Piracy by Walt Smith (a time capsule re-post from the 1999 TML)

[robject]

Legal Preamble​

[Rob] Good afternoon Walt. I've re-posted two of your Traveller articles to the "Citizens of the Imperium" discussion board.

Then I realized I should ask permission. Can I do this?

Sep 14, 2022

[Walt] That's fine, thank you for asking and crediting me. I hope people find them interesting.

Sep 14, 2022

Piracy IMPHBTPEITU​

Just a little compilation of how Piracy and other things work(ed) In My Probably Heretical But The Players Enjoyed It Traveller Universe.

"Pirate" encounters could actually be Pirates, Commerce Raiders, or StarMercs on local war contracts. For purposes of this discussion, we'll limit "Pirate" to mean independent or small groups of ships acting illegally and taking ships as their primary criminal activity.

Capturing Ships

It's hard to take someone else's ship with you after you board it. Manpower problems (you can't make a ship jump without a navigator on board), frequent lack of fuel aboard the target vessel, and the ability of many shipmasters to lock out all but the most professional hackers from their computers tend to remove the ship itself as a target. Also, selling a ship requires some pretty specialized contacts due to the long paper trail involved - some pirate crews can do it, most find it too involved and more dangerous than taking the ship in the first place.

(Groups who _do_ have the manpower and expertise to crack into ship's computers, kill the crew, fly off with the ship and sell it for a profit don't risk their lives in space combat - they form hijacking teams and ride as passengers. They usually have to take the ship before it enters jumpspace (so they can pick the destination), but they like to strike during jump preparations because that's when the crew and the computer are busiest.)

The Corsair

The "average" pirate will be a small (100 to 400 ton) jump capable vessel. Type S Scout ships are minimally capable for this task, but are popular because they are ubiquitous, often travel with no flight plans, have oddball paper trails as a normal course of business and (IMTU at least) can be kept barely functional without seeing a class-B starport for years - though at a cost of steadily increasing field maintenance efforts.

A variety of 400 ton range vessels are the more common pirate, usually mutinied patrol cruisers or starmerc commerce raiders that ran out of war or were otherwise cashiered - the StarMerc that can't get contracts anymore because of incompetence or inability to follow the rules is a popular image of the "Classic Pirate", and does exist though is rare. Mutinied patrol vessels occur with some frequency because the officers of such vessels are the least competent or least experienced in the Navy (experienced and competent ones get to command Destroyers and up). Further, the crews of such vessels tend to be people that aren't doing well in the big happy family of the Navy. Note that "Navy" here means the Subsector & Sector Navies - the Imperial Navy does a better job at maintaining it's reputation as professionals, even at the patrol vessel level.

Patrol Cruisers, BTW, aren't front-line combat vessels - they are designed as long duration multi-role ships, able to do everything from search & rescue to boarding of suspected smugglers. The enforcement of red zones against ethically challenged free trader captains can be great training for a Patrol Cruiser crew - the skills and actions needed are almost identical to what they'll need after they mutiny and take up piracy.

(Note that the average patrol vessel encountered is Subsector or Sector Navy, colonial ships. Imperial patrols are only encountered around Impie Navy bases and operational fleets, or the occasional anti piracy sweep or patrol maneuvers. The fact that Impie patrol squadrons will do anti piracy sweeps through areas already at least nominally patrolled by local forces should show you what the Impies think of local capabilities. The free trader is ambivalent about the situation - Impies are good at clearing out pirates, but tend to perform board & inspect more often, which can make the free trader a bit nervous.)

The Imperial Scout Service has lost a few X-Boat Tenders to pirates. These ships often make long trips to outlying systems to pick up misdirected X-Boats, and some of these systems turn out to be more dangerous than expected. These ships would be used as mobile bases of operations, rather than as attack ships in their own right.

(...to be continued...)

 

[robject]

Part Deux

Corsair Bases

Pirates will usually try to create a base of operations to perform repairs, stockpile supplies and store stolen cargos. Asteroids are popular, due to the distance from gravity wells and how lonely the average asteroid is. The asteroid will be hollowed out, chunks from a captured ship will be welded into it (hatches, power plant, life support, etc.) and it will be ready for action.

This kind of jury-rigged building and maintenance are a hallmark of all but the best connected pirates. Annual maintenance, battle damage repairs, even refits are performed under dangerous, difficult and poorly equipped conditions, kind of like a medic performing field surgery on someone who ought to be in a hospital. Burn-scarred, maimed pirates are not just the stuff of holovid shows - pulling a fusion plant with nothing but a chopped-down Launch is _dangerous_.

Ramshackle Corsairs

Mainly due to this kind of abuse, pirate vessels won't last the hundreds of years one might get out a well maintained ship. In a hard fight with a patrol cruiser, a pirate vessel is in as much danger from a system failing under stress as it is from the patrol cruiser's guns.

Note for the "must swim with the fishes" people out there: the average pirate ship will _never_ call at a starport that has any kind of legal controls or Imperial presence. It will never, except at long ranges or in the most cursory manner, be able to play the role of honest merchant - and it works within these limitations.

Good Fences Make Good Pirates

Pirates make arrangements with criminal groups or even individual smugglers to buy cargos they have stolen. They keep what they need for their jury-rigged ship repairs, and hope for the big haul - except that the mind-set that leads someone into being a pirate often has the big haul make them overconfident, so they go for a bigger one.

What To Watch For

A ship hunted by a pirate can expect the following to happen:

1) Some deception may occur. A pirate may pretend to be a customs or patrol vessel - a deception that will not last long, but may allow the first stages of an intercept to occur. Stealth capabilities, for those pirates lucky enough to have them, are made use of.

2) Calling for help will probably do little good, unless they can delay the pirate through unexpected thrust capabilities or good battle tactics/weaponry - many of which will make the pirate give up anyway, unless desperation or prospect of an unusually great haul perks up the pirate's courage. The target was detected by the pirate too far from help, either due to a minor misjump outside the usual traffic lanes or because the target is in a place where patrols don't go. Or perhaps something
has already happened to the local patrol ship - if the planet Pinata only has two Patrol Ships, and five or six pirates club together to bushwhack the patrol, they'll have free rein of the system (away from
whatever planetary defenses there might be) for weeks.

3) The pirate will intercept. She may order the target to cut engines pretty early - high speed passes won't get you cargo, but they will wreck your merchant ship. It's easier to intercept a target if you don't care about relative velocities at intercept, but impossible to board a ship unless you match velocities - the threat of a battle pass should suffice to keep the target from evading, or even get the target to maneuver to rendezvous with you.

4) The merchant will be boarded. Some pirate vessels have (or the merchant will think they have) too small a crew to force a boarding - the loss of the boarding party might leave the pirate
ship too undermanned to keep the merchant from escaping, even from right under it's guns. This will lead to merchant passengers or crew, in some situations, to resist the boarding party. Considering
how many interstellar travellers will be wealthy/noble (and have bodyguards) or will be military/ex-military, this happens more often than you might think. Considering how many pirate vessels have severe manpower problems, this works more often than you might think. A rare, though not unheard-of occurrence is for a merchant to come to port with a captured pirate ship following behind it.

5) The merchant will be looted. Damage (to the ship and people aboard) will often depend on how much trouble they gave the pirate. Depending on the time factor, varying amounts of looting will occur. The ship's safe may be cleaned out, usually with the help of the Shipmaster or Chief Purser (obtained at gunpoint). Personal weapons, vacc suits, spare parts, even ship's vehicles or craft may be stolen. Cargo will be a prime target, though the lack of starport loading facilities will hamper this somewhat - you may see improvised cargo transfer gear on a pirate ship. Passengers and crew may be molested, robbed, even raped or kidnapped - the last depending on the pirate crew's
connections and capabilities. If a pirate finds the winner of the Miss Regina Beauty Pageant on board, he might decide to kidnap her now and figure out the multi-millon Credit ransom scheme later, even if he doesn't currently have the capabilities to conduct ransom negotiations.

6) The Pirates will go their merry way. Their target will need some restocking and repairs, but won't be destroyed - unless they resist, in which case as an object lesson their ship might be left a gutted
hulk, perhaps with them adrift in a life boat or vacc suit - perhaps not.

The Goal

The objective of all but the most psychopathic (or fanatic) pirate is taking ship's cargos (and the occasional ship) for money, _not_ killing people. Killing happens, but is usually bad for business - Impie attention starts to come to bear much faster.

Note that IMTU Hijackers are seen as a more dangerous threat than pirates, though piracy is more common - and Hijackers (if identified) make it closer to the top of Imperial MoJ most wanted lists than pirates do, because the average outcome of a successful Hijacking is a missing ship and 100% mortality rate for it's passengers and crew. There is also a cultural factor - someone who sneaks aboard your ship in port under a false name to murder you and steal your ship is seen as more
of a monster than the somewhat romanticized pirate who caught you in open space and leaves you with your life, and your ship. IMTU there is a cultural bias strongly against those who abuse people's trust to this extreme (as any slow-communication feudalized society would have such a bias). The pirate made you no promises, even implied ones - he caught you and robbed you "fair and square". Cold comfort for the impoverished ship captain, to be sure, but the bias still exists.

Patrol

Impie patrol cruisers, of course, have no patience for or romantic notions about pirates, and no respect for them whatsoever - even to the point of underestimating them on occasion. Their definition of "pirate" can also be a bit fuzzy at times, so many independent merchants are leery of "Imperial Entanglements". Subsector and even Sector patrol cruisers are usually more respectful of the threat.

Summary

Being a pirate is dangerous, risky, and a bad idea. Many people find it the best choice from a list of really bad ones, or are good at making bad choices - or even good at making bad choices work out.

Just some concatenations of what players encountered IMPHBTPEITU.


Copyright 1998 Walter G. Smith

 

[Spinward Flow]

6) The Pirates will go their merry way.

One of the easiest ways to prevent a retaliatory pursuit by a looted merchant after boarding is for the pirates (in control of the merchant) to shut down the merchant ship's fusion power plant, forcing a "cold restart" once the merchant ship is returned to the merchant crew. The power plant shutdown will make the merchant crew "uncomfortable" for a short time while the cold restart process is in progress ... but it also effectively neutralizes the merchant ship as either a combatant or a particularly useful communicator (on emergency battery power only) when the pirate maneuvers away to escape from the encounter.

By the time the power plant is up and running again, the pirates will be "long gone" with a "clean pair of heels" when making their escape ... essentially foreclosing on the option of a pursuit by the looted merchant.

Get in, grab the stuff, get out ... don't get (too) greedy.
Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

[Straybow]

Piracy IMPHBTPEITU​

Just a little compilation of how Piracy and other things work(ed) In My Probably Heretical But The Players Enjoyed It Traveller Universe.

"Pirate" encounters could actually be Pirates, Commerce Raiders, or StarMercs on local war contracts. For purposes of this discussion, we'll limit "Pirate" to mean independent or small groups of ships acting illegally and taking ships as their primary criminal activity.

Capturing Ships

It's hard to take someone else's ship with you after you board it. Manpower problems (you can't make a ship jump without a navigator on board), frequent lack of fuel aboard the target vessel, and the ability of many shipmasters to lock out all but the most professional hackers from their computers tend to remove the ship itself as a target. Also, selling a ship requires some pretty specialized contacts due to the long paper trail involved - some pirate crews can do it, most find it too involved and more dangerous than taking the ship in the first place.

I agree that selling a ship is too difficult. Taking the ship is only when the intent is to use the ship in the fleet. But this raises a question: what does the navigator do?

There is a requirement for a navigator on a ship of this size, sure. But nothing says what the navigator does, nor what happens if you don't have a navigator. For example, you can purchase a jump cassette. Put the cassette in the reader. Does that really require a navigator? "I'm pretty sure it goes in this way." Your ship crew fights off hijackers, navigator is incapacitated or dead. Sorry, we're now stranded in a perfectly functional, fully fueled ship.

Is there an interlock, and the navigator has to supply some form of biometric-linked-ID? Doesn't say. If you don't have the ID is there an emergency mode to allow a ship to get to safety? Doesn't say. Is it just a regulatory requirement? Doesn't say. If you jump without a required navigator, who's to know? Does Customs or something meet the ship and go over the crew qualifications to see if they're in good standing? If not, do they pay a fine? Do they get de-registered so that they aren't allowed to carry passengers or freight for hire? Does that only apply for hire through official channels, or do they roust everyone on the ship when they apply for a launch clearance and try to suss out who might actually be a paying customer?

No, just stick the cassette in and go.

 

[kilemall]

You’re unlikely to have the cassette to begin with, if you have sprung for the generate program. Navigators run the program and double check or adjust.

As per a post in another thread, IMTU the jump entry point is precisely calculated for a specific time/position/vee and the navigator is like a bombardier, taking over the ship to make the transition.

I would rule a pilot has a shot at generate, but that or and old cassette would have a chance of misjump.

 

[whartung]

No, just stick the cassette in and go.

Doesn't mean you don't need a navigator. Someone who can operate the console to engage the cassette properly.

Lots of planes have "auto pilot", doesn't mean I can walk in and fly them.

In the world of "point and click" modern aircraft still seem to have an awful lot of buttons and gauges.

 

[Straybow]

Doesn't mean you don't need a navigator. Someone who can operate the console to engage the cassette properly.

Lots of planes have "auto pilot", doesn't mean I can walk in and fly them.

In the world of "point and click" modern aircraft still seem to have an awful lot of buttons and gauges.

That's a pilot, not a navigator.

Engage the cassette properly? "I'm pretty sure it goes in this way" pretty much covers that.

Operate the console? "I'm a pilot, but I just don't know anything about the buttons on that console. Nope, the labels are abbreviations that are Greek to me. Can't figure it out to save my life." Not buying it.

 

[Grav_Moped]

"Nav cart output says I need to be at that exact point with this specific vector at go-time. Not quite gonna make it though, and I'm not positive how to fudge the jump drive vectoring to compensate..."

 

[Straybow]

No, there is absolutely nothing that says jump success is sensitive to vector and position. Vector is never mentioned as a condition, only that vector relative to primary is preserved on exit back into normal space. Jumping from inside the 100D radius limit imposes a penalty. Other than that there is no modifier for position. Makes some sense to play it that way, almost justifying the nav requirement.

 

[Condottiere]

Straight line, but presumably part of the jump calculation includes the angle you exit.

 

[whartung]

Straight line, but presumably part of the jump calculation includes the angle you exit.

Part of the navigation task is locating your target destination properly when you arrive so that you can make the most of your current vector.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, we're supposed to drop down the rabbit hole at a dead stop.

Best practices, and all.

 

[mike wightman]

No, we are not supposed to. After all, it is pretty hard to define 'dead stop'.

A typical journey involves travelling 50D under constant acceleration, then doing a 180 and decelerating for the next 50D and then you jump.

This makes your 'vector' zero with respect to your departure world, but it is anything but zero in the reference frame of the departure star, the arrival star, the arrival planet, or the galaxy as a whole.

 

[coliver988]

No, we are not supposed to. After all, it is pretty hard to define 'dead stop'.

A typical journey involves travelling 50D under constant acceleration, then doing a 180 and decelerating for the next 50D and then you jump.

This makes your 'vector' zero with respect to your departure world, but it is anything but zero in the reference frame of the departure star, the arrival star, the arrival planet, or the galaxy as a whole.

this is what always hit me as odd - there is no absolute for velocity in the universe as everything is relative. I did two things:

1. figured the jump mechanics somehow kept the "relative velocity" of the exit relative to the nearest source gravity source the same as the destination gravity source. Jumping to an empty hex, well, what are you going to compare your velocity to?
2. and know that this is a game and that all that really matters is having fun, so physics blinders worked for my group.

For some, the fun is going down that rabbit hole. Sometimes I'm hunting rabbits, usually I just go with the flow and not worry about the details.

 

[Condottiere]

The universe is in constant motion.

We're moving through whatever is jumpspace.

Sometimes, the rabbit hunts you.

 

[Grav_Moped]

No, we are not supposed to. After all, it is pretty hard to define 'dead stop'.

A typical journey involves travelling 50D under constant acceleration, then doing a 180 and decelerating for the next 50D and then you jump.

This makes your 'vector' zero with respect to your departure world, but it is anything but zero in the reference frame of the departure star, the arrival star, the arrival planet, or the galaxy as a whole.

The rules ignore the external reference frame, because the point of the rule is to increase potential engagement time between ships in the 100D zone. (It's also possible that it simply didn't occur to them...)

IMO, the in-universe point (as contrasted with the preceding) of "stop before you jump" is that jump calcs are only valid for a specified starting point in space and time (or at least a specific position relative to nearby large masses at a specific time), and being "stopped" before hitting the button makes position-correction easier.

That is, once you're near the spot you want to jump from, you can move the ship to the exact spot and wait for the "launch window". Harder to do that when you're blowing right past it at full tilt boogie. The other option is to do the calculations on the fly, for a point in space you know you'll be at, for the exact time you'll arrive at that point.

 

[willtron3030]

No, we are not supposed to. After all, it is pretty hard to define 'dead stop'.

A typical journey involves travelling 50D under constant acceleration, then doing a 180 and decelerating for the next 50D and then you jump.

This makes your 'vector' zero with respect to your departure world, but it is anything but zero in the reference frame of the departure star, the arrival star, the arrival planet, or the galaxy as a whole.

cf: "The Billiard Ball", by Isaac Asimov. [wikipedia entry]

 

[Condottiere]

I remember asking if you can bend the jump line, and the answer was no.

Angling the exit seems possible, since it's fifth dimensional, presumably.

 

[robject]

Apparently, you could change your realspace vector while in jumpspace. I have _no idea_ how that works out though.

 

[whulorigan]

Apparently, you could change your realspace vector while in jumpspace. I have _no idea_ how that works out though.

My understanding from T5 is that if you burn fuel in a reaction drive (Fusion, HEPlaR, etc,) while in jump space, venting the products from the exhaust nozzles as normal (the reaction products simply going off into the weird world of jump space), the "momentum change" that would normally be caused by such a reaction exhaust will be conserved when you exit jump space in order to maintain momentum conservation. (This also means that you would experience acceleration effects while undergoing such a burn while in jump space).

This procedure ought to work with the Dean Thruster as well.

It won't work with the M-Drive or G-Drive, as they need a gravity field to work with in order to produce momentum change.