> Lastly, there are all kinds of possibilities for subterfuge:
>
> o hang around the jump point and pretend to have a drive failure,
> o maybe even ask your victims to come aboard and give you a hand.
> o beam a distress call to your victim when they are within sensor range
> and the navy is not.
> o pose as customs inspectors.
> o pose as someone with a hot/lucretive cargo to unload.
> o lie at a good intercept point powered down to escape detection.
A strategy a party I was in once used:
o Get hold of an old warship, and update it with the latest equipment,
especially sensors and electronic masking. It doesn't even matter if
all of the weapons work, really.
o Power down the pirate ship, perhaps trailing behind an asteroid or
something, then use low-power passive sensors to detect a passing
merchant.
o Send out an obviously damaged lifeboat that really contains a disguised
boarding party.
o When the lifeboat is picked up by the trader, cause enough commotion
and damage to prevent the ship from entering jump/running away/etc.
while the warship powers up and moves in close. With luck, the trader
has been occupied by the boarding party. If not, hopefully they have
done enough damage to make the ship an easy target.
o It also helps if you have a way of towing the trader away easily.
o And yes, one catch does set you up for a while. We disassembled the
ships and sold the parts.
We also tried posing as customs inspectors once. It's rather risky,
though. Posing as someone with stolen cargo is also rather risky,
since people who buy stolen goods tend to be more cautious.
Another thing to do is this: forget about traders -- go after miners.
You don't even care too much about the ore -- just take the ships.
Miners are easier targets, tend to go to the same places, and tend to
work alone. You should be able to hide a powered-down ship in an
asteroid belt. You can even put a warhead in the asteroid being
mined, and clean up after it goes off.
Jerry Williams