How often does inter system war actually happen?

FFW doesn't have rules for scrubbing the planet then moving on. It's not something the Imperium or the Zhodani do. The Aslan are unlikely to do so since they want the real estate.
Would the Vargr?
Would the K'kree?
Would the Hivers?
 
The k'kree would.

The hivers might, but.. more as a social experiment, not as a general tactic.

I don't think vargr would (although my vargr would scrub specific settlements, they wouldn't do it to a whole world)
 
Depends on whether this was a strategy, and if there was a charismatic leader determined and powerful enough to go through with it.

Most other Vargr would probably want a world to recover enough, so that they can revisit it.
 
FFW doesn't have rules for scrubbing the planet then moving on. It's not something the Imperium or the Zhodani do. The Aslan are unlikely to do so since they want the real estate.
Would the Vargr?
Would the K'kree?
Would the Hivers?
Ask the Drinaxi if the Aslan scrub worlds from orbit, but I agree that they don't do this often. Only in "Total War".
 
That would mean that on what we suppose is a colonizable world, they're willing to discard all those potential freeholds, they could use to reward their followers.
 
And it is ridiculous, it's almost as if the original author had never read up on Aslan from CT...
Except, given the old Sindals propensity for that sort of destruction, it wouldn't be unreasonable for the Aslan to glaze Drinax as a strongly worded message. Remember the clans are led by the 'koes (okay, that's certainly not Trokh, but you get my meaning) who have territory, not ihatei who don't.
"Sorry, my son, there is no land for you here, but now that those monkeys are glazed, it will open up new vistas for you to take."
 
It's like blowing up oil fields.

There's no point, unless you don't want the other side to have them, and you don't think you'll recover them.
 
Aslans are capable of making exceptions, and capable of making mistakes they dont realize until hindsight. It would be a contradiction to me, if it was stated taht Aslan regularly glass planets, but then never actualy do. Aslan by and large, and for how much you can speak to them as a monoculture, dont glass planets. They can and have glass planets.
 
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So, the Aslan commander has gone stark staring mad, and/or is out for vengeance.
In the case of Drinax, it was vengeance for MTU.
And it still, deliberately wasn't complete enough that the planet couldn't still be lived on, just enough for it to not be used as a resource by Drinax for a few millenia.
 
I'd think planetary bombardment, especially of the tossing rocks/etc kind, would be VERY rare. Why? Because if it's normalized then your worlds are just as vulnerable. Think of it like a Traveller-esque mutually assured destruction issue. Nukes have only been used twice in combat (so far) in human history because everyone is afraid of them - but that doesn't mean you don't build them or plan to use them. You simply don't use them for fear of the enemy doing the same to you. It's very stupid "logic" - but it's worked thus far. So it seems at least a reasonable assumption that its something that would continue in the future. Slagging someone else's world is actually quite easy - and it's just as easy for them to do the same to you.

I think players aren't realistic about this since it's a game. Kind of like how many people think crews are willingly going to suicide all the time in an effort to "get" the enemy before they die. Fanatical militaries have existed in history doing such things, but it's been more of an aberation than the norm.

Actually blockading a world is going to take a LOT of ships. Think of the volume of space that is occupied by a planet at the 100D jump limit. Sure, you can patrol in close, but that also means you cannot run if you get ambushed yourself by forces from the planet and say arriving at the 100D limit to pin you in if you are too close. Orbital patrols exposes you to planetary defensive fire - and planets are far bigger and can have more of everything than any mobile fleet could ever dream of - essentially unlimited power, unlimited magazine space, supplies, fuel, etc. Blockading means having your own source of supply and repair in someone else's system.

Depending on the station, most are going to be able to withstand sieges for quite some time. Remote locations have always had lots of supplies to cover the time between resupply, often with additional stockpiles to cover for emergencies. The ISS goes many months without a resupply vehicle and can go longer if there are delays. Remote bases have had months, if not years, of supplies laid in because resupply does not occur that often.

Hard to blockade a planet with ships that are incoming since you don't know where or when they will appear. And it takes time for your ships to respond, meaning you could have ships come in as decoys, the blockade fleet moves to intercept and additional ships arrive while you are out of position. Interstellar war with it's inevitable delay of information and inability to see incoming ships makes for some interesting and frustrating tactics. And it's probably going to be very rare to have any actual "deep space" battles since there is nothing of value in a system except for it's planetary objects. No fleet is going to leave it's planet to engage an enemy fleet coming in from say Jupiter (if it's Terra). Defenders will either engage when the enemy is close to Earth or while it's in Jupiter orbit or nearby. Naval engagements away from any place that needs to be defended have always been rare and generally not planned between enemies.
 
@Geir has some fun novels that take those deep space battles into account properly.

Plotting courses for velocities, using planetary shadows, etc. Knowing days ahead of time where the intersections will be. He does not have interstellar ships entering or leaving the battle but they are fun books with a very real feal.
 
@Geir has some fun novels that take those deep space battles into account properly.

Plotting courses for velocities, using planetary shadows, etc. Knowing days ahead of time where the intersections will be. He does not have interstellar ships entering or leaving the battle but they are fun books with a very real feal.
The original Miller article on jumping mentions this, but game-play wise it's going to be entirely up to the GM on how to implement it. Unless you are using maps to plot movement (more like SFB than Traveller, which uses generic range bands) it's pointless information to have because you cannot implement it game-wise.

Jumping should be more about entering jump space and gotten away from any sort of speed/straight line discussions because all that does is throw out some rule concepts and make more grist for the inevitable Traveller fights about how things work. This, I think, is another example of the game getting continual concepts bolted on because they sound "cool!" and how they actually can affect gameplay is not thought about. Withe the many re-writes of the game it would have been nice for at least one version to come up with a tech bible that all rules have to abide by. Even if it meant (gasp!) fixing problems introduced in CT (77) that have been promulgated through the decades because they are now canonized and no one is allowed to actually fix them.
 
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