SFB doesn't need (or have the granularity to account for) this sort of thing.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 01:03 pm: Edit

Jeff, I was talking in SFB terms as to the reason to buy them.

There are still issues. First of all, you could have ten BP's on a small freighter and that won't help you much since the pirate might just decide to punish you and not bother with your BP's at all by blowing up your ship and moving on to the next frieghter.

But perhaps this can be handled another way without resorting to convincing SVC to change his above post.

Simply say that there are Security Services available in all Empires and they function exactly as any marine BP since they are well trained and equipped. Normally these forces work at various colonies and not abord freighters (they are too expensive for a freighter to out right hire). However, a freighter may contract to transport Security teams on a regular basis. The Teams gets to where they are going at no charge except to provide security during the trip. The cost is of benefit to both companies.

I could do a write up for PD Feds (given SVC and Sickles approval).

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 02:02 pm: Edit

Oh well. It was worth a shot.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 02:46 pm: Edit

Basically there are 2 kinds of pirates, per SPPs exposition and the varied CL fiction pieces.

1) Ambush freighter and tell them to fork over cargo. They do because you are KNOWN to spare the rest of the cargo, crew and freighter... These guys are really running a high tech protection racket of sorts. Their #1 joy is not having to fight/ double engines/ suffer damage or crew casuaties. PLUS no one gets TOO mad at them because they are so polite. Think Captain jack Sparrow here.

2) Ambush freighters and kill the crew. Keep the freighter and as much cargo as is useful. You MIGHT even just loot the freighter of the very choicest bits and destroy/ abandon the rest. This is what the pirate in SVCs story in CL34 was doing. This can be both safer (no witnesses) and more dangerous (the law WILL be irked).

I think SPPs style (#1 above) would be a better style AS LONG AS all the varied pirates in the region follow. As soon as "Bloodthirsty Captain MaJiC" of the "LR Love Ewe" captures and kills the entire crew of a freighter AND news gets out, most freighters will be a lot less likely to stand and deliver... (queue Adam Ant music here)

By Ken Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 07:17 pm: Edit

Michael,
Style #2 is the reason the Cartel's employ "Enforcers". Enforcers hunt down the pirate ships that get the Law after them.
These ships will either hunt you down outright or help police in taking you down, depending on how much the police are after you.
Remember, sometimes Orions act as bounty hunters...

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 07:44 pm: Edit

I think it is a given that the only time the Orions will "help the police" hunt down a given pirate is when they can be sure they will not be hurt if said Orion tries to "make a deal" with the law.

Gets back to that need for complete secrecy.

Virtually any Orion ship operating in an area is going to know where the hidden supply bases are and who the contacts are to acquire things to keep the ship operating. An Orion being hunted by his Cartel has a good chance of making a deal to turn over everything, including his operating codes (which are the first thing the Orions would change, but it takes time) to the local police forces in exchange for a nice retirement.

So generally the Enforcer will come and deal with you so you cannot make a deal with the law. And maybe there is an assassin loyal to the Cartel Lord already on your ship, boyo. Just in case. And if the Cartel Lord was already beginning to suspect you, maybe that last batch of new crewmen you took on board included a Crime Team. (If the Cartel Lord did not "merely suspect", but KNEW you were a risk, you probably got vaporized when you materialized in the Transporter Chamber when you arrived at a base for supplies.)

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 09:06 am: Edit

---

Quote:

There are still issues. First of all, you could have ten BP's on a small freighter and that won't help you much since the pirate might just decide to punish you and not bother with your BP's at all by blowing up your ship and moving on to the next frieghter.

---

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 10:59 am: Edit

ONE of the levels gives the number of life forms aboard IIRC.

Besides, the pirate AKS you to surrender first. No comply, get killed by weapons fire.

IF you agree and THEN shoot when his BPs transport over, you have just made him MAD and he will also be killing any lifeboats or whatever that escape the burning hulk...

So, the pirate has SOME options.

He could for instance mizia all your power and weapons and THEN tow you off to a convenient place to dismember the hulk.

Or abandon it in space and come back in a few weeks if it hasn't been discovered...

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 10:59 am: Edit

ONE of the levels gives the number of life forms aboard IIRC.

Besides, the pirate AKS you to surrender first. No comply, get killed by weapons fire.

IF you agree and THEN shoot when his BPs transport over, you have just made him MAD and he will also be killing any lifeboats or whatever that escape the burning hulk...

So, the pirate has SOME options.

He could for instance mizia all your power and weapons and THEN tow you off to a convenient place to dismember the hulk.

Or abandon it in space and come back in a few weeks if it hasn't been discovered...

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 11:33 am: Edit

MCG:

That level is quite explict...it is level M.
Which means getting your ship to range of 4 or less and keeping it there for 96 out of 160 impulses.

Chances are, the first thing you know about how many BPs that freighter has is when he starts rolling on D7.421, so amping up on BPs can work at making a pirate's life tough!

It's keeping his fire under restraint so his fire to bring down the shield and start beam-over doesn't go so far as to kill the crew is; where the real skill of an Orion Pirate lies.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 12:24 pm: Edit

Alternatly, you can tell him, "fire ALL your weapons into space" which is detectable, and THEN send over a BP on recon.

Thats why the marines get the big $!

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 12:34 pm: Edit

*sighs*

Let us say you are in a LR and you have ambushed a small freighter. You (gently) pop one of the freighters shields (if he hasn't lowered them) and send a shuttle over with a BP.

If the freighter has LOTS of BP's, and you can't take the ship (in whatever amount of time is available), you simply LEAVE. Vengeance don't pay the rent. If all you are after is some cargo, you CAN threaten him with a sound beating (ie, you shoot him up a bit...you DON'T blow him up)...most freighter crews will happily GIVE you the loot to make you go away...that's what insurance is for. If he's uninsured....well, then he might get testy.

If it turns out to be a Q-ship, you run like hell.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 01:30 pm: Edit

Mike Strain:

I agree, but there is a NEED to get freighter crews convinced that ignoring your orders will result in bad things happening... I presume that is your "sound beating"

Even if you JUST pop a shield and do a few internals (while trying to spare the crew) so they have to pay big bucks for repairs...

ELse they just blow you off.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 01:51 pm: Edit

That's my point. Any Orions discovering a freighter captain with extra security needs to have it expalained that such behavior is a bad decision. OK, so maybe you don't blow him up. But a good solid crippling with enough damage to kill some of the extra BPs would be good. You then go and report the situation to the Cartel management.

By Reid Hupach (Gwbison) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 02:57 pm: Edit

I ask a silly but reasonable question.

Is there any rules which cover freighter "morale checks".

Why I ask is if there are no clear rules to when a freighter surrenders all this debate is silly.

Unless the game judge has a set scenario for when someone lets you board most gamers will have the freighter "fight to the death". Which besides being extremely un-realistic makes a Pirates profit margin... well not enough to bother with, it would be more profitable to mug old ladies for their Social security checks.

But almost every time I witness a game involving freighters unless they are controlled by the judge, they seem to fight till destroyed. This happens in more than just SFB, I see it in most games involving pirates.

So unless there is a clear set of rules, we're just blowing gas here people.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 07:05 pm: Edit

Reid Hupach:

And why I have always wanted an Orion Pirate Captain Campaign that would cover such things. I had a simple one a long time ago, but the game has changed so much that it was no longer workable (and had an unhappy ending in any case for many of the above reasons).

Sigh.

An explanation of the unhappy ending (I have explained this when it came up before).

The Orion Player decided to "send a message" with the first freighter he looted. The freighter had resisted him to the best of its feeble ability in hopes that help would come (it did not). So the Orion "sent a message" by killing the crew. The problem was (and he was asked obliquely) that this only sent a message that he was a bloodthirsty pirate, as there were no survivors to explain that he was sending a message of "do not resist me." The message that was received was that this pirate would kill you. So the freighters he encountered from that point all resisted (and he kept killing the crews) in the face of certain death.

Then one day he encountered a freighter that put up a spectacular fight. This was due to the way the rules worked back then, as back then even a freighter could buy T-bombs (or NSMs, but to keep the campaign going I changed the NSM to a second T-bomb and never told the Orion I had done it). The result was to strip the Orion ship of its shield reinforcement and ding the shield, and the Orion was so annoyed he went to range one before firing his three overloaded photons . . . which downed his shield and scored internals as the phaser-2 and phaser-3 of the large freighter fired at the same time.

The Orion rolled very well on non-violent combat, completely stripping the freighter of weapons and power, so he captured it.

But he was so impressed with the fight the crew put up that HE LET THEM LIVE.

Now we have two messages sent.

If you are taken by him, he will kill you (message #1) unless you manage to put up a real good fight in which case he will let you live (message #2).

So every freighter desperately resisted, and he could not figure out why.

Since the Campaign System included the chance that any given freighter he encountered was a Q-ship (small chance, but there), this led to his last battle (well, his last one as an Orion ship captain at any rate), where the freighter he encountered TURNED TOWARDS HIM. At range three it (the freighter) attempted a tractor link, and he panicked (never fired his photons or phasers, dumped all three points of battery into negative tractor then and there) and ran. Only to learn that the freighter was just a standard Large Freighter running one heck of a bluff that he fell for.

At that point, with his ship the laughing stock of the sector (after the freighter crew told the story of how they had bluffed the Orion), he (HE) decided that his crew had probably "retired him out the airlock".

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 09:01 pm: Edit

Sounds like a good and succesful campaign with the ending being just one of many possible outcomes.

SPP, you are THE SFB guy these days. I would love to offer my support in helping you with a Orion Pirate campaign (as would others I'm sure).

In fact, developing a short series for Captains Log would be great especially if it can be ported to FC.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 10:47 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

Any Orions discovering a freighter captain with extra security needs to have it expalained that such behavior is a bad decision. OK, so maybe you don't blow him up. But a good solid crippling with enough damage to kill some of the extra BPs would be good. You then go and report the situation to the Cartel management.

---

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 11:29 pm: Edit

MJC: You are making my point.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 11:39 pm: Edit

Part of this proposal also included corporate security vessels. I have a couple drafted.

But I'm curious about Orion BPs. Are they thugs with weapons, or are they leftover soldiers from the Orion military?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 11:39 pm: Edit

Guru L.K.:

Well great minds think alike.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 11:42 pm: Edit

G.M.E.:

Can't they be "a little from collum A and a little from collum B"???

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 01:41 am: Edit

I suppose, but when I think of pirates I typically think of former military or thugs off the street who've made their way to a vessel.

If they're marines and/or army soldiers, then an Orion BP is worth a Star Fleet BP which is worth all other BPs. SFB doesn't take into account any species-specific traits; i.e. Gorns are huge and muscular, but are slow. Kzinto are also huge and muscular, but are a tad faster than Gorns. Hydrans are tripods, and are barely more than a meter high and so forth.

SFB states and implies that a ten BP of one vessel is the same as another. Ergo ten pirates are equal to ten Star Fleet marines. That's the way the game works, but maybe there could be an "advanced" BP rule or seomting?

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 09:11 pm: Edit

Well, the flavor text (D7.12) also suggests that "1 BP" might be 5 Klingons, 4 Gorn, or 6 Hydrans. For the sake of the game, it doesn't matter... 1 BP is 1 BP.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 10:10 pm: Edit

DOH; it does, and I've got egg on my face. It's probably been twenty years since I read those rules, so I've just dated myself. Ah well.