It would be pointless to try to run down a ship on an interstellar journey, unless you caught it just as it was arriving or leaving its destination planet. The speeds involved are too great for interception.

Interplanetary shipments could be targeted. Space is so vast that it's practically impossible to see everything in it that might be heading toward you. On the other hand it's very, very hard to hide if your target is looking in your direction. Too bad Star Frontiers gives us almost no guidance at all on how to handle system travel.

Attacking surface-to-orbit shipments probably isn't a good idea, as this is the time when a ship is likely to be most closely monitored by surface and/or orbital control stations.

Perhaps the most lucrative method of attack for space pirates would be to land in a small planetary settlement and raid it. You could choose just about any location at all on the whole planet and take off again before the authorities figured out exactly where you were. Planets are big places; even if they know your general location they have to find you exactly, and that takes time.

Pirates usually aren't sadistic murderers—they're most interested in profit. They'll usually leave prisoners alive and unharmed in case they get caught by authorities: being tried for piracy is not as bad as being tried for murder.

In addition to pirates, there are also smugglers. These are more likely to have an organizational infrastructure supporting them than pirates are, as someone needs to arrange the secrecy of loading and unloading the contraband, plus further precautions like forging credentials. Pirates are more opportunistic than smugglers.

This get's me thinking about Texaco in the Spanish Civil War. The CEO of Texaco sold fuel to one spanish faction, the socialist nationalist faction on credit (against US law), he had his ship captains report the movements of tanker ships especially if they appeared headed to Spain from other ports, he then forwarded the intel to the allies of that faction (Germany) who than sank those ships. 

So I could see a Mega-Corp having their captains report ship movements of rivals to HQ and HQ forwarding that info to others.

Smuggling rings probably fall into the "pirate" idea in SF. a lot of "pirate" activity is really illegal mining, slave labour & smuggling the mineral resources it seems in SF.

Inside job mole makes good sense.

Illegal salvage?

Pirates need a support net the same as everyone else in space... ship overhauls, supplies, ports of call, fake papers, fake transmitters and so on. So I think "pirate" communities could exist.

As with the Red Devils and the Malthar "pirates" in SF are more like organized crime syndicates than bandana wearing sword welding ship hijackers.

Having a large support base as for your ship means you could not support it with just cargo hijacking. The Red Devils used slave labor and mining to supplement. Malthar supported pirates for a mutual defense pact. In the White Light system the pirates were Corporate sponsored by Streel.

This means funded somehow bases, networks, alliances and all the trappings. You could have governments very easily that where "Pirates" more than we think of governments. OC run governments. 

That all depends on who is trying the pirates. Old English law considered even the lowest deck swabbers of a pirate vessel sufficient enough to warrant the gallows, whereas Jack the Ripper would have stood a better chance in those same courts. ;)

I have only recently gained an interest if SF, after a 30+ year break.  I all of a sudden, a few weeks ago began to wax nostalgic for the PnP RPGs of the 1980s and Star Frontiers was near the top of my list.

Piracy is actually one of my favorite activities in gaming, and piracy in SF is absolutely doable, without the suspension of reality (kind of funny to say that in the context of a fiction).  

Just because space is vast, does not mean that there are not trade routes.  There are likely to be wormhole gates (both natural and sentient being made), that can also be ambush sites.

As for space piracy being done with warp speed as an obstacle, that has been handled by EvE Online, with the use of "Warp Bubbles".  If you are not familiar, the warp bubble is deployed and it creates an interference radius that will "pull" a ship passing through it out if warp.

Pirate ships in EvE are also, often, equipped with "webs" that slow ships down and warp scramblers that prevent a ship from jumping to warp.

How can you loot in space?

Others have already mentioned, ransom is the primary means of space piracy.  The pirates attack and damage the victim to near death, and then they stop firing, make contact, and demand a ransom.  Victims can eject cargo, or wire money directly to the pirate's account.

Although pirate friendly systems are possible, they would likely become the target of many organized alliances that rely on trade.  I believe it is more feasible for a pirate to be a lone actor, and stick to living in outer rings of populated systems or to commingle with smugglers and mercenaries, who occasionally have a use for the galactic powers that be.  

Piracy could also be a moment of opportunity kind of crime, and not one that the captain engages in often or certainly not openly so.

I look forward to what you come up with.  I'm planning on playing a character that steps over the line and into criminality from time-to-time.  

The inside job was shown in Fire-Fly in which the passenger/unexpected wife sabotages the ship leading it to the scrapping machine... so the adventure is all about regaining control of the ship and disabling the trap the ship is being pulled into would probably be on the more realistic end.

I am going to use navigation aids (Space buoys, transit boxes, something) in the game and if someone where to gain control of one of these they could cause a ship to jump into the wrong system.

Privateers are a must... legal pirates. From my way of thinking there are colonies not on the map, salvage operations and more on the edges of civilization. The corporations where not playing nice, smaller governments had wars, and racial tensions are a problem in PF & FY. I don't see the early UPF as a powerful law enforcing agency. So plenty of room for lone pirate ships to more organized groups. I am thinking the Yazirians had a history of it, it is only when they attack major colony trade routes/areas that the "common muster" occurs, so that was the line. 

Nets, the warp bubble idea is nice, grapples, and so on 

I not only think there should be other, smaller and perhaps even larger pirate bands, but I also think that Pirate could be its own PSA.

On the Star Frontiers Wiki there is a Criminal PSA, and that got me to thinking that either Pirate could be a sub group of Criminal or considering the number of unique skills a Pirate needs it could have its own.

As JCab747 mentions above, Pirates need to be pretty tech savy.  They also need to have exceptional piloting, computer and combat skills.  It will also be helpful to have Social skills like Criminal Contacts, and Market / Trade skills.  Perhaps finally, a bit of Engineering would be helpful, for either retorfitting civilian vessels for pirating use or for havign some expertise is stripping parts from ships that they have captured as prize.  

A pirate needs to be somewhat of a "Jack of All Trades", but may not live long enough to master any.

I am also planning on creating a pirate character, along with his crew, and recording his exploits as they go through various adventures.  Although I may not actually play the game to do this, there would certainly be enough references to the actual game mechanics (skills, equipment, etc) and the setting of their adventures, for the reader to tell these are Star Frontiers inspired short stories.

 

 

And if you really want to get fancy, rewrite Dramune Run where players are agents of the Malthar for a KH adventure.

Sure, a ship can be detected at 300,000km by the basic KH radar package, and the energy sensor can detect atomic drives at a range of 500,000km. Regardless of whether you permit ship identification at such ranges or not, one tactic still remains at their disposal for "sneaking up on the target ship" --- my aforementioned use of civilian craft. A captain won't be put at such a sense of unease if a freighter or liner is approaching as they would a frigate or assault scout. Also noteworthy, one the freighter gets close enough another tactic I mentioned was ferrying a warship in the hold (such as a scout or a small squadron of fighter craft) that can be unleashed at closer ranges. Or the pirate civilian ship could simply feign distress and request help, once their victim docks and boards the pirates can swiftly overwhelm them and take their ship.

Another rules SNAFU can be raised here, the energy sensor jamming description opens with how they can't be fooled by window yet closes with how they can't detect ion drives (stating that most ships with energy sensors are equipped with radar to counter this fault). I read this as any ships being screened by the ion driven craft are readily detected, but the screening craft itself can not be detected by the energy sensor. Meaning if a ship was equipped with only an energy sensor, it would be blind to ion driven craft. While such craft would be rare, after all anyone that can afford the 200K Cr energy sensor should have no problem affording an accompanying 10K Cr radar unit, if the radar should malfunction then ion driven craft would suddenly become invisible. Pirates could feasibly place agents in the target ship's crew and disable the radar in order to permit an ion driven craft to sneak up on the ship. 

This is another issue I have qualms with in the rules. KH states a misjump has the ship arrive at a random star within X light years of the intended destination star (with X being equal to the actual intended distance travelled between stars). Why can't a misjumping ship arrive in unoccupied space? There's certainly a lot more of that then there are stars.

If I could find my notes from my class in quantum void space physics I could detail why a speed of 1%C is required to get out if the gravity well and enter void space but the math is complicated and it hurts my head.

At extreme ranges you just know for sure that there is a ship there. Closer in you can begin to tell size and class and more info. 

This could also be an opportunity for a skill check for the character on scanners (astrogator?) to roll to see if he refines the data sooner than possible at that range. 

Something like this could be a 15-20 minute encounter in a AD/KHs game where you tell the players basic info of ship X at extreme detection range with speed and bearing Y & Z what do you want to do? Use the KHs map and rescale the hexes so that 1 hex is really 10 KH hexes and use counters.