Archive through November 26, 2008
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Archive through November 26, 2008
In the Termpaper thread we discussed how you'd get your start as a brand new pirate.
So how would YOU get your start?
I propose using the Somali model with 3 shuttles on a remote planet.
Low Cost Piracy
Mike Grafton
USS South Carolina
You don't HAVE to have a ship to get your start as a pirate.
Heres how. Park 3 admin somewhere out of LOS of geosync orbit above the garrison/ mine/ Agri base/ whatever a couple weeks before your taget is to arrive at a "remote area improvised base." OBVIOUSLY you have chosen a planet without a los into every hexside. Like a new colony with only one base.
Have crews and the max number of BPs you can cram into your shuttles there with some tents and some MREs. Try not to be too bored while you hide out. Wait until your spy at the base phones you that a ship is overhead and parked.
Wait a couple hours for the darn batteries and capacitors to be empty (25 turns IIRC) on your target. Load up the boys and girls onto your shuttles. take off STRAIGHT up, remaining out of LOS of the ship and any bases. get out of the atmosphere. Accel up to speed 6 in a contra orbital direction and zip around the planet and crash land aboard ship with guns blazing. You should, with a casual perusal of the movement chart be able to enter the ship (and bases) LOS and crash aboard in a single turn (ie before the ship and base can charge up any weapons and batteries). A ship with minimum shields has 5 boxes per facing (if the darn shields are up at all) so a couple P3s will drop it.
You are using 3 admins JUST IN CASE the ship has a drone/ add rack and kills one of the shuttles.
Odds are good that you will be able to take the ship and turn a good shield facing towards the ground (the planetary defenses will certainly try to send up BPs to counterattack) while you fire up the engines and make your escape.
NOTE: I know this (above) is not REALLY a tactical term paper, but it would be useful for a ship captain/ pirate to have read and considered.
And I can see a prospective pirate entering the life in just this manner.
And in fact I would bet that the "beginner" pirate would release the crew and passengers with minimal or no ransom just to show FUTURE targets that surrender to ME/ US is not tantamount to suicide. As SPP has noted, MOST freighters just "give it up" when confronted with a pirate since they "know" all the pirate wants is SOME of the cargo and they will live through that (and surrendering is safer than fighting).
So you make some $ and establish your rep.
And you always wondered why the Orions have their own freighters, with shuttle skids and/ or ducktails wandering about on fairly low profit cargo runs to obscure colony planets in the middle of nowhere. Its to drop off the shuttles and BPs!
By Jonathan Biggar (Jonb) on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 11:21 am: Edit
Hmmm. Where do the shuttles come from in the first place if you're a starting pirate? Those can't be cheap. And how do they get to the planet?
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 12:28 pm: Edit
Getting shuttles. You raise a valid point, but I am ASSUMING you have stolen them from somewhere else. So you might actually have a mix of whatever you could steal. Doesn't matter for the example. I mean you have to have SOMETHING to get started in your life of crime. Even if your initial "capital" is just a couple phasers you used to stun some people at a base where the darn shuttles came from.
Have a "friendly" pirate freighter cruise up to the planet a couple weeks before your "source" says the target is due there. They might as well do some business even if it barely lets them break even on the cost of the trip. Launch the shuttles from your ship skids/ ducktail when its not in LOS of the bases on planet. I mean you DID place your ship in a standard orbit, right?
Set up a "base" in a remote area on the far side of the planet of any bases that could detect you. Hang out in tents eating MREs until your "contact" at the bases calls you and tells you the target is here. And no Lawmen are around. then ATTACK!
Assumptions:
1) The planet/ moon/ whatever doesn't have 360 degree sensor and scanner coverage. And doesn't have enough defenses to kill you. Like no defsats.
2) Communications. I would guess that early on in any colony's development a ring of cheap commsats would be place because it would be cheaper than running wires. And even today, most of the cost of satellites is getting the darn things into the right orbit. And making them "hard" enough to survive the launch. I am guessing that a commsat with a half dozen channels is pretty small and cheap. I mean YOU can build a ham radio TODAY with world wide range for less than $200.
3) Freighters don't keep an alert 24/7 watch with shields and fire control up. I think this is a pretty safe assumption based on the canon and past fiction. I mean, freighters IN WARP mostly don't have their shields up and batteries charged. Its called weapons status zero. And SPP has addressed the issue in past CLs and on the BBS (in the course of MJC and my story about the "Love Ewe" and the "Weary Donkey")
By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 04:40 pm: Edit
Note:
I have always assumed that fire control was active, if on low power (just to avoid running into some chunk of space debris large enough to do real damage to the ship), and that shields are operated at minimal level even on a freighter (again, traveling at warp speeds even minor debris could be catastrophic).
The battery is always charged, what is not going on is that it is not cycling warp or impulse energy, or any energy, it is just holding energy for any odd emergency that might come up.
I do assume, myself, that there is a watch on the bridge, if for no other reason than to have a human watching what the computer does and to "answer the phone" and make the decision of whether or not the captain really does need to be waken up.
So, yes, a couple of shuttles could reasonably take a small freighter in orbit. Not that hard to drop a six point shield (five point minimum and one point of battery) so that you can crash land aboard. Not likely to be a full watch on deck (ah, but if it was a freighter of the old "Petrick Consortium" would they not have been in for a rude surprise), the phaser capacitor would not be charged, no reserve power to break orbit.
Even a large freighter is somewhat vulnerable in such circumstances. (Although it has somewhat more of a chance of surviving an attack by a pair of shuttles. It can use a half point of battery to raise full shields, which will stop you on Turn #1, and can use shield reinforcement and ECM the next turn while accelerating to speed 5, and hold at speed seven on Turn #3 while arming its phasers to deal with the pests.)
Your major problems are that small freighters are not "likely" to visit planets that do not have fairly significant (at least where two or three shuttles are concerned) counter shuttle abilities unless they themselves have at least a ducktail. Your problems are that a Small Freighter Orbiting Kilbash-VI can only move 15 points of "bulk cargo" per shuttle round trip, or 83 round trips from the ship down to the surface and back to completely empty and refill its cargo pod. And the bulk cargo is limited to 15 points, i.e., it could not deliver new fighters or replacement shuttles to the planet that way.
That means that if the small freighter is there, there is a Commercial Platform (to tranship the cargo from the freighter and then have it taken down to the planet's surface) or there is a Planetary Operations Base (with its own armed shuttles that can be launched to down your rogue shuttles, not to mention possible security skiffs), or the small Freighter has to have a LASH or a Ducktail. In the former case, your shuttles wind up shooting it out on near equal terms with the freighter's shuttles.
Please note, I am not saying that it is an invalid concept (although I will say that it is NOT a term paper, it is a background data point), only that if your target is a small freighter it will most likely be one with a LASH skid or a Ducktail, possibly both. But it is not completely outside the realm of possibility that it would simply be a small freighter with no skid or ducktail, and it is always possible (not very likely, but possible) that you could be unpleasantly surprised by a Q-ship making the delivery, or an Armed Small Freighter (somewhat more possible than a Q-ship).
It is just that the kind of planet that lacks that kind of rudiementary defense is more likely to be visted by a Free Trader, which will not orbit the planet, but will land itself to more efficiently off load and load cargo, even its total cargo volume is less than half what the small freighter can carry.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 05:15 pm: Edit
SPP, I considered that. But MOST export cargo from the smallest colonies is bulk stuff (grain, furs, ore) and imports smaller bulk stuff that is more expensive and high tech. So you are tranporting UP the bulk fairly inert stuff and shuttling the delicate stuff.
So Petrickistan EXPORTS vodka, ore, reindeer steaks and fur pelts. And imports computers and similar "value dense" stuff they can't manufacture themselves.
And any small colony is NOT going to be alert enough to intercept you. They might kill you in their counterattack (as I noted, you need to get away ASAP), but interception is unlikely.
And I agree that it isn't a REAL termpaper for a CL. But it might be one at the Orion Merchant Academy!
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 06:09 pm: Edit
The original McG and MJC debate (with occasional comments from SPP) is http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/messages/12031/10813.html
And a good time was had by all. I STILL laugh at all the goofy Oz jokes MJC let me get away with. "Love Ewe" hahahahahahhahh
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 06:14 pm: Edit
SPP part 2.
I think you pretty firmly have stated in the past that most ships AREN"T running around with active FC (or even LPFC). And merchies don't pay that good attention while on watch. Back in the "Weary Donkey vs Love Ewe" you made exactly those points IRC. And the entire saga is not on the BBS any more...
And that ships DON'T cycle power through their batteries to keep it current (to save $) just as phaser caps are usually empty.
Like I noted, this is called Weapons Status Zero.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 08:45 pm: Edit
I would think a pirate might take a landed free trader sooner than orchastrating something like this. The set up would be far less work. Of course, you couldn't just steal a Free Trader from any where and from anyone. It's very likely you'd have to have already had a spie on board to provide safety interlock keys.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 04:37 pm: Edit
Loren, taking a Free Trader that is grounded would be only possible under a few different conditions:\
1) You have something with transporters come overhead and send in the marines before the FT can raise sheilds
2) You ground attack the FT. That assumes that there isn't a GCL there (even without turrets), AND you win all the combat (I assume that there are at least a few guards outside to prevent smuggling and to do customs stuff) AND then you win the "entry combat" required. All of this so fast that the FT can't just take off.
By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 05:34 pm: Edit
Michael C. Grafton:
Ahem . . . you are making a slight error. I mentioned several times that a freighter would have at least low powered fire control in the topic. Later on I addressed the "TACTICS for a freighter on sighting an Orion", during which I noted that during Turn #1 (specifically) there was 'no reason to power fire control'. Specifically, the freighter has spotted the Orion, but does not even have the phaser-3 charged, and does not have the shuttle ready as a suicide shuttle, SO HAS NO REASON TO USE ACTIVE FIRE CONTROL (emphasis, not shouting) on Turn #1, and no reason to waste that 0.5 to 1.0 points of power. Not charging fire control means he only has to spend 1.0 point on housekeeping on Turn #1 (Life Support and Shields), and gives him the option to stay passive (gaining two points of ECM) on Turn #2. On a ship that only has five points of power (four warp and one impulse) you have to be careful about every point of energy you use, and Turn #1 already costs you two points (that point of housekeeping and even on a small freighter with only one phaser-3 it takes a whole point of power to warp the capacitor on that phaser).
Scanning the topic for my various posts, (and I admit that I did not have time to scan every single one of them), I found no mention of a freighter operating normally, i.e., just casually loping through space towards its destination, NOT using at least low powered fire control.
Now, there are exceptions.
If I get to secretly determine my weapons status, I MIGHT (emphasis) run active fire control in order to try to bluff you.
I have told the story of the large freighter that turned into the approaching Orion and went straight for him, and Orion player not knowing what was going on panicked when the freighter attempted to tractor him and assumed a large Q-ship trying to bounce his light raider and ran for it. Most Orion scenarios (most scenarios involving freighters at all) just do not have that kind of uncertainty (and it is why I want so desperately to incorporate that aspect of the uncertainty an Orion skipper faces into any Orion Pirate Campaign).
Any Orion approaching a freighter should be asking himself "what if it is a Q-ship?", and if he is not prepared for that eventuallity, he pretty much deserves what he gets.
By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, November 21, 2008 - 05:03 pm: Edit
Michael C. Grafton:
Suggestion.
Write a background article about the concept, but think a few things through.
As others have noted, getting the shuttles to do the deed is kind of hard, i.e., why do you need the freighter when you already have a freighter (the one that delivered the shuttles)?
When you grab this other freighter, what are you going to do with it? It is not enough just to grap the freighter, you have to have a plan beyond that.
Consider that one way freighters might have been grabbed is pretty much the same way as how the Pirates captured the coast guard cutter in "The Island". (I suspect you have seen the film, and a similar thing . . . perhaps not as bloody given hand phasers set for stun) could be done to get people on the freighter's own shuttle to go up and take the ship.
Consider that even a landed Free Trader could be taken in such a way. There is (as Schrader would say) such a thing as lax security, and there is such a thing as someone on the ship that you have the goods on forcing him to help you.
BUT PLEASE do not use this topic to ask for help. You might consider starting a topic on "Pre Cartel Pirate Activities". The Cartels may continue to use some of the methods of course, but always remember that the Cartels have a vested interest in controlling criminal activities that affect major commerce and do not appreciate "competition", even by small "star up operations" such as yours (GRIN).
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, November 21, 2008 - 05:12 pm: Edit
Then there is a business of relicensing the ship you capture. You have to go from bow to stern and change or recatalog every serial number and manufacturers molecular watermarks. Then get the thing some workable papers... or fly it to another empire.
As a beginner pirate you have to start somewhere. And where do you get the $ to buy that first LR?
You COULD crew on another pirates ship and hope for a huge score. But how long would that take?
So you need a way to get the first "big" score. And I propose you should do it by the "coup de main" by stealing a freighter and selling it (or just its cargo) to the cartel.
Assumptions:
1) You have SOME stuff. Even three shuttles aren't cheap. And neigther are phasers.
2) You know how to fence your first score.
3) You have some aquaintences that would help for a cut.
4) You have some info that will give you an edge.
Backstory
Spetrick, a rather crazed former ISF lieutenant has been working in crime ever since he was dismissed from the service. No HUGE crimes were ever proven, rather a long series of minor scams had led to him being "passed over" and released 3 years earlier. He had been working on the docks at a small base with a similarly villanous crew performing "deck crew functions" until the opportunity to set his plan into motion. His crew were desperate. All were marginal releases from the services. And all have naval skills.
Story:
Spetrick looked over the crew he had assembled from his contacts in the underground economy. Some, like Mikey, were the victims of the doldrums of the recent RIF, while others were just criminals looking for another job in the life of crime. They looked ready to make some serious money at last.
Spetrick had managed to steal a skiff the old fashioned way by murdering the crew when they had landed at "waybackistan" to deliver some needed meds. Spetrick had decided that working on a remote base fixing electronics with his ISF trained skills was unsuitable for a long career. And given that he still had a lot of contacts all over this sector, he knew who to "ask" for information. And where the bodies had been buried to get those with the info to cough it up.
His plan was simple. Capture a ship and sell it to the pirates (he still had that contact info on his pda he had found while in the service)
First he had stolen the skiff. But a skiff is really not suitable for his plan. So he had made a series of raids on remote mining belts, capturing 4 adminstrative shuttles in a series of rather bloodless cruises. Each crew captured had been released with apologies in a lifepod. And a promise of vengence versus their families if they deviated from the stories they had been instructed to tell.
Now with the shuttles secreted out of sight on the far side of "Bfegyptianistan" (BFE for short) crews ready, he was waiting for his contact at the landing field that the freighterthey were expecting was finally in place.
Spetrick had been hiding out for the last 3 weeks. Getting there wasn't difficult, BFE only had one small facility that could even possibly detect him. he had used that navigation training he had hated in school to plot an approach that never entered into the base "line of sight" (LOS) while cruising to a remote area on the planet...
When the PDA chimed with the message that the small trader "vulnerable" was entering into geosync orbit above the base, Spetrick assembled his crew.
"remember, all we want is the freighter. Just stun the crew and we'll transport them off ship. Dead crew is MUCH more likely to get the ISF on our case than a missing junker."
The crew rested as well as they could, prepared their "battle rattle" and did their last minute preparations on the shuttles while they waited for the freighter to get so immersed in loading and unloading operations that the crew would be paying less attention. Spetrick had seen it a million times. They freighter would have been nervous on the approach, but once in orbit and "safe" they would be letting their guard down. Thats why they were freighter crew and not in the ISF or DSF. No discipline in Spetricks opinion...
Five hours after the freighter orbited, Spetrick got the news that the freighter was now sending down "shore leave" parties that would be enjoying the traditional I&I recreation available.
"Ok," said Spetrick. "Now its our turn"
ABOARD the MSS Vulnerable:
Third officer T'carrol (apologies Tom) looked around his bridge at the "minimum watch crew." Aboard ship the passengers and much of the crew had departed. So he was in charge while the Captain and XO got drunk.
"Engineering to bridge. We are now at Weapons Status Zero. All capacitors and batteries empty. We have the power plant ticking over at minimum..."
Aboard shuttle #1
Spetrick looked out the viewport as his flight took off from the remote field. They were taking off in a tight spiral, careful to keep in the planet umbra from the freighter. And keeping completly silent comms. They had a plan and unless they needed to make a change, they didn't chatter...
A few minutes later all of the shuttles had exited the atmosphere and formed into a tight "shuttle convoy" scrum. this formation would maximize their protection. Screaming in a "contra orbital" route would let them enter the base and ship LOS on a course that would minimize their preys reaction time.
aboard the MSS Vulnerable
"hey Crewflunky Cole, you want some hot chocolate? I'm going to the galley" said T'carrol.
"Yeah, sure sir. I'm just planing my next move in "Barbarian Civilization XXXIV" for subspace mailing. I'll be here. And bring some donuts if you don't mind."
ON BFE at the ground base.
"Whats up sir?"
"Nothing corporal," said the lieutenant. "another glorious day in the service. And I'll be inspecting the emergency sanitary unit if anyone calls. It feels like I am going to pass a darn Vergarian. Claws and all."
ABOARD Shuttle #4.
Mikey looked at the controls and frowned.
Taking his Glah flavored lollypop out he asked the Slidarian next to him "Hacker, is the engine readout supposed to look like that?"
"AAAAAAAARG" was the reply faithfully recorded on the blackk box, as the shuttle engine failed, with shards of the turbo compressor blowing out and venting the atmosphere in 2 seconds.
Then there were only 3 shuttles racing for the freighter.
WHAT? no comments? I'm crushed.
Aboar the "Vulnerable"
Crewflunky Cole looked up at the beeping scanner station and carefully saved his game. Rolling his chair across the small bridge he looked at the small screen, squinted, and then put the data up on the main viewer. Then he pulled the mic closer. "Umm, shuttles coming around the planet, this is the Freighter Vulnerable in parking orbit 1 Alpha. WHat are your intentions?"
Aboard shuttle #1 Spetrick had his story already planned out. "Freighter vulerable, we are test flying these shuttles after maintenence. Testing the drives, avionics and such. Can you give us a standard test message on channel 14?"
Aboard Vulnerable. "SURE, let me change channels"
BFE flight control. "Hey Lieutenant. HEY, can you hurry up in there? We have some shuttles entering the pattern and I can't find their flight requests on the system"
"JUST A MINUTE. Ugh. Oh that hurts." then, closing his tunic the lieutenant came out of the sanitary making SURE that he had the ventilator on high and the door securely closed. "what you got?"
"Oh just some shuttles flying around without permission. They hailed the freighter and asked for a test message."
"What channel?"
"just a second, I didn't write it down, but I think I can get it on the playback. It wasn't the standard guard channel."
ABOARD Shuttle #1
Spetrick looked at the screens as they closed with the freighter. On channel 14, Spetrick keyed his mic "Freighter, we are going to be making a pass at 200 kilometers to test our automatics. Can you scan us and ping our IFF when we execute our turn to 130 mark 4?"
Aboard the Vulnerable "sure! Let me see here..."
Aboard the shuttles they closed the distance rapidly. At 11,000 kilometers two of them fired at the low powered deflector shields with their phasers. It flared and died as planned. Then swiftly the three shuttles closed and crashed aboard, one into the LASH shuttle bay and the other two into the ducktail.
Aboard vulnerable the Crewflunky Cole was tossd out of his chair as the ship rocked. And as he picked himself up he saw the shuttle bays had warnings blaring while the three shuttles had disappeared.
Ducktail bay. Crewflunky Stacy looked up as two shuttles crashed aboard. Dropping his broom he looked on in amazement as the shuttles skidded to a stop, the doors flew open and a motly horde una$$ed onto his deck. "hey, I just repainted the lines on the floor!" and one of the zoolies shot him with a heavy stun disruptor. As Stacy fell he wondered what the Captain would say when he saw all the damage to his bay.
"OK, spread out and stun everyone. We need to crear this section and get control of the engines ASAP."
In the lash bay, there were no witnesses as the boarders stormed through the entrance to the forward section of the ship. They were making a beeline for the bridge.
Planetary control "OK lieutenant, they went to channel 14 and asked for the ship to scan them while they passed. Hmm, the scanners show they they landed aboard! Lieutenant?"
The lieutenant looked on for a couple seconds, stunned before he hit the button to red alert. It would take time to get his command to active status, but soon someone with more seniority would be here.
Aboard the Vulnerable most crew never even understood they were being boarded before they were stunned and toted to the closest life pod. When each pod was full, it was ejected into orbit.
In the aft hull, control was complete. The engines were beingbrought to full power and the local control station was manned. And the control interlocks letting "main bridge" override local control already faling aside.
T'Carrol was walking back to the bridge with a tray of hot chocolate and donuts when the alarms went off. Hurrying, he entered the bridge and was trying to understand the readouts when three cromags entered and stunned them both.
Michael C. Grafton:
A few comments.
1.) As noted before the battery is never empty unless it has been used for something. Phaser capacitors have to be kept warm, but there is no rule that says "after 25 turns the power in a battery is lost". Ship batteries, much like a Duracel today, maintain power for extended periods of time not measured in a few SFB battle turns. The situation is not that the battery is empty, but that it is not "combat cycling", i.e., having the existing charge drawn out and used (like for life support and shields on a small freighter) and then being refilled with a point of warp power for optimum reserve power uses. There is no rule in "weapon status 0" that says batteries are empty. Even a completely surprised (D18.0) ship (except a mauler) will have its batteries available (D18.14).
2.) Unless you can find a way to make the freighter "inactive" (and that is not likely while visiting a planet to dump cargo and move on), its transporter is going to be operational. So you would need to time your shuttles crashing aboard to be on Impulse #32 (shuttles landing follows transporter operations), otherwise the ship would use its transporter to beam up a couple of defending boarding parties from the ground installation.
3.) While a Fiction Story or a Prime Directive sceanrio might allow for a lot of things in seizing control of a freighter, in SFB terms you have to fight for control of a ship. A militia squad automatically forms to defend the bridge. (D16.522) If no friendly boarding parties are present when a control station is attacked, one crew unit is immediately con-verted to a militia squad to defend the station (in excess of the normal conversion rate and limits). This militia squad cannot leave the station it is in, cannot defend a passage, is the last to be given up as a casualty, and is converted back into a crew unit the instant that all enemy forces leave the area.
I find the idea interesting. On how a pirate might start out. But it seems kinda... implausible, at first glance. Still doesn't mean it wouldn't be a fun scenario I suppose. Though my first little test run of the idea didn't show it to be all that winable for the pirate, which kinda defeats the storyline purpose, since at best you get 3 BPs on the freighter on the first turn, which isn't really enough to capture it in one turn. If you don't get it in one turn, the Freighter Captain could just drop a facing shield and suddenly you got a whole company of marines after your heads.
I'd reckon a much more winnable scenario for the starting pirate would be to do something like board a Cargo Pod perhaps. Maybe using those "Scanner proof crates" type things that Loren Knight's CL #30 story had in it. Get in before the pickup with the gear you need. Get the freighter to snatch ya up. Then at some designated time break out, use a those microcharges or something that Marines usually have to blow your way into the drive module and take it. With a scenario like that you could maybe probably get enough boarding parties involved to take the freighter in one turn.
Before something bad like a happens like an ISF response.
Course, it could probably make for an interesting scenario if perhaps a ComPlat or something of the like was there to respond to the rogue freighter, send some shuttles after it while you're still at speed zero or one, with your goal to be to cripple them and get away before something more significant, like that ISF boat comes calling. But I'd have to read the rules again on how freighters disengage before really working on it.
Edit: Or I could remember how the capture rules work and realize they couldn't shoot down the shuttles, best they could do is tractor them, which wouldn't work. Oh well. I'm sure there's a good idea there somewhere. Just not sure what.
At the very least, this is looking like a good Prime Directive scenario. Sounds almost like a heist movie plot. And I do enjoy a good heist movie.
A few comments. Crew Flunky Co
1) The carrying capacity of a shuttle into combat? 1 or 2 BP? If you have to make one of them a HTS crammed full o' troops. The point is that you have a small freighter with a crew of how many? And HOW MANY are on planet drinking and enriching the local "professional" women? And you you suddenly crash unload a passel of armed and ready BPs into that sleepy freighter?
2) The rules in Modlule M make this impossible.
3) BUT under basic BP combat you would have 3 or more BPs on the offense and 1 defending. Roll to win!
4) The rules ASSUME you are heading from hither to yon. The scenario I would be using would be closer to the case of "surprised reversed" on the day of the eagle.
But I will review the stuff some more. Man those pesky rules!!!
Michael C. Grafton:
I like the idea. Sadly I suspect this would be a real rarity. A "inside job" seems so much easier.
The inside man could just pick up the pirates by transporter when sending down the last of those on shore leave. Or the HTS could be filled with pirates when the sensors are manned by the "inside man"?
I wonder if there would be any security interlocks that would prevent an insider beaming off the on duty watch and beaming on a pirate crew?
A small freighter only has one crew unit so with some on shore leave it seems to me that a militia squad forming to defend the bridge is a bit pushy.
By the rules though the freighter has two control boxes that would need 4 causaulties to capture. this requires a miminum of 6 BP to capture the ship in one turn and you need to roll a 6!
I see if module M can give the pirates a break
Hmm. Don't think that an Inside Guy could transport them off. It'd be weird if they did. Seem to recall the original series had all the transporting with at least one proper Transporter on one end of it. Not like the later series where it seemed the Transporters could move anything from anywhere to anywhere else without needing to be in one to start with. Though even if they did wouldn't that set of alarms as a crewman calls up the National Guard (Or whatever the locals use) and say "Someone just kicked me off the Nina Wong!" And with a down shield facing planetside you wonder just how long it'd take for a colony to form up the reservists and beam 'em up.
Would probably work best in a PD scenario where (I don't have the game so I can't say for sure), they might be able to knock out the communications and internal sensors right away to blind and muffle the crew to everything outside their bridge.
Somehow I still think the Dread Pirate Roberts scenario is probably more likely. Guy wants to retire, hires a new crew and his former XO becomes the new "Dread Pirate Roberts" while the old crew retires wherever they go (LDR? WYN? Resort World Med III?).
I'm sure there's a solution to this, somewhere. And an interesting scenario that can come out of it.
I see 3 major obsticles to the plot:
1) Colony Ground Bases. A single base's worth of Boarding Parties turns "easy prey" into "I plea bargain" real quick.
2) DefSats. It seemed to me to suggest this is one of the earliest, and cheapest defenses a Colony gets. The Transporter Repeaters would make trying to stay opposite the planet's base difficult. Not to mention one DefSat could easily mess up your day in a standard freighter, especially if you started the turn at speed 1 or zero.
3) Local Defense Forces. Depending on the year and how backwater the world is it could have anything from PFs, POLs, aging WDDs/WFFs and the ilk, to even just a couple of F-4s which would mess up your career real fast.
Speed is one issue. I'd presume if it took longer than one turn to secure the freighter, the alarm would be sounded and bad times could be had by all. I suppose a lot would depend on where your operation was located. I could see something like a Federation Locals not opening up fire with a DefSat on a Frieghter that has live hostages. Dump them off once you're safely outta fixed defenses. Klingons or Lyrans would probably just blow you away, if they didn't have a choice.
There's entry method. Anything that downs a shield or damages a ship is gonna be bad news. You don't want to start your career already behind on repair bills. Not to mention things like downing shields making you vulnerable to the rabble of the National Guard.
Even if you enter without combat somehow, and take it in one turn, you gotta wonder what will happen when you break orbit ahead of schedule. Or risk waiting for the rest of the crew to come back, and dealing with more hostages until you can safely dump them off.
I suppose a lot of the approach problems are with shuttlecraft. Even if the frieghter captains were lazy, didn't care, didn't notice, had an inside guy, you'd think the planet itself would probably have some "Space Traffic Controller" who would notice all those unauthorized blips.
Perhaps I'm overthinking it... ^ ^;;
I'll see if I can run a few other set ups, see if anything works out. Up the number of shuttles, play around with various National Guard set ups (Originally I just operated with the idea of a Ph-1 Ground base there, might try it with a ComPlat and no ground base. Or with DefSats next).
Several Points.
First, the "ground base" in this particular scenario seems to be just a landing pad for shuttles to deliver and pick up bulk cargo. It does not have a phaser and probably does not even have a sensor capability. Think Casual Ground Base as opposed to "Small Ground Base" with SSD.
This automatically gets you in trouble as obviously the freighter would instantly go on alert when the shuttles showed up. (If the planet had that many shuttles, why were they not involved in moving the cargo?)
Under (J2.211) a shuttle can carry up to four boarding parties, but can NOT deliver them into a combat situation. It can carry AND DELIVER two boarding parties into a combat situation. So three Admin Shuttles could deliver six boarding parties into a combat scenario. Five or six boarding parties have about a 67% chance of taking a small freighter in one round of combat, i.e., on a roll of 3, 4, 5, or 6 the attackers would score two or more casualty points which the ship would have to resolve by surrendering both of its control station. On a roll of 1 or 2 they would only take one of the control stations and the ship could transport up a boarding party from the planet, and if the planet had its own transporters . . .
If you do not take the ship in one turn, shuttles from the planet might be lifting off, and they could well take the attitude that shooting off the engines of the freighter is a good idea (disable it now, capture the raiders, then repair it, complete with receiving a reward for capturing the raiders and turning them over to the Police/ISF).
Which gets us back to the colony has to not have any shuttles of its own and is dependent on a freighter with a Lash Skid or a ducktail to land cargo and lift cargo (or a Free Trader landing on the planet's surface). Which means the appearance of any shuttles would signal a red alert on the freighter. Does not mean the freighter would be able to fend off the shuttles, just that your circumstances require a planet with no shuttles or any kind of a base, and you are not going to creep up and take them by surprise, but there is not a lot they can do about your shuttles showing up to attack them while they are in orbit.
I re-read the rules and SPP made the same points I was going to.
I mean, 6 BPs have a 2/3 rds chance of taking the ship.
And any base would have to warm the phaser caps (1 turn) and energize any phasers. So you have TWO turns to take the ship. Which is a 100% chance. And OBVIOUSLY, your shuttles don't drop the shield facing the planet.
But I can see some holes.
If the colony has phasers at all, it will, as noted, probably fire to disable the freighter. Odds are you will blow the engines off of it before it would be destroyed. Then you have a standoff until you can turn it over to a police ship.
Which as I have said, takes me back to the colony you select to do this has to have no shuttles or defenses (other than militia) of its own.
I wonder how different this would be out in the Cloud - or even, how distinct it would be trying to do this in the 'main region' and/or the Fringe, compared to doing so in the Core.
(The Maghadim have bigger cargo ships than the Eneen and Baduvai, and are less likely to have Jumokian raiders making it through the Core radiation shell to bother them...)
Well that really depends on the colony phasers/ bases.
And once you have control of the ship (after 1 or 2 turns) you just get out of LOS of the base.
If it is just a Phaser 1 or 2 base, well, I think a small freighter probably get away anyway...
Uh, don't all phaser bases have a couple of phaser-3s [ph-G at Hydran planets!] as well as the main phaser, plus everything is range 1 (until you maneuver away)...
Lets be a little clearer on this. Phasers will be available in 33 impulses (not two turns). From a certain perspective, this is a huge difference.
At least in my opinion anyways.
As with all things it is a matter of the timing.
We can pretty much settle that once Michael Grafton's shuttles hove into view, everyone will know something is up. It is one of those either/or things.
Either there are so many operable shuttles that his flight of three would be ignored, in which case there are so many shuttles available that hastily launched shuttles alone will be enough to stop the freighter from escaping.
Or there are so few shuttles that the appearance of his shuttle flight sends alarm bells jangleing.
In either case, he crashes aboard on Impulse #32 of Turn #0 and has a 67% of seizing the freighter outright (D7.36).
He then has a problem in that his boarding parties cannot be converted into crew to fly the ship (D7.51) unless they are militia squads. So even though he has captured the ship, he cannot fly it. That means one of his shuttles has to be carrying a militia squad, and that squad cannot take part in combat on the turn the shuttles crash aboard (D15.833), which reduces his Turn #1 firepower from six points to four points. And his chance of success from 67% down to 50%.
Actually, on checking actual rules (rather than on my feeble memory), the chance of success is in one turn with less than six boarding parties is 0% (and only 16% with six boarding parties). Rule (D16.52) says "CONTROL AREAS: Control stations are resolved as in (D7.36).", and Rule (D7.36) says (D7.362) Each control room with one or more undestroyed boxes counts as two casualty points regardless of the number of undestroyed boxes in it (three points for a security station). The freighter has just one "Control Station" which has both the Bridge and Emergency Bridge (the Command Module), both have to be taken and each requires two casualty points.
The upshot is that a Small Freighter with no skid or ducktail is very hard to take since you can only crash one shuttle aboard with two boarding parties, or one militia squad. Doable, but time consuming if there is no help.
You really, really, really, do need for the freighter to have both a ducktail and a LASH skid, and you need your attack force to be composed of two Admin shuttles and two HTS shuttles.
You need two admin shuttles in order to have the phaser firepower to drop that shield. Then you need to crash one admin shuttle (with two boarding parties) into the ship's normal shuttle bay, one HTS shuttle with four boarding parties into the LASH skid, and the second HTS shuttle with two boading parties and a militia squad into the Ducktail. That gives you eight boarding parties for a 33% chance to take the ship in one turn (Turn #0), and a militia squad that can be converted to crew (if you succeed) during the record keeping stage after boarding party combat.
You also have enough troops that even if help is beamed up from the planet by the ship's transporter, they are not going to be of much help at all, just add to the body count. But if you fail to take the ship on Turn #0, there will be weapons armed and firing on Impulse #1 of Turn #2 while you are trying to break orbit . . . and things could get dicey.