 December 22, 2013 - 9:40pm | During the rise in piracy that led to the First Common Muster many planetary governments had been commissioning Q ships. These ship saw action in the First Common Muster and later during the First Sathar War. Disguised as merchant vessels these paramilitary vessels were tough a tough surprise for pirates but barely stood their ground against the sathar. Of those that survived the First Sathar War, many were decommissioned and became civilian vessels. As part of their decommissioning weapons were stripped but the hard point mount remains, thus if a new owner wished to re-install a weapon there would be a savings in credits since little to no modification of the vessel would be required. On the negative side, these vessels are old and frought with quirks and maintenance problems yet they remain tough little ships. Inspired by: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/9828937/Divers-find-First-World-War-Mystery-Ship-which-ambushed-submarine.html I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 23, 2013 - 4:41pm | Funny I had written something like this up for Trans Travel when I was coming up with ideas on how the Megacorps deal with the Sathar threat. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 January 17, 2014 - 10:17pm | This is a cool idea. It would make a great adventure for pc's in a pre-UPF era. Could also be adapted for later too. |
 January 18, 2014 - 8:48am | I like the idea and is logical that "bait" ships would exist. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 January 20, 2014 - 5:27am | This is a cool idea. It would make a great adventure for pc's in a pre-UPF era. Could also be adapted for later too.
I don't see why post-UPF era would not have its problems with piracy though... why do you say Pre-UPF... just because post you have military ships scouting space? I see these Q-Ships as part of the UPF's arsenal. ----------------------------------------------- |
 January 20, 2014 - 7:04am | One could imagine them falling into the hands of pirates, as well as being used for anti-piracy operations. If they're relatively cheap then organised crime groups would have an off the shelf cheap ship with an offensive set-up just waiting to be installed. |
January 20, 2014 - 9:18am | One could imagine them falling into the hands of pirates, as well as being used for anti-piracy operations. If they're relatively cheap then organised crime groups would have an off the shelf cheap ship with an offensive set-up just waiting to be installed.
According to Drammune Run assault scouts seem to have already fallen into pirate hands. Though I treat that as a "legit purchase by planetary authorities of Outer Reach who then "lose" said assault scout to pirates. Naturally the gnagsters running Outer Reach have strings attached and take a cut of the pirate's haul, plus they shelter the fence and they take a cut from the fence too. Actually, pirates getting their hands on a Q ship might plan a major convoy raid where they inserted the Q ship in to the convoy as a merchant vessel and shoots with surprise one of the esscorts when the real pirates show. Besides armed priveteers and yatchs seem to be readily available so why bother with a decomissioned Q ship? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 21, 2014 - 2:59am | Why bother? Because they can and it may prove useful in certain situations. As for the ships playing wolf in sheeps clothing, this could be fixed by having a convoy using an IFF code - unless, of course, the pirates also get access to it...  |
January 21, 2014 - 6:28am | Why bother? Because they can and it may prove useful in certain situations. As for the ships playing wolf in sheeps clothing, this could be fixed by having a convoy using an IFF code - unless, of course, the pirates also get access to it... What I meant was that it would be posing as a legit merchant and join the convoy officially. I'd write a KHs scenario where the "wolf's" position was diced for after the real pirates show. or the position of the merchanters is mapped out for the start the wolf chooses one of the merchant vessels to be his and then the naval player places his assets and then the pirates are placed by scenario instructions or diced for a map side to appear on.I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 21, 2014 - 9:09am | That might work if there is no IFF system or if the IFF has been compromised by the pirates. |
January 21, 2014 - 11:22am | Do you think pirates would always disable thier stolen ship's IFF (if one exists in SF -- space is big... that would be a big Database) or prefer to leave it intact? For My Knowledge... What does an IFF system normally reply with... a basic Affiration of the recieved request or would it hand out info like the Ship's name, Owner and some registration numbers? ----------------------------------------------- |
 January 21, 2014 - 12:48pm | It's a radio system currently. Almost certainly uses encrypted challenge/response systems so an enemy can't simply copy a signal. You could have a system that's essentially similar to public key encryption that's updated on a schedule. The IFF would have a set of very valuable codes that are only useful for a short time, perhaps days or a couple weeks. There might be low priority codes that are good for a year or more used by commercial ships as well as the high value, short term codes. |
January 21, 2014 - 1:57pm | ok... Soo... I'm no nautical type guy... but it sounds to me like IFF is NOT something private ships are likely to have I think. Managment of security keys over the vastness of space would be nearly impossible. I'm not seeing every planent in the UPF getting along like peas in a pod. I don't think I see the UPF as a strong central autority in SF. That would vary from campaign to campaign I guess. The Frontier did pull together as the result of the Sathar war so perhaps a sort of Military rule would have shaped some spacer standards so that people would have been willing to subject to registering thier ships with the UPFSF? Subspace communications though might make it easier for a ship to call in to a central authority (or maybe a collection of trusted planets) but I don't think subspace radio is a standard thing on every space trucker's ship. I'm thinking any SF attempt at IFF system would yield 50% success rates at best of working properly. ----------------------------------------------- |
January 21, 2014 - 2:25pm | Yeah, real world only military assets use it as far as I know. It really depends on what the UPF is in your Frontier. In one of the SFman issues, there were Freighter licenses and such. If your UPF can enforce that, it could force every ship to carry a transponder. Likewise, if starship construction is centralized, it can work. If your UPF is weak or there are extensive asteroid/ice dwarf settlements, it's going to be hard to force ships to carry anything. I'd envision a system where there are separate civilian ID transponders and military IFF systems, even if they use similar hardware. The military systems are probably multilayered so that a ship is identified as UPF Military/Strike Force Nova/Memphis Belle so that commanders can tell if a ship is not where it should be as well as who it is. Then again, complex systems tend to cause problems so it might be very simple. I don't think you'd have a subspace signal, you'd use regular radio waves. IFF and ID transponders are mostly useful for short range identification. I'd say they can be picked out at radar ranges or a bit farther. I can see planetary governments that require transponders for tax purposes. |
January 21, 2014 - 2:43pm | I meant subspace just as a way for a ship to have an expectaion of monthly or bi-monthly having to phone into the central authority one one of several planets/spacestations to get the latest security keys which would allow the IFF response to also validate its authenticity. Perhaps even if the ship doesn't have a subspace radio maybe any planet in the UPF could have a IFF authority office that is able to distribute the latest security key. That would of cource invite corruption the more places you allow to give it out. I'm assuming giving the key out requires some sort of interview to validate the ship is who it says it is. Maybe they could have some thing where if you have last month's (or bi-month) security key then you can automatically get the new one. That way a satelight could propgate the new code or maybe even ships could share it. But every ship would have to undergo an "up close and personal" registration process at an authorized authority like once a year or something. ----------------------------------------------- |
January 21, 2014 - 5:06pm | I'd imagine a military system uses a pre-shared identifier along with the ship ID. Essentially, a code book or a seed for a computer function that is transmitted with the IFF as a check. These might be distributed by secure transport (say, a cruiser with a vetted, high quality crew and perhaps escorts) or they could be encrypted by a one time pad and broadcast in which case it's the one time pad that needs to be physically moved. A Fire Upon the Deep features a starship whose incredibly valuable cargo is a long string of high quality random numbers making up a one time pad. For civilian usage, you are probably about right. I don't think you'd need a monthly key for most ships though. The transponder just identifies the ship and it gets automatically sorted into the non-hostile or at least low threat pattern until someone moves it out. For tax or registration purposes, you just need to uniquely identify every ship. |
January 21, 2014 - 11:38pm | Maybe the key is set by the convoy and for the convoy before it sets out. That way, it's a system that's used within any given convoy as an anti-piracy measure. It would also help if any ships somehow are temporarily seperated from the convoy. It doesn't have to be some sort of pan-Frontier network, but just something used at more of a macro level. It would make sense for civilian commercial shipping to use it, especially for convoys, and especially so if such shipping is prone to piracy. |
