Piracy Redux

[robject]

The big question arising from atpollard's example is: are there worlds without serious defenses (read: anything which would easily kill a small pirate ship) visited by merchant craft at a high enough frequency to guarantee enough income to a pirate ship?

The example also shows that Hard Times or TNE are far more pirate-friendly milieux than the Classic era OTU as local defenses are either non-present or extremely weakened.

If you assume the extrality line implies something political, that most starports are Imperial, and that starport quality implies an attitude towards trade (C = "meh" and E = "bah!"), then there could be plenty of mainworlds with a starport but thoroughly inadequate system defense.

Put another way... maybe the Imperium and worlds like Tureded just don't have all that much in common, except that one is nominally a member of the other.

 

[Whipsnade]

HELP ME… I see how the pirate can destroy the Fat Trader, but even if the Fat Trader wanted to stop and surrender, it would require 7 turns of deceleration... (snip) ... The Pirate will need to intercept and board the Fat Trader while the Fat Trader decelerates and will be subject to attack by the planetary fighters for the entire time it is attacking and boarding the Fat Trader – and it still needs to escape (under fire by 20 nuclear armed fighters).

AT,

You beat me to it.

As Feynman explained to NASA during the Challenger Explosion hearings: You can't cheat nature. Cold o-rings don't work and a pirate needs TIME to match vectors, board, loot, and get away.

Perhaps someone would care to suggest a different plan of attack?

Perhaps we could have someone wave a magic wand?

As Pendragonman continually points out, the pitch can be queered. There can be a confluence of "magic" vectors, broken equipment, and official indifference/malfeasence/corruption/etc. and, as Pendragonman continually misunderstands, those are the OTU's very rare exceptions and not the OTU's everyday rules.

Ships in Traveller move in vectors, ships in Traveller have huge weapons ranges, ships in Traveller can easily hurt one another. If you want your personal TU to somewhat resemble the OTU, if you want it to be internally consistent, if you want it to make sense, if you want it not to cheat nature, then you must have the intellectual honesty to face the near-insurmountable hurdles piracy faces.

I'm no "rules lawyer", anyone who ever played in one of my games can attest to that. However, my TU was internally consistent. The background, the assumptions, the events from one session weren't completely ignored or overwritten during the next because I had some "kewl" idea. My campaigns were internally consistent and that allowed my players to plan, plot, and connive without the fear of me pulling a pirate out of my *ss just to flummox them. Events made sense, events didn't cheat nature, events displayed an internal consistency.

There are pirates IMTU because pirates are fun. However, the pirates IMTU do not count on attacking, matching vectors, boarding, and looting merchant vessels between the jump limit and port because such an event is nearly impossible to manage. The risk is too great, the game is not worth the candle.

Whatever folks do in their personal TUs is their own business, but piracy in the OTU can not and will not resemble the "queered pitch" or "suspender snapping exceptions" examples these threads always raise.

When it comes to Traveller, I am strongly pro-pirate and you'll be hard pressed to find someone more pro-pirate. What I am not is a Yo-ho-ho-ist spinning scenarios full of laughable excuses and exceptions in order to meet some Hollywood-fantasy standard.

Piracy IMTU makes sense and games IMTU are the better for it.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Renaissance Man]

Piracy seems to me like any other criminal (or economic) endeavour - maximum payoff for minimum risk. Pirates are not going to attack a trader in a system where the defences can pose a reasonable threat.

They're going to work in frontier systems, isolated areas with limited jump routes, regions of unclear political allegiance, any place where defences are thin. Not surprisingly, these are the same places where the payoff from trade is high, so there's always going to be somebody roaming through high-risk corridors looking to make big.

As for the payoff - a single fat trader is a massive payday for even a fleet of pirates. Besides the cargo they have on board, they can commandeer the ship, invariably worth MCr, even if it's taken to a shadowport and cannibalized or refitted. Maintenance costs for a pirate ship could be covered for years from one fat trader. The ship is the real prize, and pirates will not just go after traders, they'll go after yachts, liners - anything with a jump drive. So pirate economics is always closely tied to shadowports.

Milieu 0 is probably the golden age of piracy, because there's lots of new traffic and new markets and the Imperium is struggling to keep up with its own expansion. Later on, opportunities may get a little thinner. But during any war or political disturbance, opportunities arise again because of a lack of resources for enforcement.

 

[Whipsnade]

This makes Hard Times a pirate's paradise...

Omer,

Exactly. Hard Times and the Post-Viral/TNE era are paradise for pirates. There is that anti-RC trading league after all, they're little more than pirates.

On the other hand, the major problem for pirates during the Hard Time/TNE eras is that merchant traffic is way down. Fewer defenses, but fewer targets.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

The big question arising from atpollard's example is: are there worlds without serious defenses (read: anything which would easily kill a small pirate ship)...

Omer,

Why the need to "kill" them outright?

All you need to do is "mission kill" them, cause enough damage - or threaten to cause enough damage - to make them break-off. After all, a pirate can't easily get repairs and repairs cost money which a pirate might not have.

A pirate must make sure the game is worth the candle. otherwise they're flying a damaged ship with no way to repair it. This isn't the Age of Sail, you can't careen your corsair on some planetoid to replace the jump drive!


Have fun,
Bill

 

[robject]

Piracy seems to me like any other criminal (or economic) endeavour - maximum payoff for minimum risk. Pirates are not going to attack a trader in a system where the defences can pose a reasonable threat.

They're going to work in frontier systems, isolated areas with limited jump routes, regions of unclear political allegiance, any place where defences are thin. Not surprisingly, these are the same places where the payoff from trade is high, so there's always going to be somebody roaming through high-risk corridors looking to make big.

As for the payoff - a single fat trader is a massive payday for even a fleet of pirates. ...

Yeah... we need a pointer to the TML thread. Seriously. We do. I'm going to do it, I'm going to catalogue the TML and push it in HTML snippets onto the web. Really.

Sunbeard, had he decided to capture a merchant ship and sell it, would capture exactly one, sell it, and retire. Put another way, a trader may be opportunistic and say "hey, here's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make millions!" and yet not be a "pirate" career-wise. Assuming one can make enough credits to live years on one take, why be a pirate more than once a year (or, that is, as needed)?

The cold, hard reality is that Sunbeard while operating in backwater systems won't see very many ships per week, much less see very many opportunities per year. Isolated frontier areas have very low traffic, corresponding to their defensive weakness and relatively low trade potential. So he does have to strike a ship that will probably have an air/raft or ship's boat, and if successful he will make a lot of credits fencing the goods, and then he will do something else for as long as possible because that kind of pirate leads a tedious boring life.

In other words, pirates need plot hooks and speculative opportunities just as badly as player characters.

 

[atpollard]

Still using TTB, let’s try a Pirate that breaks some of the conventional rules.

The ‘Jolly Rodger’ (JR) is a pirate of opportunity based on a 400 dTon subsidized Merchant with armor and a pair of triple turrets to draw attention to her as a ship able to travel in rough neighborhoods but hardly a corsair. What is NOT immediately obvious are two additional pop-up turrets, fuel for multiple jumps, and upsized drives and power plants designed to take a hit and still allow her to jump away.

The JR raids well patrolled and very heavily traveled routes and ports. The ship jumps into a system at the 100 diameter limit and at rest. It spends one turn accelerating inward at 1 G like any other merchant, but uses it’s military grade sensors to locate any outbound ships approaching the jump limit (and decelerating to a stop) while it also scans for warships within its 600,000 km sensor range.

Let’s assume that the JR get’s lucky and another merchant is three turns from a dead stop approaching this general direction at 30,000 km per turn and less than 100,000 km away. A patrol ship is heading away from this location at 50,000 km per turn and is greater than 500,000 km away. A target of opportunity.

Turn 0: JR accelerates to 10,000 km per turn at 1G on a coarse that will close the distance to the Merchant but is not an intercept. The Merchant decelerates to 20,000 km per turn. The Merchant is now roughly 70,000 km away and the Patrol is now 550,000 km away.

Turn 1: The JR deploys it’s additional turrets and orders the Merchant power down and surrender. The JR fires up a cloud of sand between the JR and the Patrol (3 canisters). The JR accelerates to intercept at 2G (this turn, decelerate to a stop and accelerate at 2G to 10,00 km per turn towards the Merchant. Assuming that the Merchant complies, the merchant is now defenseless and traveling at a constant 20,000 km per turn (or less) towards the jump limit. The ships are 40,000 km apart and heading in the same direction. The Patrol Cruiser reacts immediately, but is now 600,000 km away (-5 to hit), probably firing through sand (-3 to hit) and decelerating at 4G (current speed is 10,000 km per turn away from the JR).

If the Merchant attempts to jump at any point, the JR can probably shoot her to disable or destroy her and then escape.

Turn 2: The JR accelerates at 2G to 30,000 km per turn and the Merchant ship is now 30,000 km away and travelling at 20,000 km per turn. The JR launches 3 more sand canisters to block the Patrol. The patrol cruiser decelerates to a stop and accelerates towards the JR at 4G placing her at a range of 580,000 km (-5 to hit) and probably firing through sand (-3 to hit) with a velocity of 30,000 km per turn.

Turn 3: The JR and Merchant match course and velocity. Time to loot. The patrol accelerates to 70,000 km per turn and closes to 510,000 km (-5 to hit). The JR adds to the sand cloud.

Starting with turn 4 or 5, the range penalty drops to –2, but the sand may stack. Here it becomes a race to grab the goods and jump (or capture the Merchant and jump both ships).

Obviously, if the JR enters with no prey near or a patrol too close, then the JR just refuels at the port like any other ‘merchant’.

What do you think? Plausible?

 

[Renaissance Man]

Given the risk premium, piracy can be very lucrative if a pirate fleet gets large or fearsome enough to take on more targets.

And another thing that war does is make orphans of military-class vessels. Just as Tokugawa Japan could be plagued by gangs of ronin, the Imperium can be plagued by toughened veterans in command of battle-scarred ships with no allegiances left.

At a certain scale, piracy also becomes political. Hiring privateers might be a good way to raise the cost of doing business for rivals interstellar governments - which also means better equipped, more ambitious pirates.

 

[pendragonman]

As Pendragonman continually points out, the pitch can be queered. There can be a confluence of "magic" vectors, broken equipment, and official indifference/malfeasence/corruption/etc. and, as Pendragonman continually misunderstands, those are the OTU's very rare exceptions and not the OTU's everyday rules.

So, Whipsnade, as I have argued with you before, are you again saying that the entire OTU is strictly an Imperial space? That there are no border regions that are (from a player campaign point of view) inundated with broken equipment, and official indifference/malfeasance/corruption/etc.?

In your version of the OTU, there is no region of non-Imperial, non anybody else planets that are trying to politically balance one large bully empire against another? This brings us back to the heart of our previous argument. It seems that your OTU is "deep" (deep being relative) within the Imperial space, whereas I choose my bit of the OTU in the border regions like the area between Zho space and Imperial space. Or (basically) all of Vargr space. Or the Sword World regions or...

Therefore, just as your premise can hold very solidly "deep" in Imperial space (or whatever overarching multi system jurisdiction you choose), my premise holds equally well in the border regions. Which we both know are Canon and OTU.


Oh, and no magic wand either.

If you really aren't a rules lawyer, why do you argue like one?

 

[Golan2072]

Omer,

Exactly. Hard Times and the Post-Viral/TNE era are paradise for pirates. There is that anti-RC trading league after all, they're little more than pirates.

On the other hand, the major problem for pirates during the Hard Time/TNE eras is that merchant traffic is way down. Fewer defenses, but fewer targets.

Yea, but on the other hand, if you DO manage to steal a working (or repairable) ship in the TNE milieu you have one hell of a prize in your hands - the demand for starships is way higher and the supply is far, far lower.

Also, with the lawless Wilds worlds of Hard Times/TNE make it easier than usual to hijack a ship while it is on the ground - no cops or starport security to worry about, just an over-armed crew...

 

[robject]

So, Whipsnade, as I have argued with you before, are you again saying that the entire OTU is strictly an Imperial space? That there are no border regions that are (from a player campaign point of view) inundated with broken equipment, and official indifference/malfeasance/corruption/etc.?

One murky issue is the ships encounter table in The Traveller Book. Whilst wandering about the Spinward Marches, inside subsectors that have been Imperial for centuries, one may encounter pirates.

Thus the bar is set, so our explanations take that into account. Privateers and inter-world / inter-corporate letters of marque, sure. Freebooters with all hands raised against them, perhaps not so much.

Given the risk premium, piracy can be very lucrative if a pirate fleet gets large or fearsome enough to take on more targets.

And another thing that war does is make orphans of military-class vessels. Just as Tokugawa Japan could be plagued by gangs of ronin, the Imperium can be plagued by toughened veterans in command of battle-scarred ships with no allegiances left.

At a certain scale, piracy also becomes political. Hiring privateers might be a good way to raise the cost of doing business for rivals interstellar governments - which also means better equipped, more ambitious pirates.

All this is true, and can lend a reason for pirates to exist and operate.

I would think that war orphans who stir up too much trouble may be hunted down and wiped out by overarching governments, even resulting in cooperation in some cases between neighboring governments.

It's possible that Arkesh Spacers and/or Ine Givar has some origins in the Barracks Emperors or Frontier Wars. They're examples of groups which stay just barely on this side of legal versus those who have degenerated into outright terrorism.

 

[atpollard]

So, Whipsnade, as I have argued with you before, are you again saying that the entire OTU is strictly an Imperial space? That there are no border regions that are (from a player campaign point of view) inundated with broken equipment, and official indifference/malfeasance/corruption/etc.?

Opinions tend to be just empty words, could you be more specific. The world mentioned in my first scenario has only TL 9 Fighters to protect it, yet appeared able to chase off the pirate. Five fighters cost less than one subsidized merchant. How little defense do your worlds have? Can a Free Trader loot the starport unchallenged?

Ignoring an 'inside job' could you describe a plausible pirate example. I am interested in what might be possible.

 

[robject]

Opinions tend to be just empty words, could you be more specific. The world mentioned in my first scenario has only TL 9 Fighters to protect it, yet appeared able to chase off the pirate. Five fighters cost less than one subsidized merchant. How little defense do your worlds have? Can a Free Trader loot the starport unchallenged?

I don't think I'd let that happen. The fighters could well ignore piracy if it means leaving the starport unguarded... or maybe there's nothing to loot on some starports (but surely the Imperium protects its assets, even if it ignores its smaller trade routes). This follows my philosophy of a somewhat cold Imperium.

How's that for a slap in the face?


Patrol leader: "GK, port authority. GK, port authority, we have a 506 incident in progress."

Port authority: "SIB, squadron lead, you are to record sensor logs and do not, I repeat, do not engage."

Patrol leader: "SIB, port authority, recording and staying put."

 

[far-trader]

One murky issue is the ships encounter table in The Traveller Book...

Even murkier since the table itself is inherently flawed :smirk:

Hint - Have you ever rolled a Type T Pirate encounter in a Class D system?

 

[jawillroy]

What, you don't automatically add a +1 when you roll on a D-port? ^_^

Of course, one wonders then why the presence of a scout base would ENCOURAGE the presence of pirate cruisers...

 

[far-trader]

...one wonders then why the presence of a scout base would ENCOURAGE the presence of pirate cruisers...

The IISS has no comment...

:devil:

 

[jawillroy]

That's an adventure seed in itself, innit.

 

[R_Chance]

In terms of going after merchants... I wouldn't bother near a starport. Just wait for them to use that friendly neighborhood gas giant. A large percentage of small merchants, and some larger, use the frontier refueling option to cut costs or pass through systems along routes which lack good port facilities. I'd bet close runs near spectacular gas giants are a staple of the luxury cruise trade too. Incoming or outgoing doesn't really matter. 100 PDs near a gas giant the size of Jupiter gives you some room to maneuver. There could be naval units or SDBs in the neighborhood, but I'd think it less likely than near any starport.

 

[far-trader]

Frontier fueling at the gas giant doesn't work, economically or safely, for merchants under Book 2 rules. It's safe(r) under Book 5 rules if you add a purifier but still not economical.

You have to allow about a week of travel between the gas giant and starport, a week of zero revenue. Just to save a few KCr and run the risk of your powerplant, maneuver, or jump drive shutting down, or misjumping.

It just doesn't pay under the rules to do it.

 

[R_Chance]

Frontier fueling at the gas giant doesn't work, economically or safely, for merchants under Book 2 rules. It's safe(r) under Book 5 rules if you add a purifier but still not economical.

You have to allow about a week of travel between the gas giant and starport, a week of zero revenue. Just to save a few KCr and run the risk of your powerplant, maneuver, or jump drive shutting down, or misjumping.

It just doesn't pay under the rules to do it.

I don't remember it being that dangerous, but I haven't played CT in quite a while (just MT), especially without HG. I tend to build in fuel purifiers with my ships, especially the ones that are used in frontier areas. In any event, there are systems with no real port facilities and trade routes which require multiple jumps. The danger might trim the opportunities, but an opprtunity that doesn't involve SDBs or fighters might sound good.