Regarding the piracy debate (Rupert): > No piracy debate, please.
I don't want to restart the TRAVELLER piracy debate. What I had in mind is supposed to be different. Regarding near-c rocks and terrorism (Roger and Kurt): What if there are viable countermeasures to those KE rocks? It takes less delta-V to make the rock miss than it takes to make it hit, so if there are early warning sensors (FTL?), you can send a warship and a second tug to fry the madman and then to spoil his aim. Any prosperous port would have tugs on standby for safety reasons, way more powerful than any miner. Regarding multiple empires (Roger and Jon): I wanted to think about the technical side of things, without accidents of history. There may be universes which encourage big empires or scattered systems, but I can't think of a way to encourage several big empires with convoluted borders :-) Regarding stealth and sensor countermeasures: If 'stealth' means the same as today, the highest levels will be hard or impossible to refit to merchant hulls. So maybe it would be useful to simply ban stealth technology, for a level playing field. "An unobtainium drive signature is impossible to hide, so why bother with radar stealth?" Another option would be to make stealth easy to refit, but at a substantial weight/performance cost. That means a converted pirate could mount stealth, while a legitimate merchant would not. Yet another idea might be to introduce powerful and expensive 'military' engines and power plants which are hard to stealth, and less powerful 'commercial' systems which can be hidden. A navy would consists of 'battle line' and 'pursuit' ships with those powerful engines and a few 'lurkers' with less powerful engines. The pirate could fight lurkers at even terms, and detect real combat units a long way off. Regarding boarding and disabling (Johannes, Pauli, Jon): Reminds me of the ion cannon of Star Wars fame. UTT had stats for an EMP gun with an armor divisor of (20), but the game mechanics are hard to translate from handheld guns to ship guns. This hyperspace interdiction thingy is another interesting factor. What is the best FTL option for a pirate setting? * Few jump points (the classic GURPS jump drive) are easy to to patrol. This could help the pirates, but it helps the pirate hunters even more. * GURPS Space gives choices for the ease of hyperspace entry, but almost by definition a ship that can jump to hyperspace has escaped. The Traveller jumpdrive is a variant of GURPS hyperdrive with fairly restrictive entry/exit conditions. * Only warpdrive allows a FTL chase, which would go to the faster ship rather than the first one to press the 'FTL' button. Unfortunately, Vehicles doesn't allow combat of any kind at warp speed -- the FTL beam rules are way to short-ranged, and the missile rules don't work with warp engines. The new Spaceships helps in this regard, and I'm tempted to try a few warp-capable pirates, merchants and warships with the 4E rules. What Pauli wrote regarding different types of pirates and codes of honor, that is very much a social factor. But he has a point: If a pirate transmits "surrender or die", it helps if the victims believe that surrender means life. The pirate basically communicates "resistance means you die and I waste time and a missile, a loss for both of us but worse for you, surrender means I get the goods and you get to live, a gain for both of us." Not exactly a fair deal, but it would be even worse if the victims must fear to end up as lobotomized slaves. Regarding captives (Pauli): Both cinematic and present-day pirates take some of their victims for ransom. That makes them a valuable commodity, at least as long as the trouble of keeping them does not exceed the expected rewards. Historically some pirates sold their victims into slavery, but that requires societies with markets for slaves (like galley slaves in the 16th century Med). While there is slavery even in this (supposedly enlightened) age, the overtly illegal forms cannot be applied to skilled professionals like ship crews. For a cinematic setting, maybe there is a reason why the unobtainium mines must be operated with unwilling workers. Perhaps unrefined unobtainium emits radiation which leads to a slow, lingering dead and at the same time disrupts electronics. Or the pirates have a social system which requires slaves for status. They'd be more like vikings/raiders if they have a sustainable society. Think 'Klingon' -- a real warrior doesn't work if he (rarely she) can possibly make someone else do the degrading work ... Regarding fighter swarms (Pauli, Jon): I dislike the idea of pirate/raider starfighters, at least for some definitions of 'fighter'. The cinematic concept requires all pirates on the same ship, so there can be intrigues, love affairs, mutinies, etc. Regarding ship endurance (Johannes): What you propose would simulate 17th century ships - no fuel is required, supplies like food, powder, sails, ropes are fully interchangeable, cannon balls can be reused if you get the matching cannon ... _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
