Would a far/free trader ever use missiles?

[Sigtrygg]

Standard Missiles in MTG2 have thrust 10 and 10 rounds duration. They are a 1/16 of a DTon according to the robot handbook).

Thrust 10 requires 20% of the volume for a reaction drive. 1 hour of fuel requires another 25% of total volume. That leaves 55% of the volume for other systems and payload. Robot handbook indicates that 50% of the missile chassis is available for payload.

That's even worse.
I'd love to know the thrust agency and fuel that doesn't rely on magic pixie dust.

Rocket equation and energy density for fuel are well known - so what sort of engine is the missile using to thrust at 10g for an hour, and what sort of fuel has the energy density to allow that?

 

[Condottiere]

For missiles, I wouldn't bother designing ones with greater than a half hour endurance.

And we do have dogfight and interceptor missiles.

 

[Alec_P]

With sub-standard sensors, the option of identifying ships at long range and determining whether they are friend or foe is severley reduced, if not practically impossible. The cost is a massive deterent to firing the thing on a whim, let alone the murder charges that goes with destroying the wrong ship! A trader hasn't any armour, so chances of survivng a close quarters fight are slim, and generally a Pirate is going to wan tot board you so coming close, fast is a sensible approach. This leaves a few positive considerations however; firstly, that fixed missile mounts are really cheap, therefore also pretty fast to install and low TL, so getting hold of one and fitting it in a hurry (for a specific mission or as a deterent) can be done relatively fast. Second, versatility... Sure you can use it as an offensive weapons, but the addition of multiple warhead options makes it a really versatile tool. Personally I favour Fragmentation missiles on some of my ship designs to turn it into a defensive weapon, you could also employ Ortillery missiles on specialist missions where your groind team needs to break into a remote base, or might need some serious orbital backup. Would I ever want to arm a Freetrader? probably not, I think if you are engaging in trade anywhere near trouble you need armour, to this extent even an Empress Marva is a 'no' from me. Without armour even relatively light damage can cause serious criticals, usually making your ship inoperable way before you run out of your meagre supply of hull points. Unless you had no other option, I would look to upgrade the ship if you were running supplies into a war zone, or bolt some reaction drives on the outside, turrets with laser for intercept and sandcasters are all better options than missiles I feel!

 

[swordtart]

That's even worse.
I'd love to know the thrust agency and fuel that doesn't rely on magic pixie dust.

Rocket equation and energy density for fuel are well known - so what sort of engine is the missile using to thrust at 10g for an hour, and what sort of fuel has the energy density to allow that?

If you went for manoeuvre drive route you need 10% for the drive. To run it you need only 0.1 power and at TL 8 you can generate that with a power plant that takes up another 10%. That leaves 80% for systems and payload.

Traveller doesn't run on real world physics because everything would be too slow and boring and . I am not sure what the difference between accepting magic pixie dust and accepting the equally implausible jump travel (or even the idea of an empire or magic money machine economics for that matter).

 

[swordtart]

Consider that as a free trader you are going to want to spend your time in systems that have decent trade opportunities. These tend to be settled and relatively safe. They probably have a high port so you are rolling at least +1 and maybe +2 on the encounter table. You have a 1 in 18 chance of meeting a ship that is hostile (for some reason) and a 1 in 18 chance of meeting an especially daring pirate. That is a couple of times a year at least each.

 

[tytalan]

Consider that as a free trader you are going to want to spend your time in systems that have decent trade opportunities. These tend to be settled and relatively safe. They probably have a high port so you are rolling at least +1 and maybe +2 on the encounter table. You have a 1 in 18 chance of meeting a ship that is hostile (for some reason) and a 1 in 18 chance of meeting an especially daring pirate. That is a couple of times a year at least each.

The problem with that is all those safe worlds have various Subsector, Sector, and possibly Megacorp already supplying them with trade. This forces the small single ship trader to spend more time in the less safe areas. Since high ports are far less common in class B ports and very uncommon in systems with a class C port the free trader more often encounters hostiles.

 

[tytalan]

It’s been pushed that fix mounts don’t require tonnage or power what been ignored is that they do require a Hardpoint, you just can’t bolt them just anywhere at the minimum they need control runs and they still require a gunner. So for example that Freetrader or Fartrader which already has 2 turrets has to rip one or both out to place that fix mount and you can’t actually just add that ton back as cargo (it’s where the turret was) tho I suppose you could use it for missile storage. But ignoring all that your biggest issue is going to be your sensors, civilian or basic sensors are unlikely to see that pirate at a range to make your missiles effective (especially since at TL 12 beam Lasers can have long range). Another problem with a fixed mount is the missile detecting the target, does the missile take sensor input from the ship in which case you have the issue with the ships sensors or does the missile use it’s own sensor input which case you have a firing arc.

 

[Arkathan]

The problem with that is all those safe worlds have various Subsector, Sector, and possibly Megacorp already supplying them with trade. This forces the small single ship trader to spend more time in the less safe areas. Since high ports are far less common in class B ports and very uncommon in systems with a class C port the free trader more often encounters hostiles.

Except that it doesn't unless you as a referee force that situation.
Spec trade and freight/mail are based on things other than the presence or absence of large competitors.
Some of those large corporations may have their hands full with their own importing and exporting, and so rely on freelancers to take advantage of strategically priced goods and bring them the odd lots they need but not in bulk.
Creating brokers as factions aligned to large companies or government entities can create opportunities as well as hazards. The corpos can be bane and boon at the same time, and do not detract from a small cargo ship plying the trade lanes.
Perhaps a megacorporation needs a certain tonnage of ores, machinery or crystals and is willing to pay a bonus to those who source that material and deliver it to them. Remote facilities might have a breakdown requiring spare parts that the corporation has not had time to procure.

Bottom line, Mega-corps only chase off others if you, as the referee, let them. That does not preclude them taking the choicest cuts or pressuring brokers if you are known for doing business with their competitors.

 

[tytalan]

Except that it doesn't unless you as a referee force that situation.
Spec trade and freight/mail are based on things other than the presence or absence of large competitors.
Some of those large corporations may have their hands full with their own importing and exporting, and so rely on freelancers to take advantage of strategically priced goods and bring them the odd lots they need but not in bulk.
Creating brokers as factions aligned to large companies or government entities can create opportunities as well as hazards. The corpos can be bane and boon at the same time, and do not detract from a small cargo ship plying the trade lanes.
Perhaps a megacorporation needs a certain tonnage of ores, machinery or crystals and is willing to pay a bonus to those who source that material and deliver it to them. Remote facilities might have a breakdown requiring spare parts that the corporation has not had time to procure.

Bottom line, Mega-corps only chase off others if you, as the referee, let them. That does not preclude them taking the choicest cuts or pressuring brokers if you are known for doing business with their competitors.

You do realize I didn’t just mention the Mega-Corps right? You also have Sector size trader companies as well as Subsector ones, one of the things I loved about the LBB Merchant Book is it actually describes the different level/size trading companies. While if you go straight by the mongoose CRB trading system there little if anything to encourage players to actually adventure, you can make decent money without any problems and never have to venture outside of class A or B port systems. Unfortunately mongoose trading rules forces the Referee to intervene in order to give the Player a reason to participate.

 

[Arkathan]

You did notice that I said large corporations, and government entities, right?
Little to encourage adventure:
That is where the "this location needs x, but this rival may try to stop you, either from obtaining it or making it to your destination.
Or, we notice that you have been doing an awful lot of work for company Z, and you need to do this favor to get back into the good graces of the brokers in this starport. ETC.

And the reasons for adventuring are the same reason why some freighters might choose to arm themselves with missiles. Or not.
The beam/missile/sandcaster triple turret was popular at one time through at least a couple of versions of the game.
EDIT
Intervening is called presenting players with a... SQUIRREL... in order to give them an opportunity to spend ther downtime doing something other than chasing cargo and staying out of trouble

 

[Arkathan]

My players engage in spec trade as a way to keep the lights on while they travel to their next job.
First as investigators searching for trafficked citizens and now as mercenaries and bounty hunters.

 

[swordtart]

It’s been pushed that fix mounts don’t require tonnage or power what been ignored is that they do require a Hardpoint, you just can’t bolt them just anywhere at the minimum they need control runs and they still require a gunner. So for example that Freetrader or Fartrader which already has 2 turrets has to rip one or both out to place that fix mount and you can’t actually just add that ton back as cargo (it’s where the turret was) tho I suppose you could use it for missile storage. But ignoring all that your biggest issue is going to be your sensors, civilian or basic sensors are unlikely to see that pirate at a range to make your missiles effective (especially since at TL 12 beam Lasers can have long range). Another problem with a fixed mount is the missile detecting the target, does the missile take sensor input from the ship in which case you have the issue with the ships sensors or does the missile use it’s own sensor input which case you have a firing arc.

I am not sure anyone has been ignoring the hardpoint requirement for fixed mounts, but as we were talking about 200 DTon hulls having one or two isn't an issue. The cases where people were talking exotica regarding firing aerospace defence weaponry out of cargo airlocks and using docking clamps for auxiliary vehicles do not require ship hardpoints since they are mounted or their ground weapon carriage or on the auxiliary vehicle respectively.

There is nothing in the MGT2 rules stating that tonnage released from removing a turret cannot be re-used for a different component (including cargo). Check the refitting rules in High Guard. You are making assumptions about where turret space is allocated that are not supported by the rules.

The concerns you state about sensors are valid, but they apply equally to any other sort of weapon. Missile fire is no more dependent on the the firing ships sensors than any other weapon. Sensor lock gives +2 to all attacks (and only Gunner skill and range modifiers are ignored for missiles). As for range, having a longer ranged weapon doesn't mean you cannot fire it at shorter range. Unless you are firing at close enough range to lose the smart trait, missiles fired at less than maximum range become more effective as they get to the target in less turns and therefore provide less opportunities for EW. Your sensors are less of an issue than the quality of the targets sensors as EW can rapidly negate your entire salvo.

All weapons "require a gunner"**, so this concern is not limited to missiles but only missiles do not suffer a penalty for an unskilled operator. You may have decided that weapons can only be fired by dedicated gunners in dedicated gunner stations, but the rules don't say that. Firing ship weapons uses the Gunner skill (p116 core rulebook) - though this is a bit sloppy since missiles don't, but in the same way that unskilled people can fire hand weapons without the relevant skill at a -3 penalty I see nothing specific that requires you to have at least level 0 in Gunner (Other than to reload sand casters and missiles). So a gunner is just someone who conducts gunnery. The pilot can fire any single turret at -2 but the wording indicates that they don't suffer any penalty for firing fixed weapons (plural) so you don't require a dedicated gunner and according to the wording the pilot can fire all fixed weapons (I would rule they would have to be linked for that and all at the same target). This is more common on fighter craft of course where there may only be a pilot. Obviously they would suffer a further -3 if they didn't have the Gunner skill.

That said if you have decided to arm a merchant (regardless of the weapons) having the Gunner skill (and another finger to press the trigger) makes more sense. Any of your other crew (particularly ex-navy) might have Gunner as a secondary skill and I assume bridge stations are multi-function so one of those could do it. If you have dedicated gunners they are the lowest paid crewmembers on the ship and I presume they would double up as unskilled deck hands when not in combat. You need to allocate accommodation and life support which further eats into your profits. Personally I would consider using droids as they can be very cheap (they don't even need to be mobile) and have no life support or accommodation requirement. Whilst the capital outlay is higher it is quickly rendered trivial compared to recurrent and opportunity costs**.

As to firing arcs, I don't think these are a thing. Any thrust not allocated to movement can be allocated to Combat Manoeuvring. In this the captain orients the ship to give his gunners a more stable platform "along the optimum attack vector". For an aft mounted missile mount during a stern chase, you are already pointing at the enemy. Unless you can break sensor lock and "go dark" there is usually no benefit to moving other than directly away from them since there won't be any cover nearby. In marginal cases you might need to choose between directly away from them vs towards the jump limit or the port, but no sensible pirate is going to attack when you are a few minutes from one of those safe havens given the journey is usually multiple hours, logically you would be hours away.

EDIT:
* P164 states that each turret requires its own gunner and each bay requires its own bay weapon gunner. There is no mention of fixed weapons requiring a gunner there. Similarly there is no Gunner(Fixed Weapons) specialism. P183 however states each turret or fixed mount requires just one gunner. I tend to assume that fixed weapons are a subset of turret weapons (as they are often bundled together) but arguably they should be their own specialism or even unable to have a specialism.
**Actually since you only need a homing primitive brain with Gunner(specialism) 1 and it need never leave the ship, you could build a really flimsy walker droid for a few KCr that could operate a normal gunner station. This would be cheaper than a real gunner after less than a month. An actual sophont would need to designate the target, but this could be vocal and needn't be anyone with any particular skill (though you would like to hope it would be locked to competent crew). It could also be assumed that it any sensor locked vessels were automatically designated.

From a game perspective this could be a good choice as you don't require a player to be a dedicated gunner (which could be dull for most of the time) or allocate to a skill they may never use. The referee doesn't have to run a load of NPC's and then have to work out what they do when the rest of the team go planet side. It doesn't remove agency form the players. Instead, gunner droid unfolds from its cupboard when the red button is hit. It does exactly (and with INT 1 I mean EXACTLY) what it is told to do by a player character for precisely as long as necessary and then after the fight folds itself back into its cupboard. Since it has one ability players won't be tempted to start taking it round town with them for extra firepower or utility (other than comedy value) since it is absolutely appalling at any other task.

Is there nothing droids can't do

 

[swordtart]

Something else to consider is the psychology of the pirate. Is he motivated by profit or does he like to watch ships burn.

Historically, successful pirates were not the psychotic ones. Effective pirates were generally only brutal to opponents who resisted. If your reputation is that you release surrendered targets unharmed with ship intact and only remove cargo, then people are more likely to surrender than if you just leave debris in your wake or insist on taking everything. Living victims can spread the news of the benefits of surrender.

Pirates that only steal cargo are liable to be a lower priority for stretched law enforcement powers than bloody thirsty murderers. Clever pirates might only exact a "toll" in unpoliced areas and become the de-facto police, ensuring the cash-cow is only milked rather than slaughtered and possibly supressing any other pirates that might try to mess up their cosy little earner.

Whilst the imperial Navy is still liable to destroy any pirate they find on principle, pirates that only marginally impact trade in a sector might not be reported by the sector authorities, especially if they can be persuaded to do a little work for the sector on the side. Historically real pirates became respected citizens (Henry Morgan). The line between pirate and privateer was often blurred and some captains carefully straddled the line to great profit.

Finally, deterrence is only effective if your opponent choses to be deterred. If you arm your ship (clearly professing your intent to resist) then the pirates might actually make you a preferred target for destruction to dissuade others from doing the same.

Those who live by the sword, die by the sword (and usually to someone who uses a sword more frequently)

 

[Sigtrygg]

If you went for manoeuvre drive route you need 10% for the drive. To run it you need only 0.1 power and at TL 8 you can generate that with a power plant that takes up another 10%. That leaves 80% for systems and payload.

Traveller doesn't run on real world physics because everything would be too slow and boring and . I am not sure what the difference between accepting magic pixie dust and accepting the equally implausible jump travel (or even the idea of an empire or magic money machine economics for that matter).

But what you just did was a good attempt at using the in game technology to describe a missile.
As to the old "well you accept jump drive" there is an old rule, the more unexplained handwavium you have in a sci fi setting the further it moves towards fantasy than sci fi.

Ideally Traveller would have fusion power plants, nuclear maneuver drives of some type in addition to ion engines and the like, and then the jump drive. Then a couple of TLs later add artificial gravity, acceleration compenstation, gravitic m-drives.

Istead we get the whole lot at once and go from Space X to Star Wars in 2 TLs

Back to the magic pixie dust powered magic missile. If it can't be explained using in universe handwaves then it is pure space magic. if it is explained I would put down a significant bet that it would introduce yet more contradictions and complications into the setting.

People wailed for years over the size of computers, but accept handwavium for stuff that matters a lot more for the verisimilitude of the setting.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Consider that as a free trader you are going to want to spend your time in systems that have decent trade opportunities. These tend to be settled and relatively safe. They probably have a high port so you are rolling at least +1 and maybe +2 on the encounter table. You have a 1 in 18 chance of meeting a ship that is hostile (for some reason) and a 1 in 18 chance of meeting an especially daring pirate. That is a couple of times a year at least each.

The Imperium has one job, protect trade. Considering the size of the IN in the Mongoose Third Imperium and the forces abvailable to subsector and planetary navies there should be nor piracy possible.

At the very least there would be a squadron of Gazelles in every system, coordinating with squadrons of local SDBs, fighters, and customs cutters.

 

[swordtart]

The Imperium has one job, protect trade. Considering the size of the IN in the Mongoose Third Imperium and the forces abvailable to subsector and planetary navies there should be nor piracy possible.

At the very least there would be a squadron of Gazelles in every system, coordinating with squadrons of local SDBs, fighters, and customs cutters.

But what trade ships are they protecting? Every 100 tonner that carries half a dozen Dtons a month or the big freighters that carry most of a systems requisites. In every two bit system like Inchin where most system revenue is spent building statutes to the governor, Avastan, which produces nothing that Tarsus doesn't and is that bit further away, Trexalon where the Empire is so disliked they would be as likely as not to treat the Imperial Navy as an oppressor or places like Collace the prospective sector capital where most of the high tech goods in the region originate and they have a vested interest in keeping the government sweet. Even in the core systems there will be systems that would be a net drain on resources.

That 1 in 18 chance might represent the one pirate that got away during the last operation, or someone who only turned pirate today due to the crippling debt on their trader, or a veteran pirate that has been on the lam for months living off their previous haul and has only just run out of rum and needs to go on another cruise. Most pirates will be identified by the ship transponder not by a photo id of the captain. That person travelling in another ship or with a fake transponder will be just another trader. Not all custom sweeps inspect every individual.

The whole point of the information lag between systems is that it allows you to outrun the evidence trail (at least for a while). If you attack a ship in system X and then jump, even if it is immediately reported, it will take weeks for the information to get to the connected systems. To catch you, every system would need to alert their fleet and if they don't know your ships capabilities you could be 2 to 4 parsecs away. That is a lot of Navy to spool-up. It probably gets flagged to the piracy watch officer who adds you to the list. If a regular sweep picks you up then it is a result, if not they cannot dedicate every ship in all the sector fleets to look for you. If you choose to jump to a little pirate base you set up in an "empty" sector they won't even have a fleet there. Wait a few months while you reconfigure the transponder, repaint the ship and anonymise your loot (split it down and repack it) or even have some cosmetic surgery. You could send out an clean trader with the booty from a few months ago to sell while you lay low. After a few months the Navy will have other priorities and you can go on another cruise.

You also have the issue that if there is virtually no piracy there is little justification for all those anti-piracy vessels burning resources to no end. Sooner or later another branch of the imperial bureaucracy is going to look at that resource drain and decide it would be better spent on patrolling the border.

The nations of the real-world earth have plenty of ships but piracy is still a thing today. Not for the vast majority of travellers and not even necessarily as a regular occurrence, but every once in a while someone gets desperate or greedy enough and there is an outbreak and until it is quelled piracy flourishes.

 

[swordtart]

But what you just did was a good attempt at using the in game technology to describe a missile.
As to the old "well you accept jump drive" there is an old rule, the more unexplained handwavium you have in a sci fi setting the further it moves towards fantasy than sci fi.

Ideally Traveller would have fusion power plants, nuclear maneuver drives of some type in addition to ion engines and the like, and then the jump drive. Then a couple of TLs later add artificial gravity, acceleration compenstation, gravitic m-drives.

Istead we get the whole lot at once and go from Space X to Star Wars in 2 TLs

Back to the magic pixie dust powered magic missile. If it can't be explained using in universe handwaves then it is pure space magic. if it is explained I would put down a significant bet that it would introduce yet more contradictions and complications into the setting.

People wailed for years over the size of computers, but accept handwavium for stuff that matters a lot more for the verisimilitude of the setting.

Yes, because I prefer to avoid handwavium when I can*. It needs to make sense within the conceit of the game, not necessarily with respect to real world physics.

For space combat to work consistent with physics we would need something more involved than the space combat rules present in MGT2. Thrust is not the absolute arbiter of range between two ships. If we use low numbers for ease:

If I start out 500 yards ahead of you doing a fixed speed of 60 mph and you from a standing start accelerate at 10 mph/s it will be 6 second before you are matching my speed. In all that time you will not have closed any distance despite me having no acceleration, I will in fact be further away. If you start considering a missile fired from either opponent then the vector may either help or hinder the movement. A missile chucked out the back of my vehicle needs to be doing at least 60 as it inherits my velocity the one you fire needs to be travelling at your speed even if you just drop it. MGT2 Traveller space combat doesn't do any of this as it is not a tactical space battle game or Car Wars. Having played Car Wars which does attempt to do this I can confirm this is quite tedious and it is only manageable as you are not permanently accelerating. Even CW dispenses with inherited velocity as far too complicated and most people agreed that using vector movement (for hovercraft) was really not fun.

Having this level of crunch would make it a wargame and indeed classic traveller did have a wargame version of its space combat. It was however too much effort to handle a random encounter that popped up in a more conventional game session. The referee either engineered the ship to ship encounter as a cliff hanger to be resolved using Mayday as a separate session. The problem was that some players were good at doing vector maths in their heads and other were not. Good players tended to win despite their characters not being that skilled. It broke immersion as they were two different games in theory using the same rules, but one was about the characters and the others was about chess on steroids.

The bottom line for me is that having too much detail keeps reminding you of the glaring holes in the conceit. If you are willing to believe the big lies for the sake of fun, why not ignore the little ones. If you want your game to be detailed, realistic and fun then despite what is often asserted I don't think Traveller is a particularly good candidate. If you are happy that two out of three ain't bad, then it has a lot to recommend it.

Edit:
*And if you really want to bake your noodle you can swap out the power plant for a high efficiency battery for a few hundred credits and virtually no volume. It would expire after the 10 turns but you could make one 10 times the size for very little impact that would still last you longer than necessary.

I don't think the rules specify that missiles use reaction engines, they just limit the duration (which I have done above with a battery). Once you get the tech for manoeuvre drive they are vastly superior to reaction drives (assuming I haven't made a school boy maths error).

No pixies were harmed the above analysis

As for real world explanation I would suggest ions accelerated to relativistic speed by a high power electrical field. Presently Ion engines are a bit feeble since they cannot get the power plant to provide enough juice, but with only a single piece of handwavium (compact fission plants capable of generating oodles of clean energy) we can overcome that. Are there real world practical limits to that, of course, if I knew how to do it I'd be working for NASA not posting on games forums. Can I believe that these will be overcome in thousands of years, absolutely.

 

[Condottiere]

Speaking on the bottom line, it tends to get to the cost benefit of having a specific weapon system.

I think three costs are to be considered:

1. Installation

2. Operating

3. Replacement

I'd have a go at making sandcaster weapon systems more effective.

 

[Vormaerin]

But what trade ships are they protecting?

At the risk of restarting a perrenial Traveller flamewar that's been raging since the 70s: All of them. You don't have to protect the entire system unless you have colonies all throughout that system. You need to protect the 100d radius around the starport, which is where 99% of trade ships are going to appear in any system that does not require large amounts of interplanetary in system travel. Given how accurate jump drives are in the Mongoose rules, it is entirely reasonable to have designated arrival zones to make said protection even easier.

Sure, some ships might go somewhere else for various questionable reasons, but piracy won't exist off just those few. So piracy inside the Imperium as described nowadays isn't a realistic thing. You'd have to linger undetected in patrolled space, catch a stray ship, escape before anyone is close enough to do a jump trace, and have somewhere that will buy your illegal cargo despite the Imperials being basically all over the place. Not gonna happen inside today's Imperium on any meaningful scale.

Outside the Imperium in some backwater region with trade but no central authority? Sure. That's why Pirates of Drinax is set in the Reaches and not in the Spinward Marches. Charted Space has several published regions that meet that criterion.

Pretty much everything about Traveller's design sequence and random encounter procedures assumes some kind of backwater frontier area ripe for pulp sci fi adventure. The original Spinward Marches were the "Imperial Fringe," barely controlled and severely lacking in Imperial Navy assets. But it isn't described that way any more. So push all that out beyond the borders.

There's been a few articles and other published material on Spinward Marches piracy in the Mongoose era and the closest they come is some worlds just outside the Empire feeling safe to turn a blind eye to pirates that might sometimes venture into the lesser worlds on the very edge of the Imperium. That's about it.

 

[swordtart]

At the risk of restarting a perrenial Traveller flamewar that's been raging since the 70s: All of them. You don't have to protect the entire system unless you have colonies all throughout that system. You need to protect the 100d radius around the starport, which is where 99% of trade ships are going to appear in any system that does not require large amounts of interplanetary in system travel. Given how accurate jump drives are in the Mongoose rules, it is entirely reasonable to have designated arrival zones to make said protection even easier.

Sure, some ships might go somewhere else for various questionable reasons, but piracy won't exist off just those few. So piracy inside the Imperium as described nowadays isn't a realistic thing. You'd have to linger undetected in patrolled space, catch a stray ship, escape before anyone is close enough to do a jump trace, and have somewhere that will buy your illegal cargo despite the Imperials being basically all over the place. Not gonna happen inside today's Imperium on any meaningful scale.

Outside the Imperium in some backwater region with trade but no central authority? Sure. That's why Pirates of Drinax is set in the Reaches and not in the Spinward Marches. Charted Space has several published regions that meet that criterion.

Pretty much everything about Traveller's design sequence and random encounter procedures assumes some kind of backwater frontier area ripe for pulp sci fi adventure. The original Spinward Marches were the "Imperial Fringe," barely controlled and severely lacking in Imperial Navy assets. But it isn't described that way any more. So push all that out beyond the borders.

There's been a few articles and other published material on Spinward Marches piracy in the Mongoose era and the closest they come is some worlds just outside the Empire feeling safe to turn a blind eye to pirates that might sometimes venture into the lesser worlds on the very edge of the Imperium. That's about it.

Thank you for your comprehensive answer.

I tend to agree that no-one is going to be cruising in core space flying a jolly roger, but you don't need to do that to be a pirate.

But: On P155 of the Core Rulebook you have the space encounter table. Even with the maximum +3 for being in the heart of the empire in a system with an industrial world and high port you can still roll 61 which is a daring pirate (which does not necessarily constitute "a meaningful scale" of piracy). You can rationalise all you want from background fluff (and even common sense) but the lived experience is that one time in 36 you roll 61 and encounter a "Daring Pirate" who must somehow have evaded the Navy. It is for the referee to come up with reasons why that might have happened. I have presented some possible rationale how the situation presented in the core rules could exist. You can put effort into accommodating the rules or to retconning the rules to how you want your universe to run.

Further P257 shows there is a small but significant chance of a system with even a class D port having a Corsair base. Again you may decide that you don't want it in the core worlds, but that is a personal referee decision not something baked into the rules. That corsair base might be a hidden valley on a low tech world with a low law level. The corsairs might not even interact with the Starport but land direct on the planet, conduct their nefarious business and then leave bypassing any Imperial presence. Lots of goods could be sold without there being any indication it was stolen at all. Or the base could be in the asteroid base well away from the 100D limit and thus overlooked.

Don't forget that if you decide to skip your mortgage on your free trader you have stolen a ship. That makes you a pirate and you never even had to attack anyone. Having pirates does not mean you have to have pirate empires or that a corsair base needs to be any thing more than a tiny asteroid base for a couple of ships that you can hide in for extended periods.

I am not really hard over on the 3rd imperium (or any previous or subsequent one to be honest). I have most of the books and pick and chose what I need. If the imperium is omniscient it makes it hard for you to be something other than a puppet for "da man" or a cog in the machine. I prefer my empire to be a little less hands on.

If you don't want pirates then that is your prerogative, but the MGT2 Core Rules say they are there.

Edit:
Let's explore the implications of an omniscient Navy. Lets see how much area they need to cover. The average world is 8000Km diameter. 100d is 800,000 km which has a surface area of over 8 Billion km. If you want to know anything more than there is a ship present i would assert you will need to be at medium range so your ship covers around 300-400 million square Km. That means you need 25,000 plus ships to ensure you are within range of all possible emergent points. You could cover more ground by moving around, but then you risk someone slipping through the net where you have just opened a hole. Even if you limit your reconnaissance to detecting an emergence without any detail on the ship at all you are at best long range and still need 1000 ships. That is one average sized planet planet in one system. Highly skilled sensor ops improve the chance of a successful ident but they don't increase the range of it or reduce the number of ships needed. Even if every ship was a launch that is thousands of MCr just sitting around doing nothing and thousands of crewmen. You would need extra ships to actually conduct the intercept. But it might explain why there are so many small craft available as mustering out benefit.