Transferred from another topic.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - 04:15 pm: Edit

I have always imagined an Orion Campaign as being a combination of various general and historic scenarios intermixed with a few random "raids on merchant traffic" scenarios. The goal of the Orion player(s) to rise through the ranks (starting perhaps with a Light Raider) to become the "Cartel Enforcer" (with perhaps a sidebar on becoming the new "Cartel Lord," but that might be risky or too much). If there is one pirate, he of course is the pirate in all actions, if there are several pirates, they rotate running their chance at the given mission while another runs the defense/counter piracy force/cartel enforcer. There is always the risk of "early retirement," i.e., if you are not doing well enough, your crew may invite you to take a long walk through a short airlock, or the Cartel Lord might send a Crime Team to "discuss your future prospects." Might include an option to let the Orion Ship Captain "cook the books," that is to say not fully pay what the Cartel Lord is due, and risk being caught by the Cartel's accountants (which would also lead to a visit by a Crime Team). Or perhaps refuse some suggested assignments by the Cartel Lord, which might eventually lead to the Cartel Lord again sending a Crime Team to discuss your future prospects.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - 06:15 pm: Edit

I have put together some none Pirate mini campaigns using a collection of Historical and non historical scenarios. (It works quite well)

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - 10:40 pm: Edit

There was an 80’s microgame by a now defunct publisher which was the best treatment of a space-faring pirate campaign that I’ve ever played. The police player had ten random systems to defend each of which were divided into several (one to four) orbits which might contain an inhabited planet and/or moon, a minor planet, 1-3 asteroid fields or “star cities”, and a “deep space” zone (which allows you to move between orbits or flee the system). Inhabited planets were divided into 2-10 regions. Individual planets/regions/starcities/asteroids varied in wealth and technology which determined how much they were worth to the pirates to plunder but also how much money they had to purchase local defense units (ground forces, fighters, patrol boats, etc.) and what level of technology they could use.

The police only had a handful of interstellar units and had no way of predicting where the pirates might attack (once an attack had begun forces could be shifted in system but not between systems). The pirates were in the same boat (not knowing where the police would show up) but had the advantage of having a rough idea of the strength (but not the composition) of the local defenses based on their wealth. The dilemma was that the pirates could raid poor systems (or even poor orbits) with much less risk but such raids won’t pay the bills in the long run (though some income is better than no income). Thus the need for an occasional all-out attack (pooling most of the fleet).

The police have a similar problem: spread yourself too thin and the pirates can beat you 1 on 1, but concentrating your forces makes it more likely you will miss them entirely. Both sides try to avoid being too predictable, the police making a surprise appearance in a poor (but not previously raided) systems or the pirates attacking a system that looks like a tough nut to crack.

The dynamic here seems compatible with the Star Fleet Universe, the main difference being that this game didn’t place much emphasis on convoys (though cargo was an important concept given the need to carry plunder, fighters, or non-mobile defenses from place to place).

By Michael Alan Calhoon (Mcalhoon2) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 03:44 am: Edit

This intrigues me greatly, being a tax accountant by trade. The question is, is such a campaign something people would want to play in enough quantity to be worth devoting precious Steve time in design work?

I hope so.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 12:54 pm: Edit

I have always wanted an Orion Pirate Captain's Campaign (what I was basically talking about). A larger Orion campaign a'la "The Admiral's Game" seems to be where you guys are going. If people play "The Admiral's Game" there might be a niche for a "Orion Cartel Lord's Game/Police Sector Commander Game."

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 01:48 pm: Edit

The (U2.0) Captains Game as the Orion Pirate Captains Campaign,
I would probably only have one Monster encounter (A Space Spider and the Orion fighting over a freighter), the other two Monster encounters i would change to raids on merchant traffic, and the last scenario, Duel with a Pirate for control of the cartel operational area. (Start with a light raider and work your way up)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 02:06 pm: Edit

Wayne Douglas Power:

I tend to think an "Orion" captain's campaign would include looking at those things Orion ships are designed to do. Thus the "Raid on a planet" scenario should be in there. I have no particular problem with Orions mostly avoiding monster scenarios, but there should be at least one to encourage the Orion to try to collect the "information bonus" from the government for learning things. (No, I do not expect the Orion to kill the monster, but remember that history provides that the Orions were the inventors of the "probe drone," although I have strong doubts that even those Orion ships with drone racks would carry one . . . you cannot let the Orion know he is facing a monster this time and top up on Probe drones at the expense of other drone types for that purpose.)

But, yes, dueling another pirate ship over Franchise jumping. Or because the Cartel Lord has ordered it.

But most Orion scenarios would of necessity have to deal with "cargo transfer." Whether from a waylaid freighter or from various small ground bases, or orbiting bases. Frequently under fire, and often with a time limit before the "minions of the law" arrive in sufficient force to make escape impossible.

The campaign of an individual ship cannot reflect normal day to day operations (it would be boring to run up on a small freighter, shoot its engines off. Board it, take the best cargo, and leave, the scenarios generally reflect those times when "something went wrong" and our intrepid "Dread Pirate Power" has to demonstrate why he is exceptional; get the loot and get out without his ship being crippled or destroyed.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 02:20 pm: Edit

I will add that I need to be careful about my own concepts.

I have always looked on an Orion Captain's Campaign as, as noted, working your way up. Starting with a small ship and completing enough missions to get the next larger ship, and then doing it again. On the way, perhaps having the option to earn a "change in option mounts" if you want it, but mostly the option mounts the ship start with (that you select) remain through your tour on the given ship. For example you start with a light raider and the options are a plasma-F-FA and phaser-1-LS/RSs. When you get your new raider cruiser, you have option mounts of a photon torpedo and plasma-F-LS/RSs. And so on.

But basically I would see the captain "penalized" for doubling the engines (sure, it makes it easier to capture that small freighter . . . but you are spending more money than it is worth to do so). Paying for repairs is a bad thing. Similar penalties for excessive "personnel losses." (Your hearty band is serving with you to make money, not die for the glory of the Cartel Lord or your personal fame.) You are paying for those T-bombs, and drone rack reloads, and replacement shuttles, and etc.

Now, sure, when you are doing a difficult job for the Cartel Lord (like participating in an attack on a neighboring Cartel's base or doing "enforcer work" for the Cartel Lord, some of those expenses will be covered.

But an Orion Captain's Overriding thoughts are profit driven.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 02:42 pm: Edit

Steve Petrick:

Yes, I would agree that it is profit driven.

I would go looking through all the scenarios to get some good ones for the pirate campaign, like raid on a planet as you suggested. I personalty would have a probe drone on the rack (if using drones) you can always have something else in the reloads.
In the CL#48 Rescue on Farak III battle group 550, my Orion Omega battle group did not use engine doubling (expensive to repair), and who knows, after completing the scenario we my have another encounter strait after, and having damaged engines unnecessarily by doubling would be costly.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 02:48 pm: Edit

Back when I was with a group with a number of players with strong Orion preferences, there was a proposal for a pirate competition. Each player would engage in a pirate mini-campaign and whichever got the most cargo value was the winner. Defended convoys and Q-ships would count double or triple for cargo boxes; damages suffered would reduce the total. I moved away before it got started though.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 04:03 pm: Edit

My thought for a pirate game was to start each scenario by having the non-pirate draw a card from a deck with a set of rules for which card gives what forces, how quickly the pirate has to disengage to avoid the cops, and what's available as loot.

The card is placed somewhere where the pirate can check it after the scenario, but is otherwise unknown to the pirate.

So in a convoy raid a black Ace might mean the convoy has a Q-ship, the Heart Ace means the cargo is exceptionally valuable and counts triple, while the Diamond Ace means that half the convoy's weapons are down for maintenance, and the Club Ace means a frigate arrives on turn 2.

Number cards you add two to the number, and if the pirate hasn't disengaged by the end of that turn he's considered destroyed, the number is revealed two turns before deadline assuming the pirate's sensors are undamaged, three turns if he has a special sensor doing tac-intel. (Use a value of 12 turns for all royal and ace cards.)

Other royals cards could mean other things like undersized or oversided convoys and unusual cargo like a shipment of military spare parts or a ransomable prisoner.

VP are adjusted based on the card drawn so that a game can be played in isolation and still be balanced. You can have the pirate do a campaign, but he doesn't need to.

But between the problems of making such a rule-set, and the fact that most people I've played with don't use tac-intel (vital to make this work) it never seemed worth making up the full details.

By Dal Downing (Rambler) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 04:49 pm: Edit

Maybe we should move Pirate Campaign Brain Storming to an new topic. And I can thing of one Pirate Monster Scenario, IIRC Jason and the Golden Fleece.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 07:45 pm: Edit

what scale would this campaign use?

One sector?(roughly the same as a F&E hex). A whole province? (Seven sectors)

Each sector has about 1,000 useful areas (see the Federation express article in captains log or GURPs Federation for details). Not all 1,000 UPs (useful places) are in the Federation registry. Off hand I forget the ratio, but iirc more than half UPS are known to the Federation registry, the rest are known to some one... perhaps pirates, perhaps other things( here be dragons?)

Make the playing area too large and it becomes unplayable. Too small and it's not a challenge.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 07:54 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

This intrigues me greatly, being a tax accountant by trade. The question is, is such a campaign something people would want to play in enough quantity to be worth devoting precious Steve time in design work?

---

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 07:56 pm: Edit

A suggestion, take it with a grain of salt as it's not been tested... start with a 12x12 hex grid.

The pirate lair/base is in the center of the map.

Each hex represents a different "useful place".

Need some form of operational move ment, but if the Orion ship has the traditional +2 stealth bonus, approaching any up up to two hexes away can't be detected by the police player.

Need to populate the useful places, a percentage (30%?) known only to the Orion player as uninhabited or pirate base.

By Oliver Upshaw (Oliverupshaw) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 08:31 pm: Edit

Douglas Saldana, the game you are thinking of is most likely "Star Viking" which was published by Dwarfstar. A couple of years ago someone worked out a deal with the rights holders to the Dwarfstar line of games and made them available as free downloads. If you go the "Star Viking" page on Boardgamegeek there is a link under the Overview tab that will take you to the download page.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 08:47 pm: Edit

Oliver Upshaw:

Thanks for the tip! That is indeed the game I recalled. Still looks good after all these years.

I notice that the rights to the game are currently held by Reaper Miniatures. Appears to be a Texas based company. Does ADB know those guys?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - 11:12 pm: Edit

While I would expect the Orions to be the main focus of this discussion, I would welcome a pirate campaign which was flexible enough to be modified for use with the other "pirate" factions in known space (the Jumokians, Zosmans, and M81 Pirates); both in accounting for what makes each one unique, and in showing what makes their respective local conditions distinct also.

Actually, a "captain's campaign" which covered the (mis-)adventures of the CR Throne of Ozymondas could be neat, also.


But in terms of scenarios, I wonder if there might be something which could account for "misdirection" operations - by which I mean scenarios in which the pirate player is trying to wrong-foot the "navy" or "police" in their efforts to track down the bases and support ships underpinning the local pirate operations.

With a handful of exceptions (such as in the WYN Cluster), most pirate groups in known space have to be careful in terms of not leaving warp trails or other clues which could compromise their bases' locations. Relying on cloaking devices or Stealth fields is all well and good, but it's much better to minimize the odds of having someone snooping around the base's vicinity in the first place.

Would there be a way in which this could be represented in a "tactical wargame" context, or is it something which would better work in Prime Directive instead?


And also, might there be a scenario in which the pirate player may find their ship(s) contracting as mercenaries? Say, if there is a "common enemy", such as the Andromedans, against whom both the cops and robbers might (for a time) find common cause. Or, if the "host" empire finds itself on the wrong end of an external invasion, they (or the invaders) try to make it more lucrative for the pirates to sign a mercenary contract than to continue their prior operations.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, January 19, 2017 - 12:47 am: Edit

Gary Carney:

Yes, I am all for a flexible Pirate campaign, the basic ideas can be applied to the Jumokians, Zosmans, and M81 Pirates (maybe also pirates in the Triangulum galaxy).
Tactically you might be able to loss those on the pirates trail by entering/passing through certain terrain zones, or getting in the wake of heavy convoy routes.

By Jack Bohn (Jackbohn) on Thursday, January 19, 2017 - 09:58 am: Edit

So, in its simplest form, how much of The Captain's Game needs to be rewritten? I take it (U1.2) Replacements, (U1.3) Resupply, and (U1.4) Overhaul (and possible move up (or down?) in ship class) don't operate automatically, but if and to the extent the captain's success can support them. Can piracy directly support some of the aspects of Resupply? (U1.31) Supplies I can see, but Ammunition and Drones are more problematical. Has any previous rule allowed Romulan and Gorn plasma racks, or Klingon and Kzinti drones, to be interchangeable? (U1.22) Shuttles is possible, and I can see a pirate going specifically after someone's shuttle. (Could a non-drone racked ship steal drones for a scatterpack in a later scenario?) (U1.21) Crew might have limited application; there might be a few jobs one could force a captive to do without taking too great a risk on their noncompliance.

The economic aspects need dialling in, may I suggest in addition to each scenario's loot, the player receives a fixed sum as well. This represents the day to day piracy SPP thinks would be too boring to play out. The first scenario could even be an "easy pickings" attack to establish the player's pay rate.

The nine or ten games themselves should have a bit more surprise than usual, with a random level of opposition to be determined. A philosophical question: should the appearance of a monster be determined by something that give an average of 1 in 9 chance, like a dice roll, or one that gives one and only one appearance, say a dragon card mixed in witb eight others?

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Monday, April 10, 2017 - 04:15 pm: Edit

Jack Bohn:

For more Campaign options there is (U7.0) Campaign notes, (U7.1) and (U7.2) deal with technology transfers.

If you wanted to have the pirate operating beyond its normal supply linked area, you could use some of the rules from (T3.0) The Lone Gray Wolf.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, May 04, 2017 - 11:04 pm: Edit

A small collection of scenarios that could be used in a scenario based mini campaign for the Pirates captains campaign.

Some of the Frigates Captains game scenarios,
Scenario Book 1: SG28.0 Raid on a survey camp,
SG33.0 Treasure ship, SG34.0 Merchant, Pirate, Soldier, Spy, SG35.0 A Question of franchise, SH35.0 Into the rings, SH58.0 Starhunt.
Scenario Book 2: SG51.0 Hey, that's my freighter, SG52.0 Raid on a mining planet, SG53.0 Graveyard of ships, SG55.0 Race to the base (sometimes you end up operating with another pirate ship), SH131.0 Highjaked.
In some of the scenarios use some of the variations available.

Placing a selection of the scenarios in an encounter list, to be played out as the mini campaigns main events.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, May 04, 2017 - 11:13 pm: Edit

A collection of scenarios from the Jumokians, Zosmans, and M81 Pirates (maybe also pirates in the Triangulum galaxy) would add more variation to the Pirate Campaign game list, as well as the many scenarios in the other modules and books.

By Jack Bohn (Jackbohn) on Friday, May 05, 2017 - 10:11 am: Edit

I meant to respond to your April 10th note, saying I don't think I'm lead man on the campaign, or at least I hope not, for all our sakes!

While looking for this thread I found the other one at Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: New Scenarios: Orion Pirate Captain's Campaign and fell into a bit of analysis paralysis. Among the things in that discussion, Jeff Wile gathered a list of scenarios similar to yours, and Steve raised the objection that some of them required a fleet of Orion ships, not properly the test of a captain. I would say adding a third player for the rest of the Orion fleet still might not tell us much about our Captain[s] who may just hang out at the edge trying not to damage their ship[s]. I will note that for two or more captain candidates we get some opportunities for them to cooperate/compete in SG51.0 which uses a size class 3 and 4 ship, SG55.0 Race to the Base 2*CR (SG55.63 variation 2*LR), and SG7.0 Pirates Go for Big Game 3*CR; although we could use variation SG7.73 to reduce it to two (for fairness run it twice, with each playing the bait) or .74, cripple the "bait" CR to just be a command detonated mine if the Naval player get careless.

I picture the campaign format basically two cargo raiding scenarios (SG4.0 Basic Piracy) bracketing other "mandatory parts of the routine" such as Chase into the Asteroids, Question of Franchise, Base Defense, Duel with a Pirate Raider. Then there are "voluntary" scenarios I picture a somewhat independent captain would be asked, not ordered to do: Steve suggested a monster mission for the science bonus, Into the Rings or Stasis Box; at specific points in the campaign (to represent that these opportunities don't come up every day) optional missions are selected for the captain, take it or leave it. Additionally, up to twice the captain can choose to replace a cargo raid mission with a cargo escort mission. This would "pay" maybe the ship's cargo boxes plus one of medium-value cargo, which seems generous, but which is for a number of trips, we are playing out the one where you have to earn it. Roll up a convoy and roll for whether it faces an enemy cartel Raider or an enemy empire commerce raider. (I suppose the pay should have a base component and a Victory Point component to encourage you to not just run away.)