Steve Higginbotham writes:
>
>Hans:
>
>>Yes, that's what I meant. Sorry if I was unclear. That means we need to
>>reduce the part of the fleet that is not protecting the high-population
>>worlds to less than 24 ships per system (mainworld and gas giant).
>
>Less than 24 ships per system. For the Spinward Marches, that comes to
>less than 6528 ships.
As you pointed out elsewhere, you could need a 1000 ships to guard a gas
giant. That would help, right? Not to mention the trip from the gas giant
to the mainworld. Especially if there is an asteroid belt between them.
> (I also seem to recall from
>FFW, that many systems had system squadrons of 120+ ships. Efate and
>Louzy and Rhylanor and Porozlo had thousands apiece. So the Navy can
>let the population 8+ systems patrol themselves, and just worry about
>the frontiers. Yet another obstacle... (*sigh*)
Well, I've always regarded population 8+ worlds as off limit to piracy
anyway (provided they have a reasonable tech level, natch). Still, with
only one planet in six being pop. 8+ there's still lots of systems for
pirates to haunt. The problem remains the regular and reserve navies.
>[About the problems of disguising a pirate as a merchant]
I still think that part is not such a great problem. Still, even if you're
right, there's nothing to stop the pirates _being_ merchant ships and then
hunting in packs. The pirate ships would individually be as weak as the next
merchant, but a group of 4 or 6 could still capture it (in fact, in some ways
they would be better suited than a single large ship).
>True. However, halving 5,000,000 anti-piracy ships to 2,500,000 is not
>really any help either.
I admitted it didn't work well, didn't I? ;-)
>>I think we're both arguing the same side of the issue. Wether TCS makes
>>a false asumption or ignores a crucial element is immaterial. Something
>>is wrong anyway.
>
>Also true. Suggestions on how to fix?
I'm working on something. I'll get back to you on this in a
couple of weeks.
>>But changing the way the military budget is divided between System,
>>Subsector and Imperial Navy might help. I've been using 1/3 each, so
>>changing that to 1/2, 1/4, 1/4 or something could help a bit.
>
>Check background material: The existing split should be 70% system, 30%
>split between subsector and Imperial navies, in whatever ratio is
>convenient (slightly less to the Impy Navy, since TL15 ships cost less
>than TL13 ships do).
Unfortunately I don't have Striker although I did borrow it
from a friend once. Thanks.
>If [the pirate] takes out one ship in three hundred, then
>Imperial trade will collapse.
Are you sure about this? I remember once trying to work out the annual
return on a subsidized liner, and I got the figure of 3%. Not that I
mightn't've worked out my sums wrong, I admit. But didn't we decide a few
months ago that the 2000 Cr per week overhead on occupied cabins were
silly? That will help the budget a bit. And then there's speculative
trade. My own experience with speculative trade was with the basic
book 2 rules, so things may be different with MegaTraveller, but I
remember myself and 3 fellow players making ourself billionaires in just
3 evenings play. It was all a matter of having enough capital. Mind you,
the referee played strictly by the book and let us get away with quite
ridiculous things (hey, we were young back then ;-). His initial
mistake, for example, was to allow us to unload 89 computers at 300%
on a population 4 planet. I've often wondered what they wanted the
things for... (No, come to think of it, his very first mistake was to
offer us as many computers as we could afford at 30% standard price
when we had the cash to buy two; we then took a small loan with our
ship as collatteral and bought as many as our hold could hold :-).
Be that as it may, my impression is that you can make some pretty hefty
profits with a starship if you have the capital. Has this all changed
with MegaTraveller?
Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
[email removed]
- ------------
"A subsector official pompously states that the
subsector armed forces have four Kinunir class
ships in service, each with enough troop strength
to put down any military operations that threathen
the peace of the Imperium."
---Adventure 1, The Kinunir