On Mon, 10 Oct 2011, Onno Meyer wrote:
Hello Johannes,
just how much do you need for the annual maintenance of a jump
ship? A landing site and a competent chief engineer, or a full
starport? Traveller supports both concepts.
I am assuming they need a B or A class starport (in traveller terms).
Jump-Ships that don't have a papertrail of
legitimate business, are too suspicious.
* According to some Traveller incarnations, the Imperium really
doesn't rule the worlds, just the space between them. You can
do lots of business on non-Imperial local ports.
My interpretation (i can't really say what i had read in what sourcebooks,
and where i have been filling gaps) is, that once you enter an imperial
system, with a starport, you have to inform the starport. If you do any
busyness you have to go through a custom procedure, though you do not
neccessarily need to travel to the starport, but in some imperial
buerocrat assigned to the local port might clear you, or even some
trusted (by the Imperium) local goverment or corporation agent, who can act
on the behalf of the Imperial Star Port.
* Operate in border areas like the Spinward Marches or the
Solomani Rim.
That helps some, but i guess it would be the best risk/profit ratio to do
your pirating outside the imperial space as well. I want my campain
primarily inside the imperium. I can use it as possible background for
characters though.
* Get asteroid prospecting/mining gear. "Bad luck" is no
crime.
Agreed a better cover then a trader. With my assumption of being required
to call in, when you enter a system, you still have a papertrail problem.
Not always calling in as a belter will be a minor regulatory offence, if
you do it often, you will be suspected of smuggling, if you never do it,
you will be really suspicious.
What could work is steal, hijack or otherwise comandeer a vessel, use it
for 2 or 3 hits, and then loose the ship before the navy gets into gears.
Say a pirate in an armed Free Trader has a 20% chance of taking
an operational prize, a 60% chance of crippling it to loot it,
and a 20% chance of being crippled itself.
Pirate gangs will run through a lot of ships in a short time.
That is the idea behind that setup. The pirates attitude to their ship is
like that of bankrobbers towards their getaway vehicle. And if the pirates
change ships often, and travel as ordinary passangers in between, they are
harder to track.
I could also see a setup with a trade ship equipped to transport small non
jump ships (fighters, modular cutters ect).
A privately-owned fighter is much more suspicious than a
merchant armed for self-defense.
<snip>
Sure? A FTL craft can explain weapons with fear of pirates, a
STL craft has it harder.
I was thinking about a fighter (or modular cutter, with weapon module or
similiar) that is offically registered to some local goverment with lots
of corruption. I assume it is recomended practice for such crafts to also
have annual maintanance at an A or B starport, though it is less important
then with jumpships. That gives reason to occasionally transport such a
craft as cargo on a jumpship.
I assume the imperium will, imperial rules of war aside, not be
particulary interested, if local balkanized goverments do spacebattles for
astereoid resources. Or if some inhabitants of belts or non main worlds
attempt to gain independence of the local mainworld goverment. That is
after all a local matter.
Granted you are screwed if you get caught operating such a craft in a
system other then the one it is registered with. And so is your goverment
accomplice or a handy scapegoat. But in other less then
stable systems, you still have the chance to mask as vessel of some local
goverment or corporation. And such vessels are faster and smaller then
armed traders of equal armaments and thus easier to hide.
Also if you just have one port, and no one goes anywhere else in the
system, piracy will not be viable, because only a small area needs to be
protected. If there are many ports, you will also have many non-jump ships
operating there. So if the system is not well monitored, a couple of new
ones, will not by themselfs raise much attention.
One mans groundfloor is an other mans earthmissle
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Johannes Trimmel
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