Archive through December 02, 2005
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Orion Pirate Captain's Campaign:
Archive through December 02, 2005
Long ago (back in 1985) I ran a campaign for a player who wanted to go from being an LR captain up to being the CA captain of his Cartel. The thing involved totally random targets, and required him to obtain within a certain number of scenarios a given amount of cargo. Arrival of police forces was random, and he would never know until he attacked it just what kind of freighter (standard, armed, Q-ship) he was gunning for. It seems to me that an Orion Pirate Captain's campaign would be something to have, but so far there has been no success in having an independent develop one. And my data is lost in the mists of the passage of 20 years, and woefully out of date in any case (back then the Progression was only LR, CR, CA, and there was no problems with Skids and Ducktails possibly making the freighter more than you wanted to deal with).
My basic concept is still the idea that the Orion player should start with a small ship (LR if before the General War, but a daring player might want to start with an LR in the General War period). An LR might have to gain say 750 spaces of cargo in the course of 15 scenarios (rough example). Spaces would be deducted for internal damage (including by engine doubling), used expendables (destroyed shuttles, T-bombs deployed, drones or plasma-Ds launched, etc.) and some value for lost crew (sacrificing your boarding parties should have a cost).
Typical actions would involve the Orion trying to get to the freighter, disable it, transfer cargo, and get out of dodge. His tactics of course will be affected by the fact that there is a chance that any freighter he attacks could be a Q-ship. There would be no guarantee that there is only one Q-ship in the mix (it would be possible, however unlikely, that three freighters he attacks in a row could turn out to be Q-ships, for example). The idea is for him to tailor his ship and weapons within the cartel he chooses to optimize getting in and getting out. It would take him only ten successful missions to get all the cargo, but the extra five allow him to drop some battles (and deal with the idea that Armed Freighters not only can fight, but might disengage by acceleration on their own even before the cops arrive, putting pressure on you to disable them quickly despite their weapons).
There might be some bonus cargo points for taking armed freighters, and for running down a Fed Express or an Armed Priority Transport.
The above is roughly where I started from.
There would have to a chance at an overhaul, and changing weapons after the campaign begins would be deducted from his haul of cargo and might keep him from being promoted (by leaving him with insufficient cargo points at the end of the 15th mission).
Further, there might be one or more "additional missions" that the cartel might impose on him. (Serve as a mercenary, raid a planet, attack a poaching ship of the same class . . . basically a duel . . . maybe gather information on a monster . . . do not have to kill it, just gather a certain amount of information . . . defend a base, etc.)
Once the player earns promotion, he basically has to go through it all over again in his next size ship, but of course the opposition will be a little different, i.e., a CR would have to deal with small convoys by itself and be required to successfully gather about 67% more cargo than the LR.
Anyone want to take a crack at putting something together for an Orion Pirate Captain Campaign? You do not have to try to follow the formulan I was working with. And the Orions will have a somewhat easier time as (back when I was running mine) the freighters will not have T-bombs (other than the armed types) or NSMs (other than the Romulan Q-ships).
(This is about all I remember) Note that the way I did it was to organize the various freighters (at that time) with a deck of cards. Jokers were Q-ships. The time of arrival of the police ship was determined by a card (number card with face cards all being ten, and an ace meaning no help was coming at all . . . may have been a modifier to the cards to allow more time . . . I just do not remember).
The Player's chosen Cartel was Lion's Heart, and he only preyed on Kzinti merchant ships (so he only had to deal with Kzinti Police Corvettes).
Quote:There would have to a chance at an overhaul, and changing weapons after the campaign begins would be deducted from his haul of cargo and might keep him from being promoted (by leaving him with insufficient cargo points at the end of the 15th mission).
One way of paying for weapons is to have a certain cost ( in cargo boxes ) to run the ship ( crew's wages, fuel etc ) and then have a number of months travel to a new cartel base, in order to get the new weapons and then sailing back.
Would one want to keep the game in cargo point as the ecconomy or would one what to have cargo points being spent to buy captain's game points, for purposses of copetition with other players who don't want to be pirates?
I'ld be willing to put something like this together, if I were to get a bit of help. I'm not quite fluent with the number of cargo points in each cargo box and such but it's a lot like the campaign generator I was thinking of.
Would something along the lines of:-
You pull out a hand of five cards.
The first card determines the type of mission objective (moster, frieghter, freighter convoy, Q ship, harrassment, spying, etc).
The second card determines the value of the objective (in cargo boxes).
The third card detertmines the escort (usually none but Q ships would be fairly common ).
The forth card would be the rescue unit card and the fifth card would be the rescue time card.
...work?
Unfortunately I couldn't playtest it, I'ld put all that effort into X2 I suspect.
Michael John Campbell:
Adding a "cost" for wages and etc, is basically unneccessary dirt. It is in essence subsumed into the larger total, i.e., if you have successfully gathered 750 points of cargo over your 15 missions, then you have in fact paid the crew, purchased the fuel, etc.
If you have not, then by the end of the 15th mission you will be "retired".
You could argue that level of failure could define the level of your "retirement".
Just missing your goal might be "retained as captain of a Light Raider (or what ever ship you are currently in).
Missing it by a larger percentage might be "replaced by a new officer appointed by the Cartel but allowed to continue to serve on the ship as a crewman".
Missing by an even larger percentage might be "removed from command and assigned a staff position at a Cartel base".
Missing by an even larger percentage might be "The cartel suspects that you are actually an operative from the police forces and kills you."
As to your not being familiar with the number of cargo points . . . HUNH? I mean that is one of the most basic premises of the game. All cargo boxes except those found on PFs and Orion pirate ships (and maybe skiffs and modular cutters . . . I have not done a quick check) hold 50 (fifty) spaces of cargo. The ones on PFs and Orion Pirate ships hold 25 spaces.
As to your card system, I think that would be unworkable, but I am biased. Part of the problem is that you are sticking in too many missions, requiring you to write and balance too many scenarios for the campaign. The point, it seems to me, is that the OPPOSING PLAYER is the one that pulls the cards, and then puts them face down. That way the Orion player does not know that the freighter he is attacking is a Q-ship until it reveals itself (and the defender shows him the card to confirm that it is). And does not know how soon the Police Ship will arrive until it does (and the defender shows him the card to confirm that it is the turn it should arrive).
The cargo situation is that in most cases you are bouncing a freighter, and the freighter will have (assuming a small one) 1,250 spaces of cargo, of which your Light Raider only wants to acquire 75 spaces, and is obviously going to take the 'best' 75 spaces. If the target is a Fed Express, you can pretty much assume that the 150 spaces of cargo it is carrying are REALLY high value (successfully catching it and getting 75 spaces of cargo from it should probably count triple), while an Armed Priority Transport's 300 spaces of cargo would also be high value, just not as high as a Fed Express, and an armed freighter's cargo should have some sort of bonus. In effect, the better guarded, (or the faster it is being moved) the more it should be worth (or it would not be worth guarding better or moving faster).
Finally, you get back to the idea that a pirate is not really looking for a fight, but a fight is looking for him. In effect, he wants to run down and catch fat merchants and give them a quick mugging, max gain for minimum (for him) pain. On the other hand, police forces are looking for him to arrest, and arriving on the scene while he is trying to get his cargo transferred is when he gets into more of a fight than he wants.
I have always enjoyed this style of campaign.
I used a 2 card draw system. First Card told turn #, Operating area(read opponent race) and size of reinforcement. Second card told which scenario and/or special ship was in scenario with suit giving modifiers to arrival time. If either card was a joker, use a Q-ship. If both cards were jokers you ran into a Andro Bullsnake(?) cargo convoy.
I will look to see if I can find the specific info somewhere.
Quote:You could argue that level of failure could define the level of your "retirement".
That would probably be best. Maybe missing (by say 200 cargo points) would extend your 15 missions to 20.
Overhaul would probably subtract 250 cargo points from your running total (I'm sure the cartel are willing to loan in order to overhaul ships that have a run of bad luck early...but will they demand interest or just special favours).
And yes I was thinking too detailed as I was looking for lots of missions not comming to fruition as a form of realism...maybe you should lend SVC your baseball bat, I hear he's looking for one, although a two by four will do.
Heck I was even considering a random relative value table, because a cargo hold of Iron ore isn't worth the same as a cargo hold full of DVD players.
As to the secrecy of the mission.
It's hard to say if that should be a good idea or not. If an LR stumbles upon a convoy consisting of 8 large freighters, it may well have to let it go as soon as it gets to S2 intel and realises that a total MC of four is going to be a huge ask even to get 75 points of "good" cargo from one freighter.
A player in such a situation will pull off and look for a different target without ever being rejestered on the other guy's scanners.
Better to make it some other rule for Q ships, like the "other player" keeps both jokers. On a mission where a Q ship is used, the "other player" hands over the Joker as soon as the Q ship is revealled ( or the end of the scenario ) ansd the player keeps the jokers until the end of his 15 missions (giving one joker back if his missions are extended to 20).
Alternately the "other player" could write down 8 cards of his choosing ( during the set up of the camapign ) and keep the list a secret. If one of the cards drawn happens to match the list then a Q ship is involved (slightly less than 1 in six missions will have a Q ship).
On Police or Fleet based rescue. It's the sort of thing thats in the scenario set up. SG4.46 is plainly availible information to anyone choosing to play SG4 (or am I wrong in this) so to a certian degree the Orion pirate does know when reascue is comming. Perhaps the card indicating rescue should only indicated one of several methods of determining a hidden responce time ( say the other guys rolls 2D6 and the result is the turn of responce Or roll 1D6 at the start of every turn after ( but not including ) turn 6. If the result is a six then the rescuers arrive).
Hitting the same two small freighter and one large frighter concoy might be balanced but is that still ture for the CA or even the CR? Having a more natural spread of targets whilst requiring large amounts of extra work will to keep "balanced" will also create longer playability. So long as the easy ones are as common as the hard ones, it remains in balance...just don't loose your ship are the hard ones. I think it was the duke of Wellington who said, "the hardest thing for a general is knowing when to signal retreat and having the courage to give the signal".
I was even thinking of a possible way to mount an assault on larger targets. Hire another priate ship to help. You pay `em (weekly running costs help here) to come and meet you and then you pounce on a target together and then split the cargo gained via shares. Each ship would get a number of shares equal to their BPV divided by 25 rounded up. So two LRs would split the cargo 50:50 but if a CA was hired to help an LR then the CA would get six shares (at 127 BPV) and the LR only 3 (at 68 BPV) so the cargo will be split 2/3 to the CA and 1/3 to the LR.
How about this:
Run 15 missions, and have $1,000 left so you can retire.
Roll 1d6 for scenario type
1-4 - solo convoy raid
5 - assistance requested
6 - base defense
convoy raid scenario
Roll 1d6 for number of ships in the convoy. Read a 6 as 5+1d6.
For each ship in the convoy, draw a card:
Any 2-5, standard small freighter.
Any 6-9, standard large freighter.
10, small armed freighter.
J, large armed freighter.
Q, small freighter in ballast.
K, large freighter in ballast.
A of clubs, small Q-ship.
A of diamonds, large Q-ship.
A of hearts, Frigate
A of spades, Destroyer.
For every 10 cargo boxes, roll 1d6 for how full it is, and 1d6 for contents.
Cargo Boxes
1,2 - empty
3 - 1/4 full
4 - 1/2 full
5 - 3/4 full
6 - full
Cargo Contents:
1 - bantha poodoo. good luck selling that 
2 - food. $1 per full box.
3 - ore. $2 per full box.
4 - Romulan Ale. $3 per full box.
5 - War supplies. $10 per full box (and free reloads for the next scenario)
6 - dilithium. $25 per full box.
To count for score, the cargo must be taken away in your ship (1 box of cargo = 2 Orion cargo boxes), or in a captured and warp-capable ship.
If you disengage by sublight, the campaign is over.
Assisstance requested scenario
You have been requested to help in raiding a large convoy.
Roll the convoy as above, except the convoy will have 5+1d6 ships.
Split the money among the survivors.
(If you shoot one of the other Orions, your next scenario is Duel with an Enforcer)
Defend the base
The navy has found your cartel's base, and you have been requested to help defend it.
Receive $500 if you and the base survive.
Between scenario repairs:
Sheilds - free.
Other repairs - $0.25 per DamCon point (limited to (D9.4)
Crew replacements - $1 each
Commander's options - $1 per BPV point.
Overhaul - 5x the BPV
Upgrade - 10x the BPV of the new ship.
Repairs cannot be made immediately after a Base Defense scenario, if the base does not survive.
After every 3 scenarios, increase the scenario year by 1.
Duel with an Enforcer...
Sounds like a potential lose lose situation...unless you manage to capture the enforcer more or less intact...
but what the hey, thats the stuff legends are made of!!!
OK I can deal with this.
But you should add a little bit of fun with having to fence the stolen cargo.
A price negotiation phase
A safe delivery phase (avoid both police and other pirates)
An uh-oh phase where there is a chance to double deal or be double dealt or its just another Police sting operation.
Many other such fun things can be added.
Reid, I think the challenge was to prepare a Orion Pirate Captain Campaign, not just modify Jeff T's idea.
I like your suggestions, but it would almost require a separate Sequence of Play procedure be written to account for the various "levels" of play.
Sort of a "Pre turn" activity (such as negotiating the price for a given convoy (errrr...) I mean 'generic commodity', then resolution of the scenario (as in combat damage and the number of cargo boxes captured) and then you get to your "Post turn phase" where the safe delivery phase and the UH-OH phase get to be resolved.
Means up to 4 different combats needing to be resolved for each "game turn" of what ever calendar length is being portrayed in the campaign.
Might be a lot of fun, but could get a little complicated.
Just like any other simulation, there's a tradeoff between accuracy and complexity. The closer you want your simulation to be like "real" life, the more complex the sim (or campaign) will be.
You can assume that all cargos are created equal (as SPP did), and simplify that part of the campaign, or you can put some variation in cargo types, but at the cost of making it more complicated (as I did).
You can assume all captured cargo can be sold off without incident and simplify things (as I did), or you add a negotiation step (as Reid did), but make it more complicated.
There's plenty of things you can add to a campaign.
But where's the proper balance between accuracy and complexity?
That depends on the player, not the designer.
As noted, I think an Orion Pirate Captain's Campaign would be a good thing to have, and I am willing to look at someone's effort. But my interst (note MY, I can be overruled by SVC) is something that more or less requires the Orion to act as he really would. To that end, not knowing if the freighter is a Q-ship is a plus, because any given freighter might be. Obviously an Orion's tactics should reflect an aversion to risk.
Light Raiders, for example, do not tangle with convoys on their own, and Jeff's proposal does not allow for the changes to the game (one the problems I have in trying to revive the idea).
Suppose Jeff was running a Light Raider, drew the convoy raid mission, found himself faced with six small freighters, but the OPPOSING PLAYER has chosed to fit all of them with General Skids and Ducktails? There are now 12 phaser-3s (the freighters and their normal admin shuttles), and six phaser-2s. Jeff pretty much cannot afford to lower the shields on his ship to transfer cargo until he silences all those weapons (and each freighter has a damage control rating of two, meaning that they can collectively repair 12 systems. And if you were to tractor just one freighter and try to run . . . nope, won't work because the rest of the convoy can literally chase you.
Large freighters only make that situation worse.
So a Light Raider by itself does not tangle with a convoy, particularly one that has someone with a well developed convoy philosophy. As I mentioned elsewhere, freighters are ships, they can purchase Commander's Options (otherwise there would be no need to specifically note that they cannot buy T-bombs on their SSDs). Six small freighters would have six transporters, and up to 24 boarding parties. A Light raider has only two transporters and at most 22 boarding parties (8 normally, and can use commander's options to purchase 10 more, plus two commando squads and two heavy weapons squads). If it cannot crash land shuttles aboard, it is likely to lose a boarding action (simply because the first two boarding parties will be outnumbered two-to-one, and the other freighters can beam over five reinforcements to the Light Raider's two on the next turn).
Doubling the engines is not something you want to do during normal operations. It is something you do when you have to have a "real" fight. A truly successful Orion Pirate (outside of dueling with an opposing Orion poaching his turf, or acting as a mercenary, or even doing something particularly hazardous at the behest of the Cartel Lord) would never double his engines.
I mean, if he wanted to take chances in combat, they he would not have become a pirate.
So while Jeff Tonglet has the start of what he thinks is a good campaign (and maybe others would agree, perhaps even SVC), I do not think he has a real grasp of what an LR is capable of, and what the opposition is capable of.
And, yes, the campaign I ran that one time really helped solidify (in my mind) what could be done by both sides. It is (that campaign), in point of fact, why freighters are not allowed to carry T-bombs, and was one of the things that led to change between Commander's Edition and Captain's Edition to keep just any old ship from carrying two NSMs.
So, to develop a campaign where a Light Raider can play, you need to have a good grasp of the problems with running a Light Raider, and part of that is the time it takes to transfer the cargo from the freighter (after you have subdued it) to your own ship. The fastest way is to dock, but that requires capturing the freighter, stopping it, and stopping your own ship, and when is that police ship going to show up?
SPP: Perhaps, the campaign should just focus on the actual combat scenarios, and assume that "standard pirate operations" are done automatically? The scenario you describe would be little more than a die-rolling exercise... once the POL shows up the Orion will leave. You might as well just say "the Orion gets d6x10 cargo points".
Here's my idea...each campaign turn is one month of piracy.
There is a "War Intensity Rating" that reflects how hard the General War is being fought. The WIR will have an effect on the number of freighters operating in the area, but also on the armament and protection of convoys.
There is also a general modifier for the Orion's ship type. (STR = Ship Type Rating.)
Finally, the Orion player selects an "aggressiveness rating". This reflects how willing he is to take chances. PAR = Pirate Aggressiveness Rating.
Assume that four "raids" will happen in one month. For each raid, roll 2d6 and add WIR+STR+PAR. the total modifier might be negative (i.e. a cautious LR captain in Y164) or it might be highly positive (a berserk CA captain in Y176.)
Roll 4x 2d6 to determine what happens that month.
2 or less: No encounter. It's a slow week.
3 to 5: You encounter a single freighter that gives up without a fight. Get as many points of cargo as your ship can hold.
6 to 8: You encounter a pair of small freighters who try to fight back. Play an SFB scenario.
9: You encounter a large convoy, consisting of d6+2 small freighters. The freighter player can trade pairs of small freighters for a single large freighter.
10: You encounter a military convoy. d6 small armed freighters, and two Small Auxiliary ships (1-2: Repair 3-4: Aux Scout 5-6: Aux Troop Transport). The freighter player can trade pairs of small freighters/auxiliaries for a single large freighter/auxiliary.
11: You encounter a naval ship! Fight a naval ship from an appropriate race; the pirate player gets to select the race, and the navy player selects the ship (base BPV equal to the pirate's ship.) If the Orion player destroys the enemy ship, he gets a bonus equal to three full loads of cargo. If he captures the enemy ship, he automatically gets his ship upgraded at no cost in earned points. If his ship is destroyed or captured, the campaign is over.
12: You encounter another pirate, who wants to eliminate the competition! Fight an Orion of the same class; the opposing Orion player can select option mounts from those available to the same cartel as the Orion player. If the Orion player destroys the enemy ship, he gets a bonus equal to three full loads of cargo. If he captures the enemy ship, he automatically gets his ship upgraded at no cost in earned points. If his ship is destroyed or captured, the campaign is over.
For scenarios 6,7,8,9, the convoy player secretly rolls 1d6 and adds the WIR (recording the result.) If the result is higher than 6, roll on the...
FREIGHTER SURPRISES TABLE: Before the scenario starts, pick which table you want to roll on and roll 1d6. Keep the choice and the roll result secret; record both.
TABLE A:
1-2: IMPROVED FREIGHTERS: Half of the freighters in the scenario have skids or a ducktail. Freighters can "give" their upgrade to another (allowing some freighters to have both while others have neither.)
3-4: PROTECTED CONVOY: Change half of the convoy's freighters to Armed types.
5: Q-SHIP: Half of the freighters have skids or a ducktail. In addition, one freighter without skids or a ducktail is a Q-ship.
6: POLICE SHIP: Add a POL to the scenario, escorting the convoy, and re-roll (on Table A or Table B.)
TABLE B:
1: IMPROVED FREIGHTERS: as above.
2-3: PROTECTED CONVOY: Four Small Freighters or less: Add two Small Auxiliary Cruisers or one Large Auxiliary Cruiser. More than four Small Freighters: Add three SAC, or one SAC and one LAC, or one HAC to the convoy. (one Large Freighter counts as two Small Freighters.)
4-5: POLICE SHIP: as above.
6: CARRIER PROTECTION: A very heavily-protected convoy! Add a Small Auxiliary Carrier with 6x Class-1 fighters to the convoy. Drone-armed fighters are armed with 1xType-I Explosive, and 1xType-VI; Plasma-armed fighters can only be Superiority (D-torp) type, which have 1xType-D and 1xType-K. The carrier cannot buy extra deck crews, or use scatter-packs. Reroll this result if the freighters are Hydrans (the pirate just wouldn't bother!)
If all the scenario die-rolls come out as 2,3,4, or 5, the Orion can choose to play an extra scenario (automatically #9.)
In all scenarios, the Orion has the option to back off prior to setup ("something doesn't smell right, here...") Don't roll another scenario; that chance is lost for the campaign turn.
The campaign results: Each turn, the Orion scores points based on how much cargo he took. Keep a running total; the Orion has the option of trading earned points in for a better ship, and if his total goes too low than he might immediately lose the campaign (and his life.)
Michael Powers:
I do not know, it could just be something about the guy who I ran the one campaign for. Certainly the only "Q-ship" he ever ran into was a large freighter that pulled "one heck of a bluff". And from a standpoint of both sides learning just what does go on in an Orion campaign seems like a good idea to me.
But then, I guess the majority of players are really only interested in blood and guts (no offense is meant by that, I realize I am somewhat odd on that score) and would have no interest in a campaign where they tried to meet long term objectives facing the possibility that any given freighter they are approaching is a trap.
LRs just do not raid convoys by themselves, and CRs only raid small ones, and CAs only hit convoys that the Cartel Lord has information indicating their value, and then usually in company with other ships. [The Enforcer ship is not to be risked lightly . . . losing your enforcer ship or finding out too late that your enforcer captain has decided to become the new Cartel Lord are both "very bad things (tm)" for a Cartel Lord.]
You can assume all captured cargo can be sold off without incident and simplify things (as I did), or you add a negotiation step (as Reid did), but make it more complicated.
You could avoid the sequency of play issues and just write a new scenario or steal a lesser used one.
Consider this. If SPP says 15 successful missions, you could say that special events occur.
Between missions 5 & 6 you go to offload your cargo and get pounced on ( in a Nebula by the LR escort of your redevous freighter and the freighter in cohoots). How do you get out of this one without an overhaul!?!
Between mission 10 & 11 you try to shake off a POL by flying through an asteroid feild and find another POL waiting in the feild to catch you; fly to far edge of the map to escape. Are you going to need an overhaul after this one?
Both are short encounters because escape becomes the goal and will be quite foreseeible ( to anyone who's read the campaign rules ) but would add a little spice and realism to the game.
One reason I included a die roll for the number of ships in the convoy is to make some of the scenarios playable, while in others the LR would be in over his head (and know it). If there are too many ships, the LR can either attack or run. But if he finds a single small freighter, he should be able to handle it.
At the top of the thread, SPP said:
Quote:My basic concept is still the idea that the Orion player should start with a small ship (LR if before the General War, but a daring player might want to start with an LR in the General War period).
After reading my campaign proposal, SPP said:
Quote:Light Raiders, for example, do not tangle with convoys on their own, and Jeff's proposal does not allow for the changes to the game (one the problems I have in trying to revive the idea).
Suppose Jeff was running a Light Raider, drew the convoy raid mission, found himself faced with six small freighters, but the OPPOSING PLAYER has chosed to fit all of them with General Skids and Ducktails? There are now 12 phaser-3s (the freighters and their normal admin shuttles), and six phaser-2s. Jeff pretty much cannot afford to lower the shields on his ship to transfer cargo until he silences all those weapons (and each freighter has a damage control rating of two, meaning that they can collectively repair 12 systems. And if you were to tractor just one freighter and try to run . . . nope, won't work because the rest of the convoy can literally chase you.
SPP, where do you want to go with this?
Either an LR can never attack, or sometimes he does, or he always attacks.
If he never attacks, there isn't much to build a campaign on.
If he always does, it's going to be a short campaign, as the LR charges into 6 freighters and a Q-ship.
So, that leaves "sometimes".
One way to simulate "sometimes he attacks, sometimes he doesn't" is to vary the size of the convoy, with the campaign rules giving the LR a chance of finding a single freighter. This will give the player an option of fighting or running.
Or, if a battlegroup has 4+ players, two of them could run the pirate campaign separately, but if one of the pirates finds a big convoy, he can ask the other pirate player to join him, and negotiate how to split the bounty.
Maybe I could redirect people to my proposal of hiring another priate by giving him a share of the cargo ( plus exspenses ).
This would allow a player to hit six small freighters even with skids but the CA lending a hand would walk away with most of the booty.
Realism and spice and playability.
With more than one player (plus the controller) you might even get as J.T proposses. You'll probably get 50:50 splits plus promises to help out in a similar situation.
Maybe even getting help would be something of a side game...with the cartel ship setting the basic market price and the players under cutting or overpricing depending on whether they want to help (or not) their competitor.
Actually with a few other players you could give out an award ( a playing card ) for each "markedly successful" mission and let the players barter with each other for the cards they have.
The using modified pocker rules, the player with the best hand of cards at the end of the 15 mission period who has enough points to buy a CR gets a CA instead (but plays as though he had on a CR level of development). Or you could have a CR but with a Legendary Weapons Officer.
MJC, could you leave the legendary officers out of this.
No pirate ship would have a Legendary Weapons Officer for long. For one thing, said Legendary Weapons Officer on a pirate ship would be the captain as soon as he got hold of a hand phaser.
Okay so maybe scoring one free, weapon change-out would be better.
On the subject of cargo.
If the LR captures 1500 "points of cargo" which is a full hold from 2/3 of the 15 missions, in order to go up, we will need ( not will find handy but need ) a decreasing value table because to capture just one larger freighter ( fully laidened with scrap metal ), the pairate will capture 2500 spaces of cargo and thus leap over the required 1500 by quite a bit.
By having table that says, you can fence lots of stuff less effectively than a little and the pricey stuff tends to go in small units ( a stolen Monet or two anyone!?! ) that big scores don't add up to being as useful as lot of little ones.
I would provide for cargo having different values based on the difficulty of getting the target. Stealing cargo from an escorted Coalition Tug should prove much more challenging than hitting an unarmed small freighter. (Of course the Tug might be rushing images of the new Emperor to distant outposts but let's ignore that possibility.) Leave it to the player to decide whether to go for safer or more challenging targets.
I would suggest design multiple categories of target that the Orion could select.
Easy targets would be solitary freighters. Expected result would be cargo grabbed with no damage.
Medium targets might be small convoys with weak escorts. Some damage expected but somtimes Orion has to breakoff in complete failure crippled.
Hard targets might include combat worthy tugs or other targets likely to destroy the Orion. Even a successful run might leave the Orion crippled.
Modify each freighter in accordance with drawn playing cards: Q-ships, skids, poor crews, and unarmed freighters might all be available options.
Subtract the cost of repairs (and possibly option mount changes) from the value of cargo collected. Divide that result by the number of missions to determine success. Why charge for option mount changes? First, the ship should be laid up for the duration of the switch and thus a financial drain. Second, to discourage players from trying the absolute perfect set of options for each raid instead of relying on more general purpose suites.
For competitive playability reasons, the pirate campaign should be paired with a related mini-campaign comprising a number of preselected scenarios. Each scenario within the minicampaign would be a possible case of the random tables chosen for its heightened interest level.
1) The pirate ship should NEVER even get within the sensor range of large convoys (as SPP points out, Orions have a stealth bonus). Movement total over 3, LR just stays hidden and waits for the next passenger.
2) There should be a large amount of variation of the basic Small/ Large freighter. A small freighter with an escorting skiff, skids/ self defense pods or ducktails or whatever. Or perhaps a ore freighter with an escort of some kind.
3) Armed freighters cargo points are worth more? APTs and other unusual freighters?
4) Raid a small settlement with commandos. Asteroid stations? Commercial platoforms?
5) I can think of literally dozens of possibel targets, but the number one most likely possibility is still an unarmed large/ small freighter without commanders options. For hecks sake, MOST freighters are not going to be paying for a passel of extra BPs to sit around, eat their fill and make good money if the freighter is toting a cargo hold of metal bars or wheat equivalent.
The most interesting possible encounter is the dread Pirate Slayer "Cap'n Crunch" aboard the good merchant ship Weary Donkey. Plus the embarked micro squadron of Zorans. heh.
Did my silly scenario finally die while I was out of comms?
Jeff Tonglet:
". . . if he finds a single small freighter, he should be able to handle it" . . . Sure, if it does not turn out to be a small Q-ship, or if it is not a small armed freighter with a skid, or possibly a combination of one of the first two with the third. Maybe it has a ducktail with two extra admin shuttles replacing the HTS.
Remember, he does not want to handle it by doubling the engines. If he doubles the engines everytime he encounters a freighter, he is losing.
Where do I want to go with this? "I" wanted a campaign that more or less reflected the way things would work. Light Raiders are looking to mug solitary freighters, doing so without taking any internal damage (doubling the engines is internal damage). They do not look for convoys by themselves. Way back when the typical small freighter would have one phaser-3, one admin shuttle (a second phaser-3 . . . but you are limited to speed 6 to even try to use it), and one militia squad (the crew gets converted to a single militia squad once you board it to try to take the bridge). The shields were only five boxes, there was only one battery, and there is not really enough power to reinforce the shields beyond that (only five points). So you choose your weapons to be cheap to arm and fire quick (phasers actually work best), run in, blast a shield, make sure you are not at risk of a sucide shuttle (if the freighter is at Weapon Status two or three, he might try the suicide shuttle ploy if you are careless). If you knock out the phaser, send over two boarding parties through the shield you knocked down to try to grab control of ship right then, if not come around for another pass (you cannot lower the shield while the phaser is still active as you do not want to take internal damage, and a phaser-3 can score a point at five hexes range if you only have your stealth bonus). After the first pass, your phasers are easy to re-arm and you can afford to move slower (freeing energy to re-arm the phasers since the freighter cannot move faster than speed 13 in any case making it easy to pace it). Things then become somewhat dicey. If you are playing "me", then you can count on the freighter having those four boarding parties, which means that your two initial boarding parties are likely to fail.
Just back from Eye-Doctor, eyes dilated, and cannot see the computer screen very well or I would continue the responses, sorry.
SPP,
Which eye did the doctor place the Orion pirate patch over?
Gee, seems like an opportunity for some fancy self decoration choices... a black eyepatch with a silver skull and crossbones motif... could be an elegant fashion statement!
I almost hesitate to think what SVC might say to that!
