trynda1701 wrote:But is that officially what the ships would look like in the SFU? Yes, the minis look cool, and I don't wish to criticize all the hard work we all put into our minis, or anyones artwork. But would that sensible in the 'real world' of the SFU. If each scheme is unique, wouldn't that make it easier to track down a pirate vessel in the future? Each Empire's vessels would have access to a 'paint scheme database' to refer to in piracy patrol?
Mark
I would expect that (in theory) there would be a complete spectrum of painting possibilities for all sorts of reasons. Since at one point ADB said that the base color is black, it most probably would be. But certainly with pirates being pirates, some ships would be painted differently.
In our own seafaring history there was not one single pirate flag, though most were fairly similar. Each pirate crew had their own flag. It served as a signal to the crew of with whom they were dealing. In the real world, it was often bad business for the pirates to kill or harm the crews of the plundered vessels. If the crew knew that they were going to be robbed but not killed they were likely to just surrender the cargo and be sent on their way. They would pass on their story and describe the flag. Others who saw the flag might just surrender without a fight at a later date.
Similarly, I imagine that Orions would have a more or less standard paint scheme, but individual captains would exercise a certain latitude and paint stripes, or flames, or whatever else they may like on the hull of their ships.
As far as them being easier to track down at a later time, our real world pirates did not engage naval patrols on purpose. A pirate's goal is to get in, take the treasure, and get out. Navy vessels don't carry the type of treasure a pirate wants and they are armed by professional military crews. The risk to profit margin is astronomical. I expect that getting caught or tracked down by the law really isn't an issue to a pirate.
I would seriously think that having a custom paint scheme on a pirate ship would be exactly like getting a custom paint job on a hot rod or a corporate jet. It would show the crew of any potential target freighter that this pirate crew is successful enough at piracy that they were able to spend money on something as silly as an elaborate work of art applied to the ship itself - or one step further - to a whole *fleet* of ships!
There might even be copy cats out there who would paint their ships like some more successful pirate to try and use that pirate's infamy to his advantage.
In short, I think the ships would have been mostly black early in the SFU timeline, but as time went on there would have been more and more variation until we might have seen just about any scheme anyone could ever imagine.
Just my two cents...I could be wrong.
