario.

I have a lot less trouble with pirates that actually manage to get a ringer aboard any ship crewed by PCs (Go, pirates!) than with pirates that lurk in a star system waiting for any old random ship to jump in and be captured.


Hans

 

[rancke]

That works for those systems with out gas giants. What about systems with gas giants?

I think they'll provide very slim pickings. Ships refueling at a gas giant saves Cr100 per ton of fuel, but it loses the extra hours the longer trip from the jump limit costs it. There may be a few systems where it would make sense, but it would require highly specific conditions (starport deeper inside a jump limit that the gas giant is inside its limit, to little regular traffic to warrant a space station or stationing a picket at the gas giant, but big enough to provide prey for the pirate).

Oh, and ships only need to refuel right away to jump again right away. There is still manu fuel for the rest of the month.

A legitimate merchant will want to jump as soon as possible. Time is money. Not wanting to refuel right away is a warning sign. Which is why I suggested that standing orders to inspect the few ships that exhibited such behavior would be a simple and effective way to deter pirates.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Actually calling out "Minor problems, engineer at work" should work against the pesky patrol, it's not as if the ship is in any danger out there.

It will work for a few hours against any patrol that has grown complacent enough to ignore its standing orders to inspect ships that acts suspiciously. Of course, the pirate has no guarantee that the patrol ship won't choose to inspect it anyway. Life as a pirate is exiting. But let's say he gets away with it. How long does he get away with it? How many hours will he be allowed to linger before the patrol ship begins to wonder? But let's say a legitimate merchant arrives inside whatever window the pirate has. The merchant begins to accelerate towards the world. The pirate announces that he has completed his repairs and requests permission to proceed to the starport. It will have to be a very complacent captain that doesn't hear alarm bells ringing. But our pirate is lucky. Now system control assigns it a flight plan. You can bet that plan will be designed to keep those two inbound ships separate. And as soon as the pirate deviates from the plan, alarm bells are really going to sound. Especially if he displays a higher G rating than he should have (And if he doesn't, he can't overtake the merchant until it reverses thrust, 50 planetary diameters inside the jump limit and won't be able to match vectors in any case).

Who said freelance LASH-Tender, they can be quite legit.

If it's legit, it belongs to someone in the system and has no jump capability (and probably no weapons). I don't see how that's going to work out well for our pirate.

And I don't HAVE TO refuel always. I.e I am a Typ-M Liner, did a J1 in, will do a J2 out, just waiting for a passenger transfer

What passengers? If you're a jump-3 liner working a jump-2 route, you can't compete on a regular basis with jump-2 liners. And if you are working the route legitimately, your ship is known to the authorities. Committing an act of piracy would be like committing a bank robbery in a gold plated Cadillac registered in your own name. The authorities will know your name and you'd be forced to dump an asset that's worth more than the loot you get.

And no one needs to jump in on the planets 100D limit unless you are in the "Straight ass german bureaucracy universe".

Or unless they're in a universe where jump works the way Marc Miller claims it works in Traveller universes. Or are you talking about being able to jump in further away than 100 diameters? Because while you can certainly do that, I fail to see what good it would do a pirate to do so.


Hans

 

[rancke]

These players read some canon stuff like Reb Sourcebook and take the 640 fleets (320 Imperial and Reserve fleets each) with an average of 9 Squadrons(1) per fleet and simply assume that the IN assigns those ships mostly in groups. Assuming the typical 1/3 spread (Training-Transfer-Active) and quite a few heavy squadrons hanging around waiting for "The Enemy" that leaves few jump-capable squads to mess around.

That's really a different discussion. My claim was that if a world had a few patrol ships (let's say eight), it could make life impossible for a would-be pirate.

Incidentally, I don't know what the "typical 1/3 spread" you talk about is. It's certainly not something we've heard about in canon. Tell me more.

Anyway, those 640 fleets don't come into the equation at all. If they did, things would get a lot harder for the pirates. Note that those squadrons you're talking about are CruRons and BatRons only. There's no reliable figures for how many escorts, destroyers, and similar small fry the IN and the duchy navies have. Yet those are the ships they would use for anti-piracy activity (actually, they'd use them for counter-intruder activity, which, unfortunately for pirates, just happens to interfere with piracy too).

They can also interpret that book as including all J-Capabel warships in Imperial/Sector service

No, it can't. The book specifically states that the figure only includes cruisers, carriers, battleships, and "some escorts" (presumably those rare escorts big enough to cost as much as a cruiser). All lesser ships are above and beyond that figure.

and have most system squadrons be non-jump SDB's only covering their own system.

Sure, though it is implied that system navies do have some jump-capable vessels. But SDBs are just as effective at countering pirates as ships are.

And the Impies having to cover all the non starflight (TL systems around in the OTU

TL 8- systems are able to buy ships/boats from any shipyard in their subsector. Any world with a decent population can have starships or high-tech SDBs. Whether they want to pay for them would depend, among other factors, on how big a problem pirates generally are.

Simply using those canon numbers and the above interpretations reduces the fleet to a manageable level and leaves the various empty systems uncovered except for an occasional sweep by a roving patrol. And that is where the pirates wait for the Type A and R freighters. With all the time in the universe.

No one has ever claimed that pirates can't function in undefended systems. We may wonder, as Bill did, how long a pirate has to haunt an empty system before getting a shot at a victim, but that's all. Any pirate can do as he pleases in an undefended system.


Hans

 

[mbrinkhues]

That's really a different discussion. My claim was that if a world had a few patrol ships (let's say eight), it could make life impossible for a would-be pirate.

Incidentally, I don't know what the "typical 1/3 spread" you talk about is. It's certainly not something we've heard about in canon. Tell me more.

Sometimes I take the liberty of applying real life to the game. In modern naval life it is assumed that you have a 1/3 spread of forces, basically needing three ships to keep one on station. I see little reason why this should be any different in Traveller

Anyway, those 640 fleets don't come into the equation at all. If they did, things would get a lot harder for the pirates. Note that those squadrons you're talking about are CruRons and BatRons only. There's no reliable figures for how many escorts, destroyers, and similar small fry the IN and the duchy navies have. Yet those are the ships they would use for anti-piracy activity (actually, they'd use them for counter-intruder activity, which, unfortunately for pirates, just happens to interfere with piracy too).

No, it can't. The book specifically states that the figure only includes cruisers, carriers, battleships, and "some escorts" (presumably those rare escorts big enough to cost as much as a cruiser). All lesser ships are above and beyond that figure.

That is one interpretation of the book, another is that it does include quite a number of escorts either as part of the squadrons or as independent squadrons with ships like Chrysanthemum and FerDeLance (That only work in a fleet anyway since they can't self-refuel). The way I read it the same can be found on the Colonial(aka Reserve fleet) just one level lower with Type T etc. replacing the Chryssy

Sure, though it is implied that system navies do have some jump-capable vessels. But SDBs are just as effective at countering pirates as ships are.

Only within their home system. Otherwise the crew starts digging up skulls to decorate their G-Carrier hoods due to lack of R&R. Or whatever they do in the space-equivalent of Afghanistan

TL 8- systems are able to buy ships/boats from any shipyard in their subsector. Any world with a decent population can have starships or high-tech SDBs. Whether they want to pay for them would depend, among other factors, on how big a problem pirates generally are.

And that is where we always leave the OTU. Roleplaying material says nothing about that (Even COAAC is vague) and the only budget numbers are from the FFW WARGAME. So here each GM interprets this as he likes.

I can't see a non-spacefaring nation finance it's own SDB fleet and pay costly specialists from off-world for maintenance. Planetary defence against raiders can be done with locally produced PAD missiles (Basically TL7 technology that exists IRL in the form of Sparten, Sprint, Galosh and Gazelle, tech that thanks to TNE is canon) that keeps the money at home, something the politicos like.

Your lightyears per stutterwarp discharge may vary

No one has ever claimed that pirates can't function in undefended systems. We may wonder, as Bill did, how long a pirate has to haunt an empty system before getting a shot at a victim, but that's all. Any pirate can do as he pleases in an undefended system.


Hans

Depends on the empty system and again on the interpretation of forces since the OTU says little about defence of those. Btw "Empty" for me includes those worlds with a population in the three-digit range that I simply can't see as having any space force. I can see the empty systems along a J1/J2 route being frequented often enough for a pirat to lurk around and live nicely by grabbing the passing ships. Since the gas giants are the ONLY target in such a system just lurking there means the prey actually comes to you while the giants athmosphere can be used to hide from the occasional patrol.

 

[mbrinkhues]

It will work for a few hours against any patrol that has grown complacent enough to ignore its standing orders to inspect ships that acts suspiciously. Of course, the pirate has no guarantee that the patrol ship won't choose to inspect it anyway. Life as a pirate is exiting. But let's say he gets away with it. How long does he get away with it? How many hours will he be allowed to linger before the patrol ship begins to wonder? But let's say a legitimate merchant arrives inside whatever window the pirate has. The merchant begins to accelerate towards the world. The pirate announces that he has completed his repairs and requests permission to proceed to the starport. It will have to be a very complacent captain that doesn't hear alarm bells ringing. But our pirate is lucky. Now system control assigns it a flight plan. You can bet that plan will be designed to keep those two inbound ships separate. And as soon as the pirate deviates from the plan, alarm bells are really going to sound. Especially if he displays a higher G rating than he should have (And if he doesn't, he can't overtake the merchant until it reverses thrust, 50 planetary diameters inside the jump limit and won't be able to match vectors in any case).

Again a mater of luck and interpretation of the rules. If Merchies come out of jump 0/0 it is easy, if they carry a vector from the origin system (TNE style) it's more complex. In both cases it is a "do it fast and run" style, going for cargo or persons. And surely depending on how competent and alert the navy is.

If it's legit, it belongs to someone in the system and has no jump capability (and probably no weapons). I don't see how that's going to work out well for our pirate.

As long as the Navy picket believes it is the legit tender, it will work. Bored guards that have been on station to long do funny/stupid things. Like allowing a Leopard II tank to leave the barracks under a driving order that reads Target:Moskow, Reason of mission: Selling tank to the KGB (Happened in 1988 to a very bored PFC)

What passengers? If you're a jump-3 liner working a jump-2 route, you can't compete on a regular basis with jump-2 liners. And if you are working the route legitimately, your ship is known to the authorities. Committing an act of piracy would be like committing a bank robbery in a gold plated Cadillac registered in your own name. The authorities will know your name and you'd be forced to dump an asset that's worth more than the loot you get.

Let's not split hairs. Last time that was done in germany some Alben and a Dragon died at the hands of YetAntherStupidHero.

I used the Liner as a canon example of a J3 ship that is small enough to operate outside the extrem rigid plans of a big line. And those sometimes make compromises.

Aside from that the "registered to your name" is another point of the OTU open to debate. I.e must a ship operating within the 3I be registered to the 3I? IRL a Liberia registered freighter can dock in Hamburg or Shanghai quite easily. And how "canon" do you take the Deio-Chips from TNE/are they already in existence in your OTU version? I.e anyone playing in the Gateway Domain setting or Milieu 0 does not have those beasts (They only come into being after Signal GK that IIRC is set in the 1100s), how easy is it to fake a transponder code etc.

Or unless they're in a universe where jump works the way Marc Miller claims it works in Traveller universes. Or are you talking about being able to jump in further away than 100 diameters? Because while you can certainly do that, I fail to see what good it would do a pirate to do so.


Hans

Since we are discussing the OTU that is the only way it makes sense, isn't it? And there is a very simple reason for a FREIGHTER to jump in outside the 100D. Not every ship calls on every port along the route. So why jump in at the mainworlds 100D limit and pay landing fees when all you care for is refueling to jump to the next system. In that case a cargo ship would jump in near a GAS GIANTS 100D. And that in turn would make this a nice place for a pirat to wait, forcing the fleet to stretch assets much thinner (i.e in our system that would mean covering 3-4 planets, depending on wether Jupiter is valid)

And depending on the OTU version you use there might be targets of interest further out like the asteroid belt or wildcatters on the gas giant like in Assignment:Vigilanty that generate traffic from ships jumping directly there instead of jumping to the main world. Again, a matter of interpretation.

 

[rancke]

Sometimes I take the liberty of applying real life to the game. In modern naval life it is assumed that you have a 1/3 spread of forces, basically needing three ships to keep one on station. I see little reason why this should be any different in Traveller.

Because the modern naval life you speak of presumably is the US Navy, whose ships has to sail for weeks or even months to get on station all over the world and more months or weeks sail to back again, then spend months in refit (Does this "1/3 spread" also apply to navies that doesn't cover the entire world?) As against that, Traveller SDBs can get from the starport to the 100 diameter limit in six hours and only require two weeks of maintenance per year. Even Traveller starships can deploy to any place within 8 parsecs in three weeks, making them available 5/6th of their time.

That is one interpretation of the book, another is that it does include quite a number of escorts either as part of the squadrons or as independent squadrons with ships like Chrysanthemum and FerDeLance (That only work in a fleet anyway since they can't self-refuel).

"This number includes combat vessels such as cruisers, carriers, battleships, and some escorts" [Rebellion Sourcebook, p. 27]. This implies that some escorts are combat vessels and some escorts are not. If the difference between escorts that are combat vessels and escorts that aren't isn't the size, what is it? To argue that the term 'combat vessels', which includes cruisers, carriers, and battleships, all ship types of 20,000T and upwards, also includes ships of far lesser tonnage is IMO fallacious.

Me: SDBs are just as effective at countering pirates as ships are.

Only within their home system.

I never said otherwise. What's your point?

Me: TL 8- systems are able to buy ships/boats from any shipyard in their subsector. Any world with a decent population can have starships or high-tech SDBs. Whether they want to pay for them would depend, among other factors, on how big a problem pirates generally are.

And that is where we always leave the OTU. Roleplaying material says nothing about that (Even COAAC is vague) and the only budget numbers are from the FFW WARGAME. So here each GM interprets this as he likes.

High Guard expressly state that planetary navies may procure ships from anywhere within the borders of their subsector, so that's certainly part of the OTU. The best budget numbers we have are from Striker. Sadly, Marc Miller apparently decanonized those figures without providing a substitute, but that just means we have to turn to real life to help us guesstimate budgets. Since Real Life shows us that the Striker figures are eminently plausible, I'm sticking to them. Once we have those budgets, we have canonical figures for how much ships cost, allowing us to guesstimate reasonable force levels.

I can't see a non-spacefaring nation finance it's own SDB fleet and pay costly specialists from off-world for maintenance. Planetary defence against raiders can be done with locally produced PAD missiles (Basically TL7 technology that exists IRL in the form of Sparten, Sprint, Galosh and Gazelle, tech that thanks to TNE is canon) that keeps the money at home, something the politicos like.

Why not? There are plenty of Real World examples of less capable nations buying expensive military hardware and paying costly specialists from other countries for maintenance. As I said before, it would depend on whether or not they perceived a need for such costly imports. Ubiquitous piracy would certainly tend to make people perceive a need for defense, don't you think?

Depends on the empty system and again on the interpretation of forces since the OTU says little about defense of those. Btw "Empty" for me includes those worlds with a population in the three-digit range that I simply can't see as having any space force.

If by three-digit you mean population level 3-, I agree completely. Though TD15 mentions that Walston, with a population of 3,700, has two patrol ships and a dozen deep space fighters. The only way I can get that to work is to assume that the Imperium donated them all and also subsidizes the crews heavily.

I can see the empty systems along a J1/J2 route being frequented often enough for a pirate to lurk around and live nicely by grabbing the passing ships.

You can see it, but is it true? Jump-1 and jump-2 traffic that doesn't make a profit on every jump is usually not competitive with jump-3 and jump-4 traffic. That is to say, any jump-4 ship can ship cheaper (and faster) than a jump-2 ship that has to make two jumps to complete a delivery. So you'd really only find regular jump-1 and jump-2 traffic along routes where there is enough trade for the ship to conduct business in every system alone the route. Which implies a certain minimum population size for every system.

Since the gas giants are the ONLY target in such a system just lurking there means the prey actually comes to you while the giant's atmosphere can be used to hide from the occasional patrol.

Well, as I said in another post, gas giant refueling is really uneconomic and won't be used unless there is no alternative. I'm curious, though. How come the pirate can spot the merchant but the patrol ship can't spot the pirate?

Not that pirates lurking in empty systems really bother me. I'm not sure they actually make sense, but there is enough doubt for me to give the pirates the benefit of the doubt ("enough doubt" being "any doubt at all").


Hans

 

[atpollard]

Because the modern naval life you speak of presumably is the US Navy, whose ships has to sail for weeks or even months to get on station all over the world and more months or weeks sail to back again, then spend months in refit (Does this "1/3 spread" also apply to navies that doesn't cover the entire world?) As against that, Traveller SDBs can get from the starport to the 100 diameter limit in six hours and only require two weeks of maintenance per year. Even Traveller starships can deploy to any place within 8 parsecs in three weeks, making them available 5/6th of their time.

Just as a guess:
The first 1/3 of the fleet is either down for repairs, on shore leave, in transit to a station (where another ship is waiting to be relieved), training, being scrapped, or brand new and being shaken down.

The second 1/3 of the fleet is held close to home for local defense and as a reserve force. It would be very bad to have the planet attacked while ALL of your ships are 800,000 km away guarding the jump limit (or many AUs away guarding the gas giants).

The final 1/3 of the fleet is available to fight far away from the comfortable home port.

 

[rancke]

Again a mater of luck and interpretation of the rules. If Merchies come out of jump 0/0 it is easy, if they carry a vector from the origin system (TNE style) it's more complex. In both cases it is a "do it fast and run" style, going for cargo or persons. And surely depending on how competent and alert the navy is.

You still haven't explained how the pirate manages to match vectors with his prey. If the navy is so incompetent as to not react at all, the pirate can do whatever he likes. It would be like being in an undefended system. Anything better than that and the pirate would be better off using his incredible luck to break the bank in a casino.

As long as the Navy picket believes it is the legit tender, it will work.

How do you sneak a jump-capable vessel disguised as a LASH tender into a LASH operation, and how does it manage to keep up the facade? Come to think of it, LASH tenders don't linger at the jump limit either. They load up on containers and haul them back to the world ASAP.

Let's not split hairs. Last time that was done in germany some Alben and a Dragon died at the hands of YetAntherStupidHero.

Who says what now?

I used the Liner as a canon example of a J3 ship that is small enough to operate outside the extremely rigid plans of a big line. And those sometimes make compromises.

The word "compromises" doesn't actually explain how a piraty passenger liner comes to arrive at the jump limit, somehow deliver its passengers, take on more passengers, and jump away again. Were the passengers it arrived with actually pirates? Are the passengers they take on actually pirates? How does the captain explain to system control that he suddenly decided to pursue another merchant to the starport?

Your explanation don't actually explain anything.

Aside from that the "registered to your name" is another point of the OTU open to debate. I.e must a ship operating within the 3I be registered to the 3I? IRL a Liberia registered freighter can dock in Hamburg or Shanghai quite easily.

But the ship is still identifiable and can be hunted down. Since any law enforcement agency that manages to hunt it down will be entitled to confiscate it, and since it is worth many millions of credits, there will be people who will want to hunt it down.

And how "canon" do you take the Deyo-Chips from TNE/are they already in existence in your OTU version? I.e anyone playing in the Gateway Domain setting or Milieu 0 does not have those beasts (They only come into being after Signal GK that IIRC is set in the 1100s), how easy is it to fake a transponder code etc.

The deyo chips become mandatory for Imperial ships in 1088. I reconcile them various canonical statements in CT material about forged transponders by saying that the Imperium claims that they're unforgeable, but they're not.


Hans

 

[pendragonman]

Whipsnade: If intercept happens that fast in Mayday, so be it. I have not played Mayday in some years so cannot speak to its vector approximation methods.

Hans:

A planetary budget can be ginned up using Trillion Credit Squadron. I assume that it is still canon.

I don't remember who asked this but countries on Terra who will spend theirselves silly for outside maintenance for their high tech toys include most of the Middle East and Africa. Those countries buy ship loads of military hardware from Europe, China, and the U.S. which always comes with "advisors" to provide maintenance, at a premium cost.

Gas giant refueling becoming uneconomic depends on the local price of refined fuel. If the TU you are in has stable, never changing, book price for fuel a)you are very very lucky and b) you are correct.

As to pirates matching vectors we have two cases:

a) If you are in a TU that requires that jump happen with zero vector, intercept is easy. Target jumps in and has to start from zero and build up speed. Since pirate vessels normally have 3-g acceleration, and merchies typically have 1-g, the pirate can catch up easy.

b) (this is the harder case) This takes advantage of the higher acceleration of the pirate vessel. Vector math takes over as the merchie will try to use the residual vector to take it inbound to the star port. Until it notices the pirate inbound (and most won't until its too late, preparations for end-of-journey blocking the minds of the merchie captains.)

 

[Whipsnade]

Hans and Mike,

Don't want to step in between you both here, but I spotted what I think is a misunderstanding in your conversation regarding LASH tenders.

Mike seems to be using the term "LASH tender" to describe the jump capable ship which carries lighters from system to system. His belief that LASH tenders can jump away seemingly confirms this.

Hans is using the term "LASH tender" to describe the non-jump capable, in-system vessels that service LASH vessels by providing fuel, personnel transfers, and the like. While English is a notoriously vague language, Han's use of the term is the correct one.

LASH vessels carry lighters between worlds while LASH tenders tend to those vessels' needs in the systems they visit.

Hope this helps.


Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Whipsnade: If intercept happens that fast in Mayday, so be it. I have not played Mayday in some years so cannot speak to its vector approximation methods.

Pendragonman,

Wow, that's some dial back...

Tell us, do you use any vector movement system for ship combat? Because any vector movement system; LBB:2, BL, BR, etc., will produce the same results I'm talking about.

What model do you use for ship combat? HG2 where nothing moves? Or MT's watered down, somewhat flawed, vector-lite system?

A planetary budget can be ginned up using Trillion Credit Squadron. I assume that it is still canon.

You've assumed wrong again. Marc W. Miller decanonized the TCS budget formulas for use within the OTU setting nearly a decade ago.

As to pirates matching vectors we have two cases: (snip of examples)

I couldn't help but notice that both your examples didn't have any picket ships in them. Whether the target starts from a dead start or starts with a vector, the pirate's job is not finished when they match vectors. They still need to get away and get away with damage costing less than the loot they just took.

The retention of normal space vectors through jump has been canon since CT. Most people ignore it for ease of play, but TNE emphasized it for two meta-game reasons 1) TNE's maneuver drives have limited gee turns and B) it finally gave navigators something to do besides making jump plots.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[mbrinkhues]

Empty Systems:

If I look at the stellar charts I can find quite a few systems with starport X than lie in a main. Ships with J1 MUST pass this systems and the only place to get fuel is wilderness refueling. IF the navy patrols it, the pirat has a problem. But in the way I read the fleet size/numbers, these systems are devoid of patrol craft most of the time. So a pirat can lurk there till Dulinor empties the magazin and simply wait for the prey. And there are a lot of J1 ships around.


Buying outside tech:

Sure, some nations IRL do that. Quite a few of them (i.e Turkey, Greece, Israel) have the industrie to MAINTAIN the ships (i.e the MEKO frigates, Class 209 subs) but not to BUILD them. Others haven't even the tech base to maintain them and suffer a huge outtime (Argentine and it's 209 subs i.e) Buying external seems to work only, if you can do most maintenance yourself, something a TL8- world can't do with TL9+ tech. Add in the high "inflation" (A TL9 credit is worth a lot more than i.e a TL7 one) compared to IRL and the often extrem differences (TL3 or TL4 don't even UNDERSTAND electricity etc) compared to today and a lot of worlds would either be unable to buy/maintain the stuff or better of to use local tech. As said, if all you want to do is protecting your world you can do that with 1960s tech.

Fleets and escorts:

For me RebSourcebook pg27-30 are quite clear. Three types of fleets:

+ Imperial
+ Imperial Reserve (aka Colonial - This includes jump-capabel squadrons raised by single worlds)
+ non-jump planetary squadrons

 

[rancke]

A planetary budget can be ginned up using Trillion Credit Squadron. I assume that it is still canon.

Sadly, no. According to Hunter, Marc Miller has decanonized both Striker and TCS. However, since he didn't provide anything to replace it, and since they agree pretty well with Real Life, I'm still using them.

Note: To reconcile TCS with Striker, I assume that TCS is at a higher level of abstraction. The Cr500 per citizen is an average. My assumption is that it corresponds to the naval slice of a defense budget of 10% of GWP. This is because TCS deals with pocket empires surrounded by other pocket empires. Striker states that military budgets range from 1% of GWP (after prolonged periods of peace) to 15%, which is the maximum a society can sustain for a reasonable time. Budgets for Imperial worlds averages 3% (Emphasis mine).

(Actually, 10% is a bit high. 8% would be better. But if it's 10%, the government modifier table gives us a range from 5% in peacetime to 15% in wartime.)

Gas giant refueling becoming uneconomic depends on the local price of refined fuel. If the TU you are in has stable, never changing, book price for fuel a)you are very very lucky and b) you are correct.

Gas giants can't change their prices. Fuel purveyors can. In a realistic universe, the price of unrefined fuel will be just low enough to make gas giant refuelling uneconomic (And the price of refined fuel will be just low enough to make it uneconomic to carry a fuel processor and buy unrefined fuel ).

As to pirates matching vectors we have two cases:

a) If you are in a TU that requires that jump happen with zero vector, intercept is easy. Target jumps in and has to start from zero and build up speed. Since pirate vessels normally have 3-g acceleration, and merchies typically have 1-g, the pirate can catch up easy.

Certainly it can. But what is the patrol ship going to do in the meantime? The moment the pirate demonstrates 3G capability, the patrol ship knows it's not a merchant, and the moment the pirate deviates from its flight plan he's in violation of the rules and liable for hefty fines.

Note that I'm not claiming that having 3G maneuver is illegal. I'm claiming that it makes the ship suspect.

b) (this is the harder case) This takes advantage of the higher acceleration of the pirate vessel. Vector math takes over as the merchie will try to use the residual vector to take it inbound to the star port. Until it notices the pirate inbound (and most won't until its too late, preparations for end-of-journey blocking the minds of the merchie captains.)

This is a system that's rich enough to have system defenses. It's going to have a system control.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Empty Systems:

If I look at the stellar charts I can find quite a few systems with starport X than lie in a main. Ships with J1 MUST pass this systems and the only place to get fuel is wilderness refueling.

Ships with J1 must pass those systems IF they want to go that way. However, no regular trade will want to, because any regular trade that's profitable with two J1s will be even more profitable with one J2.

I'm not sure why you keep on about empty systems, though, since I've already stated that pirates can do what they like in empty systems.

IF the navy patrols it, the pirate has a problem. But in the way I read the fleet size/numbers, these systems are devoid of patrol craft most of the time.

Well, that's how canon portrays those systems. The Imperial Navy (or the Duchy Navy) will show up once in a while with a couple of Kinunirs or a half-squadron of Gazelles. The fleets sizes are pretty much irrelevant, since they only talk about combat vessels. The text explicitly states that it doesn't include auxiliaries.

So a pirate can lurk there till Dulinor empties the magazine and simply wait for the prey. And there are a lot of J1 ships around.

How do you know that there are lots of J1 ships around? And how do you know how many of them passes through empty systems? They sure won't want to go through them unless they absolutely have to.

Buying outside tech:

Sure, some nations IRL do that. Quite a few of them (i.e Turkey, Greece, Israel) have the industries to MAINTAIN the ships (i.e the MEKO frigates, Class 209 subs) but not to BUILD them. Others haven't even the tech base to maintain them and suffer a huge outtime (Argentine and it's 209 subs i.e) Buying external seems to work only, if you can do most maintenance yourself, something a TL8- world can't do with TL9+ tech.

Why shouldn't a TL 8 world be able to maintain most, if not all, TL 9 equipment? As for the outtime, assuming they buy from a world within one jump, the outtime is less that six weeks a year. (Jump (or be carried, if not jump-capable) to the shipyard, spend 14 days on the annual maintenance, jump back).

Add in the high "inflation" (A TL9 credit is worth a lot more than i.e a TL7 one) compared to IRL and the often extreme differences (TL3 or TL4 don't even UNDERSTAND electricity etc) compared to today and a lot of worlds would either be unable to buy/maintain the stuff or better of to use local tech. As said, if all you want to do is protecting your world you can do that with 1960s tech.

I always take the exchange rate into account when figuring force levels. And the increased maintenance figure. Striker explicitly allow worlds to buy and maintain off-world equipment. As for using pre-stellar tech, remember the huge advantage higher tech gives in combat. Buying higher tech gives you a lot more bang for the cred, even with the canonical exchange rates.

Fleets and escorts:

For me RebSourcebook pg27-30 are quite clear. Three types of fleets:

+ Imperial
+ Imperial Reserve (aka Colonial - This includes jump-capable squadrons raised by single worlds)
+ non-jump planetary squadrons

Yes, but RbS isn't the only source we have, nor is it a very detailed source. Just because it doesn't mention scouts and couriers and patrol ships and destroyers for planetary navies doesn't mean they don't have them. It just means they're below the focus of the book.


Hans

 

[Arthur Denger]

...Though TD15 mentions that Walston, with a population of 3,700, has two patrol ships and a dozen deep space fighters. The only way I can get that to work is to assume that the Imperium donated them all and also subsidizes the crews heavily....

There could be several valid explanations for this. One might be a local noble/industrialist or corporation with the financial ability to bankroll such a force (which would probably employ, at minimum, 10% of the system's population, and more likely the majority of, if not the entire population. It would seem obvious that there is something in the Walston system of moderate strategic importance.

Another possibility might be a squatter (a la the independent nation of SeaLand) with just enough resources to hold the system because the Imperium and other local powers see it as far too minor to bother themselves about. In such a case, the Walstonians might eek out their subsistence from some limited tourism, trade in a rare natural resource or manufactured product. Perhaps they could even survive on tolls and fees levied against ships which call there.

Since the gas giants are the ONLY target in such a system just lurking there means the prey actually comes to you while the giant's atmosphere can be used to hide from the occasional patrol.

Well, as I said in another post, gas giant refueling is really uneconomic and won't be used unless there is no alternative. I'm curious, though. How come the pirate can spot the merchant but the patrol ship can't spot the pirate?

Gas giant refueling becoming uneconomic depends on the local price of refined fuel. If the TU you are in has stable, never changing, book price for fuel a)you are very very lucky and b) you are correct.

The thick atmosphere is not the only hiding place near a gas giant, nor necessarily the best. Most gas giants' gravitational fields are peppered with moons and planetoids. A planetoid with a high nickel-iron content is a great place for a pirate starship to park undetected, and is a location from which a fast cutter or pinnace can be dispatched to conduct raids or boarding actions.

There is no reason I can think of which would prevent a skilled pirate from destroying or capturing a small patrol vessel like a patrol cruiser or close escort. SDBs would be difficult to contend with in a straight fight, though a smart pirate might try to capture one in port. The historical record is full of small pirate ships, outmanned and outgunned, which captured much larger, more heavily armed vessels by surprise and subterfuge.

Historically, the majority of successful pirates were only successful for two reasons: fast hit-and-run tactics and their ability to instill fear, causing their victims to surrender without a fight or flee, abandoning ship or town. It should also be noted that during the Golden Age of Piracy (late 17th-early 18th Century) the careers of even the most notorious and successful pirate crews were dismally short, seldom lasting for more than two years. There were a couple of exceptions, of course: Cheng I Sao of China (a Terran) built up a huge pirate naval empire and protection racket which eventually evolved into organized crime, in every traditional aspect. She retired quite comfortably, and died of old age.