Drinax - get me ships!

[Tikon2000]

What are the various strategies you've been using in your campaigns? Have they gone all marauding pirate fleet? Have they recreated the Star Guard? Kingdom of Drinaz versus the Starguard Alliance? How have they bought (probably stolen) for their fleet? System Defense Boats for allied planets? I thinkeverything in the treasure ship could maybe buy half a spaceship? Or am I missing something?
Looking at the costs for buying spacecraft. They seem so prohibitive. Buying a 100 ton courier is equivalent to buying a used oil tanker, or cruise ship. I blame the constraining all items must fit the dTons per item, fit in slot system. How are your campaigns panning out?

 

[Tikon2000]

How are people handling building a fleet? Either recruiting pirates, or literally building ships? There is Theev's shipyards. But that gets put on record. They specialize in raider vessels right? In the side quests you can find an abandoned pirate base with a yard. Also in the Treasure of Sindal you can find 2 other Harriers. Do you keep them? Or hand them to Drinax to start their own fleet? (Unless other pirates yank them from you) Can you move that deep space station as well? Making it Drinax's or Asim's Highport.
Some wild ideas I had included: Trading the viral weapons to the Imperium. "Say would you like to burn these for us? We'd gladly get rid of them for say 20 scout couriers (Mainly to build up Drinax's trade/response fleet. And they could always upgrade them up a TL)... or one of your mothballed Destroyers?
And a long shot alliance with Colony Six. By building deep space bridge stations through Aslan space! Geortel as well. " Give us one of your decrepit ships and we will repair and upgrade the rest of your fleet." Giving the As an something else to worry about on the other side of their territory.

 

[Morningkiller]

My groups pilot ended up with Broker 5 after his smuggling career. The group were able to kill at speculative trading - as a cover and as a way to shift ill-gotten gear. They got rich fast.

They also staged a coup on Acrid and Argona - capturing a modular clipper and ultimately defeating PRQs relief fleet (2 1000 ton destroyers and 4 800 ton mercenary cruisers) and negotiating a deal that put Drinax in charge of the miners while selling their mining output to GeDeCo exclusively. PRQ want them dead big time.

They had a 600 ton billion credit raider custom built on Theev - its pretty nasty though they have since moved on to a Sindalian 2000 ton warship that they found. They have over a dozen subordinate pirates - often promoting good NPCs to the command of a captured ship. They have a base on Theev and the captain sits on the Council there.

They are currently leading a 100 ship raid composed of several pirate factions against the Glorious Empire. They have done some horrible things there and are now on the run from GE warships. If they make it back safely (they have a 100k dTon superfreighter loaded with ships and phat lewt) they will be able to buy a planet or three.

 

[Morningkiller]

They are in real trouble now of course

 

[Putraack]

Mine have been nearly ignoring the quests/missions on the other planets, as well as not hunting on the Prey table, so they're only at the 3 Harriers from book 5. I've been running the books out of order, so now they are in episode 3, and have talked to as many other pirates as they could. They've used the rumors of the "Treasure of Sindal" which they "haven't found yet" to tell the other pirates that the treasure is on the planet where the ihatei are. So, the next session will be a Pearl Harbor-meets-Kelly's Heroes battle over that world: every pirate that survives gets a share of the treasure.

Of course, that's not true, so the aftermath could be real interesting, if the campaign were continued, but we're kinda burned out by now.

 

[Tikon2000]

A pirate vs Aslan set up? Sounds devious. Need a plan to reward any pirates if that survive? How about giving them leftovers from whatever you've recovered from Sindal, or other adventures? "See guys, we recovered it while you were busy with the raid. Here you go." If you want to keep an alliance going that is, otherwise "Why is this nuclear torpedo ticking?"
A custom raider? Based on a Vargr Corsair? Or your own designs? 2000ton Sindalian warship? Also your own design? Or like the Wyvern hinted at in an adventure. Or was it Ian Stead?
I made a 3D sculpt of the Harrier & my idea for the Wyvern. I think I put pictures up in the main Drinax thread and in Citizens of the Imperium forums.

 

[Morningkiller]

A pirate vs Aslan set up? Sounds devious. Need a plan to reward any pirates if that survive? How about giving them leftovers from whatever you've recovered from Sindal, or other adventures? "See guys, we recovered it while you were busy with the raid. Here you go." If you want to keep an alliance going that is, otherwise "Why is this nuclear torpedo ticking?"
A custom raider? Based on a Vargr Corsair? Or your own designs? 2000ton Sindalian warship? Also your own design? Or like the Wyvern hinted at in an adventure. Or was it Ian Stead?
I made a 3D sculpt of the Harrier & my idea for the Wyvern. I think I put pictures up in the main Drinax thread and in Citizens of the Imperium forums.

The raider is based on the cutlass class from traders and gunboats but the players modified it heavily. They had recruited a legendary engineer with an interest in ancients tech and she was able to set down a TL 16 hull for them even though they were in Theev.

The 2000 tonner is the Wyvern hinted at in The Trasure of Sindal. We statted it up. Basically there was no point giving them all those nukes and planet killers without an appropriate vector for delivery. They promptly attacked and nuked Acis of course and got a tasty payoff from the now nuke-averse planet to go away. While rumours of this atrocity were rampant they staged an attack on the floating palace of Drinax and the brave Star Guard 'heroically defeated' the rogue Sindalian Warship ending the greatest pirate menace to the Trojan Reach. There was much rejoicing.

Images of stats below

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ik71a6ukwo3324/sabre.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ba4l264f8xddi09/Wyvern.png?dl=0

or if you have excel

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pfli5lyffnvlo57/The%20Talon%27s%20Pirate%20Fleet.ods?dl=0

I saw those sculpts - very nice.

 

[Tikon2000]

Thanks. I have to figure out resin molding next.

A TL upgraded ship heh? I always wondered why it wasn't suggested more. Drinax's port having access to high TL engineers. The Harrier was a given. But what tricks can you out in to a Scout Courier? What would TL 16 look like? Better armor, more high powered turrets? Increased jump range?

 

[Morningkiller]

Thanks. I have to figure out resin molding next.

A TL upgraded ship heh? I always wondered why it wasn't suggested more. Drinax's port having access to high TL engineers. The Harrier was a given. But what tricks can you out in to a Scout Courier? What would TL 16 look like? Better armor, more high powered turrets? Increased jump range?

Funny you should say that...see tab 4

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bp2bhczf5bsc436/Drinax%20Flotilla.ods?dl=0

 

[Tikon2000]

Cool. Umm I think some text for the Phoenix got copied to the bottom of the Wyvern.

 

[Morningkiller]

Cool. Umm I think some text for the Phoenix got copied to the bottom of the Wyvern.

That is correct.Intentional though as they are both Harrier commerce raiders. The Wyvern was taken by the PCs from a vargr slaver. They were wrongly accused of one of his crimes and after clearing their names, took such umbrage that they hunted him down and robbed his ship. It was renamed The Wyvern.

This predated the mention of the Wyvern in The Treasure of Sindal so it's a little confusing.

 

[RobBadener64]

Thanks. I have to figure out resin molding next.

A TL upgraded ship heh? I always wondered why it wasn't suggested more. Drinax's port having access to high TL engineers. The Harrier was a given. But what tricks can you out in to a Scout Courier? What would TL 16 look like? Better armor, more high powered turrets? Increased jump range?

The stats for the Harrier itzelf suggest a litgle TL16 'leakage'. The Harriers Particle Accelerator is a little more than just 'high yield'. In High Guard, very high yield up grade makes any 1 or 2 rolled for damage into a three. In Pirates of Drinax, the Harriers PA rerolls any 1 or 2 rolled for damage, which makes it signifigantly better thanyour average TL15 PA turret.

 

[Reynard]

A good way to describe the Harrier's upgraded systems and overall design is bleeding edge prototypes bordering on TL 16 as Drinax, at the time of her construction, was pushing the limits of TL 15. I have a feeling Drinax did not maintain that high level until recently or they would be building more. The Harrier is a found and unique prototype.

 

[Morningkiller]

Plus the particle turret is only a double and has a missile rack too. Post errata only a triple turret should mount a single particle cannon taking all 3 slots AFAIK

 

[Reynard]

Huh, my copy of PoD shows Hardpoint #1 as a double turret and only containing the particle accelerator. Hardpoint #2 is listed as a missile turret (originally disabled) with a missile storage locker in the same corridor.

 

[Morningkiller]

Huh, my copy of PoD shows Hardpoint #1 as a double turret and only containing the particle accelerator. Hardpoint #2 is listed as a missile turret (originally disabled) with a missile storage locker in the same corridor.

Looks like that's an update. My pdf from 2012 shows a missile rack in with the ppc in hardpoint #1