Hijacking Ships?

[MarsStraub]

I'm still slowly reading through the Traveller books and I'm doing solo play. I'm on the Starship section and so far it seems very complicated to me. I'm not very good with math. Isn't there an alternative on getting ships? I know the Merchant and Scout ones can get free ships with a lucky roll, but I think they're small ones. So I was thinking, would it be possible to hijack an enemy ship and take it for myself? For example...

Go on trade routes. Wait to get attacked. Quickly board the enemy ship and kill everyone on board. Free ship!

Would that work?

Even if I'm solo playing and I can create my own universe and my own version of Traveller, I would rather play by the rules the best I can, so I don't want to cheat.

 

[aramis]

I'm still slowly reading through the Traveller books and I'm doing solo play. I'm on the Starship section and so far it seems very complicated to me. I'm not very good with math. Isn't there an alternative on getting ships? I know the Merchant and Scout ones can get free ships with a lucky roll, but I think they're small ones. So I was thinking, would it be possible to hijack an enemy ship and take it for myself? For example...

Go on trade routes. Wait to get attacked. Quickly board the enemy ship and kill everyone on board. Free ship!

Would that work?

Even if I'm solo playing and I can create my own universe and my own version of Traveller, I would rather play by the rules the best I can, so I don't want to cheat.

Keep in mind that you need to stock said ship with reasonably competent characters. If you have Sups 1 & 4, the NPC's therein can be quite useful for doing this quickly.

Otherwise, yes, it's possible to claim as prize, but no, it's probably NOT legal to actually KEEP the ship. Traveller mentions this in a few places, but they're out of the way. So, look to real world praxis...

IIRC, Current typical real world runs between 1% and 10% of fair condition value upon surrender to the admiralty courts. Often, if the pirate isn't a dedicated warship, the capturing vessel typically gets the opportunity to buy it at a reduced cost from fair value.

10% of a MCr40 ship is still MCr4 in cash from the admiralty...

But also, fair value is typically 90%-(10% per decade), and then is reduced further for the cost of repairing the damage. (While this is somewhere in CT or JTAS, I don't recall where; I grabbed the numbers from T20 THB page 279.

 

[kilemall]

A lot also depends on setting, which is not necessarily baked in.

Capturing and attempting to operate or fence a stolen ship in Core sector is going to be way more difficult then doing so on a balkanized subsector.

I have a setting most people don't incorporate, the Oort Cloud, which is relatively water and carbon rich but metal and tech poor. No starport facilities out there, so pirated ships and their goods are always welcome and it's just too huge an area to patrol conventionally.

But, less of an economy overall so the pay is correspondingly less too when converted to conventional currency or value, or more accurately costs are greater.

That's one option. Another is a whole series of loosely coupled colonies or independent states eager for cheap goods and ships with few questions asked. A good example historically was the British Carolinas who often traded and supplied the Caribbean pirates even as British hulls were captured.

http://carolinahistory.web.unc.edu/pirates-in-the-outer-banks/

So, as ref, you have a need to define your setting to create the sort of play you desire- even playing solo.

 

[Condottiere]

To balance the books, the dungeon master could permit this, and let the players roam carelessly around for a couple of years, until at some point when karma knocks in the form of an Imperium warship which identifies your ship as one that disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

 

[McPerth]

Keep in mind that you need to stock said ship with reasonably competent characters. If you have Sups 1 & 4, the NPC's therein can be quite useful for doing this quickly.

Otherwise, yes, it's possible to claim as prize, but no, it's probably NOT legal to actually KEEP the ship. Traveller mentions this in a few places, but they're out of the way. So, look to real world praxis...

IIRC, Current typical real world runs between 1% and 10% of fair condition value upon surrender to the admiralty courts. Often, if the pirate isn't a dedicated warship, the capturing vessel typically gets the opportunity to buy it at a reduced cost from fair value.

10% of a MCr40 ship is still MCr4 in cash from the admiralty...

But also, fair value is typically 90%-(10% per decade), and then is reduced further for the cost of repairing the damage. (While this is somewhere in CT or JTAS, I don't recall where; I grabbed the numbers from T20 THB page 279.

See that this is today.

I'm not a historian, nor a lawyer, but I think in the Age of Sail (which Traveller depicts in some senses) any pirate ship captured was fair prize, (unless captured by a Navy, in which case it became Navy property).

So, that would depend on the setting, or even the interpretation you make of it (mainly in the case of the OTU).

I'd suggest you to read (if you have access to it) the Challenge article Prize Court (issue#38, pages 25.27 and 79).

Basically, if a ship is captured by a naval crew, it becomes Imperial property that uses to sell it at auction (the capturing crew reciving, in theory, about 30% share).

I captured by a privateer (and I guess registred Starmercs), the crew receives about 25% of the selling prize, and the ship owner about 50%. As the ship is likely to be old and surely it is damaged. the price can be quite (relatively) low, though.

OOH, this probably means that the privateer is able to keep the ship by paying the 25% sahre to the government issuing the Letter of Marque...

This does not mean this is easy, though. As I would apply it:

First of all, it must be proved that there is no legitimate owner for the prize ship (and this can take several weeks at least), as a pirate ship is likely to be a prize with a legitimate owner claiming for it (even if now the legitimate owner is the financial company that paíd the insurance to the former owner). If so, the capturing crew is likely to receive a bonus (let's say about 10%, as Aramis said above) of the ship price...

If, after some time, it is confirmed that there is no legitiamete owner (or it is an enemy of the state), then the auction will take place, with the capturing crew receiving its fair share (though the selling price is likely to be quite under the nominal one).

For privateers and starmercs, I'd give them the right to buy it on a first refusal basis, by a 25% (the usual government's share) of its current (damaged and old as it is) price. For the government, this will probably represent a better share tan if sold at auction on the prize courts (where the same article explains that corruption and agreed prices among the larger companies are the norm), while also keeping happy its privateers and starmercs, and augmenting those auxiliary forces.

For any merchant occasionally taking a pirate ship as a prize in self-defense, I'd treat them as privateers and starmercs for this matter (as long as they can prove they were not in fact searching for a prize, that would make them probably close to piracy...).

Then, of course, the ship must be repaired and refitted before it comes to any use...

As you see, posible, but neither easy nor cheap...

 

[flykiller]

Go on trade routes. Wait to get attacked. Quickly board the enemy ship and kill everyone on board. Free ship!

Would that work?

if you shoot them before they shoot you, sure.

 

[whartung]

To paraphrase Pelt from "Hunt for Red October": "That's several millions credits of starship. They're going to want it back."

First the Scout and Free Trader ships, while "small" by Traveller standards, aren't really "small" by earth standards. 200 dTon ship is no motor yacht.

Second, a ship can be a real albatross. They tend to be very expensive to crew, feed, and maintain. If you manage to salvage a ship, and sell it, and get even a reasonable portion of the proceeds, you're going to end up with 100's of thousands, if not Millions of Credits.

For random Joe Citizen, that's a LOT of money. For random Ralph Ship Captain, it's simply a buffer to handle unforeseen maintenance.

Simply, running a Free Trader is Million+ Credit business annually. That's big business.

So, anyway, be careful what you wish for.

 

[aramis]

if you shoot them before they shoot you, sure.

That would be piracy.

You have to wait for them to shoot, or at least demand you surrender before they you are into "aggressive self defense."

 

[Carlobrand]

See that this is today. ...

And Traveller is far future.

Anyone can structure their milieus as they wish, but I would be hard pressed to justify letting finders keep a ship when there are very rich people out there who would very much like to recover some of their investment and who probably have more influence in Imperial rulemaking than the average star-joe.

The banks make very large loans. Ships are at risk of disappearing, and do disappear from time to time. The only way banks can keep making loans under those circumstances is if the deck is stacked in some way that mitigates their losses and promotes profitability - and that's very likely to mean the deck is stacked against the little guy. As far as the high and mighty are concerned, we should be happy with our percentage, and it was very kind of them to give us that. In a universe with megacorporations, the high and mighty are VERY high and VERY mighty.

Now, SOME finds might go unchallenged. The Imperium might allow you to keep the scout/courier since you were kind enough to let them know the fate of its crew - and besides, it was 40 years old anyway. The Admiralty might have no objection to you keeping an old Free Trader that was fully paid off when it and its owners encountered those pirates, since the next of kin were unfortunately on that ship with the owners. However, where big money is involved, the wealthy will see that they are protected first.

Of course, that's the universe of the Imperium and the megacorps. It's possible to envision a small-ship universe without any interstellar power to make things civilized, where just going into space is a big gamble and where the only money invested in that direction is the high-risk/high-return sort. The bank offers the loan, the ship disappears and - the bank folds from the loss. That did happen to Age-of-Sail investors. In that case, you aren't up against the high and mighty - you're up against gamblers who lost their bet, and the powers-that-be are more interested in rewarding the person who heroically recovered the ship and made the spaceways a little bit safer than in protecting the interests of bankrupt losers.

 

[kilemall]

Hmm, or you could go with a libertarian view- government leaves recovery to 'private enterprise'. Or, 'Letter of Marque against pirates' or other such legal coverage, a step up from bounty hunter.

Or private anti-piracy operations with the promise of noble fiefs on the frontier. A grand tradition of empire building, putting the fighting men in the position of winning and protecting the frontier.

Or of course the classic English Treasure Fleet privateer.

Hijacking ships legally, a hero while pillaging, and all legal- long as the Space Pirates or Space Spanish don't catch you.

 

[Carlobrand]

Hmm, or you could go with a libertarian view- government leaves recovery to 'private enterprise'. Or, 'Letter of Marque against pirates' or other such legal coverage, a step up from bounty hunter.

Or private anti-piracy operations with the promise of noble fiefs on the frontier. A grand tradition of empire building, putting the fighting men in the position of winning and protecting the frontier.

Or of course the classic English Treasure Fleet privateer.

Hijacking ships legally, a hero while pillaging, and all legal- long as the Space Pirates or Space Spanish don't catch you.

Libertarian works rather nicely: "We'll fight the wars, the rest of you just figure it out." Still leaves the wealthy with the upper hand, but they'd need to hire some private muscle to be the hand instead of having Imperial courts and authorities do the job for them. There's some adventure room in that: you can negotiate for a reward with whoever provided the loan and wants it back, or you could keep it and risk some hireling trying to hijack or pirate it away from you from time to time.

I can see the English privateer thing working too. You get captured by the Imperials, you present your letter of marque - you damned Sword-worlder - and they lock you up for a short bit while they negotiate an exchange with some Sword World government for THEIR captured pirate.

 

[aramis]

Hmm, or you could go with a libertarian view- government leaves recovery to 'private enterprise'. Or, 'Letter of Marque against pirates' or other such legal coverage, a step up from bounty hunter.

Or private anti-piracy operations with the promise of noble fiefs on the frontier. A grand tradition of empire building, putting the fighting men in the position of winning and protecting the frontier.

Or of course the classic English Treasure Fleet privateer.

Hijacking ships legally, a hero while pillaging, and all legal- long as the Space Pirates or Space Spanish don't catch you.

Canonically, we know a lot of ship recovery is private skip tracers in bank employ in for 10% of value on ships that have killed or disappeared one or more repo agents; others are independents... who have no legal standing.

JTAS 16. "Giving the Bank a Fighting Chance" establishes this.

 

[kilemall]

Canonically, we know a lot of ship recovery is private skip tracers in bank employ in for 10% of value on ships that have killed or disappeared one or more repo agents; others are independents... who have no legal standing.

JTAS 16. "Giving the Bank a Fighting Chance" establishes this.

That can work in or out of OTU.

Important to establish what are legal covered agents vs. freelancers and that's very much a ref play setting decision.

One can have nuanced levels of allowed violence based on whether the ship is a non-violent skip, personal levels of violence, or the ship is now a menace/pirate.

Another thing for the OP to consider is the VERY powerful CT option of the Select computer program. Being able to shoot out turrets and then say maneuver drives to disable a ship with just a few shots makes piracy OR repo work much easier.

 

[McPerth]

Canonically, we know a lot of ship recovery is private skip tracers in bank employ in for 10% of value on ships that have killed or disappeared one or more repo agents; others are independents... who have no legal standing.

JTAS 16. "Giving the Bank a Fighting Chance" establishes this.

See that this is for repo agents chasing skipped ships, not for pirate hunters (be them starmercs, privateers or naval ships), nor for captured sips in combat. For all of those cases I'd say the article from Challenge I told about would apply.

See also that I stated that if a legitimate ship owner appeared (mostly for captured pirate ones), thigs would be more like the repo case...

And I'd say that Navy will look suspiciously for any merchant that is able to capture a pirate, unless they have hard proof that it was in self-defense. The usual attitude for a merchant would be to try to run away, even if they must disable the pirate in order to do so, but rarely boarding it or asking it for surrundering.

 

[Straybow]

Waiting to get attacked and hoping for victory is basically the only strategy for a typical trading ship with one turret.

My brother and I were playing a loose, quasi-solo game. Neither of us was "GM," rather we took turns being opposition against the PCs and their crew. Most of it was trade and social interaction. We had run one game this way until we decided the PCs were set to retire. While they were small and vulnerable they had never encountered a pirate.

This game was different. My character was a Navy CPO (we added enlisted ranks to chargen) who'd spent his career as a gunner (a legendary gunnery IV). He also was a small craft pilot. So, for every single jump exit he would ride in the single laser armed launch and drop out of the bay as soon as the ship hit normal space. We had a single laser turret on the trader.

In a backwater system a 400dT corsair demanded our cargo. We had been to the system a few times, so the corsair could be expected to have basic intel that we were lightly armed (and might not even know about the armed launch). My bro was worried, because I was playing opposition on this encounter and sometimes I had wild luck with dice. But this time he had all the luck.

Supergunner responded to the demand with a long range shot that took out their missile turret. The Marine gunnery I on our trader (call him Corporal) got a lucky hit on the corsair's maneuver drive. The remaining corsair turrets (all lasers) got a couple hits of no consequence on the trader.

CPO got another (almost sure) hit, and it landed on the corsair's computer. We ruled that our characters would think it was just a hull hit, because this was still at long range and they wouldn't have detailed damage assessment. The corsair could no longer run their targeting program, had no missiles (which we played as seekers that didn't usually need targeting), and could no longer outrun the trader (much less the launch).

Lasers now had to be manually fired (we ruled it at -4, with half gunnery bonus rounded down) using basic sensor signals (one target only). The pirates figured they still had three working turrets (two triple, one double), so they could still be effective just by massed fire if they closed range. Especially since I was usually the hot hand with the dice.

CPO was also closing, already at medium range. They focused on the launch but couldn't hit. He missed only once during 4 more turns and took out a second turret. The Cpl got a couple lucky hits, one taking the corsair down to 1G.

They could no longer keep pace with the trader, which was now at medium range. CPO's launch was at close range and he could try to target specific systems. The last triple turret bit the dust, and the pirates were now convinced they were facing two unstoppable gunners. They took to their pinnace and ran. A parting shot from CPO holed their hull (and probly croaked some of the crew) but didn't slow them down.

Several dead pirates inside were worth generic bounties, and there was a prize for turning the ship over to authorities. It was more than we'd made in many months of spec trade, enough for a down payment on an armed 400 of our own (triple turrets with 2 lasers and a missile on each). Our Corporal started training for gunnery II, and CPO recruited two of his former subordinates who had just left the service. They were lowly PO3 gunnery IIIs (haha), but "gunny" would whip 'em into shape.

We made sure it had a large enough computer to run maneuver and target if damaged, and had two (2) backup computers installed.

 

[Whipsnade]

Which combat system did all those lucky rolls occur in?

 

[kilemall]

Er.

Computer hits in CT usually means just degradation of functionality, some phases work or don't.

Sounds to me more like you were having the computer drop in model number and have reduced run capacity.

 

[aramis]

Er.

Computer hits in CT usually means just degradation of functionality, some phases work or don't.

Sounds to me more like you were having the computer drop in model number and have reduced run capacity.

Yep. worked far better. Prevented it from being the damage sponge.

 

[McPerth]

Or it was a critical, by using LBB2 system...

 

[Straybow]

We had only the original box set, so they were modified LBB2 rules.

The gunner 4 didn't need to be particularly lucky, it was the grunt manning the trader's gun who kept rolled 11+ needed.

Yes, we decided computers should be more fragile and treated the computer and program sizes as subsystems that could be knocked out, essentially like dropping model number. For another example, we decided the missiles were too small (basically like 20th cen air-to-air missiles), so they did the same damage as lasers but needed only basic sensor lock to launch and took a few turns to hit. Sand wouldn't work against lasers for a ship under acceleration, so we made sand more like "gravel" used as close-in missile defense.