Ships - player owned... or not

[Treebore]

I didn't say anything about "randomly" slipping through the cracks at all...

sorry, but when you say "slip through the cracks" the context usually implies it happened due to luck/chance/randomness. So that general context of usage is what I responded to.

Good criminals do not "slip through the cracks", they make the opportunities, they find the holes in a system and make them as wide as possible.

So that is why I distinguish between the two the way I do.

 

[EDG]

well, in that case, my point was that there are plenty of opportunities to find holes and widen them

 

[Marchand]

I've got to agree with EDG et al: space and the Imperium is really, really big.

That's half-right. Real 3D space is big. The 11,000 star systems of the Imperium are not. It is too easy for the Imperium to police 11,000 systems by leaving sensor buoys, with regular Navy/Scout Service visits to pick up the data, and far too hard to conceal the movement of spacecraft against the cold dark background of space from sensors. Let alone the power signature of the base itself.

The pirates could hack the buoys - but that would soon get noticed, surely.

Unless the pirates could bribe relevant Imperial officials. But that will soon become very, very expensive. If you're already rich enough to bribe subsector admirals, why bother running some chop shop in the middle of nowhere?

Anyway, if these pirate bases are as feasible as some here suggest (and could generate the profits to pay the costs of bribery on the requisite scale), then it risks destroying the market for ship mortgage loans. If stealing ships is easy enough, no bank or megacorp would loan you the funds to buy one.

 

[EDG]

The 11,000 star systems of the Imperium are not.

They're very big, actually. If you think anyone could effectively police or patrol a system's Kuiper belt (or even our own Asteroid belt which has a radius of 3-4 AU), then I would say that you haven't really grasped how big a volume that is to cover.

 

[Treebore]

I have a potential errata question.

It says each ship share is 1%, however the table in the main rule book showing the value of each 1% is actually 10%, so if a player group, or individual, gets 10 shares they have 100% of the given ships value, depending on the career, or careers, elegible for ships.

So it seems to me that saying its 1% is actually 10%.

So if that is true than the PC, or PC's, own the ship outright, correct?

 

[Marchand]

The asteroid belt is certainly a huge volume and the kuiper belt is even vaster. But that's irrelevant because there is no need to search each and every rock physically. Space is cold and dark, but ships are hot. According to wikipedia, Ceres, the biggest asteroid, has a mean temp of 167K = approx -100 degrees C. Ships are carrying fusion reactors. This makes them too easy to detect even with present-day tech (unless you assume ships have some sort of magic tech internal heat dumping system - which could be a fair assumption given the lack of heatsinks in the Trav ship design sequence...). The Spitzer space telescope is capable of distinguishing temperature variations of 260 degrees C on exoplanets 40ly distant. I expect that means it could pick up a ship carrying an active fusion plant in the same system.

 

[EDG]

The Spitzer space telescope is capable of distinguishing temperature variations of 260 degrees C on exoplanets 40ly distant. I expect that means it could pick up a ship carrying an active fusion plant in the same system.

And how many ships do you think will be carrying sensors of astronomical sensitivity? You can't just stick that on a ship and expect it to work - for one thing, the sensor needs to be big enough. For another, it needs to be supercooled, and any kind of jostling around or high speed manoeuvering is going to screw up the coolant and the electronics something chronic.

And even if you could pick up a sensor reading, by the time you got there (because your ship can only move at finite speed) the target would be long gone.

 

[Treebore]

The Spitzer space telescope is capable of distinguishing temperature variations of 260 degrees C on exoplanets 40ly distant. I expect that means it could pick up a ship carrying an active fusion plant in the same system.

And how many ships do you think will be carrying sensors of astronomical sensitivity? You can't just stick that on a ship and expect it to work - for one thing, the sensor needs to be big enough. For another, it needs to be supercooled, and any kind of jostling around or high speed manoeuvering is going to screw up the coolant and the electronics something chronic.

And even if you could pick up a sensor reading, by the time you got there (because your ship can only move at finite speed) the target would be long gone.

You need to base your arguments on a Tech Level. What TL are you assuming? TL 6?

A TL 13 or higher sensor system could definitely spot such ships ANYWHERE in a given system. White and black globe generators don't exist until TL 20+ games, and as far as I recall that is the only way to be invisible to sensors.

Plus in a TL 13+ system their system is going to be very well mapped out, so any new object will raise their curiosity.

So your going to have to have a very good Sensors system AND operator to trick other sensors into thinking your not a ship.

 

[Marchand]

And how many ships do you think will be carrying sensors of astronomical sensitivity?...

And even if you could pick up a sensor reading, by the time you got there (because your ship can only move at finite speed) the target would be long gone.

1) Well, Imperial patrol ships for sure. Anyway, the Spitzer space telescope is TL8. Even "basic civilian" sensors are TL9, as advanced beyond our current-day tech as the Spitzer is advanced beyond, say, a sophisticated optical telescope of the 1950s. And the military would presumably routinely have access to everything up to TL12 "very advanced" sensor suites. I think it's reasonable to assume this would mean a Spitzer-level instrument would be available and up to robust field use.

2) If it's a pirate base, it ain't going anywhere quickly.

 

[Marchand]

er, what Treebore said basically.

 

[EDG]

You need to base your arguments on a Tech Level. What TL are you assuming? TL 6?

Physics generally doesn't care what Tech Level you are

Sure, sensors will improve, but there are still physical limits. You can't scan all of space at once, for example. And given that Traveller's computers are dumb, there's no way anyone on a ship would be able to process that data in realtime even if you could scan all of space at once.

There are ways to track things, sure, but they're not foolproof - they can be masked. Fusion reactors may be trackable by neutrino sensors, but only if the reactor neutrinos are distinguishable from the background neutrino radiation coming from the distant stars or the system's primary. If not, then that's not much use.

Once you know something's there, then you'll probably be able to track it down relatively easily. But the trick is to be able to find it in the first place, and that's going to be hard.

 

[aspqrz]

I'm with EDG on the banking aspect, considering the amount of non-electronic money thats floating around on low tech worlds it must be possible to deal primarily in cash.

Also considering the size of the Third Imperium and the sheer amount of businesses that must exist it must be a money launderers dream.

And, oh, gee whizz, how did they finger Al Capone?

No computers, see.

They used double entry book-keeping and good old fashioned paper trails.

Paper money still leaves trails as long as records of any sort are kept ... and for the money to have any value and validity in the first place there has to be an authority that issues it and which, therefore, tracks it.

Puhleese, economics doesn't require computers and eCash, nor does it even require paper money, or even gold and silver.

It doesn't matter how trade is conducted or value is determined in the 3rd Imperium it will inevitably display the basic aspects of an economy simply because it is an economy ... and the inherent economic activity is always going to be trackable.

As Al Capone found out.

Phil

Hence why we no longer have organised crime.

Hence why we have regular cases brought against Organised Crime groups (and individuals) in countries all over the world (and we can include putatively "legal" corporations and suchlike who take part in illegal activities in that category, too) who seem to think that they are immune to tracking by their economic activity.

Please do be serious :wink:

No one is suggesting it will be automatic detection, merely that it will be detectable. Like a lot of criminal activity, if it falls below a certain threshhold (in an economic sense) it may not be worth the manpower to try and track down, though computerisation will reduce that considerably, I suspect.

However, at some point the loss of multimillion credit starships on a semi-regular basis will trip warning flags ... especially in an Imperium whose main reason for existence is guarding and promotiing Interstellar Trade ... and will attract attention that will lead to detection and, eventually, exposure, of said operation.

There aren't likely to be, for example, "Pirate" (or whatever you want to call them) bases that are centuries old (there may be unique situations that lead to their existence - but these will be, by definition, unique ... and rare, and unrepeatable on a large scale) - if there's a lot of anti-trade activity going on, I'd lay odds that their average life expectancy would be less than a decade, probably much less.

Given the likely costs in setting them up, I don't see how they could get an economic return on capital outlay in the time they'll likely be usable.

YMMV..

Phil

 

[aspqrz]

Hence why we no longer have organised crime.

Bingo.

Given the size of space to hide in, and the total lack of any kind of centralisation in the Imperium, I cannot see any way for anyone to track anything there.

Organised crime should be thriving.

With the greatest of respect, twaddle.

"the total lack of any kind of centralisation" - unless you are referring to a 3rd Imperium that is not the 3I of the OTU, that's completely, totally, and absolutely wrong.

The Imperial military is centrally organised, there are centrally organised civilian and military intelligence organisations, the Imperial economy is centrally regulated ... all hinted at or stated quite specifically in canon sources ...

And before you try a strawman argument about the size of the Imperium being a problem - well, yes, it is. So?

Size, and communications delay, doesn't make centrally directed government impossible, or even particularly difficult.

Not all forms of "centralisation" are Stalinist dictatorships directing everything down to the daily production of roofing nails.

The whole purpose of the Imperium is to protect and promote Interstellar Trade - the Imperial Government specifically reserves the legal jurisdiction outside planetary atmospheres, in system space and elsewhere, for itself, and enforces such legal jurisdiction.

One can argue it might not be particularly effective in doing so, but based on canon sources that would be rather hard to make stick except, as noted elsewhere, in special, unique, rare, circumstances.

And "not particularly effective" is not the same as "active pirate havens in every subsector, or even every sector".

If you wish to believe differently, fine, I have no problem with it - I'll never be playing in your campaign (and, on the face of it, wouldn't want to, either ... and I happily accept that the feeling would likely be entirely mutual).

Phil

 

[EDG]

The Imperial military is centrally organised, there are centrally organised civilian and military intelligence organisations, the Imperial economy is centrally regulated ... all hinted at or stated quite specifically in canon sources ...

I couldn't care less what canon says about it - I care a lot more about how it would actually have to work in practice, not about what some guy who obviously hasn't thought much about the consequences of his setup has declared in the books he's written and declared to be "canon".

If you or anyone can present logical arguments for/against it that aren't simply "but it says so in canon, so it must be possible" then I'm all ears. I'm not going to waste time trying to pretend that Marc's ideas about how the OTU should work are remotely sensible - experience has shown otherwise.

Size, and communications delay, doesn't make centrally directed government impossible, or even particularly difficult.

Nations couldn't even manage holding onto colonies on Earth during the Age of Sail because of that, what on earth makes you think that an interstellar society could manage it? Especially one where it can literally takes years to communicate from one side to the other at the fastest rate possible.

If you wish to believe differently, fine, I have no problem with it - I'll never be playing in your campaign (and, on the face of it, wouldn't want to, either ... and I happily accept that the feeling would likely be entirely mutual).

Oh, it is. :twisted:

 

[Treebore]

The thing is you act like your being "reasonable" and "knowledgeable".

Your only correct if we treat your arguments at a minimum.

Any government(s) of a given system is going to know what is going on, or that something is going on, because they will have sensor relay stations throughout their system.

So they will know what is going on at all times, everywhere, in their given system, because they have numerous sensor relay stations laid throughout their system, and they have the dedicated computer power and other resources to have these be effective. Plus any ship in space in that system, such as system defense boats, will be able to tap into that sensor array system to track anything anywhere within their system.

So maybe a ship can move to an area where their neutrino's can be masked, but odds are they can't jump to that exact spot due to planetary size jump restrictions. So this will require them to maneuver to that position, and in a decent TL system, their whole trip will be recorded/monitored. Then when they disappear into the back ground radiation the system authorities will also know they have someone up to no good within their system, if they weren't already sure of it.

Now obviously this can vary, depending on the wealth and technology and law level of a system. So there are plenty of systems, especially fringe systems, where such things can be done rather easily by criminals. However there will be rich, well defended, high security systems where a criminal would be foolish to think they can hide within the system and pirate it at their leisure.

There are hundreds of variables that would have to be taken into account for such scenarios. So generally a criminal is going to be like a vulture feeding off the body of a dead or dying system that is simply too weak to defend itself.

Most systems in the Imperium are not like that, but there are a few dozen that are, such as Diaspora, the Sword Worlds, and a couple of others I cannot think of right now.

Now it also sounds like your talking about a "setting" you have done all on your own, and your basing all of your arguments on the assumptions of your "system", so that would also be mighty convenient for you to base your arguments on a system no one else knows about.

However, in the Imperium, piracy and criminal activities are certainly possible, however they would be far from rampant, with the exception of several subsectors.

 

[EDG]

Your only correct if we treat your arguments at a minimum.

Same applies to you - for example:

Any government(s) of a given system is going to know what is going on, or that something is going on, because they will have sensor relay stations throughout their system.

Please justify this statement, because this a big assumption. How many sensor stations do you expect them to have? Where are they located in each system? What is their effective range? How are they monitored? What would be the response time for any detection? How are sensor blips assessed?

So they will know what is going on at all times, everywhere, in their given system, because they have numerous sensor relay stations laid throughout their system, and they have the dedicated computer power and other resources to have these be effective.

Again, big assumption. For starters, you assume that the system actually has a technological base. What if it's uninhabited? Or it has a low tech mainworld? Do you think the Imperium just drops off a load of drones in every system to magically detect everything that's going on within 100 AU of the star?

Plus any ship in space in that system, such as system defense boats, will be able to tap into that sensor array system to track anything anywhere within their system.

How do you account for lightspeed delay time in the sensor output? Are the sensors tightbeaming their readouts to the ships in realtime?

So maybe a ship can move to an area where their neutrino's can be masked, but odds are they can't jump to that exact spot due to planetary size jump restrictions.

You do realise that jumping anywhere in system means that the target ship has a week in which it's not being detected by the jumping vessel. And a week to get out of the system as well.

However there will be rich, well defended, high security systems where a criminal would be foolish to think they can hide within the system and pirate it at their leisure.

Quite probably correct. But even on high tech worlds there will still be crime, it just has to be done differently.

Now it also sounds like your talking about a "setting" you have done all on your own, and your basing all of your arguments on the assumptions of your "system", so that would also be mighty convenient for you to base your arguments on a system no one else knows about.

No, I'm basing my arguments on reality - physics, basic arguments of scale, etc. Granted though, the OTU clearly has no resemblance to reality at all.

However, in the Imperium, piracy and criminal activities are certainly possible, however they would be far from rampant, with the exception of several subsectors.

I don't believe I've claimed that such activities would be "rampant" at all.

My only goal here is to make people stop and think about exactly how this all should work. Blindly following canon will just get you a load of nonsensical answers, because canon is nonsensical. But if you stop and think about the issues then at least you can gain some appreciation of the problems involved.

 

[GamerDude]

I have a potential errata question.

It says each ship share is 1%, however the table in the main rule book showing the value of each 1% is actually 10%, so if a player group, or individual, gets 10 shares they have 100% of the given ships value, depending on the career, or careers, elegible for ships.

So it seems to me that saying its 1% is actually 10%.

Ok main book pg 32 "Ship Shares"

Third paragraph, a single line: "Each ship share reduces the cost of the ship by 1%."

The chart just after that line, titled "Ship Costs"... I'll post the line for Far Trader:

TYPE             COST        SHIP SHARE VALUE (1%)
Far Trader     51,385,50            513,855

I remember an example of like groups pooling their ship shares often covering 10% of the cost or even more, but each share is 1%

 

[GamerDude]

Now that I've answered that question, onto thieves and information flow etc.

Any good criminal org is going to have a network of moles, informants, whatnot. In the case of Traveller and planets that are JUMP1 or JUMP2 apart, they can establish an information network.

Now most likely only really important stuff that is moving from one planet to the next will be sent, and if it can be of use.

The problem becomes having the right ships in the right places and knowing what information needs to move (which can be done along with any goods, y'know something legit to throw the fuzz off).

 

[AndrewW]

A TL 13 or higher sensor system could definitely spot such ships ANYWHERE in a given system. White and black globe generators don't exist until TL 20+ games, and as far as I recall that is the only way to be invisible to sensors.

Black globe generators start being experimented with at TL15.

 

[EDG]

Or put it this way - the mainworld authorities spot a sensor blip in an asteroid belt 20 AU from the mainworld.

Now what? If by fortunate happenstance there happens to be an SDB in the area, then that can be informed. But that takes a few hours, since the signal has to travel to the SDB. Then it will have to lock onto the sensor blip itself if it wants to find it - and maybe it'll be obvious from its location, or maybe it won't be.

But more likely, the SDB won't be anywhere near it, so you have signal travel time and sublight SDB travel time to account for. And what's detectable by a mainworld's nice big stationary sensor arrays may not be easily detectable by those carried on a starship.

And at the end of the day, maybe the blip will still be there, or maybe it won't be - after all, it's had all that time to move on (especially if it's aware that it's been detected, if the sensor array was an active one). And what's more, maybe the blip isn't even anything to be concerned about, in which case an SDB has been sent out for nothing.

Heck, a really cunning pirate could just dump some salvaged fusion reactors on random asteroids and fire those up to emit their own neutrinos - now how is anyone going to tell which ones are decoys and which ones are real bases? Are the authorities going to investigate all of them?