Assuming you are using the optional rule, hidden mine placement.

Although if you aren't, and you still pull it off, then I imagine that would be satisfying as well.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 16, 2020 - 05:21 pm: Edit

Ah, for the old days when merchant ships were not prohibited from using their Commander's Option points to purchase mines, and mines were CHEAP. The look on an Orion captain's face when he discovered the common merchant ship he was running down had laid a nuclear space mine in his path was just priceless. The only thing more priceless is the look on his face when he discovers the whole convoy of "unarmed merchantmen" has done so.

Sadly, eventually the word gets out and the Orion captains become much, much more cautious when approaching "lumbering unarmed merchantmen." (That is to say the Orion players I pulled such "light hearted hijinks" on would treat my convoys and even individual merchant ships with a certain degree of respect and trepidation in the hoary days of old, especially as I would spring other tricks on them.)

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, April 17, 2020 - 12:52 pm: Edit

Of course, that also encourages the pirates to shoot up your merchant ship until it HAS to sit "right there." Then they can creep to range 5 with heavy reinforcement, tac intel your Weapons status, and tell you to drop your shields or be destroyed...

That means that pirates occasionally blow up the prey rather than get the loot. Or irks the pirates so much that they board once you are helpless and shoot a couple people on the way out. Like the Captain. "Pour encourager ;'es autres/"

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Friday, April 17, 2020 - 01:45 pm: Edit

You make examples of the ships Crew that fights back. You let those go that cooperate.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, April 17, 2020 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Mike Grafton:

For what it is worth, my attitude is that any Orion (or raider) approaching a merchant ship should be considering the possibility that it is a Q-ship (unless he has identified it as some kind of auxiliary). Q-ships in SFB suffer because in most scenarios where they appear the Orion/Raider player knows there is a Q-ship "in this case," often exactly what size and from what empire it is from (so its weapons load is known). Q-ships are meant by design to be a "surprise," but are not. The other scenarios where they appear they are generally openly operating as an ersatz warship (which they are not very good at). The general job of merchant ships is to "hold out until help arrives." In most Orion/raider attack on merchant shipping scenarios there is a time line for when "help will come." The Orion/Raider knows this as well as the merchant player, and tailors the "violence of his attack" to the timeline. The merchant player tailors how determined his refusal to "stand and deliver" will be to how tough the Orion/Raider is and how soon help will come.

So if my merchant ship is accosted by Mike Grafton's Raider Cruiser, whether a small or large merchant ship, and help will not be there any sooner than 10 turns, I will very likely heave too and even help transfer the goods to Mike Grafton's ship. If help is four turns away, I am likely to make things as difficult for you as I can. My ship may be shot up, but is not likely to be destroyed, and if I can force you to double your engines, and you do not get any swag from me, I have won (even if help does not do any damage to you before you disengage) because you have burned resources for no profit.

Different circumstances lead to different actions.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, April 18, 2020 - 02:53 pm: Edit

I have won? Dunno. I guess it depends on how your insurance is designed.

And if I was an Orion, I would do my very best to see you blow up before I left. Something like "shoot until their shuttle is dead, then drop a Scatter pack to blossom at range 9..."

Because THEN all the local merchant men would KNOW that resisting at all means that the Orion is probably going to blow you up instead of taking a few things that are covered by insurance anyway.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, April 18, 2020 - 03:21 pm: Edit

The drones cost money.

That sort of thing might provoke naval anti-pirate operations and if so, the local Cartel Lord will NOT be happy with you.

The simple life of a pirate is not at all simple.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, April 18, 2020 - 03:39 pm: Edit

Mike Grafton:

And at this point you have missed the point. If the situation were such that you would kill my merchant ship before help arrived, as noted I would "stand and deliver" and even help transfer the cargo. If you are going to keep attacking to kill my freighter when help is about to arrive your ship will be further damaged by the arriving help, and be more of a focus for the forces of law and order to hunt down. (Law and Order takes a dim view of pirates who kill indiscriminately.) Increased attention from law and order it likely to annoy the Cartel Lord who may "remove you from command" as a means of getting law and order to be less annoyed. (Remember, you are dependent on the Cartel system for fuel, repairs, expendable munitions, replacement crew, Fencing services, etc., It is not like you are a lone footpad mugging strangers on the streets of some backwater planet, that ship of yours requires logistical support that you cannot supply yourself; you need the Cartel.) Heck, the Cartel system through its agents even provides you with shipping schedules and cargo manifests so that you can plan on what freighters to hit (the Cartel, unlike your lone pirate ship, has the resources to bribe people to get "sailing information" and runs counter-intelligence to avoid having false shipping data provided by law and order to trap pirate ships, i.e., it "vets" the shipping data.)

So, yes, if you find a lone merchant man (or even a small convoy) and there is no hope of succor (and depending somewhat on just what your ship is) they will likely cooperate. But by definition it is in their interest that you are not taking part of their profits and driving up the insurance rates on the cargo they are hauling. So if you can be hurt financially and eventually put out of business because you cannot afford to keep operating your ship, that is a plus for them.

Details matter from situation to situation.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, April 18, 2020 - 06:40 pm: Edit

There was an old Burt Reynolds movie, back from the 1980’s I think. Part of the “stick” of the rogue character (in the white cowboy hat and everything) was Reynolds character would drive up in his late 1950’s two tone car, engage the service station attendants in conversation, crack jokes etc.. then drive off without paying for gas, sometimes after robbing the station.

That is, it worked until the day he encountered an old curmudgeon who didn’t fall for the charm, jokes or the scam. When he went to get the change/money from the register he actually came back with a shot gun.

The Curmudgeon was crowing with pride, beaming that he “didn’t let that so and so win”... as his gas station burned in the background just before the gas in storage tanks ignited.

Yeah, he won.

By AW Cookson (Awcookson) on Monday, April 20, 2020 - 05:01 pm: Edit

SPP, between the note above from Saturday and several other notes and comments you've made over the years about merchants, would you *please* consider doing one or three articles for CapLog, "Interview with a Merchant Wartime Captain", "Interview with a Merchant Peacetime Captain", and "Interview with a Pirate Captain"?
Your take on these two is something that I think is greatly needed in the SFU.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Monday, April 20, 2020 - 05:16 pm: Edit

There's an Orion get-together in Nexus (wayback machine) that was repeated in CL#13 (IIRC) that covers part of that last request …

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, April 20, 2020 - 05:39 pm: Edit

A W Cookson:

The problem you get into is that the rules have changed over the years. And Orions (and Raiders) locally would eventually learn my tactics and take proactive stances against them.

Freighters cannot buy any mines at all any more, and the number of ships that can buy nuclear space mines was heavily restricted (so only Romulan Q-ships are dropping NSMs, although any Q-ship might drop T-bombs, but the bog standard small, large, heavy, and jumbo freighter cannot have any mines).

Flooding the zone with boarding parties has not been officially outlawed as of yet, but SVC has been threatening to impose that, and at the same time he may decide to restrict the use of the weapon status rules to prevent freighters from starting a scenario with their shuttles fully armed as suicide shuttles. The sudden mass of suicide shuttles at near point blank range from a convoy under attack is something Orion (and raider) captains learn to deal with after it is pulled on them, and Orion (and raider) captains learn that it is a good idea to spend Commander's Option points for extra boarding parties if they are going up against a convoy which may have a lot of defending boarding parties, and a penchant to offensively board an Orion (or raider) ship that is short of boarding parties.

And some of the value of them came out of campaigns where Orion (and raider) captains really had to consider "tomorrow's battle." The infamous time when my large freighter turned in (instead of away) from the Orion ship and ran straight at him and then announced an attempt to tractor his ship causing him to panic and flee only worked because he could not really afford to go one-on-one with a large Q-ship and be able to repair his ship to rob another freighter. It was a heck of a bluff, but an Orion (or raider) player with no battle to fight tomorrow would probably have gone ahead and fought the "Q-ship," and discovered it was just a large freighter attempting to bluff him. It makes a good story, but any scenario involving an Orion ship attacking a freighter is pretty much going to know it is just a freighter (scenario set up tells him that information) and he has so many turns to do the dirty deed before the minions of the law arrive. (In the campaign, one of the things he did not know was when help would arrive to put pressure on him to get the piracy done and leave, and he never knew what the merchant ship he was going to attack was until the scenario started and so there was always a chance that it might be a Q-ship.)

Writing an article espousing such tactics is, in the end, overcome by events. For individual pirate operations there are already articles about what size pirate ship considers what kind of merchant ship valid prey, and the biggest issue for Orions is that the prey most likely to have really good loot is also generally able to "run," i.e., disengage by acceleration, which generally means you need a bigger pirate ship (or raider) carrying enough weapons to punch a shield and do enough engine damage that the prey cannot escape.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 - 02:36 pm: Edit

A. W. Cookson:

Also remember that back in the 1980s mines were CHEAP (1 BPV per T-bomb, I think NSMs were three BPV), and "dummy T-bombs" were unlimited in BPV (you did not even have to buy a T-bomb to have dummy T-bombs). So it was pretty easy for a convoy to use its transporters to spread dummy T-bombs willy nilly, and since the freighters could have real T-bombs (one Commander's option point each), that was a pretty significant deterrent to approaching a convoy and a solid reason to avoid approaching under conditions where you had to cross the convoy's "movement trace" (for those T-bombs, and possible NSMs, laid out the hatches). It was a very, very different time.

Now days a convoy might have a fairly small number of T-bombs and dummys if there is an Armed Freighter or Q-ship present (and NSMs if it is a Romulan Large Q-ship). But it just does not have the same impact as every transporter in the convoy being used to lay dummy (and real) T-bombs to mess with Orion's (raider's) head. They will pretty much know (from the scenario set up) exactly how many real and dummy T-bombs the convoy might have (two large freighters, four small freighters, one large armed freighter, and one small armed freighter is a max of four T-bombs and four dummy T-bombs, when back in the 80s it might be three to six nuclear space mines, a dozen T-bombs and an infinite number of dummy T-bombs (off the top of my head). That is enough mines to make an Orion Raider Cruiser take note of the danger (especially if he had been burned by NSMs attacking a convoy once before).

By Marcel Trahan (Devilish6996) on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 - 05:52 pm: Edit

My question refers to two rules that contradict themselve regarding DWV (that carry 8 fighters) and the possibility of having them equiped with heavy fighters.

(S8.231) Partial squadrons or flotillas are combined to determine totals. A battle force that includes a DWV with eight fighters (or four heavy fighters) counts as eight fighters. The battle force might also have two casual PFs (counting as the equivalent of two more fighters) a PFT (with a full flotilla of six PFs) and a CVS with a squadron of twelve fighters.

And

(J10.111) To convert a given carrier (or escort with ready racks) to use heavy fighters (which was done, to a limited extent, historically)
mark the fighter boxes as adjacent pairs, each able to hold and service one heavy fighter. Heavy fighters cannot be mixed into
squadrons with non-heavy fighters. Federation F-111 and A-20 fighters can only be used on carriers specifically designed for them,
other carriers can use F-101s. Carriers of Size Class-4 cannot operate heavy fighters unless they are able to carry a full squadron of
six. Exception, HDWs (Module R6) might be configured to operate fewer than six heavy fighters. No single carrier can have more than
one squadron of heavy fighters, e.g., a CVA cannot have more than one squadron of heavy fighters. Exception: a Starbase or Stellar
Fortress (with fighter modules) might operate two squadrons of heavy fighters.

Which rules applies to DWV? can they carry heavy fighters like HDW or not?

Marcel Trahan

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 - 06:03 pm: Edit

Marcel Trahan:

When heavy fighters first appeared they were allowed to replace fighters on "true carriers," but as the game developed, the stricter interpretation came to force.

In short, (J10.111) is the correct rule.

By Marcel Trahan (Devilish6996) on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 - 11:32 pm: Edit

So, to make sure

A DWV cannot carry 4 heavy fighters but a HWD could carry 4 of them if their otpions are used to have 8 fighters or even 6 fighters giving them 3 heavy fighters.

Am i right?

Marcel

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 23, 2020 - 03:20 am: Edit

Yes.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Thursday, April 23, 2020 - 10:43 pm: Edit

SPP,

You just largely contradicted Module G3A. The listing for the Federation DWV specifically says that it can carry 4 F-101.

For a long time there was only heavy assault fighters like the A-20. The (J10.111) evolved to only allow substitution for assault fighters, which are rare.

Since then, a whole set of heavy superiority fighters, like the F-101, have been published. As documented in G3A, these can be swapped for standard fighters on any true carrier. Hybrid ship still cannot carry heavy fighters.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, April 24, 2020 - 12:44 am: Edit

John Wyszynski:

When Module G3A was created rule (J10.111) allowed any carrier to switch out size 1 fighters for size 2 fighters. After Module G3A was done rule (J10.111) was changed to read as Marcel Trahan noted, e.g., with the exception of a heavy war destroyer, no size class 4 carrier can operate heavy fighters normally unless it can carry a full squadron of six.

By Joe Carlson (Jrc) on Saturday, April 25, 2020 - 12:35 am: Edit

SPP,

When was rule (J10.111) changed and why?

Were was the new rule (J10.111) published?

I am not trying to argue or change it back just interested in the above. Like John I use G3A.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Saturday, April 25, 2020 - 11:31 am: Edit

It is in my 2012 Master Rule book I bought in PDF.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, April 25, 2020 - 02:06 pm: Edit

Joe Carlson:

Honestly, all I can say is that the change was made between 2009 (when Module G3A was released) and 2012 (when the change was implemented in the Master Rulebook), and as we are about out of the last printing of the Module J rulebook (1996) will be implemented in the new printing of that book.

By Joe Carlson (Jrc) on Saturday, April 25, 2020 - 04:48 pm: Edit

If I but a PDF version of the Master Rule book will such rule changes show up as they are made (and added to the PDF)?

By Marcel Trahan (Devilish6996) on Monday, April 27, 2020 - 10:45 pm: Edit

Question regarding space dragons:

Do they need to enter the atmosphere at speed 1 like a ship to be able to start ravaging?

In other words, do they need to make mid turn speed change to be at speed 1 adjacent to a planet on imp 32 or end their turn adjacent to a planet, go to speed 1 the following turn and enter the atmosphere on imp 32 or can they enter the atmosphere at any speed and spend the rest of the turn not moving so they can start ravaging the following turn?

Marcel

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 - 03:00 pm: Edit

Marcel Trahan:

(SM7.45) RAVAGING: The objective of the Space Dragon is to raid the planet. Each turn that the Space Dragon spends in the planet hex without taking any other action (moving or attacking) is considered to be one turn of ravaging. The Dragon does not have to land by the procedure in (P2.4), but while ravaging, all fire at it is through an atmosphere.

The rule implies that the dragon simply ends the turn, or any part of the turn, in the planets hex. However, it cannot begin ravaging until a turn break, and is not able to ravage without a full turn. So if it entered a planet on Turn X, impulse #22, and remained in the hex on X+1 through impulse #32 (a total of 52 impulses) it would wrack up one (1) turn of ravaging. If it remained on the planet for the next turn, it would wrack up two turns of ravaging (and 84 impulses), but if it leaves the planet hex on turn X+3 at impulse #31, it would only have one turn of ravaging the planet.