Would a far/free trader ever use missiles?

[actionman]

you can't stop when you want to stay in a certain range band or otherwise engage in combat...

I wonder if that's a useful feature of missiles, that the ship could begin its approach at max g, launch missiles, and the missiles would make the necessary maneuvers to intercept their targets and/or keep the target busy while the launching ship decelerates, overshoots, then pursues. If the launching ship is between the target and the target's destination, I wonder if the target would be able to decelerate or evade given it's deceleration vector to its destination (or a safe haven like a highport or something).

The target has to turn over to conduct its deceleration. Where are its point defense systems facing? Where are its primary weapons facing?

If the attacking ship plays its cards right, it could approach the target along the target's vector, launch missiles to intercept, begin its deceleration maneuver, bypass, and trap the target between its missiles and its primary weapons. The target would have to decide which threat to face and maneuver while trying to maintain its vector to safety or abandon its vector. Or, it would have to have point defense systems facing both front and back. Assisting the attacking ship with timing could be something like in the Expanse, where missiles could be released but only launched toward their target when the attacking ship transmits the command. Missiles could even be prepositioned, disguised as space junk or something. The attacking ship approaches from the rear of the target, the target goes for supposed safety, and rushes into the optimum range for the missiles.

 

[Vormaerin]

There's definitely a lot more sophistication to the action than Traveller includes once you decide finishing the combat this century isn't a game objective

 

[NOLATrav]

Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series describes naval engagements in precisely this way. Enemy fleets accelerate towards one another until within weapons range and then computers determine firing solutions and execute them (its milliseconds, humans are useless in these moments). As the fleets zip past one another, evaluation and damage control goes into effect and the decision must be made whether or not to attempt another firing pass. Which is a long slow process of altering vectors based on where the enemy decides to vector.

I really appreciate what @swordtart has done here with the example but I think the fun (madness?) is in the pirate matching vectors. Is it possible? Where would that occur? How far will that be from the responding authority ship when it occurs? Because the thing is, the trader has to decelerate at a certain point to come to rest at the destination. A crafty pirate might be able to take advantage of that deceleration to get within significant action range of the trader while the authorities are still quite a ways away.

 

[Condottiere]

If the pirate uses a stealthed missile, the merchantman will not be able to react, before the first one hits the hull.

Or, called shot to the engines.

 

[swordtart]

It may be that rather than intercepting an incoming ship the pirate actually needs to attack an outgoing ship.

This has several advantages:
The pirate is is heading in the same direction as the target which makes matching velocity much simpler.
If it intercepts at the 80-90D point it will be further from the planet such that local defence forces cannot get there in time.
The target is more likely to try to reach the jump point than head back to the planet, taking it further away from the local forces.
The surface area of the sphere that a local interceptor might be in is getting bigger and thus the probability smaller.
If we assume jump is optimally when stationary, the target will be slowing down rather than accelerating.
The pirate might have been able to conduct surveillance and know exactly what the ship is carrying and its capabilities.
It can track the ships departure more easily and accurately determine likely course.
As the pirate has higher thrust it can leave later or leave on a different course and correct to intercept mid-flight to allay suspicion.
The target is fuelled to jump so you may be able to board, and take the whole ship to a safe haven.
If there are space lanes they will tend to move the ships closer together in a less suspicious manner.

Disadvantages are:
The target has fuel enough to jump so that is an additional option to it.
The target might have checked out the pirate in port and know the pirates capabilities (but this might make them more likely to surrender)
If this is the most credible attack vector the target knows to concentrate its defence towards a stern chase (but that is probably default).
It may be easier for the local forces to determine when the pirate is on a convergent course (not sure on this one).
The target could decide to go for hard burn and jump early as soon as it gets close to the jump point (though it might only consider this if it thought you were going to harm the crew due to the risk).

Overall this might offer a much simpler attack model and with greater chance of profitability. A straight stern chase would certainly be easier to game.

I'll have to run the numbers.

 

[Condottiere]

Or, you attach limpet mines.

 

[Vormaerin]

Because the thing is, the trader has to decelerate at a certain point to come to rest at the destination. A crafty pirate might be able to take advantage of that deceleration to get within significant action range of the trader while the authorities are still quite a ways away.

Well, the deceleration begins at the halfway point so now the pirate is trying to act with 400,000 km of the starbase? That's even less time than before. The pirate can match vectors, but it is time consuming and the proximity to the mainworld makes it nearly impossible to have that long a time frame to handle the approach, intimidate the victim, match vectors, steal stuff, and escape. We need reasons for ships to be FARTHER from the port so we can have pirates inside of an Empire.

The risk on the outbound is that 1) the port shouldn't be assigning anyone travel paths that are intercepts, so you'll be obviously up to bad things 2) the merchant will just not decelerate and risk jumping at speed, which is allowed. Just frowned upon for safety reasons. But safer than being caught by a pirate.

We need reasons for ships to be FARTHER from the port so we can have pirates inside of an Empire.

 

[Sigtrygg]

A world two parsecs beyond the Third Imperium border is being plagued by pirates.

An Imperial delegation "hey, join up. Pay us money and we guarantee peaceful trade"

The world government accept snad starts paying the Imperium, and grants authority over its starport to the Imperium.

A few months later no more piracy...

Pirate - has a career path, rank structure, a pension plan, purpose built ships.

If I were cynical...

 

[swordtart]

Well, the deceleration begins at the halfway point so now the pirate is trying to act with 400,000 km of the starbase? That's even less time than before. The pirate can match vectors, but it is time consuming and the proximity to the mainworld makes it nearly impossible to have that long a time frame to handle the approach, intimidate the victim, match vectors, steal stuff, and escape. We need reasons for ships to be FARTHER from the port so we can have pirates inside of an Empire.

The risk on the outbound is that 1) the port shouldn't be assigning anyone travel paths that are intercepts, so you'll be obviously up to bad things 2) the merchant will just not decelerate and risk jumping at speed, which is allowed. Just frowned upon for safety reasons. But safer than being caught by a pirate.

We need reasons for ships to be FARTHER from the port so we can have pirates inside of an Empire.

The pirate doesn't need to attack at the halfway point it just needs to have the same relative speed. I was modelling the pirate leaving a few hours after the target, initially at Thrust 1 and just following s similar exit trajectory just like commercial flights do, fed into flight lanes as you suggested (and if you follow linear jump rules then your options if you are going to the same place as your target might be limited.

I came to the same conclusion that assuming you would probably start accelerating again on detection, jump at speed and risk the minor chance of a crash on exit from jump. If you retain all your velocity it will just mean you spend the entire inbound journey decelerating than flipping half way in. You might pick up as speeding ticket

That doesn't make you immune to being caught though, it just means that you might add a half hour or an hour onto the chase. Even if you are travelling at a gazzilion miles an hour, as long as the pirate is as well you are effectively stationary with respect to each other. It will allow the defence force a bit longer to get there though and it's possible the Navy might be closer.

I am still running the numbers, but there are a lot of variables and handwaving it doesn't do it justice.

 

[Vormaerin]

Jump drives are the big culprit on making piracy inside the borders of reasonably competent states problematic, but maneuver drives contribute to this problem a lot too.

In versions of Traveller using reaction drives (2300, TNE), you can force a ship into a situation where they can no longer maneuver because they won't be able to stop if they keep burning fuel, especially if accelerating. Or they are literally out of fuel. An inbound ship is on limited fuel and if they burn too much, they could go flying past their destination, unable to stop. Potentially, if their vector is bad enough, on a path that no one can catch them and save them (since other ships have reaction drives and fuel restrictions too). Outbound ships have the same issue, unless they abandon the idea of jumping and tap into the jump fuel supply to maintain thrust.

Maneuver drives don't have this problem. You aren't going to run out of fuel or even threaten your jump fuel supplies by continuously maneuvering. We don't have any rules suggesting there is a point where a ship is "going too fast" to control, so there is no reason to not just keep accelerating and maneuvering to escape. You can always circle back if you overshoot your destination or something.

All the M-Drive versions of Traveller suggest that ships usually jump from a "stop". That's why the orbit to jump travel formula assumes a mid way deceleration. But there nothing to explain why this is the case that I am aware of. There's some vague suggestion that coming out of jump underway is risky. It seems to me that the miniscule chance you'll appear on a collision course with some object despite the vastness of space is not significantly higher than the chance you'll appear in front of an object on a collision course with you if you appear at a stop.

In TNE, merchants do jump in motion and a major part of the astrogation check is making sure you come out aimed at your destination to minimize fuel usage. It seems like you could significantly reduce the risk of piracy by going full acceleration to the 100D limit, which would cut hours off the transit, and then just decelerate from that high velocity when you arrive.

Obviously, if the planet you are jumping to is smaller than the one you are leaving, you'd need either an oblique approach or have cut your acceleration prior to jump to compensate for the shorter distance. That should be easily accounted for, though.

 

[swordtart]

I tend to agree. My exploration into space combat has been very disappointing. You don't need a navy as a single fighter armed with container missiles appears to be enough. You don't need a sensor net as orbital sensors can see out to Distant range and by the time the ship moves out of sight it is going too fast to do anything useful. You don't even need a Q-Ship as it is going to have just as much difficulty matching v ectors as the pirate was going to. I couldn't even get them to meet if the captain colluded with the pirate. It would only seem to work if the captain, the pirate and the planetary defence were all working together and if you do that you might as well just rob the ship at the port.

Apparently you just need Newton and those damned laws of motion.

All my attempts to get the stars to align have proved fruitless, either you spend too long creeping up on things and they get away or you get there in time only to zoom past ineffectually. If you just want to destroy a ship even that is hard enough to get within reasonable ranges. As a referee I would actively have to mislead my players if I created a scenario where a space battle, let alone boarding, could happen without the Ocean's Eleven levels of complexity you suggested. Frankly my players are not omniscient enough to prepare such a scheme. Using such a scheme against them would be unfair as the only route is basically to cripple the ship in advance so they can't manoeuvre . You could do it, but you would destroy player agency.

As for jumping at speed, the only difference I can see is that jumping while zipping along vs stationary is that if you imagine your vector to the planet like a pencil, the longer the pencil, the greater the likely hood of something being in the way before you can vector away from it. With the size of ships we are talking about compared to the vast spaces they move in, even 50 times more likely is still vanishingly small.

The only way to combat that (if indeed you wanted to) might be a negative modifier for your astrogation check, but since there is no adverse impact to failing a check in the basic rules, you can just go round again.

Realistic space combat isn't any fun

 

[Sigtrygg]

I tried to tell you that several pages back.

As to "Realistic space combat isn't any fun " I disagree.

It just requires you to forget what you have seen in Star Wars and break out a hex map. Play Mayday, play Brilliant Lances, play Battle Rider, play Power Projection, play Attack Vector, play Squadron Strike. All good, fun, games.

Then you can simplify to a range band system like the one found in CT Starter which is far superior to the MgT "thrust" range band system as it is easier to model momentum.

 

[Vormaerin]

Realistic space combat isn't any fun

Maneuver drives are space magic. Don't confuse them with "realistic"

Also, as Sigtrygg says, there are ways to make vector movement playable and fun.

IRL, they use computers to do the calculations. Players probably need a boardgame or an even larger level of abstraction unless you have a Mentat-Gamer.

For piracy, the problem is not matching vectors. That can be done. The problem is the time frame involved.

If you can put the ships out in the asteroid belt or moving between Earth and Mars or basically anywhere that isn't close proximity to the center of government power (aka the starport), it is a lot more fun and reasonable.

I love piracy. If you don't have piracy, you don't have a reason for players to have armed spaceships when you don't have a war going on. But I also like to have things make sense to the best of my ability. So I approach piracy the same way I do most things in Traveller: I decide on the outcome I want and then use the rules to reverse engineer the conditions needed to make that happen.

For me, that means lots of interplanetary trade, secondary ports, additional colonies, space stations, and general clutter around the system. That nicely aligns with other preferences of mine, so win-win.

There may be other solutions. I get involved in these conversations to see if anyone comes up with any.

 

[Condottiere]

1. You don't install reactionary rockets, unless the spacecraft has a very specific role to fulfil.

2. Or it serves a specific function, afterburners.

3. Jumping from a deadstop should have a tangential benefit, maybe plus two to the astrogation and/or engineering rolls.

4. If something is chasing you on your way to the jump off point, and doesn't have a flashing blue pulse laser, step on the acceleration pedal, and recalculate the jump equation.

 

[actionman]

But I also like to have things make sense to the best of my ability.

I decide on the outcome I want and then use the rules to reverse engineer the conditions needed to make that happen.

For me, that means lots of interplanetary trade, secondary ports, additional colonies, space stations, and general clutter around the system. That nicely aligns with other preferences of mine, so win-win.

So much good stuff in that post, especially the second one: if something exists, what must exist or have happened to make it possible? If something exists, what conditions would it plausibly cause? And what would those conditions cause?

 

[Vormaerin]

1. You don't install reactionary rockets, unless the spacecraft has a very specific role to fulfil.

2. Or it serves a specific function, afterburners.

In *this* version of Traveller. Other versions, like New Era and 2300, don't have reactionless thrust M-Drives.

 

[swordtart]

I tried to tell you that several pages back.

As to "Realistic space combat isn't any fun " I disagree.

It just requires you to forget what you have seen in Star Wars and break out a hex map. Play Mayday, play Brilliant Lances, play Battle Rider, play Power Projection, play Attack Vector, play Squadron Strike. All good, fun, games.

Then you can simplify to a range band system like the one found in CT Starter which is far superior to the MgT "thrust" range band system as it is easier to model momentum.

I am not comparing it to Star Wars, the issue is the Burn-turn-burn of approach.

If we started close to zero then a few turns of thrust would be ok (and that is the example that people use to explain vector movement), and such low thrust engagements are workable, but once you are 30 space turns in to that approach even at thrust 1 you are moving 30 hexes a turn and you are still 5 turns from the turn over point. Trying to solve simultaneous equations just to work out where you will intercept is a pain. If you miscalculate on turn 2 by turn 35 you will be so far off course you will be in another room.

Vector movement at 6 minutes per turn is hard work. In Mayday each turn is over an hour and a half. Each hex is 300,000 Km rather than the 648 Km. It is more gameable but it doesn't represent a Traveller space encounter.

I am not really looking for another game to play, I am looking to analyse this specific problem (and if it ever happens to play it out). Not looking forward to that day.

 

[Vormaerin]

Which is why Mongoose's primary ship combat resolution abstracts it to zones. That costs you things like arcs of fire (which matter for fixed mounts even in MgT2e). Mongoose's Thrust Turns are simple, but perhaps too simple.

They at least let you resolve combat.

 

[swordtart]

I have also been ignoring Stellar 100D. It may not always matter, but for example Tarsus orbits at 50,000,000 km is within Hote's 100D limit (116,500,000) Km. That means that anything jumping in has to transit the 66,500,000 km instead of the 800,000 km 100D of Tarsus.

That is 44 hours rather than 5. That is going to make a big difference as I have ships tuning round the 2 way trip in 3 weeks rather than 4.

EDIT:
I didn't realise that TravellerWorlds as well as providing a pretty map, also provided a jump distance (and transit times at various thrust values). This makes a significant difference since in the short section of the District 268 I am currently interested in (worlds within 3 parsecs of Collace) only Collace is outside the stars 100D. Where I was considering journeys to and from the jump point being a <5 hours they are generally around 6 times that.

As well as limiting the opportunities for turning round trade in 3 weeks rather than 4, it also puts those incoming ships well outside what I would consider to be the protection zone of the colonial forces. They are very definitely in the IN protection space and out in the Collace arm that isn't always a thing to be relied on. The opportunity for a pirate to chase down an inbound ship is far more and they are going to be quite lonely and far from help. Whilst there isn't much margin at 800,000 to nip in and take a ship before the cops turn up, a 15 hours of slowing down well outside the planets 100D limit does give quite a window. At Far ranges no colonial ship is going to see anything more than jump flash and even comms will take over a minute and half to get to the starport. A pirate can leave the port the day after a ship jumps in and still make an intercept outside the planets 100D limit.

Collace will be fine as the jump point is close to the planet and it has a scout base. Motmos has a Naval base, and is also quite wealthy but I can see a few less ships making it in unmolested than my previous assumptions had shown (I wasn't bothering to make encounter rolls). This will make a big difference to my traders who are relying on shipping goods from system to system.

There may be trouble ahead, but while there's moonlight and music and love and romance... it gives the pirates a chance

 

[Vormaerin]

Yup. It is one of the nice things about Tarsus as a location.