Pirates use an assault scout or frigate with all the right markings(local militia or Spacefleet)to offer escort to their unsuspecting prey.

Or, in the case of megacorp shipments, what better than to sidle up to a, say, PGC freighter, with a frigate in corporate colors, come to offer an escort in these pirate-haunted deeps....

Keep in mind the arguements I'm making are simply adhering to canon rules. It falls apart with the SFMan "Skilled Frontier" or other such rules alterations.


"But who's gonna fly it, kid...you?" (another blatant SW reference LOL)

That's the inherent issue. I just don't forese too many pirate captains above LVL:3 (frigate pilots). Pirates need small fast ships to evade authorities. Which means they're not filled with lots of space for crew cabins to support an auxilliary crew. Sure, it can happen on occasion...but for the most part it's unlikely.

Consider the typical assault scout: 8 inhabitants. If the scout does the boarding, then the entire crew has to bum rush the ship. Hopefully all of eight of them survive assuming there's one each in pilot, engineer, and astrogator fields among them, or they have to leave at least one ship behind.

Which makes the Corvette better for such actions, as any pilots will be LVL:3 (and I don't see many LVL:4 pilot pirates serving on such craft). They'll be able to have more troops as such (about 20-25 crew tops), without risk to the officers. But with such a small hold...it's still useless for recovery of goods, not to mention easily acquired by militia craft thanks to lower performance. But again, their pilots limit the potential stolen ship to HS:6 tops.

And that brings us to the grand daddy of pirate ships: the frigate. Faster and better armed than the Vette and with up to 40 crew members. But again, being a warship there's not much cargo space. So most feasibly any LVL:4 pirate pilots will be found aboard a frigate. One with a LVL:3 co-pilot, but those LVL:4 pilots will still be few and far between.


But the big issue is performance. The corvette is the slowest and sloppiest of pirate craft, rivaled only by civilian ships HS:5-6 in size (in terms of typical pilot levels for pirates anyway). So at best, the few LVL:4 pilots amongst pirates could snatch up to a HS:12 ship. HS:13-14 ships still have similar corvette grade performance, but now you need a LVL:5 pilot. Once you hit HS:15, forget it...at ADF/MR:2/2 they're just too slow and sloppy when the authorities arrive. If you're slow, you're caught. If you're caught, you're dead.

Now, as for the potential next level down scenario via Warriors of White Light: Those restrictions are in system restrictions. As a GM I just couldn't see a ship entering the void under such a crew, considering how the pilot is severely limited in operations and jumps are a very tricky affair. After all, if the ADF/MR: 2/1 restriction is what gets applied to a 5/4 assault scout with a lower certified pilot...what would the restrictions be for a 3/3 rated craft? I would rule ADF:1 and MR 1 every other turn (meaning MR:0 on turn 1 and MR:1 on turn 2, repeat the pattern) at best. No way is a ship jumping with such a hindrance, let alone will it evade authorities. Shoot, a starliner with Ion Drives can catch it.

Which, in the inevitable absence of an available pirate pilot, only leaves not killing the other ship's crew. Another tricky endeavor, considering the low skills of pirate "marines": They'll equip themselves with whatever they can get their hands on, up to and including slug throwers and gyrojets (which many GMs frown upon as not ship safe weaponry). Most likely the takeover will occur in a vaccuum, all it takes is one automatic weapons burst and each crew member has more holes in their vacc suit than patches to seal said holes. And assuming the crew is taken alive, there's still no gaurantee that they'll cooperate. Any ship owner should know that they'll be looking at a best case scenario of returning safely to civilization with a huge outstanding debt on their shoulders in the form of a missing ship (and a greater debt in the form of any missing cargo to boot).

Alas, I do agree that the slave trade is alive and well in the pirate camps, it's one thing they're notorious for. I just don't see it as a main objective outside of ransacking a liner, it's more of an "icing on the cake" result of any freighter takeover. Their main focus is the swag that can be much more readily converted into cash. But, it's certainly feasible. It just isn't going to happen each and every time.

One other major point I would stress: repairing the captured vessel. Keep in mind that unless the crew willingly heeded to the approaching pirates (pretty rare), the drives and maneuvering systems will have been shot out in order to take the craft. Before any ship theft can take place, these systems will need to be restored at 30 minute intervals at best (half the time needed to manually unload one unit of cargo, or the same time to unload one unit with the use of a cargo arm). A 3/3 rated ship could feasibly take 3 hours to fix assuming the dice are unfriendly enough to warrant 1 point per repair (and that assumes each and every DCR check is successful), and doesn't take into account the automatic failure rolls or rolls that require dry docking to fix. In other words, it can feasibly take as much time to fix the ship as it would to offload the cargo to a waiting ship, which is a gauranted method of load acquisition compared to an "iffy" fix factor.

In the end, it's the cargo that is the main objective. It would be a case by case synopsis after each boarding action to determine just how much "bonus" material can be had after that. Which is why, most likely, any pirate faction will have one or two HS:5-6 freighters in their employ. And to that end, perhaps any "ship acquisition" crews could be kept aboard these vessels as well, but again you're just not going to find very many LVL:4 pilots in the general pirate population.

I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. 

My SF website

• With the corvette, you are assuming factory standards. Ditch the masking screens and you can gain at least 1 ADF or 1 MR and add cargo space. Ditch the LC and substiture an AR launcher (or launchers) and you can gain another ADF or MR and cargo space. Suddenly you have a 4/4 performance and sufficient cargo capacity for high value items.
• Regarding ship capture, take a lesson from modern day Somalia. Even at reduced speeds due to pilot inexperience, you can move a ship far enough away from the capture point to make it very difficult to find. Space is HUGE. If the drives are disabled, you could tow it even as you attempt repairs. Again, you won't be fast, but if you were successful in blocking any distress signal, time will be on your side.

Exactly, like I said in my prior post I'm assuming canon. I should also add that I am defining "standard tactics" assuming standard/average NPCs in conjunction with canon, which I would percieve as "kill (or possibly enslave, depending on host ship's LS capacity) the crew, steal the goods, sink the ship".

• Regarding ship capture, take a lesson from modern day Somalia. Even at reduced speeds due to pilot inexperience, you can move a ship far enough away from the capture point to make it very difficult to find. Space is HUGE. If the drives are disabled, you could tow it even as you attempt repairs. Again, you won't be fast, but if you were successful in blocking any distress signal, time will be on your side.

True. But as far as grapples go, that's a MHS:5 item so it's not feasible for scouts and vettes. A pirate frigate could have it, although I would think the ship would have to sacrafice something for the install (re: modifying ships rules) since in "stock" guise they aren't equipped as such (at least I found no mention of it). Even if you go by allocated space, the grapple system is 50% larger than a laser cannon (60 cubic meters for the grapples vs 40 on the LC).

I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. 

My SF website