[Pirates of Drinax] Honor Among Thieves (spoilers)

[cunningrat]

So, in Honor Among Thieves, the pirates hit Clarke, where they spend a couple of hours on the ground. Then they hit Torpol, where they steal a chunk of an orbital refinery (presumably in Torpol orbit).

Problem is, looking at the descriptions of Torpol and Clarke in the Companion, both of those would be ... somewhat difficult.

On Clarke, the pirates would have to sneak up to the planet, keeping themselves in the planet's shadow to avoid detection by the highport -- spend a couple of hours on the ground -- and sneak back to the 100 D limit. Given their ship speeds, this would take about 10-12 hours total. What are the Clarke SDBs doing during all this time?
On Torpol, things are even worse, because there's a frickin' light cruiser sitting in planetary orbit. They might hit the refinery, but they will be a chunk of glowing slag a very short time later.

Now, in Torpol, I can change the adventure to say that they hit one of the out-system settlements. However, on Clarke there's only one out-system settlement, and it explicitly says the Psychopomps don't really give a hoot about what happens in the outer system.

Ideas?

 

[MongooseMatt]

On Clarke, the pirates would have to sneak up to the planet, keeping themselves in the planet's shadow to avoid detection by the highport -- spend a couple of hours on the ground -- and sneak back to the 100 D limit. Given their ship speeds, this would take about 10-12 hours total. What are the Clarke SDBs doing during all this time?
On Torpol, things are even worse, because there's a frickin' light cruiser sitting in planetary orbit. They might hit the refinery, but they will be a chunk of glowing slag a very short time later.

No changes needed - space, even inner system space, is Big. The ships managed to get to their targets perfectly legitimately, and could then pick their time to strike while giving themselves the best chance to avoid interception.

Probably would not work twice for the same pirate in the same system, but these are the dangers smaller systems face.

 

[cunningrat]

No changes needed - space, even inner system space, is Big.

Ah. I hadn't done the math and wasn't properly visualizing it. You're right, it's entirely possible. Thank you.

 

[Ursus Maior]

No changes needed - space, even inner system space, is Big. The ships managed to get to their targets perfectly legitimately, and could then pick their time to strike while giving themselves the best chance to avoid interception.

Probably would not work twice for the same pirate in the same system, but these are the dangers smaller systems face.

I took a similar approach: On Clarke, I think, it's safe to assume that not many fleet assets exist beyond the perimeter of its highport and the usual approach vectors for merchants. Fleet strength is given as "2" in the appendix of PoD, putting it just slightly above "ramshackle navy made from flying garbage cans".

Torpol is indeed a different matter, it's fleet strenght being given as "3". But with a light cruiser in that mix, the fleet is probably not much beyond that. The Imperium mostly donates these light cruisers with downgraded weapons and sensor packs and maybe sometimes without a j-drive, depending on how much the Imperium would like the planet to become a local power. My personal approach was that the Imperium would like Torpol to have a very safe highport, but has absolutely no interest in a balkanized world becoming able to project power in such a meaningful way: a Gionetti class light cruiser is probably the mightiest ship in the entire Trojan Reach, outside Aslan, Imperial or Floriani arsenals. It easily dwarves all Tyrian ships and even a downgraded cruiser would still have thrust 5 and jump 5 parsecs, allowing for outflanking all potential opponents. Also, from our own history of military aid we know that giving high-tech stuff to 3rd rate partners in international security to protect our own interests quickly might mean that the thing gets reversed engineered, becomes derelict or is plundered for gadgets. Usually, that means one shiny toy becomes many smaller shiny toys for local warlords and then all stop working and eventually end up having to supply another big toy.

So I ruled the j-drive removed and that most of the fuel tanks were converted for small craft and maintenance on vessels up to SDB-size. Essentially, this makes the Gionetti a monitor and mothership and lets it project power within the system, which is what the Imperium wants. It's a win for Clarke, still, since they get to have a near-TL15 monitor guarding their highport and can train their own fighter pilots in abundance, making them resilient. Also, they get to train with cool stuff. Oh, and I think the core systems of the ship will be manned by naval mercenaries "provided" for by the Imperium, because when this was handed over, no Torpolite naval crew capable of handling TL15ish gear would have existed. Remember, Torpol is TL8 (probably with Sindalian gadgets left over), so about a small step ahead of current Earth. TL15 is insanely far away and they might not even get how the engineering department of such a ship would work at all.

 

[Garran]

According to The Torpol Cluster, the planet has one light cruiser, a lot of missile batteries installed at the highport, and a bunch of fighters.

Both the cruiser and the fighters probably spend most of their time at or near the highport since that's where most merchant traffic would be found (and need to be defended). Sure, there'd be fighter patrols elsewhere, but those will be intermittent at any given spot, so a raider who wants to take out part of an orbital station will have a window of opportunity before any defenders can get there to deal with it. Given that the ships had been pretending at being regular merchant/salvage types before launching the attack, they probably had a good idea of how to time it.

The reason that this sort of strike isn't terribly common is that it's likely to provoke a reaction from the Imperium (and maybe the Florians and/or some of the Aslan clans) as a threat to trade across the region if it becomes anything more than a one-off incident. Also, high profile isn't normally what you want to be as a pirate - Redthane's circumstances are unusual there.

 

[cunningrat]

According to The Torpol Cluster, the planet has one light cruiser, a lot of missile batteries installed at the highport, and a bunch of fighters.

Both the cruiser and the fighters probably spend most of their time at or near the highport since that's where most merchant traffic would be found (and need to be defended). Sure, there'd be fighter patrols elsewhere, but those will be intermittent at any given spot, so a raider who wants to take out part of an orbital station will have a window of opportunity before any defenders can get there to deal with it. Given that the ships had been pretending at being regular merchant/salvage types before launching the attack, they probably had a good idea of how to time it.

Mmm. I did some math, and I'm still pretty iffy about that.
Torpol is 12,800 km diameter, pretty much the same as Earth. Let's assume the Highport is in "Low Torpol Orbit", roughly 2,300 km up, and the fighters/light cruiser are in the same place (i.e. none out on patrol - best-case scenario for the pirates). Let's likewise assume the refinery is also in LTO, on exactly the other side of the planet (again, best-case scenario).
When the alarm is raised, the fighters/light cruiser will need to sweep around the planet to get the attackers on sensors. I'm skipping a lot of tedious math (though I can provide it), but it turns out that they will need to cover roughly 5,500 km to see past the planet to the refinery. At Thrust 6 (standard light fighter speed) that's roughly 10 minutes. At this point, the fighters will be 14,000 km from the refinery: Long range on sensors, though out of weapons range.
I'm not sure how fast a Gionetti-class cruiser is, especially stripped down, but even if we assume 2G, it'll only take 17 minutes to cover the same arc, at which point it will be in sensor AND weapons range of the refinery.

Now, the pirates have to slog all the way out to 100 D, at the 1G acceleration of the Vulture-class, with a bunch of fighters at their heels and a light cruiser firing at them the entire time. That's not workable.

If the Highport and the refinery are both in geosynchronous (Torpolsynchronous?) orbit, at about 36,000 km, the pirates make out a little better. The defense forces will have to cover 90,000 km to the refinery, which means the light cruiser (assuming 2G accel) will never catch the pirates. The fighters, however, will be in sensor range of the retreating pirates in 38 minutes, and in weapons range only 7 minutes later. Still not enough time for the pirates to escape.

 

[Geir]

According to The Torpol Cluster, the planet has one light cruiser, a lot of missile batteries installed at the highport, and a bunch of fighters.

Both the cruiser and the fighters probably spend most of their time at or near the highport since that's where most merchant traffic would be found (and need to be defended). Sure, there'd be fighter patrols elsewhere, but those will be intermittent at any given spot, so a raider who wants to take out part of an orbital station will have a window of opportunity before any defenders can get there to deal with it. Given that the ships had been pretending at being regular merchant/salvage types before launching the attack, they probably had a good idea of how to time it.

Mmm. I did some math, and I'm still pretty iffy about that.
Torpol is 12,800 km diameter, pretty much the same as Earth. Let's assume the Highport is in "Low Torpol Orbit", roughly 2,300 km up, and the fighters/light cruiser are in the same place (i.e. none out on patrol - best-case scenario for the pirates). Let's likewise assume the refinery is also in LTO, on exactly the other side of the planet (again, best-case scenario).
When the alarm is raised, the fighters/light cruiser will need to sweep around the planet to get the attackers on sensors. I'm skipping a lot of tedious math (though I can provide it), but it turns out that they will need to cover roughly 5,500 km to see past the planet to the refinery. At Thrust 6 (standard light fighter speed) that's roughly 10 minutes. At this point, the fighters will be 14,000 km from the refinery: Long range on sensors, though out of weapons range.
I'm not sure how fast a Gionetti-class cruiser is, especially stripped down, but even if we assume 2G, it'll only take 17 minutes to cover the same arc, at which point it will be in sensor AND weapons range of the refinery.

Now, the pirates have to slog all the way out to 100 D, at the 1G acceleration of the Vulture-class, with a bunch of fighters at their heels and a light cruiser firing at them the entire time. That's not workable.

If the Highport and the refinery are both in geosynchronous (Torpolsynchronous?) orbit, at about 36,000 km, the pirates make out a little better. The defense forces will have to cover 90,000 km to the refinery, which means the light cruiser (assuming 2G accel) will never catch the pirates. The fighters, however, will be in sensor range of the retreating pirates in 38 minutes, and in weapons range only 7 minutes later. Still not enough time for the pirates to escape.

You're forgetting scramble reaction time. Torpol is out in the sticks. As an analog, back 20 years ago in the USAF couldn't catch an airliner heading from Newark toward, well you know, - with no warning (they're much, much, better at that now.) Think of Torpol as (apologies to any Central Americans) the Guatemalan air force: first we need to wake the pilots, then fuel the planes, then get them in the air (if the turboprop hasn't been disassembled for maintenance) and direct them at a target.

In PoD Book 1 on page 21 there's a table that deals with response time; it's a little unclear how bad it is on a roll of 6-9, but 5- is 'check a gain in an hour' and 10 is 1D hours to respond, so you might figure even a "quick" response might be an hour or more unless someone was on a training flight and happened to be in the right location. Otherwise, what is likely to respond first is a single revenue cutter with some customs people and maybe a fixed point beam laser. And even the Gionetti is unlikely to be able to hit anything beyond medium range if it's spinal is decommissioned - it has beam lasers, and well, missiles... missile would work, okay... so if it responds, you'd better get out of there before someone launches a salvo... jump at 10D sound good anyone?

 

[cunningrat]

I didn't actually forget scramble reaction time when I was thinking about this -- I figured, since there's also time required for the pirates to loot the refinery, it's pretty much a wash.

I did make a mistake in my calculations for option #1 -- forgot that the "line of sight" to the refinery would originally be through the atmosphere, so the defenders would have to come further around the planet to get a good look. But that doesn't change the final outcome any.

There *is* a way that the pirates might be able to get away with it. Don't run for the 100D limit: instead, change transponders to squawk the codes of a different 200-dt and 400-dt *ship class*, and slot themselves into standard insystem parking orbits. The fighters are going to be looking for a Vulture and a Far Trader running silent for the 100D limit: even if/when they eventually realize that the pirates didn't do that, they're going to have to loop back and examine all insystem traffic at a much shorter range to find what they're looking for. Which gives the pirates time to calmly head to the 100D limit someplace else.

(As an optional refinement, have the Misery's Company get into a purposely loud altercation near the 100D limit at the same time, so as to split the defenders' attention.)

Would require balls of steel on the part of the pirates, but that's what Redthane was trying to demonstrate.