Pirates in Disguise

[Condottiere]

If Honor Harrington has taught us anything, it's that nothing beats the satisfaction of the look of surprise on the face of a battlecruiser skipper as his command disintegrates around him, caught in the stream unexpected charged particles originating from a harmless victim.

 

[atpollard]

OK, Its all my fault ... :CoW: ... I brought up a plan for piracy.

You've been visiting the starport and not conducted any business while you were there?

Actually, we refueled with unrefined fuel and waited for the purifier to process it.
Then we bid 40% of base value on a speculative cargo of electronics (surprise, we weren't the high bid, so we didn't get the cargo).
Then we went on a 3 day wilderness trek to see the deepest caldera in the subsector (which was a good bonding experience for the crew).
Later we rented a suite at a good hotel and partied for three days.
Then we bought 1 dTon of hand rolled cigars and 1 dTon of flavored rum.
We filled out a survey with the Visitor's Bureau and got a free camera as a thank-you gift.
We departed with our 2 dTon speculative cargo to the waves of the customs inspector (whom we met while partying in the hotel) and told him we'd be back as soon as we could (which is true until we score big in this system).

Most merchant ships will be travelling at 1G. Faster ships will mostly be armed ships of one kind or another -- Scouts, SDBs, patrol ships. If we're talking a significantly deep jump shadow (days or weeks), odds are that the starport is located at the jump limit and cargo is transferred to and from system shuttles there.

Some Frontier Traders, all former Scout ships, and most small craft are fair game. In-system boat traffic might also be available. The details of the system and vicinity will really determine this ... but along a J1 main, I agree 100% that the crew of this ship will starve.

If System Control is doing its job, it will assign you and the other ships flight paths that do not come within shenanigan range of each other.

per CT: Merchant Detection = 150,000 km; Military Detection (scout ship) = 600,000 km; Tracking Range = 900,000 km.

I agree that a large, high traffic, heavily patrolled system with a Class A starport and a LL A may be a death trap for this ploy ... but a TL 8 system with a Class C/D starport will care enough to maintain a 900,000+ km separation between ships? How does that work as you get closer to the starport?

If you have been accelerating at 1G and the prey has been accelerating at 2G, it would have built up a velocity advantage over you that you'd have to spend time overtaking.

Hans

I actually see this as a benefit rather than a hindrance. By the time I shoot the target ship we both have range and velocity on any interceptor that needs to launch from the planet's surface. The time that I spend chasing down the merchant to match velocity and board is taking me ever closer to the jump limit and MY escape.

I would have to play it out several times in different ways to see if it really works, but the core of the concept is the realization that people will generally view overtaking and passing some slower ship as a point of pride and a little contempt for the slower ship ... you are not expecting that the slow ship slogging along ahead of you is really hunting you.

The pirate could even contact the approaching merchant ship to challenge his intent, exchange pleasantries and negotiate a safe "passing" distance.

 

[rancke]

per CT: Merchant Detection = 150,000 km; Military Detection (scout ship) = 600,000 km; Tracking Range = 900,000 km.

That's with your transponder turned off. Turning it off alerts System Defense and causes System Control to warn any ship that could potentially be within your reach, assigning them new flight paths.

Oh, and authorizes them to turn off their own transponders. Good luck tracking them now.

Of course, CT detection ranges are totally bogus unless you assume the existence of "stealth fields". But be that as it may, whatever the range may be, it cuts both ways.

I agree that a large, high traffic, heavily patrolled system with a Class A starport and a LL A may be a death trap for this ploy ... but a TL 8 system with a Class C/D starport will care enough to maintain a 900,000+ km separation between ships? How does that work as you get closer to the starport?

Depends. Is this a world with enough trade that it would ever become a problem? Then it's also a world with a decent military budget. Closer to the starport you would be under the guns of System Defense. Away from the starport ships have an entire hemisphere of the solar jump limit to aim for.


Hans

 

[Blue Ghost]

Or E.E `Doc` Smith if you know where SFB got the idea from.

I had no idea. I'll have a look.

*EDIT*
I seem to recall someone mentioning the "Lensman" series on the SFB boards.

 

[flykiller]

I'm wondering if a merchant vessel or other starship with the available space for such, could convert their cargo hold into a weapons bay ?

by common sense, there's no reason it cannot be done, though of course there will be power plant issues. by the rules, it is disallowed strictly because of ship size - one bay per 1000 dtons, period.

a q-ship role is better attained by increasing power plant size. I have a q-ship version of the agzlu, linked below.

 

[Patron Zero]

Hmmmm, perhaps a more 'surgical' weapon such as a rail gun or Gauss-based torpedo tube might offer a cleaner kill than spraying the target with radiation or plasma.

Seems the cost in energy to operate the weapon might be less with greater return for the overall investment and not to say that solid-shot projectiles would not make as much a statement as energy beams passing across a ship's bow.

And the concept of a scaled-down 'spinal' mount is something I had not considered previously. Such would be quite the concealable weapon at that !

*evil grin forming*

 

[Condottiere]

The problem that commerce raiders have, is that at some point they run out of supplies, especially of ammunition unless they have pre-positioned caches, hidden bases, or discrete tenders.

When they are more or less on their own, 3D printing might be able to manufacture the electronic components of missile guidance, sensors and control systems; however, making solid shot for railguns from mining asteroids might be easier.

Once you have the guidelines for designing non standard sized energy weapons, they can range from lances to Death Star primaries.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Hmmmm, perhaps a more 'surgical' weapon such as a rail gun or Gauss-based torpedo tube might offer a cleaner kill than spraying the target with radiation or plasma.

Seems the cost in energy to operate the weapon might be less with greater return for the overall investment and not to say that solid-shot projectiles would not make as much a statement as energy beams passing across a ship's bow.

And the concept of a scaled-down 'spinal' mount is something I had not considered previously. Such would be quite the concealable weapon at that !

*evil grin forming*

It wouldn't be a torpedo if it was accelerated by the gun, or so I am of the opinion.

 

[Patron Zero]

It wouldn't be a torpedo if it was accelerated by the gun, or so I am of the opinion.

Good point, I'm perhaps meaning more of a launch system to send out a powered-non powered payload away towards a target, in the instance of a 'dedicated' torpedo such would not arm-activate until within close-range to it's quarry as to lessen chances of detection.

I tend to view torpedoes in Traveller somewhat like those utilized by WWI-WWII submarines, the linear acceleration 'boost' much like the compressed air that expelled said ordnance, then the torp coming 'alive' a safe distance from the sub and seeking it's target.

Should said ordnance leave the ship under it's own power directly I take such then as a 'traditional' missile whether released from a turret or from a fixed launcher within the hull.

As to solid shot, then most definitely a slug-thrower plain and simple but with the penetration-kinetic energy transfer of modern APDS rounds fired by tanks designed to core through armor.

 

[Lycanorukke]

A forward mounted bay weapon shooting up the tail of a merchant ship might be useful.

Have the pirate be a bit more clever.

* Merche pulls in on planet Podunk and looks for cargo
* The broker sells/assigns some cargo frieght to the merchie.
* The broker sells this inforation to his friend Mr Pirate for a fee
* Mr Pirate arranges for some frieght to be delivered on the ship if the cargo is valuable engough.
* Merchie picks up the cargo and flies to the 100D limit.
* Pirate cruises outsystem to the 100 D limit a hour or so later on a close, but divering vector so as not to raise alarm.
* Merchie reaches the 100D limit, switches on his jump drive, and the entire ships powers system shuts down. Ship is now adrift with no weapons or engines.
* Pirate quickly changes vectors and intercepts the drifting ship.
* Pirate clears out cargo bay (and his special freight), the ships safe, etc and as they are at the 100D limit they have enough time before interceptors arrive
* If something goes wrong, pirate breaks off and collects his special frieght at the destination world and tries again.

The special cargo?

A nuke damper hooked up to a neutrino sensor, with a small power supply stuffed in a cargo module. As so as it detects the power plant boosting for the Jump it switches on and stops all nuke reactions, hence killing the power plant. And as it happens when the jump drive is engaged, the merchie is ikely to think his J-drive blew out and not search the cargo bay.

 

[McPerth]

A nuke damper hooked up to a neutrino sensor, with a small power supply stuffed in a cargo module. As so as it detects the power plant boosting for the Jump it switches on and stops all nuke reactions, hence killing the power plant. And as it happens when the jump drive is engaged, the merchie is ikely to think his J-drive blew out and not search the cargo bay.

Do nuclear dampers affect fussion nuclear reactions? IIRC they only affect fision ones (and so only fision typed weapons are affected by them, laser ignitedones not, at least in litrature, though no reference to taht is in the rules).

This aside, nuclear dampers need two points from where to focus their nodes/antinodes, and that the distance among them shapes the field, so a single such cargo will not work, and even if you put two of them you cannot rely on them to be at the precise points for the desired effect...

From CT:LBB4 Mercenary, page 42, under Nuclear Dampers:

Projecting from two separate stations, the intersection of the two transmited broadcasts produces a serie of nodes and antinodes.

(Boldening is mine)

Sorry for your plan, it sounded well ...

 

[rancke]

Sorry for your plan, it sounded well ...

He was on the right track, anyway. Cruising around waiting for some hapless victim to come along is a mug's game for a pirate. He needs an edge of some kind. I've been trying to come up with a dodge for a gang of pirates in a sandbox that I'm working on, and that kind of a booby-trap would be just the thing.

Perhaps some sort of invention in the same line as a nuclear damper? A nuclear interrupter? Something that only works for a few moments, useless for any practical application, but just perfect for interrupting a jump?


Hans

 

[McPerth]

He was on the right track, anyway. Cruising around waiting for some hapless victim to come along is a mug's game for a pirate. He needs an edge of some kind. I've been trying to come up with a dodge for a gang of pirates in a sandbox that I'm working on, and that kind of a booby-trap would be just the thing.

Perhaps some sort of invention in the same line as a nuclear damper? A nuclear interrupter? Something that only works for a few moments, useless for any practical application, but just perfect for interrupting a jump?


Hans

You could use a jump damper weapon (MT:RM pages 59 for description and 74 for tables). Shame its a bay (so needing a 1000 dton ship mínimum) and its TL is 21 :devil:...

 

[mike wightman]

Nuclear dampers work against fission and fusion. You can either increase or decrease the strong nuclear force.

The TNE adventure Guilded Lilly has a ship grounded by using a nuclear damper to prevent it powering up its fusion power plant.

Also note that Mercenary nuclear dampers are battlefield devices and are a whole TL above the naval nuclear damper in HG2.

Since you only need to affect a nearby power plant the damper nodes need only be separated by 1m to give 100m range or 1000m range if a TL14+ device is used.

 

[McPerth]

Nuclear dampers work against fission and fusion. You can either increase or decrease the strong nuclear force.

The TNE adventure Guilded Lilly has a ship grounded by using a nuclear damper to prevent it powering up its fusion power plant.

Also note that Mercenary nuclear dampers are battlefield devices and are a whole TL above the naval nuclear damper in HG2.

From MT:SOM (finaly found my copy), page 52:

Starships equipped with dampers are able to project a field whick can enhace or degrade the strong nuclear force whithin the missile's warhead, causing a warhead that relies on atomic fission to fail. While dampers are effective against fission weapons and fusion weapons which employ fission triggers, nuclear dampers are useless against laser detonated fusion warheads

(bolded is mine)

As you can see, there's contradictory information about it...

As I said, this is not supported by rules, as it would make laser triggered nukes (IIRC TL13+ ones) imprevious to nuclear dampers.

Since you only need to affect a nearby power plant the damper nodes need only be separated by 1m to give 100m range or 1000m range if a TL14+ device is used.

And what volume have the dampers themselves? I guess any "special cargoes" of such size would be quite suspicious, and, as I understand them, the damper projectors must be carefuly controlled (by somewone that knows their exact relative position) for the fields to interact in the corret way.

 

[Condottiere]

What you may want is a missile that causes local gravitational distortions sever enough for the astronav computer to activate a fail-safe to shutdown.

 

[Lycanorukke]

As you can see, there's contradictory information about it...

Yup.
TNE & T5 explicity permit it.
MT is vague.
CT is probably no.
Dont know about T4 or T20.

And what volume have the dampers themselves? I guess any "special cargoes" of such size would be quite suspicious, and, as I understand them, the damper projectors must be carefuly controlled (by somewone that knows their exact relative position) for the fields to interact in the corret way.

T5 - very easy. Can be about 1/4 tone in size. No remote direction necessary if the object is inside the generated fireld. No pos/neg nodes.
TNE - Unknown.
MT - Hard Times had a damper in a cargo bay to nullify nuke missiles. No pos/neg nodes.
CT - The distance appears to be due to the seperation between two units. 1m apart is more than sufficient to disable for a small ship. Assuming they are turret based sizes (1 ton) you could put 2 in a standard 3ton cargo module with room left for supporting hardware. A simple computer could locate the drive via neutrino triangulation and adjust the dampers accordingly. Unlike nuke missiles, the reactor on a ship doesnt move around.


Or if the whole damper is too complex, just use a EMP generator/electronic scrambler. Fries the ships electronics (since when do merchies use expensive Fib Ops?) and the effect is the same. With the benefit of communications also being fried.

 

[McPerth]

What you may want is a missile that causes local gravitational distortions sever enough for the astronav computer to activate a fail-safe to shutdown.

A gravity generator... I'm not sure artifical gravity affects the umps as natural gravity does (though it would have sense to be so). If so, in order to jump, a ship would need to turn off artificial gravity, maneouver drives and probably even power plant (as IIRC the fusing hydrogen is kept by repulsors, so gravitic forces). While the MD could be turned off if the vector is already right, and even the poper plant could (relying on batteries for some moemnts), even a momentany turning off of the artificial gravity would turn most ships interiors into a mess, and sure some reference would have been published for its effect on passengers.

MT is vague.

(...)

MT - Hard Times had a damper in a cargo bay to nullify nuke missiles. No pos/neg nodes.

In this way, MT is not vague, is contradictory, as the information I quoted from SOM is also MT, and it talks clearly about nodes/antinodes.

OTOH, the quote from MT:HT (the barge with a damper to make nukes useless) is quite broken, as, if having a damper on the nukes magazine would neutralize them, then no ship with dampers could use nukes a a weapon.

And, about dampers affecting fusión warheads, nowhere in HT is said if those nukes are fission or fusion ones, but, as the predominating TLs in the zone are well under 13, I guess even if they are fision warheads they are fussion triggered, so, even in the dampers neutralize them, it's not contradictory with the quote from SOM.

What it's contradictory with this quote is the fact that nothing of it is in the ship combat rules, where dampers affect all nuclear missiles.

Or if the whole damper is too complex, just use a EMP generator/electronic scrambler. Fries the ships electronics (since when do merchies use expensive Fib Ops?) and the effect is the same. With the benefit of communications also being fried.

This sure could work, if EMP generators exist in Travellr (I've never read about them, but nothing precludes them to be possible)