Legality of ship weapons?

[Vormaerin]

Once a merchantman is taken, what stops the pirates from not hijacking it, enslaving all onboard, or killing them to remove witnesses?

Aside from the fact that it is bad business and is a great way to ensure folks really really want to get rid of you in particular?

As far as taking the ship itself, there's a ton of logistical issues. You have to have the prize crew to do so. You have to have somewhere you can take the ship and sell it. Probably most importantly, you have to have the fuel for the ship. Because if the ship was fueled up to jump, it would have jumped.

Merchant ships are not fast. You are not going to outrun the system defense boats with your stolen freighter. So your only chance of escape with the ship is jumping away.

 

[Condottiere]

This is the Spinward Marches? Bandit country isn't that far away.

Prearranged fuel dumps in empty hexes would secure an escape route.

 

[Vormaerin]

I am also discussing the free traders and tramp freighters; large commercial vessels have the added protection of the megacorporation and would require more assets by the pirates.

I also don’t see pirates as depicted by the Mandalorian or some MMORPG experience- pirates should be more Saffron Reynolds or Neuromancer stealthy heists in civilized systems, with swarms of small craft (Somali-style) in areas where the response time is slow.

All in all, fun for all

Which is exactly what I have been saying all along? No amount of laser turrets is going to stop a stealthy heist. And commercial ships operating in the Imperium are not going to be going to places where jumping the ship and running off with it are going to be a recurring problem. And if they do need to, getting the Navy to go make that place not out of the way is probably cheaper than arming all their ships, which may or may not be able to fight off that swarm of small craft even if they have weapons.

 

[Vormaerin]

This is the Spinward Marches? Bandit country isn't that far away.

Prearranged fuel dumps in empty hexes would secure an escape route.

So, what, now your pirates are lingering around the 100d limit with not just a paramilitary ship, but also a tanker to refuel the merchant they just captured? If the target ship had enough fuel to jump, it would escape by jumping. Ergo, your pirates just seized a ship that can't jump to your empty hex fuel stash. You are just running away from the police at 1G going...somewhere?

The Somalis attacked like 100 of the 30000 ships that cruise by their coast every year. And they are successful in the attack about a third of the time. And then you ransom the ship and whine to the Navy. Because that's cheaper than arming every single ship that goes past there.

To make arming the average merchant marine vessel in Traveller (not the PC's ship, not the guys trading outside the Imperium, and not smugglers and other guys deliberating taking on extra risk. The basic merchant vessels) make sense, you have to establish enough violent piracy happens to make that huge expense worthwhile, make it such that just not going to those places isn't practical, establish that it is enough destinations that the Imperial Navy can't actually protect them all, and establish that some other means of dealing with the problem isn't cheaper (like accepting the cost of ransoms, paying for protection, hiring escorts, or using Q-ships).

That can certainly be done. That is not how the Marches are portrayed. That's how the Reaches are portrayed. But you can certainly make space travel that high risk in your campaign with only a minor amount of work on tone and presentation.

 

[Condottiere]

The question is why would a civilian spacecraft bother being armed, and piracy is a trope Traveller latches onto. And I wouldn't bother cruising the Indo Pacific, plus any Chinese sea, in an unarmed sailboat.

As regards to the Somali equivalent, a hundred years ago the Royal Navy would have wiped them out; I guess you could pay off enough Vargr to try the same with boarding skiffs.

 

[Vormaerin]

That may be the question you are talking about. It is quite clearly NOT the point I was discussing. Which was specific to NPC commercial shipping. As I have stated repeatedly.

People who travel outside the Imperium, people who go to the far reaches of systems and not just the main port areas, private shipowners who like guns, people who travel in versions of the Third Imperium where the Imperium is significantly less effective than the default, Q-ships, mail carriers, and various others that have nothing to do with any statement that I have made would use armed starships.

All I have been saying is that putting weapons on your space Maersks that operate inside the Imperium is an ineffective and expensive solution to any supposed threat of piracy. So it would not be the normal thing done. Not unless you make space travel sufficiently dangerous that you probably aren't running space maersks at all, but shipping is more like blockade runners or WW2 Lend lease convoys. Which you can certainly do. But I don't think that's the usual way the third Imperium is presented.

Anyway, I said what I wanted to say. And it is apparent that we are talking about different things. So it goes.

 

[Saladman]

As an aside, the more you expand piracy past ship-to-ship boarding actions, to include things like a swarm of desperate belters in vacc suits or whatever else, the more a single laser turret or even a personnel scale turret starts to look cost effective as both an active option, and as a deterrent.

Deterrence may be a point of disagreement. Vormaerin seems to think weapons have to be used to be paid for. But if some bright boy in Admin runs the numbers and sees unarmed ships get hit more often than armed, that won't be the case.

If you are a commercial freighter, you are jumping from the 100d limit to the 100d limit.

Until you (non-catastrophic) mis-Jump. Which is anywhere from surprisingly common to almost non-existent, depending on how the GM interprets dice odds as simulationist of the world, or only to be rolled when it's interesting.

Certainly my statements applied to what I think typical citizens working for commercial enterprises would be doing. PCs and the kinds of free traders who live PC type lifestyles are absolutely going to do different things.

Fair enough, but this explains our disconnect. I had to go back to the first page to check, but I think you're the only poster making this strong assumption. And even if I'm wrong about that, it certainly wasn't implied in the first post of the thread.

For myself, I see more of a continuum from PC free traders to NPC free traders. Mechanically, Free Traders get Gunner in 2e, and Merchant Marine got Gunner in 1e. (An interesting flip I never explicitly noticed before.) They're getting it somehow, whether it's training for possible use or experience from desperate unskilled action.

Also I'm still used to 1e core book's Heavy Freighter coming with Sandcaster/Beam Laser turrets, and inferring something about the world from that fact (although moderated by the fact they're called out as being under-crewed, they've at least got the option).

For NPC bulk freighters in the Core, you're probably right, but NPC bulk freighters in core is an unlikely target of ship design for forum discussion. Very large, unstreamlined, M-drive 1 can all be assumed.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

I think we are in agreement, but approached the answer from different vectors.

Always a pleasure

 

[Vormaerin]

@Saladman

This thread has wandered over several topics. The original topic is what is legal. It changed to a discussion of what would actually be used. I made a specific assertion within that topic. Though I don't think it is limited to the core (see below on that score). It is certainly the case that it is inside the Imperium and does not apply to folks traveling the Reaches or whatever.

How things actually work in your campaign is going to depend on a lot of factors. You can certainly make space travel super dangerous and rife with piracy of the 'ships fighting' kind. You probably need to throw out the level of Imperial naval resources talked about in the Imperial Navy sourcebook and make assumptions that space stations with fighter patrols are not affordable by interstellar ports or the shipping megacorps. As I said, in that case, commercial freighters would look more like blockade runners. Or they would move in convoys.

Deterrence is certainly a relevant factor. But the way loss prevention works is that you find the techniques that have the highest net reduction in losses. If you can reduce losses by 750k at a cost of 200k or you can reduce losses by 1 million at a cost of 600k, the business is normally going to go with the first option. And that is going to depend on how things work in your campaign also. If you have murderous pirates that can steal entire ships and vanish to pirate havens where they can resell them and the Navy can't do jack about it, then that's a very different environment than one where the pirates are going to steal cargo or maybe ransom the ship at worst.

Is spending millions on weapons and additional crew on every ship actually the best way to deter piracy? Fighting will almost always result in damage to both ships, which is quite expensive. Is it better than running Q-ships? Sponsoring local patrols? Paying protection money? Losing some insured cargo from time to time? Going to a different place entirely?

If you assume piracy is life or death guns a-blazing, being armed is probably the way to go. But that's not very likely inside the Imperium. It is going to hijackings, false emergency scams, or some kind of disguised/stealth ship that lets the pirate get in the merchant's face before the merchant knows there's a problem. Because if the pirate's actual plan is a space fight, they are either stupid or they have a paramilitary vessel. Which has armor, combat programs, possibly military grade weapons like particle accelerators and other things that means your ship has to be heavily and expensively armed to fight it off.

The swarm of belters is going to be an ambush situation because if it wasn't, you'd accelerate away. And carrying turrets is not a defense against misjumps. If you manage to 1) misjump and survive 2) Arrive near where a pirate happens to be hanging out 3) Still have an functional ship and crew able to put up a fight, then I guess that would be a win for your weaponry expense. That's not going to be a result on the actuarial tables in accounting

The classic "Traveller Adventure" is set around Aramis/Spinward Marches, so I'll use that as an example. You have a trade route of: Rhylanor (A/Naval Base) > Porozlo (A) > Jae Tallona (A/Navy) > Celepina (A/Navy/Scout) > Henoz (A) > L'Eoul D'eiu (B/Navy) > Aramis (A/Navy) > Natoko (B/Navy) with spinoffs that include Vinorian, Nutema, Margesi, Saarinen (all A or B, most with Navy or Scout bases). And almost everything else around there is B or C. The places that aren't are mostly low pop, amber zones, isolated by empty space, or otherwise not where you'd send a cargo freighter. Those places are where you send tramps because the volume is too low to support a 1000 ton ship, much less an actual heavy freighter. (The PCs, being PCs, naturally take on jobs that take them off the standard route and into amber zones and other dangerous places).

Another popular region: Regina Subsector... almost all A, B, C starports and about a 30% Imperial space base chance, except Forboldn (corporate owned world with Imperial ministry of Colonization support), Knorbes, which is an imperial reserve and research station with naval patrols on station. There's Whanga, which is a practically empty system a Jump 1 vessel needs to pass through, and Dinom, which is corporate dominated system.

Yes, Free Traders are in a different boat from commercial freighters. They are going to be the ones going to the half arsed backwater planets, not the commercial freighters. They are going to be a lot more likely to try to skim fuel at a gas giant where pirates might hang out. They are going to be more likely to be smuggling or dealing with unsavory sorts voluntarily. And they aren't going to have the clout for other solutions. Though they'd try to rely on alertness and spotting danger in time to run away. Fighting would a distant third on the options list. Still, they'd carry weapons if they could afford them and had the crew to use them.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Some whales are too big to swallow, but the pirates try anyway.

2. The duty of care depends on what the ship's master believes is most optimal for the crew and passengers, primarily, and the ship and the cargo, secondarily.

3. Annual maintenance cost of a spacecraft, in general, and turret weapon systems, in particular, are hilariously cheap.

4. Generally, you tend to avoid meteor swarms.

5. Speaking of whales, you can install a harpoon in the turret.

6. Now, occasionally, I have a go at designing the cheapest possible starship.

7. So I do do the cost benefit analysis whether to add weapon systems, or not.

8. Legally, it seems accepted by all political entities that self defence is a right that extends to all spacecraft.

9. There are likely restrictions within their own jurisdictions as to when and how that is expressed.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

1. Some whales are too big to swallow, but the pirates try anyway.

2. The duty of care depends on what the ship's master believes is most optimal for the crew and passengers, primarily, and the ship and the cargo, secondarily.

3. Annual maintenance cost of a spacecraft, in general, and turret weapon systems, in particular, are hilariously cheap.

4. Generally, you tend to avoid meteor swarms.

5. Speaking of whales, you can install a harpoon in the turret.

6. Now, occasionally, I have a go at designing the cheapest possible starship.

7. So I do do the cost benefit analysis whether to add weapon systems, or not.

8. Legally, it seems accepted by all political entities that self defence is a right that extends to all spacecraft.

9. There are likely restrictions within their own jurisdictions as to when and how that is expressed.

Replacing all hardpoints with firmpoints are the most cost-effective defensive armament for a merchant vessel. T5 has some great rules for Bolt-In that are slightly more advantageous, but the <1-ton mount restriction on firmpoint turrets makes it even better. Because of the range reduction, Firmpoints are the perfect answer for defense.

 

[k0k0pelli]

I tend to think hijacking would be prohibitively difficult against a well designed ship. Separate passenger zones from control zones etc... Bulkheads and pressurized doors are pretty hard to penetrate without heavy weapons and hopefully you are scanning passengers on the way in.

A long con to get to be part of the crew and gain access to the bridge with a weapon could work. You would need to either subvert the crew or bring in enough compatriots to handle the ship after takeover but it can be done.

I have not given it much thought but personally, if I did not mind being bloodthristy I would target the fuel tank and rupture it, either set a docking clamp or wrap it in a jumpnet (it is basically an inert hunk of metal without power though docking clamp would be safer) then do a jump 1 elsewhere that I can take apart the ship at leisure. This could potentially be just a short jump to a uninhabited planet in the same system. If you were to jump to the 150d of the farthest planet in the system then head in a direction off the orbital plane of the system. 1 day at 1G would put you well beyond the range of sensors even from that uninhabited planet. Even if the defense forces knew you jumped to the far planet and went in a random direction it would be difficult to catch the pirate. Unless the system patrol knew the actual exit point in that 150D range (which is a lot of space to cover to begin with) and the vector of travel after arrival the would be pirate would be extremely challenging to find.

Sure this limits your options for targets but a 200t free/far trader would be worth a fortune between scrapping it for parts and taking the cargo. The other challenge of course would be avoiding having your ship identified as participating in pirate activity but that is true of any method of piracy.

 

[Jame Rowe]

That may be the question you are talking about. It is quite clearly NOT the point I was discussing. Which was specific to NPC commercial shipping. As I have stated repeatedly.

All I have been saying is that putting weapons on your space Maersks that operate inside the Imperium is an ineffective and expensive solution to any supposed threat of piracy. So it would not be the normal thing done. Not unless you make space travel sufficiently dangerous that you probably aren't running space maersks at all, but shipping is more like blockade runners or WW2 Lend lease convoys. Which you can certainly do. But I don't think that's the usual way the third Imperium is presented.

Anyway, I said what I wanted to say. And it is apparent that we are talking about different things. So it goes.

My thought, and your mileage may and possibly should vary, is that NPC ships (including Space Maersks) are likelier to go unarmed in the core of the Imperium. This, to me, includes the core areas of the Zhodani, Solomani and Hivers; possibly the Aslan clans would have a code of honor about not attacking "civilian" vessels in most places.

It's likely less a legal issue than an economic issue, but a civilian ship would *technically* have the right to go armed with any non-WMD weapon in any area of their nation if they get the appropriate paperwork.

 

[Condottiere]

Replacing all hardpoints with firmpoints are the most cost-effective defensive armament for a merchant vessel. T5 has some great rules for Bolt-In that are slightly more advantageous, but the <1-ton mount restriction on firmpoint turrets makes it even better. Because of the range reduction, Firmpoints are the perfect answer for defense.

1. Transforming the hardpoint to three firm points is rather dependent on what exactly you feel you get an advantage of.

2. You end up with a one tonne single turret and a two firmpointed fixed mount, which would sort of double the weapon stations.

3. Costs remain the same.

4. Theoretically, missile racks would be the most advantageous choice, with laser drill second.

5. Depending on your interpretation of beam laser accuracy and point defence.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

1. Transforming the hardpoint to three firm points is rather dependent on what exactly you feel you get an advantage of.

2. You end up with a one tonne single turret and a two firmpointed fixed mount, which would sort of double the weapon stations.

3. Costs remain the same.

4. Theoretically, missile racks would be the most advantageous choice, with laser drill second.

5. Depending on your interpretation of beam laser accuracy and point defence.

1. They can all fire at the same time. At different targets.
2. Could be automated, could be a use for underutilized crew.
3. Yes but not for bang for the buck (see #1)
4. Sandcasters, missile racks and point-defense lasers (unless you need laser drills)
5. Lost me there…

 

[Vormaerin]

I tend to think hijacking would be prohibitively difficult against a well designed ship. Separate passenger zones from control zones etc... Bulkheads and pressurized doors are pretty hard to penetrate without heavy weapons and hopefully you are scanning passengers on the way in.

A long con to get to be part of the crew and gain access to the bridge with a weapon could work. You would need to either subvert the crew or bring in enough compatriots to handle the ship after takeover but it can be done.

I have not given it much thought but personally, if I did not mind being bloodthristy I would target the fuel tank and rupture it, either set a docking clamp or wrap it in a jumpnet (it is basically an inert hunk of metal without power though docking clamp would be safer) then do a jump 1 elsewhere that I can take apart the ship at leisure. This could potentially be just a short jump to a uninhabited planet in the same system. If you were to jump to the 150d of the farthest planet in the system then head in a direction off the orbital plane of the system. 1 day at 1G would put you well beyond the range of sensors even from that uninhabited planet. Even if the defense forces knew you jumped to the far planet and went in a random direction it would be difficult to catch the pirate. Unless the system patrol knew the actual exit point in that 150D range (which is a lot of space to cover to begin with) and the vector of travel after arrival the would be pirate would be extremely challenging to find.

Sure this limits your options for targets but a 200t free/far trader would be worth a fortune between scrapping it for parts and taking the cargo. The other challenge of course would be avoiding having your ship identified as participating in pirate activity but that is true of any method of piracy.

That is as valid way to go, but you would need a heavily customized ship for this to work. Your ship would have to have engines and onboard fuel sufficient to jump with an extra 200 tons stuck to the side. On top of the armor and weapons to make the risk of fighting sustainable. And some suitable excuse for hanging around where merchants actually go without attracting attention. Basically, a salvage wrecker Q-ship. That's a pretty good idea, but not what Traveller gives any examples of

Mind you, pirates are gonna be very feast or famine. That fortune has to support their ship for a long time. They aren't going to get many ships per year unless you make the Navy and Port Authorities utterly ineffectual. Which, again, can be a fun setting. But not how it appears by default.

 

[Condottiere]

1. They can all fire at the same time. At different targets.
2. Could be automated, could be a use for underutilized crew.
3. Yes but not for bang for the buck (see #1)
4. Sandcasters, missile racks and point-defense lasers (unless you need laser drills)
5. Lost me there…

I don't think the +4 to hit from Beam Lasers applies to the Point Defense reaction. It says that the +4 to hit applies to Gunner's checks to attack. But Point Defence is a reaction and has different modifiers than an attack does. But perhaps I am just reading a distinction that isn't there.

Regardless, a free trader is going to lose to a paramilitary ship. It's only hope is jumping or reaching help.

 

[k0k0pelli]

That is as valid way to go, but you would need a heavily customized ship for this to work. Your ship would have to have engines and onboard fuel sufficient to jump with an extra 200 tons stuck to the side. On top of the armor and weapons to make the risk of fighting sustainable. And some suitable excuse for hanging around where merchants actually go without attracting attention. Basically, a salvage wrecker Q-ship. That's a pretty good idea, but not what Traveller gives any examples of

Mind you, pirates are gonna be very feast or famine. That fortune has to support their ship for a long time. They aren't going to get many ships per year unless you make the Navy and Port Authorities utterly ineffectual. Which, again, can be a fun setting. But not how it appears by default.

A modified far trader would do fine against an unarmed Far or Free trader so I do not feel it would take as customized a ship as you imply. It is not optimal but definitely could be made to work without a major refit.

Maneuver drives would be easy to boost, they do not take that much space and the workflow implies no need to run maneuver and jump drive at the same time so power should not be an issue.

A custom ship would be expensive but I could likely design one to do the job and be able to take on SDBs for under 60 (maybe 75) MCr so not so expensive as to be prohibitive.

And the scenario could be carried out faster than any navy could reasonably respond in unless the pirate is unlucky. They presumably would be scanning for other ships and know what is around.

I imagine if I spent some time thinking on it I could make it viable around class C and maybe B starports. Literally I came up with it as I was typing so it is not thought out completely for sure. I was just trying to come up with an alternative approach that does not involve trying to fly at an incoming/outgoing ship at speed, negotiate with the ship and get cargo on the spot before the system defense can respond (which I do not find feasible).

It was the reason the short Drinax campaign I was in involved almost no piracy. The ship given is awful for that purpose and far far too expensive to maintain to make profitable doing piracy, or anything else for that matter, IMHO.

 

[Vormaerin]

It depends on assumptions you make about how things work.

How often are small trade ships arriving in system? How widespread is the arrival point? If ships mostly arrive in the same area, it is very easy to put a space station with fighters just inside the 100d limit if there is enough trade to justify it. If they just appear "somewhere" then that is harder to do. But it is also harder for the pirate to be in the right place to snatch them before they get safely near the port.

The frequency of trade matters because your ship has to move into the area, grab a target, and get out without a long period of malingering that attracts official attention. Or your ship has to be very stealthy and/or local patrols complacent/inept.

It would also depend on whether you can calculate a jump plot in advance of actually snatching the other ship. Unless your navigator and engineer are godly, making the jump plot and then energizing the engines to apply it takes some time. Obviously if the fighters (or worse, a ship) has to scramble from orbit to the 100d limit, you have plenty of time.

You could have a pirate with a q-ship capable of taking on a coast guard cutter or fighter squadron. Demonstrating that capability would attract serious attention if you have a Imperial Navy comparable to what the books present, as you mentioned. Space is big, of course. But the options are not unlimited and if you use rules on jump tracing, get even smaller.

Of course, another way to do it would be to snatch a ship on the way out to the jump point. You would actually be able to get advanced warning of that from accomplices on the ground. But it does mean you need to either get closer to the port and/or hit the target really fast so they can't do their own jump out.

I don't want to revisit any of the "does piracy work" flamewars. I'm just saying that for piracy to be a serious problem within the Imperium, you need to set up your systems in certain ways (ie largely underdeveloped) and make the naval forces available be very thin overall. Or change the focus of imperial officials away from trade towards planetary taxation and give the navy real threats that make them not bother protecting merchants much.

Overall, pirates are vastly more likely to attack resource gathering vessels in the asteroid belts or outer system gas giants than bother with actual traders who are playing it reasonably safe.

 

[k0k0pelli]

you are thinking one dimensionally 100d limit is not a line, it is a sphere. You would need dozens of fighters out at any time, spread thin. This runs contrary to every description of defense in the books I have reviewed, most notably Drinax.

If you want to make that argument why not simply say "piracy is not possible."

TBH I am not going to bother, if you want to make assumptions and build the scenario such that any idea would not work you can. It is a waste of time to debate against it.