Taking / Claiming ships

[Jak Nazryth]

After a couple of weeks of delay (The final GURPS game was last week, this week we are switching to Traveller) I will finally be kicking off my Traveller campaign.
Already a few ideas are being discussed between a few of the experienced players and those brand new to Traveller. One of their ideas (depending on how they roll characters) is to become pirate hunters.
One of their "business plans" is to find, attack, and take over star ships owned and operated by pirates, raiders, corsairs, and the like. Either taking over a better ship for their own use, or simply selling whole or in parts by stripping major components. They surmise that since "it's a pirate ship" nobody will care if they take it out of commission and sell it.

Much easier said than done of course, but it brings up a point.

They will be mostly in the Trojan Reach, or Beyond, possibly the edge of Spinward Marches. Out of 3I space, but not too far out.
How exactly does "the law" work when "claiming" pirate or raider ships for your own in open space?
Is it similar to laying claim to a space hulk?
Does the bank still own the ship if it's not yet paid off even though it's in the "wilderness" being used for illicit purposes? Will it simply be impounded by the local system and ownership transferred to the government? Does ii even make since for a group of corsairs, pirates, or raiders to make payments to a bank anyway? Or is it most likely a stolen ship anyway? What about stripping the major components like sensors, drives, things like that? Are engines and other major components tracked like some modern car engines? Modern Chop Shops sometimes grind the V.I.N. and manufacture/serial numbers off the engine blocks etc..

I've never really given a lot of thought to the subject, but this is one direction the players might go. I know the idea of taking down a corsair will be very hard to do, and it depends on what ship they start off with. I've got that covered.
I just need thoughts / advice on how the whole "transfer of title" happens when it comes to... "I got attacked, now I own their ship" scenarios... especially when banks many not always be involved.
Do local systems generally let "victims" keep things like that, or is it more like a small percentage? Would you need something like a letter of marque? Or even a "pirate hunter license" to make it official?

 

[Condottiere]

Five percent finder's fee.

Ten percent recovery reward.

 

[PsiTraveller]

The players may well register a title claim with the local starport, explaining what happened. If there are prisoners or bodies of known pirates that could help the claim. A report to the local authorities opr

Where the bank mortgage is located is another wrinkle given travel times. That is actually a problem for the whole monthly mortgage payment scenario. If the travellers are travelling in one direction and the bank they got the mortgage from is behind them each monthly payment will take more than a month to get to the head office.

The legal snarl of a captured ship could be a nightmare. Was the ship stolen on the first place? Are there bounties on it from other systems? Does a bank somewhere own a mortgage on it?

Would all this information be available on planets connected to the X boat/Mail service? Is this something TAS offices would keep track of, a ships registry for all ships in the sector/ or larger areas.
Edit: This issue ties in with the banking and information exchange threads. In a society that is tied together with mail drums being taken from port to port, with unlimited storage of electronic information there could be a registry of ships and mortgage payments made at each Starport. Information on a ship is sent out in all directions each time a mail drum is loaded. Updates to the database could occur each time a mail drum is downloaded to the local database.

Starports then become the information handling locations for each system. This makes sense as they handle all the traffic in ships and goods, an extra room with the database and information terminals is an easy add-on.

That is one possibility. On the other hand, out in the wilds, you could have an attitude of "not my business, not sticking my nose in." There may be no agreements on information sharing and things could be much less organized.

 

[phavoc]

After a couple of weeks of delay (The final GURPS game was last week, this week we are switching to Traveller) I will finally be kicking off my Traveller campaign.
Already a few ideas are being discussed between a few of the experienced players and those brand new to Traveller. One of their ideas (depending on how they roll characters) is to become pirate hunters.
One of their "business plans" is to find, attack, and take over star ships owned and operated by pirates, raiders, corsairs, and the like. Either taking over a better ship for their own use, or simply selling whole or in parts by stripping major components. They surmise that since "it's a pirate ship" nobody will care if they take it out of commission and sell it.

Much easier said than done of course, but it brings up a point.

They will be mostly in the Trojan Reach, or Beyond, possibly the edge of Spinward Marches. Out of 3I space, but not too far out.
How exactly does "the law" work when "claiming" pirate or raider ships for your own in open space?
Is it similar to laying claim to a space hulk?
Does the bank still own the ship if it's not yet paid off even though it's in the "wilderness" being used for illicit purposes? Will it simply be impounded by the local system and ownership transferred to the government? Does ii even make since for a group of corsairs, pirates, or raiders to make payments to a bank anyway? Or is it most likely a stolen ship anyway? What about stripping the major components like sensors, drives, things like that? Are engines and other major components tracked like some modern car engines? Modern Chop Shops sometimes grind the V.I.N. and manufacture/serial numbers off the engine blocks etc..

I've never really given a lot of thought to the subject, but this is one direction the players might go. I know the idea of taking down a corsair will be very hard to do, and it depends on what ship they start off with. I've got that covered.
I just need thoughts / advice on how the whole "transfer of title" happens when it comes to... "I got attacked, now I own their ship" scenarios... especially when banks many not always be involved.
Do local systems generally let "victims" keep things like that, or is it more like a small percentage? Would you need something like a letter of marque? Or even a "pirate hunter license" to make it official?

For the most part if a recovered ship was originally stolen it would technically be the property of the original owner (or the insurance company if it was paid off as a loss). That covers the original hull and equipment, but improvements would be outside of that. The PC's could reasonably charge (or expect) a finder's fee for recovery - assuming they are willing and able to return the ship to the Imperium. I would say any Class C Imperial starport or above would have a listing of all ships reported lost, though that list could be weeks or months old, depending on that starports connection to the Imperial mail network.

Fortunately a LOT of this is covered under modern salvage laws - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_salvage

You may also want to read this gentleman's Master thesis on piracy. It covers a number of questions about piracy, both from a historical and modern perspective. And it lists out the international treaties and laws that govern piracy, government and private recoveries, etc. http://munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/3236/thesis.pdf?sequence=1

 

[paltrysum]

Already a few ideas are being discussed between a few of the experienced players and those brand new to Traveller. One of their ideas (depending on how they roll characters) is to become pirate hunters.

Sounds like a great idea for a campaign. Depending on how much detail you want to go into, all the side stories that could result from the successful reclamation of a pirate ship could constitute stories in and of themselves. To wit:

• The travellers reclaim a free trader that was taken by pirates two years ago. The original owner wants it back, and will pay a reward, but in point of fact, the ship is now comprised of 40% replacement parts. How much of that ship is actually his and how much is straight salvage?
• Similar to the above, a bastardized pirate ship is taken, and it's a "Frankenstein's monster" ship, comprised of parts from all over the place. Several claimants want their piece and will pay rewards. To add additional complexity, perhaps the system in which the ship was recovered has ambiguous salvage laws. Maybe the ship is actually the travellers' now, free and clear. What will the claimants think then?
• A reclaimed ship was taken from a pirate lord with an extensive network and ties to organized crime on the planet the travellers call their home base. Don't sleep in the same bed twice, travellers!
• Pirates get wind of the travellers' business plan and planet a "Trojan horse" among possible acquisitions. "Hmm. That sure was easy taking that ship from the pirates. That's strange." Once back in their home system or in high orbit of their home planet in the system, the ship's transponder fraudulently declares that it is a pirate vessel and invites the interest of local SDBs. Alternatively, there might be a biological (chemical agents or even dangerous animals, such as the Chamax) outbreak primed to be released from hidden quarters once the ship lands in a populated port.

The possibilities are endless! You could start with the fun of ship combat, then boarding actions, and then branch out in any direction you want. I hope to hear more about your campaign once you get it going.

 

[Epicenter]

I've never really given a lot of thought to the subject, but this is one direction the players might go. I know the idea of taking down a corsair will be very hard to do, and it depends on what ship they start off with. I've got that covered.

I won't get into the viability of space piracy in Traveller.

For my purposes I'll just assume it works, somehow.

I personally dislike outright saying "no" to players. If they have a plan and it seems like something viable to run the game around (which is up to you).

For your players plan to work, there has to be a certain density of pirates/jacked ships/whatever flying around in space. I personally feel that this actually isn't very common so if the party wants to stay "legal" they'd have to find an area of space where circumstances mean there's a lot of piracy, or more likely you'd have to set up a situation for them so that there is a lot of piracy. How you set-up the local political situation will answer many of your questions.

If you go with the historical model of a lot of Age of Sail era piracy, you're in the world of "one man's pirate is another man's privateer" - piracy was basically guerilla warfare or "low intensity proxy warfare" on the high seas. For it to work you need instability and an inability for powerful actors to do anything (at least for the time being). Remember these situations are usually pretty unstable and typically don't last forever - pirates tend to destroy their own market after a point; the Marines eventually marched into Tripoli, it's rumored the Trojan War was actually fought over the piracy that Troy supported (not Helen), the multinational navies moved into Somalia's waters. This is going to color how various actors react.

Does the bank still own the ship if it's not yet paid off even though it's in the "wilderness" being used for illicit purposes?

Who cares? If the bank could have reclaimed it using skiptracers (repo-men) or mercenaries, they would have already. The fact they haven't been able to speaks volumes and posession is 9/10ths of the law.

The banks know they can bluff rubes with some boilerplate raw deal like "you get 10% of the ship's value and we take it back otherwise" but they're also aware of what happens if their bluff gets called - their threats are hollow and they know it and once word gets out their reputation gets tarnished, something that's worse than even losing hundreds of millions on starships. What if the the players can simply tell the banks to sod off and find some unaligned world world with a Class-A Starport that has very good facilities to hide the original provenance of the ship and aren't very choosy with registry, but has good enough relations with the Imperium to get their ship into the Imperium. Once in the Imperium, surely there's some Planet Liberia that isn't too picky with checking a ship and will register it to the players. Ships are tremendously expensive, it's not like jacking a car. Its well worth it to do this even if they have to fly a whole Sector away to do it.

Similarly, any bank that is putting out loans for starships ... well let's just say this is not likely to be the bank's first rodeo - they know these facts as well as the players.

Another thing to remember is that ... there aren't going to be many ships in the unsettled frontiers that have outstanding loans on them. This is something most people forget. This isn't like getting a loan for a car and this isn't EVE Online or Star Citizen where banks will somehow insure ships that are flying around in combat zones. Banks are well within their rights in the TU to ask exactly where you plan to operate your ship, what worlds you plan to trade on, and come up with economic income plan and present it to the bank for the bank to pick apart. They're going to check to see if the area has a history of instability and so on and deny the loan if they're even a bit worried. Most ships in frontier areas are likely to be already paid off.

There is, however, the spectre of unforeseen instability. Banks can't see the future 100% and loans take a long time to pay off. Banks are likely to have tried to get the ships back (Somali pirates do this - they highjack a ship then give it back after the corporation/bank/family pays them). If they haven't gotten it back it means they couldn't. It's likely the banks have already written off any jacked ships as losses during this period of instability (and perhaps gone out of business as result). Similarly, ship operators aren't idiots some free traders like adventure but probably not that much adventure - few merchants want to operate ships in dangerous space (unless they don't take it seriously, something that's going to change real fast once pirates start seizing ships). At this point banks are going to start pressuring ship operators to move elsewhere: "Hello starship operator, we're sure you're alarmed to learn you have been locked out from your starship by the port authory at our request. Please understand this NOT your fault and is only in place while you consider your choices. This sector has severe instability issues due to <Somereason>, and danger to you is severe as well as economic instability means your income will likely drop severely. In this difficult time, we would like to work with you. If you relocate to out of this area, we have a selection of thousands of trade routes with profitability margins similar to your original plan. We know this is a big decision and you'll miss many of the brokers and buyers you're familiar with. We'll co-pay half of your ship payments for one year while you get resettled and pay for your next ship maintenance. Alternatively, you may also simply elect to sell your ship back to the bank at this time - there will be no lasting blemish on your credit record in this case and your remaining payments will be waived and we'll take your ship off of you in return for the current secondhand value of the ship minus the remaining loan value (minimum payout is 50,000Cr). Any out-of-pocket aftermarket changes to the ship will be reimbursed at best market value. You may re-apply for a new loan with special consideration if the current troubles pass and economic stability returns to this area." Ship operators might even ask their ask banks proactively for this kind of help - it's in the bank's interest to help ship operators like this because the money lost/spent to get those with loans on their ships settled in and paying is well worth it on multiple levels in the long term - the ship operator will have good things to say about the bank and they'll continue to pay their loans off.

So it's likely that a ships plying trade in an area of instability are probably ships which are already paid off or the bank has already written it off. If the players do secure a ship with an outstanding loan on it, the bank is likely to let the players keep the ship and may even pay the players for publicity they can spin it ("Professionals working with the Bank of Iridia have re-secured ships that were previously stolen by criminals, even in the war-torn <unstable> subsector. Remember, crime doesn't pay.") and let the players keep the ship with an agreement they keep quiet about being allowed to keep the ship (after all, skiptracers in the Imperium are probably given raw deals like 20% of the ship's value, you don't want to give them any ideas - they're much less likely to get away with it deep in most versions of the Imperium but it's still a pain to deal with). If the bank absolutely wants the ship back for some reason, they'd likely negotiate with the players for the ship back, understanding they have to give a deal that is equivalent to the player's perception of the value of the ship in some sort of consideration be that money, goods, another ship (or ships), or ... simply the bank owning them a favor. Likely some combination of these factors.

 

[Galadrion]

Okay, there are a few issues here.

First of all, a corsair/pirate ship is probably not going to be a bank-financed purchase - it's a severely risky business model, with the ship most unlikely to survive until the end of the term of purchase. If it's a financed purchase at all, it's almost certainly going to be government-financed - a subsidized privateer, if you will. (Government backing of such ventures operates under different rules than those of financial institutions; they aren't required to show a profit, as long as they can justify the expense against results.) Otherwise, the financing of such a venture is going to be more like many of the privateers from the Age of Sail - one or more wealthy backers put up the money in expectation of a percentage of the profits (if any). But in any case, prior ownership of a corsair is not particularly an issue... unless you're silly enough to try to sell the thing in the jurisdiction of the pirates' backer(s). That could rapidly become an unpleasant circumstance... :twisted:

Second, most governments are going to be rather leery of would-be freelance pirate-hunters selling off their prizes to just anyone. As the governing jurisdiction of space within its borders, the Third Imperium is probably going to have laws and regulations regarding such things - think Admiralty Courts and Prize Courts from the Age of Sail. Anyone capturing such a thing will probably be required to bring their prize in to an Imperial Starport for disposition. The legal counsel for the starport will examine the evidence presented and most likely issue a recommendation to the Starport Governor, whether to uphold the claim or reject it, and also whether to allow the claimants to dispose of the vessel themselves or to offer a prize - basically, make them a non-refusable "offer" of purchase.

As the Referee in such a circumstance, you have a few decisions to make. Does the Imperium (or the other local authority, if you're outside the 3I) allow the players' claim? Are they allowed to retain ownership - and under what conditions? If the Imperium tenders a prize offer, how much is the offer? (Six percent of list, less estimated repairs, was about what English Prize Courts ran during the privateer era, and seems like a reasonable amount.) And what is likely to happen if the players opt not to accept such an offer? If they try to take the privateer ship back and run for it, the Court is probably going to stop thinking of them as people who captured a pirate ship, and start considering them to be pirates themselves...

TLR - unless the players have a pirate haven to run to themselves, I tend to have them go through the Imperial government (represented usually by someone in authority at the next starport) to get rid of anything obviously military or quasi-military. If it can be argued to be a civilian vessel, the players may be able to avoid - ahem - Imperial entanglements (although a demand for papers could still be problematic...), but a Corsair or an actual military/paramilitary ship is going to attract attention.

 

[Condottiere]

Selling to an official agency shifts liability, though you're likely to get less than perceived worth, one reason it seems British commanders tended to exaggerate the performance of any ship they captured, and we may have gotten a false impression of how much better the French were at ship design.

Also, a starport must be one of the easiest places to get your starship clamped, and if there's a naval base nearby, any number of naval commanders eager to chase you down.

 

[vladthemad]

The Pirates of Drinax campaign could be played pretty much exactly what your players are describing, among many other possibilities. There have also been a few rules written regarding prize ships and salvage, for at least one version or another or Traveller. Regretfully, while I know I've read them, I can't find them right now. There *is* a lot of fluff out there. MgT, Gurps Traveller, many other random books all describe piracy, privateering, salvaging, etc. I just can't find any hard and fast rules about salvage law regarding percentages, courts, impound time, and the like.

First the party should know they probably shouldn't be bringing back battle damaged ships full of dead bodies to Imperial space on a regular basis unless they want to spend time in prison. Even if it was a well known pirate ship, authorities tend come down hard on vigilantism.

On top of that, chances are the ship didn't belong to the pirates in the first place. It's likely someone has liens on it somewhere, and it's going to get impounded while the Imperium spends the next few years sending out notice to all of known space. If no one pops up after that set time, then depending on how generous a GM you are, the Imperium can either pay the players a flat finder's fee or give the players the hulk back after they pay court costs and title and licencing fees. It's a lot easier to bring back "salvage", and probably even easier to bring back "foreign salvage". The Imperium probably wouldn't give too much hassle to someone bring salvaged parts back from Vargr ships, because everyone knows how Vargr are. Of course finding someone who wants to buy Vargr parts is another matter.

All that said, if they want to go with attacking "bad guys" and taking all their stuff like a pack of space murder hobos, there are a few believable solutions.

One would be a two ship/two crew approach. One is a hunter that stays out in unclaimed space, hunting pirates. The other is a salvage ship working in concert with the hunter. The hunter and salvage ships meet at a point in uncharted space regularly to exchange supplies and information...and possibly even crew, if your party doesn't want to operate a dual set of characters. The hunter tags and bags the target, and then the salvage ship comes by a few weeks later and picks it up. This helps in several ways. The salvage ship can easily claim not having been in the area during the attack, especially if they were at an imperial station when it occurred. They won't have to answer questions about why their ship has seen recent damage from combat, or why their ammunition stores are depleted. The point is, it just looks a lot less suspicious if you are bringing back "salvage" vs. "a band of pirates we murdered". You'd still have to deal with salvage laws and constraints though.

You could possibly do this with just the salvage ship, if you took the ship apart in unregulated space and only brought back the "used" equipment...although depending on how hard a GM you are, the players could run into issues with serial numbers on things like jump drives.

Another option and probably the best one, is to use contacts to help offload the goods, especially criminal contacts. This could be a breaker or a shipyard contact at a small backwater who is willing to pay the players under the table a small percentage of the value of whatever they bring back. This is a lot easier to deal with if the players are stripping ships down to their components than bringing the whole ship back. A hold full of "spare parts" is a lot easier to get past custom inspections than towing back a ship shot full of holes. Of course, if he gets caught he might say something to the Imperial agents...sounds like a break our buddy out of jail adventure in the making.

Lastly, would be to not work within the Imperium, or any of the other law heavy polities. A group of Vargr would have almost no questions asked if they brought back a captured ship to Vargr space, same goes for Aslan. You might also deal with a lot less red tape as sword worlders too, if they are dead set on being human.