Piracy Redux

[rancke]

Yes, but an annual budget of 50 MCr will not be able to purchase the 500 MCr fleet.

Why not? If you start from scratch, you contact the nearest shipyard and order, say, five MCr50 ships. You plunk down 20% of the price (=MCr50) and finance the rest with a 40 year loan. The next year you deduct the bank payments and operating expenses for the ships you already have and order two or three more ships, the next year another ship and some smaller vessels, and so on. But usually you won't be starting from scratch.

Or you could buy one MCr50 ship outright the first year. The next year you pay MCr5 to maintain that and save up MCr45. The third year you pay MCr5 in maintenance and buy another ship, and have MCr40 left in the bank. And so on and so on.

If you're smart, you'll put some money aside for battle repairs and replacements for losses, but I figure that's already included in the 10% per year maintenance figure.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

Heh, that's what I get for starting an reply and then getting busy with other stuff before finishing it

Yes, but an annual budget of 50 MCr will not be able to purchase the 500 MCr fleet.

I'm just guessing here but I think Hans was proposing a standard CT type mortgage scheme. Actually by my quick rough estimate an annual MCr50 budget will deliver a fleet more like MCr750+

Follow this and check my numbers (just getting over a miserable cold so I'll claim my brain may not be fully functional yet ):


Starting from scratch...

Annual budget MCr50

Mortgaged over 40 years totals MCr2,000

Divide the MCr2,000 by 2.64* to arrive at a fleet value of MCr757.5757...

* 2.64 being 240% for mortgage payments, 20% down payment, and 4% annual maintenance

You'll have to determine the additional costs of supply, salary, repairs and such. MCr500 seems a good estimate of the fleet value leaving some MCr6.4+ for the annual operational budget.

Fuel will be free. With luck or good tactics repairs will be negligible. The biggest chunk of the operational budget will be life support and salary unless I'm forgetting something. Figure an average salary of Cr4,000 per month and life support of Cr4,000 per crew member per month. So MCr6.4 divided by MCr0.096 will support about 60 crew with about 10% of the operational budget left for other expenses.

Again, if I'm running the numbers right.

And then there's the whole Type R Subsidized Merchant fleet and Q-ship option to bolster the defense fleet at little or no expense (and potentially profit) for the government.

 

[Whipsnade]

Even murkier since the table itself is inherently flawed

Dan,

Aside from the flaw you're referring to, there's also the fact that too many people misremember the actual wording of the rolled "pirate" result.

The result involves pirates IF the GM decides it should, otherwise it's just a normal encounter with the ship listed.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Must admit I like the pirate debate. Not to pick on your post Bill, but you have picked the very reason why the merchant would heave to under orders from the pirate & not risk the shooting battle. Insurance would cover the loss & the cavalry would not be far away, but...

Matt123,

Your forgetting about the time involved.

Re-read ATPollard's original example. The merchie in it immediately stops thrusting under orders from the pirate and - before the pirate can even match vectors, let alone board - the fighters have engaged the pirate vessel.

So, the merchie stopped and the pirate still got damaged before he could steal a single crago container.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[mbrinkhues]

A number of questions:

+ Why does a pirat have to intercept the target in an occupied system?

Quite a few canon freighters are J1 and will have to use un-occupied systems or systems with Populations so low they can't have a useful space force. Sometimes even forcing a frontier refuel or use of a Typ E or D spaceport at best.

+ Can all systems afford a space navy?

What about a TL6 or 7 HighPop World? Refined fuel is easy, Class D or C port little problem. But can/do they field a space force or anything that can reach past the equivalent of LEO (a Spartan ABM style PAD-System IS doable)

+ If they have a local force, Is the Navy perfect?

I know a first world navy who's major combatants are basically floating pieces of junk with non-working radars and computers, below specs speed and maneuverability etc. And those ships where build/developed in country... So how good is the TL9 SDB force operated by that TL7 world ?

 

[Whipsnade]

So, Whipsnade, as I have argued with you before...

Pendragonman,

Not exactly. If "arguing" means I've shot each and every idea, claim, and opinion you've raised, then we've been arguing.

From my point of view what been going on is more akin to you sticking your fingers in you ears and chanting nanananannanannananna so you don't have to hear something you don't like. As an example of that, you're still completely unaware that I am strongly pro-pirate despite my frequent claims of the same.

... 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.?

No, I never made those claims. Piracy occurs in the OTU, both inside and outside the Third Imperium. The point I'm trying to get across is that piracy does not work the way you believe it does because you haven't applied the various aspects of the setting with anything approaching intellectual honesty.

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

Because you based you initial claims on the space combat system's RULES. I then used the RULES to prove that your model did not work in the manner that you claimed. If someone states their position using the RULES, you must refute their position by using the RULES.

It may seem like I'm arguing like a "rules lawyer", but that's the venue you chose in your initial position. Of course, you've moved on since, with little success I should add. You first chose another space combat system, failed again naturally, then began bloviating about "tactical skills", added some snuffling over budgets, and have now pinned your hopes on astrography while bleating about how rules lawyers like me ruin it for everyone.

I can hardly wait to read what's next, it's like slowing down to look at the multi-car pileup on the interstate!


Having fun,
Bill

 

[far-trader]

A number of questions:

+ Why does a pirat have to intercept the target in an occupied system?

Because any Trader worth their mortgage won't be in an unoccupied system. No profits.

Quite a few canon freighters are J1 and will have to use un-occupied systems or systems with Populations so low they can't have a useful space force. Sometimes even forcing a frontier refuel or use of a Typ E or D spaceport at best.

Again the Traders just won't be there. Oh, maybe if they absolutely can't help it. Like after a misjump or running from something. Or very very rarely moving to a new area of operations.

The only Traders you'll see regularly in such systems are Subsidized and contracted to a route that is not profitable except under a subsidy. And if it's dangerous systems they'll be armed and crewed to deal with it or travel in convoy, perhaps even with escorts.

+ Can all systems afford a space navy?

That's the MCr question isn't it

I'd say any system with a population of 6+ and a Starport of B+ will have a very good local space navy. A smaller population or poorer Starport just can't do it and will have to rely on Imperial forces. Either through patrols or some minimal attachment to the Starport.

What about a TL6 or 7 HighPop World? Refined fuel is easy, Class D or C port little problem. But can/do they field a space force or anything that can reach past the equivalent of LEO (a Spartan ABM style PAD-System IS doable)

TL7 is the minimum imo for a space force. A Class C or D Starport doesn't support the construction of ships (again imo, ignoring, pointedly, TCS or whatever) locally.

+ If they have a local force, Is the Navy perfect?

Probably not, but they don't have to be. They just have to be good enough on their best day to be an effective deterrent. Especially if there is somewhere else that's worse

...So how good is the TL9 SDB force operated by that TL7 world ?

Fine until they need servicing :smirk: Then as you note, stuff starts to break down or malfunction, and then they have to hope the bluff is enough and the secret doesn't get out.

That's my take anyway. Good questions.

 

[rancke]

+ Why does a pirate have to intercept the target in an occupied system?

Quite a few canon freighters are J1 and will have to use un-occupied systems or systems with Populations so low they can't have a useful space force. Sometimes even forcing a frontier refuel or use of a Type E or D spaceport at best.

Because that's where the merchants are to be found. Unlike Age of Sail merchants who spent weeks traversing far too much open sea for the existing navies to patrol, Traveller merchants 'teleport' from the equivalent of just outside Bristol to just outside Boston.

Goods and passengers going from one system to another two parsecs away will mostly go by jump-2 ship, because it is not only faster but also cheaper to traverse two parsecs by one jump-2 than to traverse them by two jumps-1.

Populations so low that they can't have a useful spaceforce will have very little trade and thus very few visitors.

Unlike Age of Sail shipping, where merchant ships were much weaker than pirate ships (because it took a big crew to service cannons), armed Traveller merchant ships are a match for similar sized Traveller pirate ships. Ships that do visit or traverse systems without a useful space navy are likely to give a canonical corsair vessel much grief.

+ Can all systems afford a space navy?

What about a TL6 or 7 HighPop World? Refined fuel is easy, Class D or C port little problem. But can/do they field a space force or anything that can reach past the equivalent of LEO (a Spartan ABM style PAD-System IS doable)

I don't think Book 2 says anything about it either way, but High Guard states that any world can buy ships at any shipyard in its subsector. The credits of a TL6 world are worth less, so the budget buys fewer ships, but any high-population world that is past the pre-industrial stage can afford plenty of SDBs and patrol ships.

But obviously there are worlds with populations too small to support a space force (IMTU any such world is also too weak to fend off acquisitive neighbors and will thus be in some sort of client relationship to a world that does have a navy, but that's by the way ).

+ If they have a local force, Is the Navy perfect?

I know a first world navy who's major combatants are basically floating pieces of junk with non-working radars and computers, below specs speed and maneuverability etc. And those ships where build/developed in country... So how good is the TL9 SDB force operated by that TL7 world ?

There we get into the question of "what happens next?". A pirate ship is worth tens of millions of credits. When a pirate captures a ship, his ship becomes forfeit to the lawful authorities. If someone can track him down and impound his ship, someone will gain a lot thereby. It is therefore worth spending a lot of man-hours on tracking down a pirate. There are all sorts of ways to analyze traffic patterns that wasn't known to Age of Sail navies but is known to 53rd Century navies. Any ship conducting any sort of legitimate business leaves a paper trail. Any ship indulging in a spot of piracy leaves a hole in that paper trail.


Hans

 

[rancke]

TL7 is the minimum imo for a space force. A Class C or D Starport doesn't support the construction of ships (again imo, ignoring, pointedly, TCS or whatever) locally.

TL7 is the minimum for building your own space navy, but any world can buy ships from its neighbors. Maintenance costs will be higher, of course. Starport class only concerns civilian shipbuilding. According to HG any world with the requisite TL can build military ships regardless of its starport class.

Fine until they need servicing :smirk: Then as you note, stuff starts to break down or malfunction, and then they have to hope the bluff is enough and the secret doesn't get out.

Ships get maintained at the shipyard where they were bought. It means they are away form the system for an extra couple of weeks. SDBs are likewise maintained at the shipyard; they're just ferried back and forth by 'carriers'. This is one reason why maintenance is higher.

Alternatively, maintenance is performed by a special maintenance ship.



Hans

 

[rancke]

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.

While these modifications are not obvious from the outside, they'll be very obvious to any customs inspector. This means the Jolly Rodger cannot alternate between doing regular business and piracy.

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.

Actually, what it does is start broadcasting a transponder code. Then it lies still while System Control assigns it an inbound flight path. Once it gets that, it will be expected to follow it. The moment it doesn't, it gets redflagged.

Let’s assume that the JR gets 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.

Let's analyze how likely it is that the JR gets lucky. Due to jump variation, he cannot deliberately arrive at a particular point along the jump limit at a particular time. So his arrival will be randomized along a 180 degree arc of the jump limit. How many ships depart the world each day/week/month? How likely are they to be heading directly towards where the JR arrived? How long will an arriving ship be allowed to loiter at the jump limit (keeping in mind that normal merchants will be impatient to get on with it -- time is money)? What are the odds that an inbound ship will arrive just as a departing ship is nearing the jump limit?

Turn 0: JR accelerates to 10,000 km per turn at 1G on a course that will close the distance to the Merchant but is not an intercept.

The JR's deviation from its assigned flight path causes alarms to sound. System control alerts system defense and warns the intended prey. The captain of the intended prey starts to calculate premature jumps. He also begins to accelerate towards the jump limit; a running jump could well be worth the trouble it will cost him at his destination. The Patrol Ship starts to accelerate towards 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.

Probably? What do the rules say? Does he even get a shot off before the prey jumps?

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’.

But even if the customs inspectors doesn't notice anything wrong, the JR cannot do business like any other merchant, because it has extra fuel and bigger engines where another merchant has cargo space. Does it have any cargo at all to sell? Will it buy anything to fill its meager cargo space?

The JR costs more than a real merchant and has less cargo space. Every jump it makes where it doesn't capture a ship it is pissing money away. What is the frequency of hits to misses?

Once it does capture a ship and gets away with it, people will try to identify it. They'll gather information from all the surrounding starports, and eventually they'll figure out that the merchant ship "Driven Snow" left the neighboring world a week before the "Jolly Rodger" arrived in this system and never showed up anywhere else. That provides them with a plethora of clues to the new identity that the JR must now try to assume. And with a multi-million credit ship to confiscate, plenty of people are going to invest a lot of man-hours in tracking it down.


Hans

 

[robject]

While these modifications are not obvious from the outside, they'll be very obvious to any customs inspector. This means the Jolly Rodger cannot alternate between doing regular business and piracy.

i.e. Most pirates aren't career pirates - they're probably a lot of things.

 

[rancke]

i.e. Most pirates aren't career pirates - they're probably a lot of things.

Basically there are two radically different approaches to piracy: The dedicate pirate with the ship that's custom-made for the job and the Opportunistic Merchant Of Questionable Morals in a regular merchant ship. The dedicate pirate has one set of problems. But the OMOQM has a different set of problems. Often piracy advocates switch back and forth between the two types in order to get around these difficulties. This doesn't really work.

The biggest problem for the OMOQM is that shortly before he committed his act of piracy, he was doing regular business, which invariably means leaving behind a paper trail under his real identity.


Hans

 

[selunatic2397]

My players have always hunted the pirates...who wants to go after a merchantman when the pirates have ships worth so much more.

Their merc cruiser was almost paid off by the end of the first year...and that was by selling their take at far less than blue book. Even after combat damage repairs.

They got their combat and glory, and were heroes to the Imperium.

 

[atpollard]

While these modifications are not obvious from the outside, they'll be very obvious to any customs inspector. This means the Jolly Rodger cannot alternate between doing regular business and piracy.

Actually, what it does is start broadcasting a transponder code. Then it lies still while System Control assigns it an inbound flight path. Once it gets that, it will be expected to follow it. The moment it doesn't, it gets redflagged.

Let's analyze how likely it is that the JR gets lucky. Due to jump variation, he cannot deliberately arrive at a particular point along the jump limit at a particular time. So his arrival will be randomized along a 180 degree arc of the jump limit. How many ships depart the world each day/week/month? How likely are they to be heading directly towards where the JR arrived? How long will an arriving ship be allowed to loiter at the jump limit (keeping in mind that normal merchants will be impatient to get on with it -- time is money)? What are the odds that an inbound ship will arrive just as a departing ship is nearing the jump limit?

The JR's deviation from its assigned flight path causes alarms to sound. System control alerts system defense and warns the intended prey. The captain of the intended prey starts to calculate premature jumps. He also begins to accelerate towards the jump limit; a running jump could well be worth the trouble it will cost him at his destination. The Patrol Ship starts to accelerate towards the JR.

Probably? What do the rules say? Does he even get a shot off before the prey jumps?

But even if the customs inspectors doesn't notice anything wrong, the JR cannot do business like any other merchant, because it has extra fuel and bigger engines where another merchant has cargo space. Does it have any cargo at all to sell? Will it buy anything to fill its meager cargo space?

The JR costs more than a real merchant and has less cargo space. Every jump it makes where it doesn't capture a ship it is pissing money away. What is the frequency of hits to misses?

Once it does capture a ship and gets away with it, people will try to identify it. They'll gather information from all the surrounding starports, and eventually they'll figure out that the merchant ship "Driven Snow" left the neighboring world a week before the "Jolly Rodger" arrived in this system and never showed up anywhere else. That provides them with a plethora of clues to the new identity that the JR must now try to assume. And with a multi-million credit ship to confiscate, plenty of people are going to invest a lot of man-hours in tracking it down.

Hans

You ask a lot of open ended questions that require too much work to answer in detail … here are the Reader’s Digest answers:

Nothing on the ‘Jolly Roger’ is illegal. She may have legitimate papers for every piece of equipment. Inspect to your heart’s content. She still has more cargo space than the average Far Trader, she can just protect it a lot better. Perhaps she operates as a Q-ship when there is money to be made at it.

The Patrol Ship responded immediately, how much faster than that do you want them to react? As a side observation, your interceptors are going to be very busy if you scramble fighters every time a Merchant approaches a little off course. Surface Fighters are three turns from extreme range and five turns from an intercept – the Patrol was their best bet.

You seem to dislike all of my assumptions about the existence of interstellar traffic, but offer nothing but generalities in response. If one ship per year visits each starport then I agree that Piracy is impractical – as are the starports themselves. So you tell me, how many ships visit the Class A starport of an Industrial World? The Jolly Roger specifically preys on high traffic worlds with patrols. Since I just came from the next world, I would imagine that the odds of a departing ship approaching in the direction of my arrival point is about 50% (the other 50% heads to the next world in the other direction).

In this example, the ‘Jolly Roger’ was forced to flee with a Free Trader or Subsidized Merchant and was not able to deliver it’s cargo. After wilderness refueling and multiple jumps to the Sword Worlds to sell the captured ship and the cargo, the JR needs new papers and a new transponder before heading to a new sector to seek and deliver ‘protected cargo’ (in up to 100 dTon lots and at a loss) until another opportunity presents itself.

Arthur

 

[rancke]

You ask a lot of open ended questions that require too much work to answer in detail …

Mostly because I feel that the answers are pretty simple ("I dunno, but it must be quite low") and I know that the moment I put figures on them, the discussion is going to go off along a tangent (dissecting the specific figures).

Nothing on the ‘Jolly Roger’ is illegal. She may have legitimate papers for every piece of equipment. Inspect to your heart’s content. She still has more cargo space than the average Far Trader, she can just protect it a lot better. Perhaps she operates as a Q-ship when there is money to be made at it.

But her construction tells everyone who inspects her what her purpose is, which means that up until she pulls her first illegal act, she'll be scrutinized by the naval authorities. Once she does pull her first act of piracy, she'll be identified in weeks rather than the usual months.

The Patrol Ship responded immediately, how much faster than that do you want them to react?

Well, if they weren't doing anything really important, I think they should have been escorting the departing merchant .

As a side observation, your interceptors are going to be very busy if you scramble fighters every time a Merchant approaches a little off course.

It's not just a little wobble in the course, the JR is making a bee-line for another ship. Even if she isn't trying to capture the other merchant, she's in extreme violation of the traffic rules.

Surface Fighters are three turns from extreme range and five turns from an intercept – the Patrol was their best bet.

As I tried to suggest, I think the situation is a very low-probability one.

You seem to dislike all of my assumptions about the existence of interstellar traffic, but offer nothing but generalities in response. If one ship per year visits each starport then I agree that Piracy is impractical – as are the starports themselves. So you tell me, how many ships visit the Class A starport of an Industrial World?

I'd be more than happy to tell you, if you'll allow me to drag in evidence from post-CT sources -- specifically Far Trader. The highest figures there are 100-500 million tons cargo per year and 5-10 million passengers per year. I'm not sure how much that helps, though, since we'd still have to decide how big the ships that carry those are. If we believe that they all travel by small 200T ships, there could be a quarter of a million ships just for the passengers. Which, if we assume they make a round trip every 20 days and are approaching the jump limit just close enough for the Jolly Rodger's scheme for one hour of that time, means that at any given hour 520 of them are approaching a circumference 8 million km long, which means that the nearest one is only 15,000 km from the JR when it shows up (assuming, of course, that none of them goes three-dimensional on us). But if we think that they travel by Tukera Longliner, the figure goes down by a factor 2.5, and if we think some of them may go by 5,000 or 10,000T ships, we're down by one or two orders of magnitude. So I guess I have to put another vague question to you: How many of the ships that trade with such a world are small enough for the JR to tackle?

However, I realize that I overlooked one aspect of your original post: That the JR was trying its luck at a high-population world. Such a world would have more than enough ships to station pickets at the jump limit close enough to each other for their weapons to overlap. Especially if they're not required to go three-dimensional :devil:

The Jolly Roger specifically preys on high traffic worlds with patrols. Since I just came from the next world, I would imagine that the odds of a departing ship approaching in the direction of my arrival point is about 50% (the other 50% heads to the next world in the other direction).

Most worlds would have more than two neighbors within reach. On the average, three within jump-1, six more within jump-2, nine more within jump-3, 12 more within jump-4, 15 more within jump-5, and 18 more within jump-6. There are 46 worlds within jump-6 of Regina, for instance. Not all of them will have ships jumping to them, of course -- few will have jump-5 traffic and very few will have jump-6 traffic.

But if we just look at the ships that are going to the world you're coming from, very few will be coming straight towards you. Or rather, a lot of the time you will not be coming straight towards them. That's because your arrival time is subject to jump variation. If your jump takes 168 hours, you will indeed be coming straight towards them. But if it takes more or less time than that, you'll arrive at a point on the jump limit off to the side.

True, the most likely time for a jump to take is 168 hours, so the first picket a system defense CO would place would be on the direct line between the world and the neighbor with the most traffic. But most of the jumps will not take 168 hours.

In this example, the ‘Jolly Roger’ was forced to flee with a Free Trader or Subsidized Merchant and was not able to deliver it’s cargo. After wilderness refueling and multiple jumps to the Sword Worlds to sell the captured ship and the cargo, the JR needs new papers and a new transponder before heading to a new sector to seek and deliver ‘protected cargo’ (in up to 100 dTon lots and at a loss) until another opportunity presents itself.

But now the word is out that a ship like the JR is a pirate. Since earlier intense examination of its papers didn't find anything wrong, it has probably been traced back to the shipyard where it was built, which furnishes the warning notice with all sorts of forensic evidence that'll help identify it. Even if it can't be traced back, all those suspicious customs officials and navy patrols have taken reams of readings, measurements, and pictures of it. And any customs officer or navy captain lucky enough to identify her will be richer to the tune of millions of credits, so don't you think that all ships that correspond to the JRs specifics will be examined carefully for years to come? And not just inside the Imperium. Why should a Sword Worlder captain eschew a multi-million credit windfall?


Hans

 

[pendragonman]

Pendragonman,

Not exactly. If "arguing" means I've shot each and every idea, claim, and opinion you've raised, then we've been arguing.

From my point of view what been going on is more akin to you sticking your fingers in you ears and chanting nanananannanannananna so you don't have to hear something you don't like. As an example of that, you're still completely unaware that I am strongly pro-pirate despite my frequent claims of the same.

No more so than you, sir. I took note of your announce pro pirate stance. Doesn't mean you are completely correct in your opinions.

No, I never made those claims. Piracy occurs in the OTU, both inside and outside the Third Imperium. The point I'm trying to get across is that piracy does not work the way you believe it does because you haven't applied the various aspects of the setting with anything approaching intellectual honesty.

No more intellectual dishonesty than you, sir.

...BIG SNIP...
I can hardly wait to read what's next, it's like slowing down to look at the multi-car pileup on the interstate!


Having fun,
Bill

Discussions from two different points of view in one of the "Holy War" areas often do have that thing that drives the morbidly curious.

 

[robject]

Quixotic, isn't it? Like sifting grains of sand on the beach, it just means we spend too much time thinking and not enough time playing Traveller. Quixotes, quixotes.

 

[atpollard]

As I tried to suggest, I think the situation is a very low-probability one.

Please present what you think is a high-probability situation. I'd like to see one.

 

[atpollard]

How about this scenario:

An armed merchant arrives at the jump limit with an armed Pirate Cruiser hot on his tail. The systems only SDB begins to intercept and the pirate flees outsystem. The Merchant issues a mayday and reports the ship is damaged and life support is down. When the SDB matches course and speed to rescue the merchant, the merchant destroys the SDB with a surprise attack at point blank range.

The Pirate Cruiser and Pirate Merchant land at the defenseless starport and loot the Port and Startown. They strip the SDB, confiscate small craft and air rafts, capture the next merchant that lands on that world to add a new ‘legitimate’ merchant to the Pirate Merchant fleet.

The Pirate Cruiser nukes the starport and star town from orbit to remove most of the detailed data on their ships and the Pirate Fleet moves on to the next poor system. After 20 weeks and 10 systems, everyone retires.

Is that still piracy?

 

[pendragonman]

How about this scenario:
...BIG SNIP...
Is that still piracy?

Sounds like it. Reminds me of some of the exploits of Blackbeard.