Piracy Redux

[atpollard]

A better analogy of the Age of Sail pirate attack on the High Seas in Traveller would be to ambush ships in Jump space half way between systems ... which the Traveller rules clearly state is impossible.

Although it would not be unreasonable for an IMTU to limit detection to 600,000 km (per the LBB2 rules) which would require a LOT of patrols to cover the 100 diameter jump volume of a world - (not to mention the 100 diameter volume of a Gas Giant or Sun). Patrols hunting Pirates, Pirates evading Patrols, and Pirates hunting Merchants would become a giant hide and seek game.

 

[jawillroy]

But no no no! High seas piracy was seldom on the high seas. It was coastal, it was in backwaters, it was on the frontier - the whole American seaboard was frontier - and it was done mostly with smaller vessels. Even more so the earlier you go: Drake's piracy seldom involved his main vessel - too great to risk. The Pelican carried pinnaces which were assembled on arrival in the Caribbean, which were then used to carry out the actual attacks on shipping and ports.

A big exception in terms of scale was Dutch West India's big coup against the Spanish: the capture of her whole silver fleet, bottled up in Matanzas bay by Pieter Hayn's fleet. It bankrolled Dutch West India for something like thirty years, permitting the New Amsterdam settlement (for one thing.) But it wasn't an open sea action.

All this modern stuff in Indonesia and Somalia is shallow-water piracy.

 

[atpollard]

But the ships were captured 'mid trip' and not at either of the end ports (Mexico or Spain in the case of the Caribean) - that's 'Jumpspace' in Traveller.

 

[Icosahedron]

true, but there's not much point discussing Jump piracy - it can't happen.

Unless you count hijacking a ship mid jump, then setting it on a pre-planned course to a waiting, fuelled pirate ship as soon as the merchant arrives and before it is detected.

 

[Golan2072]

But the ships were captured 'mid trip' and not at either of the end ports (Mexico or Spain in the case of the Caribean) - that's 'Jumpspace' in Traveller.

An alternative would be to capture a ship in the middle of its jump route rather than in the middle of the jump. On a frontier, a ship might have to pass through several backwater systems to get from one higher-pop world to another.

 

[Renaissance Man]

(Perhaps a better analogy than the age of sail is the Mediterranean piracy of the Greek and Roman eras? Anybody with some bg in that might be able to shed some light...)

A note about pirates in Traveller - if there are rules for designing ships with stealth or masking of any kind, pirates will be all over this tech like black on space. And smart pirates will hang out in Oort clouds behind ice balls with minimum power for days waiting for the right conditions (planetary bodies obscuring the authority's sensor arrays, solar flares bleeding out PEMS, hiding in the tail of comets... who knows.)

Evading sensors and establishing bases in unusual places are the only ways one could have intra-system piracy flourish. Disguises like the JR would be one route. Using a freighter as a disguise for a fighter carrier would also work. As you guys have discovered, it depends on the rules system you use - the range of sensors, the availability and reliability of stealth tech, and the other variables already mentioned.

Piracy all comes down to the level of policing in an area. Space - both intra stellar and interstellar, is a very big place and no empire, no matter how well established, can cover it all with defenses adequate enough to keep out cutthroats. There is always a new frontier or backwater.

Another factor in the economics of piracy is poverty. If you have an area where the interstellar economy is failing - very rich rich, very poor poor, there are weak local governments, the belters are out of work, the Imperials or someone else is taxing too much, etc. - then you will have more people willing to risk everything to hit the big time.

Piracy isn't an isolated incident. It's a social phenomenon. A pirate or pirate fleet attacks, the SDBs and fighers scramble, the pirates are driven off, but another attack comes the following day from another set of pirates, and on and on . The take on raiding a whole system is so big, the law of averages state that some will be successful sometimes. It's just like robbing banks in the wild west or the 1930s.

Trotting out these one-time scenarios as "proof" that piracy is impossible isn't exactly the best way to test the feasibility of piracy in toto. Though I do agree with Whipsnade that piracy looks a lot different than it did in the age of sail. In my opinion it looks cooler.

 

[atpollard]

And smart pirates will hang out in Oort clouds behind ice balls with minimum power for days waiting for the right conditions (planetary bodies obscuring the authority's sensor arrays, solar flares bleeding out PEMS, hiding in the tail of comets... who knows.)

The Oort Cloud is 50,000 AU x 150 million Km/AU = 7.5 E 12 km from Earth. Using the Traveller formula [T=2*sqrt (D/A) where T = time in seconds, D = Distance in meters, A = Acceleration in meters per second squares] the Oort cloud is 37.3 weeks from Earth at 6G (and 91.4 weeks at 1G). Pirates in the Oort Cloud are ‘just passing thru’ the system.

Evading sensors and establishing bases in unusual places are the only ways one could have intra-system piracy flourish. Disguises like the JR would be one route. Using a freighter as a disguise for a fighter carrier would also work. As you guys have discovered, it depends on the rules system you use - the range of sensors, the availability and reliability of stealth tech, and the other variables already mentioned.

This makes sense, but the Ship would seem to be the target more than the cargo unless the system had multiple ‘fully developed worlds’. Intra-system traffic would probably be heavy into raw resources (“Congratulations, we just captured 5,000 tons of iron ore from the mining outpost.”) or basic supplies (“Congratulations, we just captured 500 tons of Food, Oxygen, Water and 2 tons of drill bits heading to the mining outpost.”).

 

[rancke]

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

Um, I'm not quite sure what you're asking for here. I think most worlds above a certain GWP will have system defenses capable of discouraging pirates from lurking at the jump limit and attacking random merchants. I also think that merchants who venture into places where system defenses are inadequate will be armed. I also think that pulling off an act of piracy may be possible in certain circumstances, but that the chance of doing so and not get identified is a lot lower, and that merely changing your transponder is not enough to prevent a ship from being identified by a decent forensic examination.

I also think that pirates are fun.



Hans

 

[atpollard]

An alternative would be to capture a ship in the middle of its jump route rather than in the middle of the jump. On a frontier, a ship might have to pass through several backwater systems to get from one higher-pop world to another.

Sounds good to me. Just to put some meat on the bones, could you suggest three+ worlds in the OTU that might qualify (source, pirate, and destination)?

 

[rancke]

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?

Historically, in the real world, yes. In the Traveller Universe that is actually reavery (or whatever it is that Reavers do), much, much worse than piracy. Attacking worlds is what gave the Reavers that extra fearsome reputation.


Hans

 

[rancke]

The vast majority of the arguments in this thread seem to be completely ignoring the possibility of significant in-system traffic, which adds a huge potential for piracy.

That's because the vast majority of canonical references to piracy (including the infamous CT ship encounter tables) deals with interstellar traffic.

A quick check of 26 basically by-the-book systems I've generated shows that 12 of them have less than 80% (in many cases, in fact, only a a tiny percentage) of the total system population located at the mainworld and it's starport. That implies a fairly significant volume of in-system traffic, spread over vast regions -- and ample opportunity for piracy, especially if you're jump capable.

It should be noted that although the opportunities probably are greater (IMO they could hardly be lesser :devil, in-system piracy has its own problems. That of matching vectors with the victim is not as simple as you might think. Others know more than I about that.

Still, the pirates I am most skeptical about are the ones waiting for the PCs as they break out of jump.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

Um, I'm not quite sure what you're asking for here. I think most worlds above a certain GWP will have system defenses capable of discouraging pirates from lurking at the jump limit and attacking random merchants. I also think that merchants who venture into places where system defenses are inadequate will be armed. I also think that pulling off an act of piracy may be possible in certain circumstances, but that the chance of doing so and not get identified is a lot lower, and that merely changing your transponder is not enough to prevent a ship from being identified by a decent forensic examination.

I also think that pirates are fun.

Hans

Would it be fair to describe your opinion as "Yes, pirates exist ... and pirate ships are held aloft by the flapping of the Referee's hand-waving."

 

[pendragonman]

flap flap flap flap flap

 

[rancke]

Not all travel will be along occupied mains. IIRC the Spinward Marches as well as Gateway and Diaspora have mains with unsettled worlds and/or class X starports. Some ships can skip those worlds using higher rated drives, some (Types A, R, some larger transports) can't. OTOH trading along the main as a whole might be quite profitable even for a J1

Everything else being equal, no. A J1 ship jumping two parsecs with a cargo is spending more money than a J2 ship. Of course, a 40 year old J1 ship that isn't hampered by bank payments could outbid a new J2 ship that is.

Convoy sounds like a good idea but the jump derivation makes that (sadly) problematic since the ships will be scattered over up to 25 hours (150-175h/Jump according to Book 5) giving a pirate a time window where there might be a lone trader

Far simpler and more economic for the defender to establish a picket in the system to be traversed. Post a couple of ships near a fuel source and let the merchants jump to that spot, refuel under the guns of the picket, and jump on.


Hans

 

[rancke]

So if we have a C-D-E world with minimal patrolling, even if there's nothing to be had there, BUT it happens to be on a route where sometimes ships go - maybe it's a shortcut for J-1 ships? There's reason enough for someone to hit the shipping now and again. The overhead's high - skiffs aren't spaceworthy - but the payoff is potentially pretty high too.

Unlike the Somali pirates, a Traveller pirate needs a ship costing about as much as the one he's capturing to do his job. That sets the bar quite a bit higher. Then the ship he's trying to capture will be armed.

These guys are able to capture ships in waters patrolled by the US Navy, and get away with it - they ransom the crew and ships, and the companies pay it.

It should be noted that the Imperium does not have the same respect for the sovereignty of worlds that tolerate piracy as the US (strangely enough) does. There are at least two canonical examples of the Imperium replacing governments that were discovered to be in bed with pirates.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

Sounds good to me. Just to put some meat on the bones, could you suggest three+ worlds in the OTU that might qualify (source, pirate, and destination)?

I think this will satisfy you for one area, in the Regina subsector. It's three candidate worlds though in a single cluster, or gauntlet :smirk:

The Spinward Main through Regina subsector from the safe ports of Efate, Alell, and Uakye to the safe Ports of Regina, Hefry, and Jenghe passes through three risky systems. Whanga, Knorbes, and Forboldn. None of these can provide or support a space force. At the Regina end you're within a J1 of a non-Imperial world, Ruie, outside Imperial space, which could serve as a non-hostile port for pirates raiding in the Imperium.

 

[far-trader]

...Convoi sounds like a good idea but the jump derivation makes that (sadly) problematic since the ships will be scattered over up to 25 hours (150-175h/Jump according to Book 5) giving a pirat a time window where there might be a lone trader

I was imagining the convoy using the fleet jump rules. From Issue 2 of Megatraveller Journal* (Joe Fugate and Marc Miller I think):

* I swear we were doing it before that but I can't seem to find an earlier official rule.

"When a group of starships know they have to arrive in unison they elect to spend significantly more time at the start computing and sharing jump vector computations. This leads to a much more accurate jump exit at the other end with the error dropping significantly.

The formula in the Starship Operator's Manual for normal jumpspace exit is:

124hrs + (2D x 6 hrs)
yielding a result of 136 - 196 hours (that is 5.7 to 8.2 days)

If double the jump preparation time is spent with all the affected ships in computer linl via tight beam communication, use the following formula instead:

167 hours = (2d x 0.1 hr)
yielding a result of 167.2 - 168.2 hours.

Most ships now arrive within minutes of each other, with the worst spread being up to 60 minutes apart (and this only happens in about 1 out of 20 jumps). Considering the vast distances found in a star system, starships arriving minutes apart would not spoil a surprise arrival.

Constant communication during the jump vector generate (sic) is essential for this to work, and double the normal vector generation time must be observed. But when getting there "on a dime" timewise is essential then this technique is the key. Most civilian vessels don't need this level of schedule precision, so they don't bother."

(thanks BR for saving me the raw data entry and disturbing the dust on the pile of books )

P.S. And of course, I keep forgetting, while MTU is sensible and jump is NOT a random thing (making it very predictable), in the OTU and many of YTUs jump is voodoo magic and entirely random but completely safe :smirk:

 

[rancke]

The Spinward Main through Regina subsector from the safe ports of Efate, Alell, and Uakye to the safe Ports of Regina, Hefry, and Jenghe passes through three risky systems. Whanga, Knorbes, and Forboldn. None of these can provide or support a space force.

Whanga certainly can't (which is why I put a navy picket at one of its gas giants when I wrote an adventure set on Whanga), but Forboldn and Knorbes can both afford to maintain a navy. Neither can build one, but they can both buy what they need from Regina or Efate.

How much J1 traffic do you think there would be between Efate and Regina? Or between Uakye and Knorbes for that matter?

At the Regina end you're within a J1 of a non-Imperial world, Ruie, outside Imperial space, which could serve as a non-hostile port for pirates raiding in the Imperium.

After the Zhodani snuck a task force into the Ruie system in the opening of 5FW, I suspect the Imperium has taken to posting a picket force there. Especially since several Ruhigan nations have become clients and members.


Hans

 

[Renaissance Man]

The Oort Cloud is 50,000 AU x 150 million Km/AU = 7.5 E 12 km from Earth. Using the Traveller formula [T=2*sqrt (D/A) where T = time in seconds, D = Distance in meters, A = Acceleration in meters per second squares] the Oort cloud is 37.3 weeks from Earth at 6G (and 91.4 weeks at 1G). Pirates in the Oort Cloud are ‘just passing thru’ the system.

This is a good point, and I hadn't fully appreciated the time it takes to cover intra-system distances. Or the fact that the OC was so many AUs out - yipes! Still, the point stands that you can use the features of the system to evade the police.

This makes sense, but the Ship would seem to be the target more than the cargo unless the system had multiple ‘fully developed worlds’. Intra-system traffic would probably be heavy into raw resources (“Congratulations, we just captured 5,000 tons of iron ore from the mining outpost.”) or basic supplies (“Congratulations, we just captured 500 tons of Food, Oxygen, Water and 2 tons of drill bits heading to the mining outpost.”).

Yep. The ship is priority number one, if you can hijack it without causing too much damage and turning the whole thing into a salvage op. But cargo holds aren't always full of prosaic cargo - and smart pirates will do their research.

 

[far-trader]

Whanga certainly can't (which is why I put a navy picket at one of its gas giants when I wrote an adventure set on Whanga), but Forboldn and Knorbes can both afford to maintain a navy. Neither can build one, but they can both buy what they need from Regina or Efate.

A picket makes sense if there is a history of trouble, and given the area that seems probable. Whanga could build a space force or planetary defense based on it's tech, but it just doesn't have the population to do it imo. I imagine that was your reasoning as well.

As for Forboldn and Knorbes buying a space force that seems dependent on ones interpretation of the economics. Knorbes being a rich agri world isn't much of a stretch for something I guess. Forboldn I dunno, not much there in my mind. The kicker for me in both those is the lack of any native tech or starport to back it up. Any space force or planetary defenses are going to be contracted, or more likely Imperial patrol in nature, again imo.

Personally I think the bulk of J1 traffic along The Main there is going to be J1 subsidized merchants simply to maintain an Imperial presence. And given that in the area (can't recall what Jewell subsector has off hand) Knorbes is the breadbasket for both ends of The Main there, I think there will be substantial traffic to both ends from it. I suppose there might even be some J3 subsidized freighter traffic to bypass the intermediary systems and run direct to Regina and Efate for distribution. Naturally there may be free traders plying the route as well.

After the Zhodani snuck a task force into the Ruie system in the opening of 5FW, I suspect the Imperium has taken to posting a picket force there. Especially since several Ruhigan nations have become clients and members.

Post 5FW sure. Before that apparently not So it depends on when one sets their campaign.