Piracy Redux

[Whipsnade]

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.

JAWillroy,

As another poster already kindly pointed out, the attacks you're referring to did (and do) occur in coastal waters, but they didn't occur at the endpoints of the voyage in question. This was primarily due to the level of navigation during the era.

In an age of LORAN and GPS, we tend to forget that, before the 1750s, there was no simple, quick, and easy way for longitude to be determined from the deck of a heaving ship. There were a number of methods involving astronomical observations. About the only thing you could do was either measure Luna's position, takes sites of Jupiter's moons, or several other time consuming, night time only, math intensive procedures involving lots of books and tables. All this was great for surveyors on land and pretty dam awful for captains on ships however.

The way most people handled the problem was to ignore it. They simply sailed about from landmark to landmark at known latitudes, looking at the color of the sea, the composition of the seabed (when their leads reached it), the presence of certain plants and animals, and other markers. All of those markers were collected in rutters or pilot guides, so most people were simply following the directions written down by someone who had already sailed there!

All this meant that an oceanic trade route was little more than a collection of short hops between already known landmarks(1) that everyone used. All the sea traffic between Port A and Port B would touch on points C, D, E, F, G, etc. so anyone knowing the route would also know where to intercept the vessels. When you remember that Traveller ships jump between Port A and Port B, you'll see why the Age of Sail model of piracy is a poor one for the OTU.

(The British government offered a 18th Century version of the X Prize for a solution and a genius clockmaker eventually won, but chronometers aboard ships were still rare until after the Napoleonic Wars. Among the other jobs Captain Cook was tasked with during his voyages in the Pacific in the 1770s was the further proving of the utility of chronometers.)


Have fun,
Bill


1 - The presence of winds at certain latitudes further reinforced this "sail between landmarks" style of navigating. A sailing ship found it's "fuel" blowing in the proper direction at only certain latitudes.

 

[Whipsnade]

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

Hans,

Not exactly!

The infamous table in question only state that the players are going about their business. That business might be heading to/from a jump limit...

... or it might be elsewhere in the system.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

I've posted something along these lines before...but I think the 100 diameter limit is a serious problem for any would-be raiders. It's just too close to a world surface for a raider to pluck a victim from the defenses.

DCCarles,

Agreed.

I reread my copy of The Traveller Book recently, though, and found very little reference to arriving at the 100-diameter limit. (The jump travel diagram just says 'arrive 100 or more diameters out' or something to that effect.)

That's due to jump drive's temporal accuracy. While you can aim at a point selected in reference from the position you're jumping from within 3000km-per-parsec jumped, your arrival can be anywhere within a 33.6 hour window. Check out how far Earth moves in 33.6 hours and you'll see why you can't "hit" the jump limit.

Power Projection explicitly says that ships arrive at the 100-diameter limit, give or take a few thousand kilometers, but CT seems to leave the question open.

PP is a wargame and a damn fine one to boot. Wargames have concerns greater than strict canonicity, the primary one being ease and/or fun of play. Inflicting the strict canonical version of jump arrival on PP would overly burden the players without also increasing their enjoyment of the game. Wargames cut canonical corners where necessary for that reason.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[jawillroy]

"you'll see why the Age of Sail model of piracy is a poor one for the OTU."

I'll agree that the Age of Sail model of piracy is a poor one for the OTU... but will say that piracy a la LBB123 is going to be different from what the OTU would come to reflect.

As for age of sail navigation - you're quite right about this, and I've read ms. Sobel's book, too. (And more - I am an antique mapseller, and spend my life surrounded by maps and charts of the 15th to the 19th centuries. Anybody want to buy a slightly used English Pilot, volume 4?) But I have to disagree about Drake's piracy: he was hitting targets on coastal areas because that's where the targets could be found, that's where the bottlenecks were. Also, he was raiding settlements. (Not practical in the OTU, that - but in an LBB123 frontier setting? Delicious.)

 

[dccarles]

That's due to jump drive's temporal accuracy. While you can aim at a point selected in reference from the position you're jumping from within 3000km-per-parsec jumped, your arrival can be anywhere within a 33.6 hour window. Check out how far Earth moves in 33.6 hours and you'll see why you can't "hit" the jump limit.

Excellent point.

I'll calculate things out some time, just to see how far from its target a ship is likely to exit jumpspace. There's also the problem of matching vectors with the target world; this is strongly dependent upon jump distance, of course. These issues may make me have to rethink my assertion that the 100-diameter limit makes commerce raiding/piracy near-impossible.

PP is a wargame and a damn fine one to boot... Inflicting the strict canonical version of jump arrival on PP would overly burden the players without also increasing their enjoyment of the game.

My impression of Power Projection: Fleet (and no, I haven't played it) was that it was wonderfully complete, but the main systems looked very clunky and exception-ridden. I don't believe that insistence on canonicity would, in this case, damage the game experience: it only takes a simple roll to determine exit distance, and it will be predefined in most scenarios anyway - specifically with the aim of increasing fun.

--Devin

(It's a freighter. No, it's a tasty snack. Wait, no, it's both!)

 

[pendragonman]

(The British government offered a 18th Century version of the X Prize for a solution and a genius clockmaker eventually won, but chronometers aboard ships were still rare until after the Napoleonic Wars. Among the other jobs Captain Cook was tasked with during his voyages in the Pacific in the 1770s was the further proving of the utility of chronometers.)

I remember a History Channel/Discovery Channel/PBS (one of them) on this guy. I loved the scene with the prototype chronometer (Huge) on the rowboat (small) floating on the stream.

 

[rancke]

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.

Yes, indeed. IMO Whanga doesn't have a population, just a survey team from Sternmetal Horizons. It doesn't have any trade either.

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.

Forboldn doesn't have much, but it has just enough. A while back I worked out its annual budget and asked the people on the JTAS board what they thought would be a good force to maintain on that budget. They came up with some excellent suggestions which I, procrastinating fool that I am, didn't get around to copying down before the posts were deleted .

It involved an obsolete freighter whose cargo hold had been converted into hangar space for a squadron of fighters, thus enabling the Forboldn Defense Force to use fighters out in space.

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.

According to Striker, imported tech costs twice as much to maintain. I took that into account.

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.

That sounds interesting. How do you figure that artificially increasing the amount of J1 traffic is going to benefit the Imperium?

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.

Knorbes isn't going to be much of a breadbasket. The fact that its trade classification is agricultural only means that its imports and exports will be of a particular type; it says nothing about the amount of agricultural products it can produce. With its low tech level, it won't produce a lot of surplus crops.

But whatever it produces will IMO be transported to Regina and/or Efate by jump-3 freighters at about half the cost of using jump-1 freighters.

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.

Knorbes to Forboldn to Ruie to Regina would be a natural route to find some free traders, but the complete lack of trade opportunities on Whanga would serve as a stopper for J1 traffic in that direction. J2 traffic from Knorbes to Alell is certainly a possibility.


Hans

 

[rancke]

That's due to jump drive's temporal accuracy. While you can aim at a point selected in reference from the position you're jumping from within 3000km-per-parsec jumped, your arrival can be anywhere within a 33.6 hour window. Check out how far Earth moves in 33.6 hours and you'll see why you can't "hit" the jump limit.

Aside: +/- 10% of 168 is not +/- 16.8, it's +/- 17. So it'd be a 34 hour window.

Actually, the jump limit is pretty much what you're going to hit, almost every time.

Assume that you want to go to a world that moves 200 planetary diameters in 30 hours. What you do is, you aim for where it's going to be in 168 hours. You aim for the very spot along its orbit that it will arrive at 168 hours from now.

If your jump takes 153 hours, you'll arrive at that very spot 15 hours before the world reaches it. In other words, at the 100 diameter limit.

If your jump takes 183 hours, you'll arrive at that very spot 15 hours after the world passed through it. In other words, at the 100 diameter limit.

If your jump takes anywhere between 153 and 183 hours, you won't arrive at that spot, because you'll hit the world's jump limit first, thus being precipitated out at the jump limit.

Only if your jump takes more than 183 or less than 153 hours, will you arrive at the spot while the world is further away than 100 diameters. But if (as I assume) jump durations are distributed along a bell curve, that will happen relatively seldom. So seldom, in fact, that a set of role-playing rules could be forgiven for ignoring the possibility, right?

This interpretation, BTW, means that the vector a departing ship would strive for is one that is 0 relative to the destination world, not the departure world. Again, I think a set of RPG rules might well ignore that complication.


Hans

 

[pendragonman]

That sounds interesting. How do you figure that artificially increasing the amount of J1 traffic is going to benefit the Imperium?

Oh, I don't know, by keeping the mail service open? Thus keeping beaurocratic lines of communication open? He did say subsidized merchant.

Also, by keeping a supply line open, it makes continued research on these planets somewhat viable. Thus making potential discoveries more possible and exploitable.

 

[jawillroy]

There's always going to be room for J-1 shippers; it works for MTU and I don't see why it wouldn't in the OTU. J-3 routes will whip between the high-pop, high value worlds; they'll bypass the little worlds, rendering them backwaters even in the midst of an empire. But there'll still be value in maintaining contact with these places, if only because often their inhabitants - certainly the rich ones - will want it. IMTU it's these little worlds that cough up for subsidies, to make sure they stay in the loop. Unfortunately, it's also these worlds that have limited resources for defending the ships they subsidize - and may more often than not end up hiring protection not far removed from the predators they wish to deter.

***Holy conflict of interest, batman!***

How about this one:

Planetary government, nobility and merchants combine to subsidize a small merchant fleet; arm said fleet for protection, and hire/subsidize a patrol vessel or two for fleet and system protection. Those ships identified by the merchant fleet as dangerous competition might be in for trouble - either directly from the subsidized merchants, or indirectly from the local "navy."

 

[far-trader]

Knorbes isn't going to be much of a breadbasket. The fact that its trade classification is agricultural only means that its imports and exports will be of a particular type; it says nothing about the amount of agricultural products it can produce. With its low tech level, it won't produce a lot of surplus crops.

I tend to look at the CT trade codes a bit more simplistically. If a world is Ag in my mind it is a notably major source of Ag for the region. The fact it is low TL in this case needn't mean it isn't a big producer. Labour intensive perhaps, for some products, less so for others. Could be it's one big grazing range for enormous meat stock. And all the mega freighters do is park on the plains, open the doors and call the animals in to transport them for processing. Or process on board enroute like the big trawlers.

Which kind of swings the topic back to piracy Of the prairie stock thieving variety...

Rustlers In Spaaaaaace!

 

[jawillroy]

Shucks

*Rustlers in Space*

And now you're making me think of "Spaceward Ho." Yaaaah!

 

[Whipsnade]

"and I've read ms. Sobel's book, too.

JAWillroy,

I didn't have to wait to read Ms. Sobel's book to know about the long, contentious search for longitude and I suspect you didn't either!

In threads like this, it's always good to ensure that folks know how things were actually done at the time they were done. While the eclectic levels of knowledge the average RPG player enjoys always surprises me, it was necessary to remind people how shipboard navigation was actually performed until the second quarter of the 19th Century.

And more - I am an antique mapseller, and spend my life surrounded by maps and charts of the 15th to the 19th centuries.

Ugh. The amount of stolen, pilfered, and otherwise dodgy product which has flooded that market in the last two decades must have an honest soul like yourself pulling your hair out. Establishing provenance can't be much fun anymore.

But I have to disagree about Drake's piracy: he was hitting targets on coastal areas because that's where the targets could be found, that's where the bottlenecks were.

And, I as tried to point out, the targets were there because of the method in which nearly all ship masters navigated during their voyage.

Also, he was raiding settlements. (Not practical in the OTU, that - but in an LBB123 frontier setting? Delicious.)

Delicious indeed! And perhaps delicious in the OTU too, especially along and beyond the borders of most polities!


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Assume that you want to go to a world that moves 200 planetary diameters in 30 hours...

Hans,

And just how many worlds orbit at that speed? Here's a hint - most will be inside the jump limit of their primary star.

If the target world is moving slower; like the OTU's many gas giants with inhabited moons, will be moving slower thus greatly "shrinking" your jump limit "target". You could very exit at 153 or 183 hours and still be outside of a jump limit.

This interpretation, BTW, means that the vector a departing ship would strive for is one that is 0 relative to the destination world, not the departure world. Again, I think a set of RPG rules might well ignore that complication.

And the rules should...

... unless the GM wants to inflict such a complication.

Mr. Miller's JTAS jump space essay specifically mentions vector retention through jump, I can think of one MT era adventure in The Challenge whose plot involved vector rentention, and vector retention is an important part of TNE ship operations thanks to those fuel-hungry HEPLaR maneuver drives.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[jawillroy]

"it's always good to ensure that folks know how things were actually done at the time they were done."

Well put, Bill. No arguments here!

"stolen, pilfered, and otherwise dodgy product"

I've lucked out in that regard - the house I work for has been able to travel above virtually all of what you refer to.

"Delicious indeed! And perhaps delicious in the OTU too, especially along and beyond the borders of most polities!"

Raiding Can Be Profitable And Easy, 9 out of 10 Pirates Say

 

[far-trader]

...Mr. Miller's JTAS jump space essay specifically mentions vector retention through jump, I can think of one MT era adventure in The Challenge whose plot involved vector rentention, and vector retention is an important part of TNE ship operations thanks to those fuel-hungry HEPLaR maneuver drives.

And I still don't see how that can be at all useful, if not downright dangerous, unless the exact time and position of jump emergence is known

Given the also canonical (from the same article iirc) distance variation of some 3000km per parsec jumped (iirc) upon emergence and the possibly large time variation (presuming it is a random as it is apparently interpreted by most) and no mechanic to suggest just which way the ship is pointing upon arrival (except perhaps that J-space maps to real space) can you explain to me how a retained vector can be worked out? Without house rules?

Maybe I've forgotten and TNE worked it out. Maybe I've missed the crucial word in CT all these years. But I just don't see how it could work.

 

[Whipsnade]

And I still don't see how that can be at all useful, if not downright dangerous, unless the exact time and position of jump emergence is known

Dan,

It's a "frame of reference" issue. Look at jump this way...

... when you're jumping from Regina to Hefry, you're NOT jumping to a point X number of AUs from Hefry but you ARE jumping to a point X number of parsecs from Regina.

Thinking of it like an artillery shoot is another way. You're aiming at a point selected in reference to the gun you're firing and not in reference to a point near the target.

As for vectors...

First; imagine your Beowulf has a vector of 0 in the Regina system. You're somehow not moving relative to Regina's primary.

Next; as you "sit" in the Regina system, the Hefry system is seen to have a vector of A kph in direction X relative to the Regina system.

So; you plan on jumping to a point a certain distance from Regina (with that 3000km/parsec jumped accuracy in play), you'll arrive at that point between ~153 and ~182 hours from now, and the Hefry system will be "passing" through that position at the time you arrive. (Actually, your arrival is within the Hefry system, but we need to keep our Regina-frame-of-reference firmly in mind.)

Because the Hefry system - and all the bodies within it - have a specific vector in reference to Regina, you can create a vector within the Regina system, carry that vector through jump, and then use that vector within the Hefry system.

As I know we all know, the term "vector" consists of both speed and direction. Your facing in reference to Regina will be maintained through jump because your vector is mantained and, because you know the Hefry vectors as seen from Regina, you can plan to create a vector useful in the Hefry system as seen from Regina.

Like I said, it's a "frame of reference' thing. Once you realise that during a Regina-to-Hefry jump you're jumping a certain distance from Regina and not from Hefry, everything falls into place.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[sablewyvern]

My impression is that far-trader understands all that, Whipsnade. The question is, how do we, as players, determine what the relevant vector actually is? How much time/energy/fuel/effort is required to match vectors with the destination system? Those would be my question, in any case.

 

[Zparkz]

in my games I do not bring pre-jump vector up unless it is very important. I have told my players that the velocity and direction they get prior to jump is kept. Adn they leave the rest up to me.
When it is important for the players to know, for instance when they are pursuing a ship that suddenly jumps out, they can use all available data to determine where the target will exit.
This would of course require an astrogation roll and preferably updated maps of the local area.

 

[Icosahedron]

I think I see what FT was saying.
If you are planning to come in on a course perpendicular to a planet's motion, on a vector that will slow you to rest when you've covered the distance to the surface, it only works if you enter at the planned time. If you miss the planet, you have a vector that is carrying you perpendicularly away from the planet and that is very counter-productive.

It also opens cans of worms like your pursuers could figure where you were going by comparing your chosen vector with the current vectors applicable to nearby systems.

However, I'm wary of the whole artillery shot idea. It sounds very Newtonian Absolutism to me (as is Traveller, I suppose). General Relativity suggests an altogether more nebulous connection between bodies. Personally, I'd link Vector to the local centre of gravity in some way, although I'm not really in favour of vector retention at all - because of its complexities. It's a rule I've chosen to ignore IMTU. Jump Space wipes the slate IMHO - much simpler.