On Corsairs, Pirates, Smugglers and Privateers.
- Thread starter Magnus von Thornwood
- Start date
Plus, if the insurance claims start to be more frequent, premiums go up, profitability is impacted, trade may diminish, then it really turns up on the IN and MOJ radar. At that point, the profitable corsair ransom gig in an area is up and they'd need to move on or risk larger, heavier, more aggressive patrolling of their hunting grounds
This would of course lead to the operation moving to a new region. The newer hunting grounds would mean fewer patrols, and ship operators not as accustomed to having to deal with pirate attacks.
It would also allow the brokers and middlemen in the operation to move to areas where local traders and insurance companies might not be as suspicious of a broker who has had an unusually bad run of luck.
Could lead to little wars between corsairs as they tried to control territory and keep competitors out in their effort to ensure lucrative harvest grounds were not overharvested. Basically the same turf wars and control strategies we see with planetary organized crime.
"Planetary organized crime" is pretty much the best operating model for OTU piracy, IMO. For that matter, who says that ne'er the twain shall meet?
Good point. Maintenance unions, transport teams, lighter crews, starport construction, all lend themselves to a bit of opportunity for a few goodfellas seeking to make a simple living. If they took on a security contract as well, who's to say that having a corsair on tap to be vectored in, when the clients doubted the value of the security, wouldn't be useful at times.
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Thats pretty much what happened in the range wars in the Western US once apon a time. Local strongmen got into a shooting war, local law enforcement/Military, and hired guns got involved. the same pattern repeated itself in Africa, Asia,the Mediterranean, And South America...so its a recurring theme.
which could lead to a local group of merchants, nobles, corporations, hiring mercenaries to come in and bring the situation under control. especially if the local imperial fleet isn't up to dealing with the problem, or doesn't see pirates killing pirates as a problem to begin with.
so you could see a three way turf war break out, as New guys try to muscle in on the established groups, and Mercs/independent pirate hunters use the situation to thin the herd a bit.
The situation would be murder on trade, fr a while until a new pecking order was established.....A serious interruption of business as usual might even force the Fleet to move in to settle the situation...which leads to a four way war.
Crime is a business that can get out of hand when turf wars occur. Then, no-one wins. The best criminals avoid the turf war, or end it before it can really begin. Pirates could be the same. If they're going to fight a turf war, then best do it prepared and with the best information so as to cripple the other guys when the first volley is fired.
And it is when miscalculations occur that you get full-blown turf wars, which generate rich adventure opportunities. (We're still in the context of an adventure game, correct?)
Higgipedia
SOC-11
Well, miscalculations when the side with more to lose initiates the turf war. A desperate, possibly psychotic, faction might kick things off and it just spirals out of control.
If you look at the situation with systems in the 3I that have much interstellar trade at all, they will always have at least one SDB on station protecting the 100D area of the main world.
1) Interstellar ships travel to/from that 100D limit. 2)The SDB's have sufficient sensors to monitor that area and will spot ships loitering and act against them. 3) What can a pirate do at that point unless they have a war ship?
1) Interstellar ships travel to/from that 100D limit. 2)The SDB's have sufficient sensors to monitor that area and will spot ships loitering and act against them. 3) What can a pirate do at that point unless they have a war ship?
Turf wars are seldom planned, they often start over loose canons getting carried away and loosing their cool.
Fly casual, just don't look like your flying casual.....
A SDB or other patrol craft may be present in the system, but a patient pirate might be able to slip in while the ship was out of position, or off to refuel or resupply.
then there are systems without SDBs, or patrol ships.
and the best target for a pirate would be a ship that jumped into the system well outside the 100d limit. it has to move insystem, and it can't jump away without fuel. it may be hours away from a patrol ship which leaves lots of time for the pirate to force the ship to dump cargo to avoid being seriously damaged or destroyed.
Fly casual, just don't look like your flying casual.....
A SDB or other patrol craft may be present in the system, but a patient pirate might be able to slip in while the ship was out of position, or off to refuel or resupply.
then there are systems without SDBs, or patrol ships.
and the best target for a pirate would be a ship that jumped into the system well outside the 100d limit. it has to move insystem, and it can't jump away without fuel. it may be hours away from a patrol ship which leaves lots of time for the pirate to force the ship to dump cargo to avoid being seriously damaged or destroyed.
????? I wasn't asking about "turf wars". Just the questions I asked about system defense vs. pirates.
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This has all led me to a particular query: is it possible to Jump into a system close to the world that a vessel is aiming for? Given the phenomenon of Jump Occlusion or blocking (T5 B3 p374 right-hand column) is it possible, with the latest jump-tapes (T5 B3 p623) to jump in right on the 100D point or within 50% of this for the target world in question? If so, playing around with some values from Foreven's astrogation data, the journey for a 1g vessel is less than a day or so to most worlds from that point.
If the astrogation is far less precise, and a vessel has to jump in at another point in the system with days worth of travel, and vessels jumping in from different destinations all end up at different points in a system, then the ability to secure those lines of travel or communication (LOC) become difficult. If the LOC are predictable, then local SDBs can patrol them with a fair degree of efficiency, outbound vessels can travel in convoy before jumping, the sorts of things that improve security. That makes it difficult for corsairs and pirates to do their thing with any degree of reasonable success, which in turn reduces the likelihood of an attack occurring in the first place. Think allied convoys near coastal regions in the North Atlantic in 1942.
Thoughts? Is there anything written or hinted at in canon anywhere, and if so where is it?
If the astrogation is far less precise, and a vessel has to jump in at another point in the system with days worth of travel, and vessels jumping in from different destinations all end up at different points in a system, then the ability to secure those lines of travel or communication (LOC) become difficult. If the LOC are predictable, then local SDBs can patrol them with a fair degree of efficiency, outbound vessels can travel in convoy before jumping, the sorts of things that improve security. That makes it difficult for corsairs and pirates to do their thing with any degree of reasonable success, which in turn reduces the likelihood of an attack occurring in the first place. Think allied convoys near coastal regions in the North Atlantic in 1942.
Thoughts? Is there anything written or hinted at in canon anywhere, and if so where is it?
The accuracy of jump arrival relative to your starting point is expressed in thousands of kilometers (i.e. amazingly accurate). The problem is the jump duration uncertaincy. In the +/- 17 hours your arrival window covers, your target world can move many, many thousands of kilometers.
Hans
Hans
So how does a vessel relate its starting point in the system of origin to its end point in the destination system? Will it be able to plot an arrival 100D out from a world (assuming that's outside the primary 100D limit) in the vicinity of the world, or are they just aiming for the orbit on their side of the primary, or what?
My take is that a ship aims for the position where the target world will be in 168 hours. Say the world moves 200 diameters in 30 hours. If the ship is more than 15 hours early, it winds up over 100 diameters ahead of the target world; if it's more than 15 hours late, it winds up more than 100 diameters behind. Since jump duration is distributed along a bell curve (as specified in T20) this would be quite rare, rare enough for game rules to ignore. If the ship arrives any time from 15 hours early to 15 hours late, it will hit the world's jump limit and be precipitated out there. That would be somewhere along a 180 degree arc with a radius of 100 planetary diameters (relative to the target world).
Hans
That's how I have seen it working. And thus, almost no chances for piracy in a developed system. At least against interstellar traffic.
Oh sorry forgot to add in that part D"OH.
Defenses really depend on the system. Most f the descriptions i've seen dont really detail a systems defenses. A smallish colony might be lucky to have a few armed small craft on duty.
Somewhere likely Regina, and Jewel, you looking at a squadron of patrol boats with some heavy ships in reserve ..just for security.
if there is only a D or lower starport, not scout base, or no Naval base you'd be looking at a police cutter, and maybe a few armed small craft...larger star ships, and boats need some sort of support structure to operate in a system exclusively so the better the star port the better the local defenses I'd have to say.
