Jump Arrival Point

[Wil Mireu]

According to a PBS show I'm just watching, you have asteroids between the Earth and the Sun; hiding behind one of those should allow some extra stealthiness, though which ships would pass by there except passenger shuttles and possible in system freighters.

Or, y'know, you could just land on the darn thing. I'm not really sure what the obsession is with "hiding behind asteroids" - there's plenty of ways to 'disappear' in space - land on a moon, park in a cave, hide in a jovian atmosphere, land on a planet that nobody would think of looking for anyone on, lurk in the kuiper belt, hang out in deep space... etc

 

[Condottiere]

I put it down to the natural shy and retiring nature of pirates and raiders.

Besides, you know, cave wyrms.

 

[rust]

I'm not really sure what the obsession is with "hiding behind asteroids" ...

It is a classical space opera trope that has been used over and over
again in Golden Age science fiction. The bad guy in a Western wears
a black hat, the space pirate hides behind an asteroid ... :lol:

 

[Solomani666]

Gas giant refueling

 

[alex_greene]

"Hey, guys, sensors have detected that pirate ship we've been chasing."

"Where?"

"He's been hiding in that gas giant."

"Holy Klono, where did that gas giant come from?"

 

[leopard]

Used to work with the idea that the total time in jump space is unknown when you jump, but can be determined while you are in jump space, though its not certain but you can update the estimate as you get closer to emergence.

Think of a count down, starting rounded to say +/- 10 hours, getting down to the second perhaps ten minutes before you emerge.

Of course you only find out exactly where you emerge when you look around, you will have a rough idea as you know where you aimed for, suggest most worlds will have the 100D area for jumping out and arrivals around say 110D, so they can avoid the outgoing craft.

Busy worlds will probably have various traffic zones, smaller craft using some zones, bulk carriers another, warships yet another.


In system flight is probably rare in many systems, but any system with more than one populated world is likely to have such as a routine matter, and since the orbits of the worlds are known it should be possible to get the jump on such craft - if you know the flight plans, and there is a role for PCs if ever there was one.

 

[Rick]

Just as a bit of light relief and for an idiots guide to control lanes, chase down Dave Gunson's 'What goes up might come down'. Your space traffic control system might never be the same!

Seriously though, it makes sense for all of a systems traffic to come through smaller controlled areas, especially closer in to a planet - if nothing else, you won't have to replace quite so many dented satellites that way!

 

[coldwar]

Not sure if this has been mentioned. Only read a couple posts so far.

But I think the most effective way to pirate is to plant some pirates on the ship. It leaves the planet, jumps. The planted pirates get a week to plant to do some mischief to some of the ships systems they can access. Ship jumps in at the jump point, where the pirate ship is awaiting them.

If planted as passengers, the pirates may have a harder time. Though if the crew lacks security this may not be a problem.
If planted as working passage, depending on what they are doing they may have access to critical systems. Paranoid merchants may make the agents life hell though.
If planted as working crew (falsely) same as working passage. Though the ships own crew is very likely undermanned and security may be already lacking. Hence why they hired someone to fill a gap. Just so happens the gap filling npc they thought was safe is a pirate leading them in to a trap.

With the last one, if it is astrogator, then the could end up going to a completely different system then intended.
But these would only work on PC's if the players wasn't paranoid about hijackings and.or planted agents already. And never take a passenger or a npc skill filler.

 

[Burocrate]

OOC comment: "Oh, so that's how it works in your Universe."

IC comment: "My Purser PC will add Fast Drug to all non-vetted passengers and working passage NPCs from now on." :lol:

 

[alex_greene]

Unless you're running the Pirates of Drinax, though, make piracy less common than you think. Traveller should be about the characters having fun things to do, rather than having fun things done to them.

 

[Condottiere]

Piracy within Imperium space shouldn't be viable, unless starships are so plentiful, that you can take the hijacked ship to a chop shop.

Even if the movable goods are only taken, the window of opportunity closes as the Navy sends more patrol ships to the effected area.

 

[dragoner]

Unless of course the Imperium (noble, megacorp, navy officer, etc.) is colluding with the pirates. There is a good JTAS article, years ago, but still relevant, about how piracy exists in the Marches and which worlds the pirates would operate out of.

 

[dragoner]

If GT is portraying the 3I as foo foo bunny in velvetine pantaloons then that is a major deviation from the original which had the Gash (A1), a floating prison hulk where prisoners were held incognito; and (A2) Imperial Naval troops kidnapping chirper children for experimentation and vivisection. These are just the first two adventures, not to mention bribery skill, the fact that corsairs do exist as a ship type, etc. do give a glimpse of an imperfect Imperium. It also gives good reason for why it all falls apart in the way it does. Though I have heard people comparing the Imperium to 2nd century Rome, but honestly, I would not go that far; Gibbon called Rome the greatest woe to humanity that ever existed and he was a Romanophile.

 

[dragoner]

GT had such beautiful things as "unbribable imperial Administration" and "99+ percent of the nobles are hard working goody two shoes" not to mention a merrit based fleet/marines etc.

Which in that case, it is understandable that piracy would be rare; though looking through Hard Times or Survival Margin, even the Navy and Marines look rather awful, with things like the "Black War".

 

[Condottiere]

Subsector fleets my differ widely in quality, depending on the character of the sector administration and the resources available to them. An efficient Admiralty, without undue distractions, will eventually crack down on obvious incompetence.

 

[High Orbit Drifter]

GT had such beautiful things as "unbribable imperial Administration" and "99+ percent of the nobles are hard working goody two shoes" not to mention a merrit based fleet/marines etc.

I'm familiar with GT and don't recall seeing either of these quotes. It does continue the trend of Imperium as good guy, to an extent, when relating the Imperium to groups like the Ine Givar, for example. But GT Nobles specifically has sections on bribery, and on the question of Good Imperium vs Evil Imperium. It notes the "official" TU is neutral on "the Imperium's moral value".

To get back on topic that whole thing about arriving early/late at your jump destination due to that pesky 10% variation was answered by Mr. Miller in his article on Jumpspace. Ships natually percipitate out of jumpspace within 3000 kilometers of its target, but errors of various sorts, as well as jump length can increase that by a factor of ten.

Its not clear if that "factor of ten" is total or cumulative, but it the exit is based on that 3000 kilometers of the target, modified from that point, not on time pre-/post- projected jump emergence.

I don't know if T5 has added, modified or scrapped this explaination.

As to piracy, it exits since it is mentioned in most if not all editions of Traveller. How or why it works is another question.

 

[dragoner]

An efficient Admiralty, without undue distractions, will eventually crack down on obvious incompetence.

Or overthrow the Imperium, as history shows.

 

[Condottiere]

Piracy would probably more closely resemble Fast and Furious, or Mission Impossible.

Another take could be Black Sails, but that may be more suitable for the Vargr.

 

[Meanderer]

Some of the ideas here don't seem like they would work.

trying to set up a standard jump emergence point near a world or setting up a net of asteroids between some other system and the main world seem to miss the point that planets are in really big orbits. Earth is, what, about 93 million kilometers from our sun. That is one very large arc you need a net for, or your net of asteroids may only work for up to one day per year. Too much work.

After some speculation about old capital ships used as kinetic torpedoes, jumping in at an immense velocity to crash into a target planet, I enforced a time range for jump emergence. The best you could hope for was plus/minus 1 hour (more if you used unrefined fuel) and a variation based on the size of the planet. Refined fuel could get you close but tramp traders could arrive further off with a +/- of up to 10 hours. This gave a greater chance for a tramp trader to get into trouble.

Pirate ships would turn off their transponders, cut emissions and turn down their power plant waiting in an orbit behind or ahead the main world waiting. Targets don't show up that often, but the targets that do are vulnerable (having just jumped in they would lack the fuel to jump out again) and a ship jumping in could be expected to have cargo.

The alternative (hitting a ship enroute to/from the gas giant) is problematic. If the ship jumps further out to refuel first, then the pirate is trying to intercept a fully fueled ship (could try to jump out).

Ships heading out to the gas giant are the best target. Far from any reasonable help.

Desert worlds would be the worst. Any tramp trader that puts in to the starport but doesn't buy fuel must be planning to get it at the gas giant. Taking on passengers means a scheduled departure time. Informants planted in at the starport could arrange short coded transmissions to the pirates identifying target and time. There may even be information about cargo onboard.

 

[phavoc]

Most ships are never going to travel out to the gas giant to refuel. Not unless it's a planet like Regina orbiting a gas giant. The time it takes to travel there, refuel (which is not without risk), then maneuver to the 100D point to jump out all adds up to wasted time. That time could be economically spent better buying unrefined fuel at starport upon landing, equipping your ship with fuel purification equipment to refine it in 24-72hrs, and then departing to make money from trade or delivering passengers (and/or both). Otherwise you'd spend days in transit, which cuts into how many trips you can make per month.

Only if fuel wasn't available would this occur. Or, perhaps, if you were a naval flotilla, and you weren't in a hurry to get to your next destination. Then it would be cheaper to get fuel for free. But commercial ships aren't going to be stooging around systems trying to save a few thousand credits when they are potentially losing 10,000s of thousands.