Is it time to consider some "out of the box" options?

If this is to be a variation on the Captains campaign... why not approach it from an Orion Pirates franchise thing?

Suppose the players in this home run campaign are all bidding against each other for a newly opened expansion area offered by the local Orion crime lord?

If we assume that each player has a "stake" that they built up during their prior criminal careers... said stake in the form of bpv points they can use to purchase and equip their ships that they lease or buy from the crime lord.

If we assume six players, and a dozen ships available for the auction.

The list of ships would have to be variable... all used. 1*CR, 2*LR, 1*free traitor, 1*Prime Trader, 1*FreeTrader, 1APT, 2*small freighter, 1*Large Freighter, perhaps several other rare civilian type ships to round out a full dozen.

Captured cargo boxes earn bpvs that can be used to buy a better ship. Perhaps pay for repairs and a refit... or allow different weapons to be installed in the options boxes?

If we used this approach... the crime lord could sell the missions to the franchisees. So a LR captain would pay the crime lord a finders fee. The better the mission, the more expensive it would be.

The hook being, caveat emptor... let the buyer be ware. That small freighter just might happen to be a q ship, or it might have both skid and ducktail.

By Jack Bohn (Jackbohn) on Monday, May 08, 2017 - 09:49 am: Edit

Wow, I have no confidence in my ability to design something like that! The ships are unequal, so how do you keep the real victory from being decided in the bidding war? Each ship may operate on the same knife edge of profitability, but a larger ship should earn more for its captain, or what's the point in moving up?

Thoughts on the economy: Thinking of ways to avoid the CR vs. F-S scenario, I wondered if we might declare that the average small freighter only carries 60-80 cargo spaces worth stealing. An LR or CR might fill three cargo boxes with diamonds, but the CR would have to fill its other two with coal. For the CR it's taking candy from a baby, but the CR can't survive on such a diet, although that's the LR's bread and butter. I imagine the operating costs of a ship ought to go up somewhere between the ratio of their BPVs and the ratio of their cargo boxes (1.35 or 1.67 for CR/LR). The simpler answer is to keeping CRs from attacking F-Ss is the Cartel Lord says to not to. There's an LR further down the route with bills to pay, and it can't jump the convoy the CR is ignoring. And the Cartel Lord wants the bills paid.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Monday, May 08, 2017 - 12:13 pm: Edit

I assume in the campaign pirates would not usually be preying on each other. The freighter would be used in non-combat situations ideally to deliver cargo. If it was armed it could bushwhack a lone freighter if it needed to but that is about it.

In a scenario like "A Question of Franchise" the franchise operator would not use a freighter to contest the claim of an LR. They would send their own LR or appeal to the Cartel Lord.

If the purpose of the campaign is to create scenarios you will want to give each player at least an LR. Instead of bidding on ships I think you should bid on franchise territories. More valuable areas cost more but, if successful, may yield more profit.

You add in scenarios where the Cartel Lord offers larger engagements like taking out a Base Station with a couple of other player's ships, hitting a larger convoy, etc.

If I were running the campaign I would have a GM who basically is the Cartel Lord. He creates some franchise areas and lets you bid. He builds scenarios involving multiple players. He would also judge success and payment after such missions. The problem you might face with those missions is that players will be tempted to be wallflowers with their ship and let Cartel ships take all the damage. The GM can judge whether the player earned the hiring cost.

You randomize what weapons are available for option mounts at the local pirate base with percentages rolled up for Home, Local, and other weapons. Players can bid on these. It would be interesting to see how players kit out their ships when only phaser-2 mounts are available right now and there are no phaser-1 mounts around (they are on back order). Then the bidding war hits when a gatling phaser shows up.

The campaign would probably be very different from how scenarios are usually played. In "A Question of Franchise" type scenarios pirates are more likely to act like animals trying to assert dominance and forcing the other to submit rather then wrecking both their ships in a slugfest that ends up costing both of them.

I would put in mechanisms for the pirates to invest in bribes and graft to get information on shipments and escorts. This would increase your chances of getting valuable cargo as opposed to just hitting a random freighter and hoping it is worth it. Work in some kind of meter for how successful the pirate raiding in a particular franchise is. If freighters keep disappearing in an area the local navy will increase escorts. Also base this on what the pirate is doing. If they are raiding for slaves or blasting whole convoys to space dust after they get what they want this would increase local police and military presence in the area. You could even have a spillover effect from neighboring franchises. If Kursk the Destroyer is being a major nuisance in an adjacent franchise some of the increased heat might spill over into your area. Might have to go have a friendly chat with Kursk to get him to cut it out.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Sunday, August 13, 2017 - 12:59 am: Edit

On the Pirates Captains Campaign:
Supplies would be the cartel lords hidden base station (for supplies and repairs, under contract).
If beyond the supply link, then use limited supply rules. I would include a monster scenario as one of the ten in a mini campaign.

As a pirate you will be operating in a cartel designated zone, other zones of operation or escape would also be know information. zones are sector maps of terrain, convoys, and some information on patrolling's ships.

Some supplies, ammunition, shuttles and a % of crew can be obtained from captured or looted freighters and bases.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, August 13, 2017 - 11:34 am: Edit

I am a little uncomfortable with assuming a supply function for a pirate campaign. SPP has mentioned any number of times that the Orion Pirates do not operate as do fleets/ships of the alpha octant major or minor empires.

To some extent, pirates are dependent on their victims for resupply. Food, fuel, weapons can all be found on some, most or all captured merchants.

The only things not readily available would be replacement ship mounted weapons for the options boxes, overhaul facilities or any repairs beyond that available via ships resources.

More importantly, franchisee pirate ships would have assigned locations in the cartels area of operations. Independent ships would either have to operate outside of the cartel or on sanctioned missions for the cartel.

Plus the possibility that the cartels hidden base gets discovered by police forces must exist... we should have a scenario for that possibility as well...

And it is always possible that a damaged raider is a long way from the cartels repair facilities...cartels territory changes constantly.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Sunday, August 13, 2017 - 11:40 am: Edit

It would not operate as a fleet supply, the LR captain would know of the location to one of the cartel lords hidden supply bases for supply and repairs. It is still up to him to get the LR to the supply base for supplies, or to make it back for repairs.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, August 13, 2017 - 02:37 pm: Edit

Still it does not work as a basis of modeling a pirate captain campaign. Look at F&E for comparison. Ships are limited to the existing network of bases and supply nodes in as far as they can engage in movement on the strategic map. (Granted turns are six months long...)

Orion pirate ships are not limited to the supply grid, they take fuel and parts from their victims. It may in fact be part of the reason the cartels territory is so variable. Heck, you can not even tell if the cartel hidden bases are actually even inside the cartel territory. (Probably is, but we have no data supporting that theory.)

As far as that premise goes, there is no proof the repair functions (however way it is actually done) is in side the cartel territory either.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Sunday, August 13, 2017 - 06:34 pm: Edit

Theses are just base ideas, for a mini campaign of ten scenarios, not some grand economic strategic level game.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 09:32 am: Edit

Exactly. And you must have some economic structure since the base motivation for piracy is greed.

And that is why what you have suggested will not work.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 10:30 am: Edit

While a pirate could get basic goods like food and fuel from raids repair parts for military grade weapons and patching up the stealth coating and other supplies are probably difficult to acquire through piracy. While a successful pirate (i.e. one who does not get shot up a lot) would not have to be resupplied as often as a fleet ship I imagine you would have to visit the cartel supply base at least once every year or two to get the high-grade supplies pirates need. They also would need to come back to pay their franchise dues, work a paid job for the cartel lord, negotiate a better franchise, etc. They may even come back for shore leave. Planets where a pirate ship can show up and beam its crew down for R&R are probably few and far between.

This semi-monopoly would also explain how the cartel lords stay in power. A ship has trouble operating without cartel support. While the stereotype is that if a pirate is operating independently the cartel enforcement ship pays them a visit and disciplines them I wonder how the enforcer finds the ship. Unless you have an informant on the ship how do you locate it? If the local fleet that has a dozen police ships and a dozen fleet ships and a score of bases and detection grids cannot find the pirate how is a lone cartel enforcer supposed to find it? It is not as if they can openly patrol.

There is a lot undefined. For example what does a franchise agreement entail? It almost certainly means access to a base somewhere accessible from the franchised area. Does it stipulate repair costs? Require you to do a mission every year or so at the request of the Cartel Lord? Cover mercenary service? Are they negotiated individually or is there a standard agreement that you take or leave? It probably varies based on the cartel but what is the norm?

Since they are not defined you can make it up as you go if you want to design a campaign.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 12:33 pm: Edit

Now I wonder if i take a Federation Freighter and take it to a klingon port. Would the Klingon Governor of that small colony care? Are buy my goods ship and all. Then buy my resupply as needed. More importantly the cartel has paid that colonies Governor off to look the other way at such times.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 12:47 pm: Edit

There is some data on merchants operations in Klingon territory. It was in a Captains Log a few issues back. I will have to pull my copy and see what was relevant to this discussion.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 01:35 pm: Edit

Cartels have territories.

The Cartel owns a number of ships outright (obviously including the "enforcer" ship).

The Cartel assigns its ships areas of operations to generate revenue.

There are also "independent contractors."

These rent areas of operations from the controlling Cartel, usually called a "Franchise."

The Cartel's principle hold over the independents is that the Cartel is the source of supply, repair, intelligence, and the conversion of stolen goods into cash.

An independent cannot operate "independently" of the Cartel system because the cartel system is the source of the spare parts needed to keep an Orion pirate ship in operation. Repairs to the ship's engines and to the hull are bought from the Cartel. You cannot go to some isolated colony and get those. You cannot loot them from your average merchant ship (or police ship). You cannot fabricate them from the ship's own internal sources. To be in the business of piracy, you have to be part of the Cartel system and you are dependent on purchasing spare parts and repairs from the Cartel system.

As an independent, you can terminate your franchise contract and move to another Cartel's area of operations and "rent" a new franchise area. But you have to be in the Cartel system because you need that source of spare parts, and finding and attacking other light raiders because you need spare parts is not a good business model.

The Cartel lord has the ships that are formally part of the Cartel, and may "rent' these to the government, and may even offer independents the opportunity to be part of such "contracts." Or may even negotiate the whole mercenary contract based on gathering a number of independents to full fill the contract, and perhaps having to use more of his own ships than he would prefer if not enough independents step up. (The given mercenary contract might be long term, or for one special mission.)

The upshot is that if you are operating a pirate ship, whether as a formal part of a Cartel (you are assigned to command your ship by the Cartel Lord, and he is the owner of the ship) or an independent (you own your ship, perhaps as part of a group of individuals who form the officers of the ship and have elected you to be captain), you are going to be operating in the Cartel system and be dependent on the Cartel for what is needed to keep your ship operating.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 01:56 pm: Edit

By the way, the Cartel is also the source of 'vetted' crew replacements. You cannot just pick up replacement marines/boarding parties from any old merchant ship you knock over. And you need engineers familiar with how Orion engines operate and cannot spend an inordinate amount of time training your own engineering staff replacements.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 02:00 pm: Edit

By the way, the Cartel is also the source of 'vetted' crew replacements. You cannot just pick up replacement marines/boarding parties from any old merchant ship you knock over. And you need engineers familiar with how Orion engines operate and cannot spend an inordinate amount of time training your own engineering staff replacements.

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 02:45 pm: Edit

There's also the fact that a power the size of the Federation probably has thousands (millions?) of undercover operatives, confidential informants, and retired military spread throughout its shipping lanes, in addition to whatever private security the corporations and insurance industries have out there. You'd have to assume that anyone you press into service is going to be a risk to your ship the moment they come aboard (anything from giving away your location to popping the warp core during routine maintenance).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 03:47 pm: Edit

Which, getting back to the campaign concept, gets us to the idea of a series of scenarios to be played from the point of view of the Orion (make money).

Obviously one would be raiding a colony. The scale of the colony would need to be defined based on the raiding ship.

Scale A defenses would be if the raider is a Light Raider, maybe also a War Destroyer.

Scale B defenses would be if the raider is a Raider Cruiser, maybe a Medium Cruiser or Double Raider.

Scale C would be if the raider is a Battle Raider.

Dueling another pirate ship would simply be a mirror scenario.

Our erstwhile captain might be called on to defend a pirate base from attack by other Orions, and in a later scenario be called on to be part of such an attack.

Attacking a defended convoy would also be on a sliding scale.

A monster scenario might simply call on the pirate to gain a certain amount of lab points (hard to do when you only have one lab, i.e., one of your control spaces) and of course survive without being too badly damaged (too bad about the colony, but you are here to make money, not risk your neck for a bunch of dirt grubbers).

Losing things costs you deductions in points.
Sure, it was better to lose that shuttle you used as a wild weasel than to lose your ship, but you are on the hook for the cost of the shuttle.
Sure, doubling the engines meant you did not even take shield damage from those freighters, but paying for the repair parts for the engines comes out of your gains.
Well, the police showed up and you had to run abandoning the Marines on the freighters, but heck you saved your ship. Of course the Marine Replacements want a rather large signing bonus to serve with you.
and so on.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 05:46 pm: Edit

Responding to SPP's double post at 2pm above,
This could actually be handled if the mini-campaign uses the crew experience rule. If you have to get replacement crews, the replacements would lower the overall experience points of the ship. If you have to "buy" a lot of crew because of a blown mission (heavy damage but still alive), it could cause your Orion ship to operate under the restrictions of a poor crew.
It would require a little math but certainly easy enough to do, especially with a spreadsheet.
Just my thoughts.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, August 14, 2017 - 10:24 pm: Edit

Glenn, same would hold true for those Captains and crews upgrading to a larger ship. Crew experience rule would still apply.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - 04:36 pm: Edit

Jeff Wile:

That is a campaign function. You can do the campaign based on the crew of the smaller ship being promoted to the larger ship and it being filled out with green crew, or you can simply promote the Captain (player) to a larger ship with a competent crew. Or you can have the campaign end when the first of the competing captain's achieves promotion, no matter what the starting ships were.

Example: Everyone starts with a Light Raider. At the end of the X number of rounds of the campaign we find that:

Captain Petrick was eliminated in Round #4 when his Light Raider was blown up by the Q-ship hidden in the convoy.

Captain Wile had ### points, but that was not as many as Captain Hoepfner who had ###+ points.

But Captain Zamboni got the promotion to the larger ship because while he had slightly fewer points, he only doubled the engines on his ship three times in the whole campaign, and that savings in credits put him over the top.

For the above purpose, the campaign of linked scenarios would be set up so that the players could have been running Light Raiders (as noted) against opposition scale A, but they might have chosen to play with Raider Cruisers and opposition scale B, or Battle Raiders and opposition scale C.

A longer campaign might have started with Light Raiders, assumed everyone got promoted, and played a second series with Raider Cruisers, assume again everyone got promoted, and played a final series with Battle Raiders, and taken the over all score to determine who gets the final promotion to the Cartel's Enforcer ship (CA, BC, or BCH depending on the year) and is the winner of the campaign.

There could be other ways of running a pirate campaign, of course. But most campaigns are more or less a series of either sequentially linked [generally a (T0.0) campaign] or non-sequential [generally a (U0.0) campaign] scenarios with some logistical elements (between scenario repairs and replacement of expendables). So there might be something different that could be done for the Orions.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - 05:42 pm: Edit

Also because it is Orions, I suspect that each ship captain would have to specify the Cartel area in which he is operating, which in turn will pretty much limit what he will run into in opposition.

A Penzance Cartel Light Raider is not going to encounter a planet with Lyran defenses, while a Hamilcar Cartel Light Raider is unlikely to run up against plasma-armed Q-ships in Y155 (in Y189 he might run afoul of Inter-Stellar Concordium Q-Ships) and so on.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, August 16, 2017 - 02:15 pm: Edit

Wow. Captain Hoepfner. Is that official?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, August 16, 2017 - 06:17 pm: Edit

Glenn, remember that a Lieutenant can be the captain of a small ship.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, August 17, 2017 - 10:20 am: Edit

What is a small ship in Orion terms? A small armed freighter that picks on small barely armed freighters.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, August 17, 2017 - 03:49 pm: Edit

It took me 48hrs to find my billfold. Am I now back to being an ensign?