Steve Higginbotham writes more about the impossibility of pirates.
Most of your points are all too cogent, alas. Perhaps the only
way to save the pirates is to ignore logic. Nevertheless (and
in order to reduce the leap of faith as much as possible) I'll
answer a few of them.
[Posing as customs inspectors.]
>It has merit. But only if your ship is indistinguishable from a Customs
>ship. Minor vagaries like your oversized power plant are sure to be
>noticed.
No it isn't. You keep it turned low. Not completely powered
down, but down to the level of the cutter you're trying to
impersonate. Turning it up full power will not involve the time
it takes to cold-start.
>And the first time a target gets away a message (which will be
>the first target, probably), then that game will no longer work.
Ooops....
>one gravity. It's not safer if a pirate will jump you if you stop.
It is if the chance of getting jumped by a pirate if you stop
is less than the chance of being wrecked if you don't.
> The limitation on
>a pirate is that most targets only are in range for 1,000,000 Km or less.
>And that sensors only work over about half that range.
>If I re-analyze what I did yesterday to use the actual sensor ranges from MT,
>I find that the pirate locates you 53 minutes before you jump (IF he detects
>you right at the fringe of sensor range - rolls a 12 on a cautious task,
>with a model nine computer).
You forget the transponder that a benevolent Imperium demands
that all ships use at all times - that in the official
Traveller Universe _cannot_ be switched off unless you tamper
illegally with the mechanism. A pirate can get a passive
pinpoint the moment the merchant leaves orbit. But even in a
universe where the authorities sensibly allows it's merchants
to switch off this electronic beacon, pirates could have spies
on the planet, ready and eager to tightbeam travel information
to their ship.
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