Using Rupert's observations as a template: Rupert Boleyn wrote: > Knapp wrote: >> I have not been on this list long enough to know why pirates don't >> work in traveller. What are the reasons? > > Massive empires that can afford to buy many powerful warships. These empires > also have massive economic power, and can thus crush 'pirate worlds' and the > like even without military action.
Right. And this can't be solved by living on the border between two massive warring empires, because you'd have _two_ massive empires with the power to crush you, rather than just one. The only way to survive in such a situation would be to sign up with one or the other. Basically, pirates either need a sponsor or they need to operate well away from large industrial centers, where warships have difficulty going. I've a setting where the industrialized worlds of an empire are linked by stargates and patrolled by STL juggernauts, but where non-industrialized worlds that can't afford stargates are linked by hyperdrive-equipped ships; in this setting, an empire's Patrol is largely restricted to defending those worlds that have stargates, while pirates tend to operate around the frontier worlds where they only have to deal with the Navy, rather than both the Navy and the Patrol. > Long sensor ranges combined with high accelerations mean that a pirate's > window of opportunity to subdue and capture a merchant is very small if > there's a warship in-system. Neutralize those long sensor ranges with some sort of stealth. > Large warships can (and do) mount weapons that can vaporise smaller ships in > a single hit, armour notwithstanding, and be agile and armoured enough that > only a swarm of small ships (that costs about the same as the big ship) can > hope to kill it. > > Spaceships cost a great deal relative to personal wealth, so even minor > combat damage can wipe out any profit. Thus neither merchants nor pirates > can afford to actually shoot it out, and getting into a fight with a patrol > vessel will bankrupt a pirate (or privateer) even if they win. Make actual damage very hard to accomplish; but provide weapons that can degrade a ship's performance without having to actually damage it. Choose such weapon systems so that small ships have teeth, and maneuverability is king. A side effect is that this would tend to move away from warships and toward fighter carriers. > Cargos cost very little compared to the vessels, but stealing vessels is > considerably riskier and harder because you must capture it in a > jump-capable state (i.e. jump drives intact and with jump fuel onboard), but > if the ship is in that state it can almost certainly escape you. However, > transferring cargo take a long time (probably too long to be safe). Again, less actual damage and more system disabling. This lets a pirate close in, disable the target ship long enough to board it, bring its drives back online, and get out of there. Either that, or find some way to speed up cargo transfer. -- Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
