OK, I have a confession to make.
I have been fiddling with the pirate attack scenario (I couldn't help myself).
I used vector space combat. What I had forgotten from when we used it in game sessions in the past is that if ships are close and at low speed relative to each other at the start of the scenario you can game it. For this scenario... not so much so.
To set the scene I decided to use an average size 5 planet. I chose the Trader to have Thrust 1, the Pirate to have Thrust 3 and for the Colonial Defence Force to have Thrust 6. The Trader would jump in at the 100D limit. The Pirate and the CDF start landed on the planet.
Each hex was 648 Km. I put the planet surface at 0 and the 100D came out at 1234 hexes away. Distant (300,000Km) for detection equated to 463 Hexes and Medium range for Engagement equated to a mere 15 hexes. At this scale 1 Thrust moves increases your speed by 1 hex per space turn.
The rules were:
The Trader jumps in and then accelerates directly to the planet as they have no reason to suspect a pirate. They will turn over at the halfway point as usual. When the pirate gets within 463 hexes we will allow it to decide there is a pirate and it will send out a distress call and start to turn immediately.
The Pirate can detect the jump flash and can take off and accelerate on a predicted intercept course. Since we have allowed it to be detected at Distant range it can hail then and demand the Trader to slow for boarding. Since the ship doesn't comply it can opt to fire missiles at the Trader once within Medium Range (15 Hexes).
Once the distress call is made the CDF can take off and head in the direction of the distress beacon. We will allow it to engage the pirate once within 483 hexes.
My simple Excel just dealt with distance from the planet as it was easier than fiddling around with decoy vectors and in effect each ship is travelling on the same straight line between the emergence point and the starport for simplicity.
It reinforces a statement I made early on and the implications are rather far reaching.
At turn 20 (2 hours after emergence) the Trader travelling at 20 hexes a turn is still 1024 hexes from the planet. The Pirate by this point travelling at 60 hexes a turn is 630 hexes from the planet coming the other way and at this point they hit detection range (having been only 12 hexes outside it the previous turn). The Trader turns, the hail and the distress call goes out and the CDF launches.
Only 5 turns later the Trader and Pirate have passed each other (at 939 and 975 hexes respectively) and with a relative speed of 90 hexes per turn. The Pirate can only fire in passing so unless he just has destruction in mind, there is no point firing and so they zip past each other, the Trader possibly questioning why he bothered to even turn. The CDF at this point is only 90 hexes from the planet and way out of range (855 hexes).
On turn 29 the Pirate passes the 100D limit and can jump. The CDF is still only 270 hexes from the planet and now 1035 hexes from the Pirate.
I tried to rerun this with different numbers but it reinforced my impression that by the time the ships get to a position where they can engage each other, they are moving too fast for it to be of any use for them. In order for them to be in the same place at something like a useful speed while allowing the Trader to turn early required solving simultaneous equations and I gave up.
I can remember now why we hated vector space combat. A slight miscalculation and you were not only off the map you were in the next room. I could probably work it out, but I think in order to stop to actually loot the pirate is going to need some sort of short duration booster or very high manoeuvre drive. That isn't impossible, but it is more work than I am willing to do now.
So yeah, maybe I was wrong and pirate encounters are just a pirate whizzing past at a gazillion km/s shouting "Arrrrr Matey!" and gesticulating wildly (because they also cannot be bothered to do the maths).
I might write an algorithm and club it to death, or maybe in a mad moment I will actually solve the simultaneous equations, but yeesh!
